Curiosity is contagious. Curiosity can be learned. So be curious!

Sometimes, we meet people who make us pause for a moment and ask how we are building the life that we want to live. It is not about mimicking their lives. It is about understanding how they have stopped what they’re doing and begun reflecting on whether this was a life they wanted. That’s what happened when I met Dr. Deborah Clary. We met through the Women Business Collaborative (WBC). Deb and I were involved in WBC and found ourselves sharing our life journeys in different discussions. She was the right person to bring onto our podcast to share her career and how she has taken a turn in new directions. As you listen in, think about your own life.

Watch and listen to our conversation here

An accomplished woman leader not afraid to learn new things

Dr. Debra Clary is the Founder and CEO of Elevascent, a personal growth and performance development company focused on helping individuals and teams accelerate growth through curiosity. This experience comes from three decades of executive leadership roles at Frito-Lay, Coca-Cola, Jack Daniel’s and Humana. In addition, Dr. Clary is also an author, global speaker, playwright, off-Broadway performer and an award-winning film producer. She holds a doctorate in leadership and organizational development from George Washington University, and received the Ralph Stone Leadership Award for exemplary leadership. She is also a board director for Health E-Commerce.

In our podcast, we talk about women discovering their purpose and not letting others define them. And we share Debra’s life story as a model for you, our audience, to think about as you step along on your pathway. Own your career, and enjoy it.

Contact Debra

You can connect with Debra on LinkedIn, Facebook, and her website, or email her at debra@debraclary.com.

Want more inspiring stories of women owning their careers and taking charge of their lives? Here are some of our favorites:

• Shellye Archambeau Is Unapologetically Ambitious And Shows Us How We Can Be Too
• Kerry Flynn Barrett—Learn Why So Many Brilliant Women Have Ditched The Corporate Ladder To Start Their Own Business
• Sarah Soule—Busting Those Stereotypes of Women
• Lisa Caputo—Smashing The Myths Of What Women Can Accomplish

Additional resources for you

Read the transcript of our podcast here 

Andi Simon: Welcome to On the Brink With Andi Simon. I’m Andi Simon. I’m your host and your guide. As you know, I’m a corporate anthropologist, and I specialize in helping organizations change and particularly the people inside them. And I really like to go looking for people to interview. And many of you send me people to interview. So it’s so much fun to share. I look for people who can help you see, feel and think in new ways.

And I use those words intentionally because you decide with the eyes and the heart. So how something feels is going to help you decide how to think about it. But what matters to me is that unless I can open your mind to see opportunities, possibilities, and be curious, you are going to see what’s all around you and opportunities are all there. So today I have a wonderful, wonderful woman to come and share with you her wisdom around curiosities.

Debra Clary is a Doctor of Organizational Design, but she’s also someone who has culled her skills inside corporate and has now launched herself outside corporate as an entrepreneur to help many companies begin to see themselves through a fresh lens. Very anthropological. Let me tell you a little bit more about her, and then I’ll ask her to talk about her own journey, because she’s had a really important juncture point.

Right now, Dr. Clay is a purpose-driven leader with a compelling message to share. Her enthusiasm lies in inspiring leaders and organizations in achieving business success through their enhancement of strategic alignment, team dynamics, and fostering a culture of curiosity. Now, that is a really big idea, bringing a wealth of experience from her roles and operations, strategy, marketing and people development at prominent companies such as Frito-Lay, Coca-Cola, Jack Daniel’s and Humana. 

Debra brings incredible business insights and her dedication is evident in her commitment to working with leaders who aspire to elevate their impact and contribution to their organizations. So she’s now writing a book, and she also is performing her own one-person play called A Curious Woman. And she did it Off Broadway, and I watched it streaming, and you can watch it coming up, too. And she’s doing it again in Louisville, and she is having a wonderful time celebrating her own success as a curious woman. Debra, thank you for joining me today.

Debra Clary: My pleasure.

Andi Simon: You know, it’s always fun when we share our stories. We’re storytellers. We’re also storymakers. And when you and I did our fireside chat at the Louisville Leadership Center, we really had a good time getting to know how we each have grown and how our own experiences have opened up opportunities for us. But for our listeners and our viewers who aren’t familiar with you, talk about your own journey and why this is such an important point for you. It’s a tipping point, opening up a whole new world of opportunity. Who is Debra? 

Debra Clary: Oh, well, that’s a big question, Andi, but let me let me take a shot at this is. I was the first person in my family to go to college, graduate from college, and went on to get a Masters in Business. And my first job was driving a route truck for Frito-Lay.

Andi Simon: I always laugh when you tell me that. You say it so much better than I could.

Debra Clary: And my parents were like, Did you really need six years of higher education to do this? But I also recognized that it was an opportunity to start with a great company and they started everybody on a route truck. And the one question I asked was, Are there other women doing this? And they said, Yes. And I said, May I ride with that individual one day to see if I think I can do this? And then I did.

And so I spent nearly a decade at Frito-Lay, not on the route truck. I spent about nine months on the route truck in the city of Detroit and then evolved into sales management and then marketing and actually was one that was on the team that launched Flamin Hot, which is now a $1 billion brand for Frito-Lay. It’s where I really learned how to market to consumers. How do you understand what consumers need?

And from there, I was recruited away by Coca-Cola. I spent almost a decade at Coca-Cola in marketing roles where I got my experience of global marketing and how to really manage a global account. From there I went to Brown-Forman, where I was the VP of Strategy. I worked in the wine division, which was a really tough job, Andi. I mean, I had to spend all this time in Napa Valley tasting wines, trying to understand positioning. It was really tough, but I got through it and then I went to Jack Daniel’s.

I got really intrigued with culture because I had worked for Fortune 40 companies, and then I went to work for a publicly traded company, but it was still managed by the family, the Brown family. And there were just different dynamics, different cultures that I didn’t quite recognize because of my background. And so I said, I’m curious. I want to understand people and culture. I want to understand how I can adapt to different cultures and how I can become a better leader.

So I was reading the Wall Street Journal in which George Washington University had an ad in there that they had this cohort program for people that wanted to better understand leadership and culture. Exactly what I was looking for at the doctoral level. And so I went to my boss and said, I’m really passionate about this. And he said, Then go do it. And they completely supported me and funded that.

So while sipping wine in Napa Valley, I was also going to school full time. So full time mother, full time employee and then a full time student. And how I did that is, once a month I flew to Washington, DC. I went to school 12 hours Friday, 12 hours Saturday and then I flew home Sunday morning, so that I could be with my children. And I did that for three years. Wrote my dissertation on women in leadership. I just had this real passion on what are the differences in women leadership and how we can continuously support women to step into these really big roles.

And then I was recruited away by Humana, a healthcare company. And at first I said, There is no way I’m going into healthcare. I mean soda and snacks and now alcohol. Healthcare just did not seem to fit me. But, they said, You have an opportunity that we are starting a Leadership Institute. With your marketing, your business, your experience, and now with this academic degree, you’re the perfect person to help us change our culture. And I was really drawn to those words of changing culture because I had experienced different cultures, but I wasn’t quite sure how to do it. I had the academic side of it. I had some opinions, but now I was going to take this step and really put it into play.

And so for my first nine years at Humana, I ran the Leadership Institute, and we did everything from assessments to development of our top executives. And then we got really brave and we took our learning outside of the company. And we spent time in Europe and in the US and offered how to understand the healthcare system because we really recognize that if the healthcare system is going to get better and have better outcomes, everyone in the community needs to be connected to it.

And we started that with a simulation and we had much success. And then what happened is, we at Humana, we got a new CEO and he called me one day and said, Can you come talk? He said, I’m going to be doing some significant changes on my team. They’re going to be off boarding and onboarding, and I need you embedded in the team. You know, 24-7. Your role is to be with us all the time.

And so for the last eight years I did that: helping them understand team dynamics, leading their strategy sessions, all their off sites and really about team dynamics and how you get better as a team. And then that drives the business results. And then about a year ago, I said, Wow, I’m still curious on how I can scale my thought leadership outside of the corporate world. And so I made this transition about a year ago.

The number one thing I did, as you mentioned: I wrote and performed a one-woman show. I never did that in my life. Had never performed in that way. I’d done keynotes, but never an actual play. And I surrounded myself with people that knew how to do that. And did a sold out show in New York. And now we have one coming up here next month in Louisville, Kentucky. So that is a little bit about my four decades in corporate America. And now my launch to scale my knowledge and my curiosity to other organizations.

Andi Simon: I bet. I mean, there are many things that we can talk about today, but I bet that the audience, our listeners, are curious about a couple of things. One of which is, how do you grow like you have grown? Because the changes in places have not simply been taking what you were and applying them. It’s changing who you were when you’re applying them. This is an ongoing theme.

I’m finding the people who are in my new book within Women Mean Business: Over 500 Insights from Extraordinary Leaders to Spark Your Success are all talking about owning yourself and owning your career. Can you talk a little bit about it and then we’ll talk about your curiosity, but I’m also anxious to share with people what you discovered as you moved from being a Frito-Lay route driver all the way up to where you are at Humana, embedded in the organization to help build better what goes on. How does that happen?

Debra Clary: That’s another big question, Andi. It’s not a simple question. I think the things that helped me was that my parents taught me the value of hard work and an education, and that’s what I did. I was not afraid to work hard. I wasn’t afraid to do the assignments that were given to me. And then couple that with, I am a learner and I’m curious, and I certainly recognized that there was a lot I didn’t know, but I was bold enough to ask other people, people that I was admiring or people that had an expertise in that.

I love inquiry, I love to have dialogue and discussion around that. And I’ll give you an example. When I was with Frito-Lay and I was a regional manager. And I had two babies. And I was just trying to figure out how to manage this new world of motherhood, but wanting to climb the corporate ladder. This woman from headquarters at Frito-Lay flew into Detroit, and my job was to take her around and show her the market and have a conversation about that. And she was just, like, beautiful. Her hair was in place, there was no spit up on her. You know, her suit. I mean, she was just like, she seemed like she had it all together. And I also knew she had children.

And on the way to the airport, I got up enough nerve to say, How do you do it? Well, how do you guide me to do this? It’s a struggle for me. I’m trying to figure out how to be a good mom and how to be a good executive. And she said, Oh, it’s really simple. It’s two words. Get help! What do you mean, get help? She says, Have someone that you trust to watch your children. Have someone clean your home. Have someone mow your lawn.

I mean, she was just going on and on, and I’m like, But I don’t have that kind of discretionary income. I’m making it. But, I’m also trying to save money. And she said, If you don’t invest in this, you’re never going to get to the next rung because you’re always going to be stressed and worrying. And from that point forward, I have said, Get help when I don’t know how to do something or I need support, get help. And I recently read this book called, Who Not How. Are you familiar with this?

Andi Simon: I’m not. It sounds good.

Debra Clary: Extraordinary book about when you’re an entrepreneur and you’re starting an organization, or even if you have an organization, it’s not about you doing the work, it’s about you getting people that can help you do the work that you don’t have an expertise in that. So building a website, doing software development. Why are you investing your time in that? You need to hire the right people to do that. And in the last three weeks, it’s made a significant change in my outlook and my vision for, I can do this. I can actually do this.

Andi Simon: I love it, I love your story. You said that’s a big, big question, but in some ways you answered it with two words. It is not you alone. It’s a team. You said that you took a dysfunctional team and you helped to build a team. And if the team does better, you all do better. So there are two wisdoms already that have popped out, one of which is that it’s not a solo job. Even orchestras need to back up the soloist. I mean, there’s a whole lot of orchestra going on and sometimes a conductor.

But the other part is that it’s okay to learn along the way what can be done to help you get somewhere, as long as you have a sense that you’re on a journey to go somewhere, and that’s what’s really interesting and makes me curious about why you didn’t stay inside corporate. You might have felt a little stuck or stalled. You ventured out into, I’ll call it, a foreign territory.

Having been in my own business for 22 years and dealing with entrepreneurs all the time, I taught entrepreneurship at Washington University. It is a foreign country for people who have been inside a corporation. So as you’re entering this, it needs a new language. It needs new habits. It needs a new mindset.

You know, share with the audience about what you’re trying to develop, because you’re clearly curious about trying to help people who need to be more curious, become more curious. Right?7 So let’s talk about this whole vision of where you’re going. Would that be okay?

Debra Clary: Yeah. So let me start with how I got on this path. I was sitting next to our CEO in a meeting, and he leaned over and whispered to me, Do you think curiosity can be learned or is it innate? And I said, I don’t know, but I’m curious. So that next week just happened to be the 4th of July, and I was going to be on holiday that whole week. I just dug into research on curiosity so that following Monday I go back to work. I lean over to him and I say, It can be learned. And that was that, right?

I know all this about curiosity, but that was that. And about a week later, I’m talking about serendipity. Somebody that ran a very large division for our company called and said, We’d love for you to come do a keynote in Austin. Can you do it? And I go, Absolutely. What do you want me to talk about? And they go, You can talk about whatever you want to talk about…curiosity.

And so I’d already done all I had prepared myself for something to come. And so I developed the information in terms of what happens to your brain when you’re curious. You know, I want people to understand that this is a neuroscience perspective on that. Demonstrating that curiosity is good for the brain. And then I shared about the difference between children and adults. These are studies: why children ask questions and why adults don’t ask questions.

And then I said to him: And here’s what the benefit of it is. And then I taught them some practical things that they can do to be curious. And that was that. I thought, Okay, this will probably never happen again. And then it snowballed. And I think I spoke to over 10,000 people at Humana and then started speaking externally. And I thought, Wow, people are curious. They want to learn about curiosity. But more importantly, they want to be curious. And the thing that I found, Andi, is that curiosity is contagious.

Andi Simon: Yes.

Debra Clary: So if you are around curious people, you’re going to be curious.

Andi Simon: Debra, let’s talk some more. This is so much fun because what happens if you have this contagion called curiosity? Are good things happening?

Debra Clary: Absolutely. And, you know, being a scientist, I wanted to know how to be able to measure it. What are the levels of curiosity? So I partnered with a group out of MIT to say, I want a valid assessment that can demonstrate the level of curiosity at an individual level and a curiosity in an org. level, because if we have data, then we can make change. 

So I mean, the data suggests that when you’re curious,  people begin to feel seen, valued and heard. And isn’t that a lovely thing if people feel that. What does that do for engagement? What does it do for problem solving? What does it do for innovation? Well, all of that increases.

People want to work in a curious environment. They want to work for a leader that is open to your ideas, that your ideas matter. That’s what employees want. That’s what associates want. And so not only now can we talk about it from other studies and why it’s important, and here are the benefits from it. We can actually measure your current state of curiosity. And then we help you to figure out what are areas that you can get better in to help you drive this within your organization.

Andi Simon: It’s such an interesting word because by and large, I doubt there’s an MBA program with a course on curiosity, is there? I’m not aware of it. So it isn’t as if we are thinking about this in the training that we’re giving aspiring next generation business people. And I doubt when they walk into HR, people ask them, Are you a curious person? They’ll ask about their skills and how they like to get along. And are they collaborative, perhaps. And are they, you know, take charge and directing?

But curiosity opens up a very different view of the world. It sort of challenges the imposter syndrome. It’s okay not to know, and it’s okay that we can figure out what is important by simply figuring out what’s important. And that becomes very important. I often work with organizations going through fast change, either machine learning or changes to their clients or robots or hybrids. Humans hate change, their brains fight it. The amygdala says, Go away. You know I’m going to fear you, I fear you. I don’t want any of this cortisol flying around in your brain saying, Get away. This is bad news stuff. And you’re saying, Can turn this all into beautiful oxytocin, where I’m having such fun learning new stuff and growing, which is really important. Am I right?

Debra Clary: Yeah. It’s like, bring on the dopamine. You know that you get that when you feel like somebody cares about you because they’re asking questions and they’re suspending judgment. You know, that dopamine is hitting. 

Andi Simon: And bring on the dopamine. Love it.

Debra Clary: I’ve never said it like that before, but that’s what occurs to me. So what we also know from a neuroscience perspective is, the brain is a machine and it is designed to keep you safe. And so there’s this thing called fast pass matching, meaning that when something comes up, your brain wants to go to a solution as quick as possible because our ancestors were in danger. So you need to take action. And what we today have to guard against is not fast past matching. If it sounds like it goes really quick, I have someone step back and say, Wait, maybe there’s another choice, maybe there’s another option.

Going back to your question around an interview: you don’t ask people if they’re curious. However, you could ask them questions like, What is the last thing you learned? What is something that you’re working on that you don’t know right now? And you can begin to get an idea if that’s something that they’re interested in learning.

You can also figure out what is their tenacity to stay with the project because, you know, things don’t go smoothly all the time, especially when you’re being really innovative.  And what is your ability to be determined and to stay with it? That’s also something that you can measure.

Andi Simon: Now, I bet you that it doesn’t matter if you’re an engineer who likes to put things into boxes, or you’re a marketing person who likes to be creative. That curiosity can be for both of them. It doesn’t matter much what the nature of your mind is. If you open it up to see new things and unexpected things, you can expand the way an engineer can see the data boxes and creativity is already looking there.

And sometimes my creatives have trouble settling down on something. They see too many things, too many ideas. Entrepreneurs have a terrible way of having more ideas than they have the possibility of actually implementing. But that’s okay. And part of the learning process. One entrepreneur said, I needed a Type A to organize me, or if not, I never got any ideas done. And so you need to know yourself, but you also need to let the ideas flow so that you can grow. And this is a growth strategy. 

Debra Clary: Absolutely. I was recently working with a client who is an engineer, and I was asking a series of questions, and I could tell he was getting really frustrated because he wanted the pattern. He wanted to get to the solution. And when I realized that, I had to share with him: We are going to get to an answer and we are going to make a decision. But this very period of time right now is about exploring what’s possible so we get to the best solution. But when we decide on that, it is go and we’re going to get it done.

And it was just like this huge relief on his face. And my point is, is that you have to kind of understand who you’re working with as you’re pacing and leading them. I mean, ultimately, you want people to be able to take action. You want them to feel good about the solution. And of course, that translates into two business outcomes.

Andi Simon: Yes, I know, but for humans, ambiguity is the most dangerous place to be. You can be black or white, but they don’t like gray. It can be red or blue, but not purple. And when we are adverse to the ambiguity, we miss all the opportunities because they usually pop up betwixt and between, don’t they?

Debra Clary: And when that occurs to me, which has been happening a lot lately as I’m starting up this company, I’ll remind myself: You don’t know the answer. But Deb, you’re going to figure it out and you’re going to have people that are going to help you figure it out. And that just takes my heart rate all the way down and says, well, that’s right, this is a mess. And we’re going to get to it.

Andi Simon: Yes. And there it is. Kay Unger from Kay Unger Fashion Designs, who’s done wonderful creative things in the design and fashion industry for many years, said something to me the other day that she sees things in pictures, and of course the brain actually sees everything in pictures.

And so what she finds is that once she has a problem to solve, she puts all the pictures out and watches how they come together, almost like solving a puzzle. And I share that metaphor for you and the audience, because it’s a very interesting way to realize that is, in fact, how the brain likes to work. It likes pictures, it likes to see and visualize.

And I actually gave my leadership academy pads of paper and colored pencils and said, Now you’re going to draw yourself a year from now so you can visualize where you’re going, because if you can’t see it, you’re never going to get there. But if you can, even if it’s not right, you’ll begin to take the small, curious steps to see how to move along. And you can redraw the picture. But without one, not much can happen because you get stuff stalled.

Debra Clary: Absolutely. I think that is so powerful. What Kate said around that our brains do think in pictures. And if you think about it, I was in France this year and I spent time in the caves where the artists were. It’s just so extraordinary what these men and women did during the Ice Age and how they communicated was through these pictures and that has been passed down to each of us in terms of first pictures and then the spoken word and the written word came so, so much later.

Andi Simon: Of course, but Gutenberg came much later. But that was 35,000 years ago. And they were pretty sophisticated because they brought their pigments from long distances away. And their sophistication in the pictures were amazing stories to be told and shared. But, you know, before that the cave paintings weren’t and then all of a sudden they were. And I often wonder, how much was that we haven’t really been able to find because we haven’t found the artifacts with them and where they were located. But it’s an interesting story, and we can’t quite decide if the humans did it or the Neanderthals did it because they were sharing the same territories together.

Debra Clary: Yes, absolutely. And you probably have seen this recent finding in, I think it was Germany. As an anthropologist, I mean, you and I are of the same minds. We come from a different way, but it’s like getting curious enough to understand and go deeper and say, well, what about this? Well, this doesn’t match. How could this particularly match? I mean, every day to me is fascinating. It’s just when I keep my mind open, it’s just fascinating.

Andi Simon: You’re having fun, aren’t you?

Debra Clary: I am having fun.

Andi Simon: Good. Let’s talk a little bit about if people want to learn more about you, where would the website be so that they could find you?

Debra Clary: Yes. So it’s DebraClary.com so just my name and they’ll see the services and the consulting that I offer. But they also have a free curiosity assessment. So they click on that link. They’re going to get their score on their current level of curiosity.

Andi Simon: Oh let’s say that again. So if you’re curious about your curiosity go to DebraClary.com and download the survey there. And it’s a short version. It’s not the long one she might give you in your organization, but enough to give you an assessment of your curiosity. And I bet you’re curious about your curiosity. Once you find it then the question is, what do I do with it? And then you can get back to DebraClary.com. And she would be delighted to talk to you about how you take and convert curiosity into opportunity, because that’s what it’s really opening for you.

So on that note, I’m going to wrap us up for today because I’ve had such a good time. Last note, one or two thoughts, Debra, that you want to make sure they don’t forget.

Debra Clary: That curiosity is contagious. Curiosity can be learned.

Andi Simon: Good. That is wonderful. So for those of you who came, whether you’re watching or you’re listening, it’s always a pleasure. Send along those who you would like me to interview on our podcast. We have over 380 done and there are many more in the queue coming, and they’re all really, like Debra Clary, extraordinarily helpful to help you get off the brink.

And if you’re on the brink, my job is to help you see, feel and think in new ways, which is what we’re going to do. Our new book, Women Mean Business: Over 500 Insights from Extraordinary Leaders to Spark Your Success, is available at Barnes and Noble and Amazon. But I will tell you, I’m learning that a book has an energy, a force, and it’s when the reader opens that book. Debra and I did a program at Louisville Leadership, and we had a ball with 50 women who couldn’t get enough wisdom out of our wisdoms and who wanted to share wisdoms. That was really cool, wasn’t it?

Debra Clary: Yes.

Andi Simon: So on that note, my friends, let us know how you are doing. Send us emails at info@AndiSimon.com and we look forward to hearing from you. Have a wonderful day. Goodbye and thank you so much Deb. It was a pleasure and I’m sure everyone else has enjoyed it as much as I have.

Debra Clary: Thank you Andi.

WOMEN MEAN BUSINESS® is a registered trademark of the National Association of Women Business Owners® (NAWBO)

Hear how when you allow life to unfold, you find that miracles happen

I first interviewed Dr. Srikumar Rao in July 2023 and was so deeply inspired by the wisdoms he shared with us that I wanted to have him back so he could teach us more. And he does. The title of his new book is Modern Wisdom, Ancient Roots, in which he offers solid tools we can use to let go of the mental chatter that gets in the way of seeing what’s possible. The universe is benevolent, Dr. Rao says, it’s your friend, and when we understand this, that’s when we can change our story and thus, the direction of our lives. Are you ready to make a change, today?

Watch and listen to our conversation here

Some of Dr. Rao’s wisdoms which you can apply to your own life

• The most important thing is not what you’re doing but who you are being as you do it. Too often we get hung up on the doing, and we completely miss the fact that being is much more important than the doing.
• Allow life to unfold. And as you do, you find that miracles happen, and they happen on a regular basis.
• We never experience life the way it is. We always experience life according to the story we tell ourselves about it.
• When you change your thinking from the universe is indifferent to the universe is friendly, your experience of life has such a tremendous transformation.
• Open yourself up to possibilities.
• The universe is benevolent. The universe is your friend. Recognize that it’s your friend. And the more you do this, the more signs you will get that it in fact is your friend.
• Your job in this life is to recognize who you really are and cast yourself free from this cage in which you have ensnared yourself. Trust yourself and recognize that the door to your prison is always open and unlocked. All you have to do is open the door and step out of it.
• Why does the universe give you stuff you don’t want? Well, the universe doesn’t give you what you want, but gives you exactly what you need for your learning and growth.
• We all have mental chatter. And the problem is not that you have mental chatter, the problem is you identify with your mental chatter. So sit back and observe your mental chatter. Observe yourself feeling worried. Observe yourself feeling anxious. And as you create that distance, you no longer have your mental chatter. You’re the observer of the mental chatter. Then it loses its ability to take you to places you don’t want to go.

To contact Dr. Srikumar Rao

You can reach out to Dr. Rao on LinkedIn, Twitter or his website, The Rao Institute. Watch his TED Talk here and email him at srikumar.rao@theraoinstitute.com.

More inspiration for finding joy and purpsoe on your life journey:

• Blog: Time to Add Gratitude to Your Life—And Your Company’s Culture!
• Blog: You Can Find Joy And Happiness In Turbulent Times!
• Podcast: Richard Sheridan—How To Lead With Joy And Purpose!
• Podcast: Meg Nocero—Can You Feel Joy As You Rethink Your Life?

Additional resources for you

Read the transcript of our podcast here 

Andi Simon: Welcome to On the Brink With Andi Simon. I’m Andi Simon. I’m your host and your guide. And as you know, this podcast is designed to help you get off the brink. The one thing we don’t want you to do is get stuck or stalled. But you can begin to understand how you can change. And that’s what we like to help people and their organizations do.

So today, I have a wonderful gentleman here, and Doctor Rao did a podcast with us earlier, last July in fact, that was just a hit, but he’s got a new book coming out. Actually, it’s out and I have been reading it and you will love it. Let me tell you a little bit about Dr. Srikumar Rao.

He is a creator of creativity and personal mastery. His bio doesn’t fit a bio. It’s a wonderful story about a life well-lived. He’s a speaker, a former business school professor and head of The Rao Institute, and I urge you to take a look at that online because it’s full of rich opportunities for you to begin to see, feel and think in new ways. And I use those words, but they mimic the words he uses.

He is an executive coach to senior business executives, and he helps them find deeper meaning and engagement in their work. He also talks about the fact that work isn’t work. And I love the idea because I love to work, and people say, when are you going to retire? I say, I’m never going to retire. Why is work bad? Because we define it as something that is not fun, but work isn’t work. Work is something that gives us all kinds of things, purpose, meaning, joy. What could it do for you?

My last thought today is to make sure that you understand Dr. Rao has programs and coaching that you can enjoy because they are joyful to help you begin to become the kind of person that you’d like to be. I’m going to call you Srikumar.

Srikumar Rao: Works just fine. 

Andi Simon: Thank you for joining me again. It’s really a pleasure.

Srikumar Rao: It’s my pleasure, Andi. I had such a blast the last time you interviewed me that I was positively looking forward to this session.

Andi Simon: For our audience, watch out, here comes some really wonderful, wonderful stuff. Give the audience some context, though. Who are you? A man of your journey and why was this book? The book is called Modern Wisdom, Ancient Roots. Now when you buy an ebook, that’s how I can show you the book. And I did buy a hard copy, but it isn’t a hard copy. And as I’m reading it, I think you’re going to find it wonderful. What is the context for this book and who are you? Why should they listen? 

Srikumar Rao: Who am I? As you mentioned, I’m an executive coach, and I have a very well defined niche. I work with successful people, mostly entrepreneurs, who have already done very well for themselves. But they’re driven. They want to have an outsized impact on the world.

But at the same time, they have an explicitly spiritual bent that they would like to infuse into every area of their life. They know that life is about more than getting the biggest toys, or the most expensive toys. And there’s something deeper, and they want to bring that into all parts of their life. So that’s the sandbox in which I play, and to the best of my knowledge, I’m the only person who’s playing in that particular sandbox. I may be wrong, but I’m not aware of any others.

Andi Simon: Well, clearly it’s not a red ocean of lots of competition pushing you away, is it?

Srikumar Rao: No there isn’t. By the time people come to me, they’ve already done their homework. They’ve listened to my TED Talk. They watched many of my videos on YouTube, and they know they want to work with me.

Andi Simon: And when they do the kind of work you like to do with them, can you give us some ideas?

Srikumar Rao: We have conversations. We have deep conversations, and I have an unusual take on coaching. So let me explain that. In my view, the only thing you ever do in life, Andi, is you work on yourself. A benevolent universe has given you many tools. Your husband is a tool. Your daughters and granddaughters are tools. The business you run, the clients you have, they’re all tools.

You want to do the very best you can for your clients. You want them to feel: Gee, hiring Andi was the best thing that I ever did. But in the process of doing that, what you’re really doing is you’re working on yourself. You want to be a great wife. You want to be a great mother. In the process of doing that, what you really do is you work on yourself.

The only thing you ever do in life is work on yourself. Now the universe has given you wonderful tools and running a business is a Swiss army knife of tools. You use that skillfully, but you never lose sight of the fact that in using these tools skillfully, what you’re really doing is you’re working on yourself. Does that make sense to you, Andi?

Andi Simon: Yes. Maybe because it requires you to be reflective of what you’re doing, how you’re doing it, and what the impact or the outcome is. 

Srikumar Rao: Exactly correct. Because the most important thing, Andi, is not what you’re doing. but who you’re being as you do it. And too often we get hung up on the doing, and we completely miss the fact that being is much more important than the doing.

Andi Simon: I’ll stay on that for a moment. I don’t want to lose track of why this new book and how it fits. But as I hear you, you work with successful people who may or may not realize how they have become who they are. They may not be happy with where they are, but they don’t seem to have a toolkit to begin to take them to the next place. And that is a big theme that I’m finding that people find themselves either in retirement or transition or job change or career growth, and it’s being done to them instead of them owning their life and who they are, something that you have found as well.

Srikumar Rao: Absolutely, yes. Because too many people, Andi, go around trying to make life happen.

Andi Simon: Forgive me for laughing.

Srikumar Rao: I love life to unroll, unfold. And as you allow life to unfold, you find that miracles happen and they happen on a regular basis.

Andi Simon: Well, you and I were talking about serendipity, but miracles are a different word. Similar? Your early conversation about a path through life, I think, is so valuable to think about for our audience, who’s either watching you or listening that the steps aren’t necessarily, you can’t necessarily see them, but you can begin to live them.

Srikumar Rao: Exactly correct. You know, let me share something with you, Andi. If you ask people: Are you happy? Most of them will say, Yes, I’m happy. Remember, these are successful people already, but we define happiness too narrowly. We define happiness as there’s nothing really bothering me right now, and there are actually some things that I like, or I’m looking forward to watching a new Netflix series or having dinner with a friend or something like that.

That’s a very low part. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about, do you feel radiantly alive? Do you feel so full of gratitude that you feel as if you’re bursting? Are you not walking, but joyously floating through the air, hitting ground every 100ft or so. Is that your experience of life? And if that’s not your experience of life, why not? Because that is your nature.

So how do you reclaim the joy you felt as a child, when you could spend an hour watching a dog chase its tail? Why have you lost that? And how can you bring it back to your life today? That’s what my coaching is about. And the wonderful thing is that when you’re in that space, your business and whatever else you know just floats effortlessly and you accomplish more than you could ever have dreamed possible. It just happens because you’re not trying to force things. You’re allowing the universe to unfold.

Andi Simon: Let’s dig deeper into that. Marissa Peer is really a renowned hypnotherapist who often talks about the fact that we live the story in our mind. And our mind also loves to go to pleasure, not pain. Even if the pain causes pleasure, like narcotics might. And the habits take over and you don’t even know that you’re habit driven. You think you have free will.

And so this complicated human where we want to take and know our own selves and take ownership of it, determine our careers, determine our life, give it more intentionality, a purpose, isn’t that easy. And so the question becomes, how do you change the story, modify the habits, begin to not simply just wish, but to begin to actually feel that gratitude, that happiness.

I don’t want to add my ideas, I want to hear yours because our listeners do. But there’s a way of taking where you are. You may have your house, you may have your car, you may have your club. You may think you’re happy, but take it to a whole next level where you are. Every day is a gift, and you wake up happy to be there.

Srikumar Rao: And the short answer to that, Andi, is, you have to work at it. Because we have been programmed, we have been conditioned, and we are so programmed and conditioned that we don’t even recognize that we have been programmed and conditioned. It’s true. And what we have is, we’ve got a lot of extraneous thoughts going on. I call it mental chatter, and mental chatter is always with you. It’s so much a part of your life that you don’t even recognize you have it.

You know, the kind of thing that goes: Oh, drat my secretary screwed up again, and should I keep her or should I fire her? And I’m sick and tired of having to go through these small snafus that keep coming up, which she should have handled. All of that is mental chatter. We live our life defined by our mental chatter, and we never recognize that we’re living a life which is defined by our mental chatter and not by what is really happening internally to us.

But one of the first things that I do with my client is, I get them to understand that this mental chatter, which you ignore, is actually creating the life that you live in. So the first step is to be aware that there is this stuff that is happening. The first step is to recognize that this is happening and this is really running your life. And when you do that and you become aware of your mental chatter as opposed to being carried away by your mental chatter, you start to say, hey, you know, the world isn’t what I thought it was. It’s something that’s different. Yeah, that is the starting point.

Andi Simon: With that in mind, I don’t like to tease my audience, give us something a little bit more illustrative, concrete to take from it. Stop the mental chatter because when you stop it, then you’re going to fill yourself with an opportunity.

Srikumar Rao: Absolutely. Let me share something which I’m sure some of your clients and many of the people listening to this podcast can relate with. I was teaching in London Business School and I had a student who was an investment banker and a very successful investment banker. There were many problems in his marriage. Because he was an investment banker, he was working long hours. And because he worked long hours, he missed many family occasions, dinners. You know, his son’s first piano recital and stuff like that. And his wife would get very upset at him. “You said you’d be back and you weren’t.” And she accused him of not caring.

From his perspective, the very fact that he was working long hours at a job that he didn’t particularly like was evidence of his caring. And obviously they were able to maintain the lifestyle that they did because of the income he pulled in from his job. So the very fact that he was working long hours was, in his mind, an expression of caring.

When she laced into him, he would get defensive, they’d have massive fights. And yet it was just a very uncomfortable, uncomfortable situation. And they were rapidly heading towards divorce. And then in my course, somebody suggested to him that, look, when your wife is lashing it to you for not caring, what she’s really saying is, honey, I miss you. And I wish that I was with you or you were with me.

Totally not convinced but he agreed to try it. And the next time he was late and his wife started getting mad at him and accusing him of not caring, instead of reacting the way he normally did, he said, Honey, it must have been really tough on you. I’m so sorry. Which is so different from what he usually said that she was taken aback. And what would have been an entire evening quarrel petered out in 30 minutes. And as he continued doing that, and each time that she got angry at him or started to get sarcastic, he would simply say, I love you. And I realize it’s very tough on you, I will try to make it up.

And gradually their bitter quarrels faded away. They didn’t entirely resolve the situation, but it became something to be handled as opposed to: this is going to lead to the end of our marriage. I was about to say that’s the way in which we’re always telling stories to ourselves. And we don’t recognize that we’re telling stories to ourselves. We believe this is the reality.

Andi Simon: Let’s stay there. I’m making some notes. In the stories, we’re always a hero. Stories that we’re telling ourselves, we’re always the hero.

Srikumar Rao: Yes.

Andi Simon: Right. And so the story you just shared is a beautiful one. Where he was right. She was wrong. She was right. He was wrong until they stopped being heroes to themselves. But literally, he just became, in the words he said to her, caring about how she was. It deflated all of the competition, the animosity. What a beautiful story to share and think about. Yeah, because it’s not complicated. It’s just, you know, change the story and change your life.

Srikumar Rao: Exactly correct. What we don’t recognize is that we never experience life the way it is. We always experience life according to the story we tell ourselves about it. And most of us never understand that this is what is happening, that it isn’t reality. It’s the story we have told ourselves and which we believe without ever recognizing that it is a story, and we have the opportunity to change the narrative. And what I’m very good at, is helping people understand that and to change the narrative.

Andi Simon: That leads very nicely, though, into your new book. Tell us about the timing, the pacing. What was a catalytic moment for another book. Modern Wisdom, Ancient Roots has a purpose, and there’s something at the end of it for you to use to self-assess. But the context is important here because as the listener thinks about their story that’s guiding their life either toward happiness or toward less than, it’s an opportunity to begin to rethink who am I and the story I’m living and what am I thinking. Please, what was the motivation for this book and tell us about it.

Srikumar Rao: A book, Andi, and you can understand this, being a multiple times author yourself, is like a baby. You know, it comes to a point at which it has to be born. Yes, that’s what happened with this. I wanted to, as you know, I’m an executive coach and people ask me questions. And I noticed that there was a great deal of similarity in the questions. And this cuts across countries, cuts across culture, cuts across ethnic and other backgrounds.

They’re human problems, not problems related to any particular occupation, country, or religious or ethnic background. So I figured that if I put this down, it would be a help to people to understand that. And some of them, of course, might want to go deeper. And if so, they reach out to me and we discuss what I can do for them.

But the idea is to give them solid tools, and the heart of it is to understand that the world we’re living in is not a real world. It’s a construct. We build that construct with our mental chatter and our mental models. Now, this is hugely liberating because if the world we’re living in is not real and you don’t like it, then you can deconstruct the parts of it you don’t like and build it again. 

But what do you do if the world you live in is real, and you don’t like it, you’re screwed. But if it’s not real, you can change it. So how do you go about doing that? That’s what my coaching is all about. And some of the tools that I use are given in that book Modern Wisdom, Ancient Roots. And I’ve tried to illustrate it by means of stories, because I find that stories bring it home very, very powerfully. This is a story I shared with you about the investment banker and his wife. And, you know, they were able to make almost a U-turn.

Andi Simon: Now stay on that. I want to talk a little bit more about some of the chapters in there but we often say that we live an illusion. The story creates an illusion that guides our day but isn’t real. And the only truth is there’s no truth. It’s very hard for people not to say, this isn’t real. Well, sort of, but the pen is only real enough when you write with it, and something happens but it’s hard to understand that some of them, the stories that you have in there, though, are really very important for thinking about who am I and what am I doing and why am I doing this. Can you share a few of them? I’ll say the short chapters, but there are a couple of major points.

Srikumar Rao: Here’s one. Now, how do you think about the universe? Einstein said that the most important question you will ever ask yourself is, is the universe friendly? Now we respect Einstein because he was a great scientist, but he was also a philosopher who had a very intimate understanding of how the universe worked. And Einstein said, the most important question you will ever ask yourself is, is the universe friendly?

Now, there are some people who believe that the universe is distinctly unfriendly, and the sole purpose of the universe is to frustrate. The vast, overwhelming majority of us believe the universe is neither friendly nor unfriendly. It’s indifferent. The universe doesn’t know you exist and couldn’t care less. So here you are going around doing your thing. There’s a universe going around doing its thing. Sometimes it seems to work with you, sometimes it seems to work against you. But essentially it’s a random process.

What if that wasn’t true? What if the universe was aware of your existence and the universe was well-disposed towards you? Why does the universe give you stuff you don’t want? You want to go on vacation and the universe gives you pandemics and lockdowns. Why does the universe give you stuff you don’t want? Well, the universe didn’t give you what you wanted, but gave you exactly what you needed for your learning and growth.

Like you’re a small child and you want a tub of ice cream, and the universe gives you fruits and vegetables, and you don’t want fruits and vegetables, you want a tub of ice cream. But the universe through your parents gives you fruits and vegetables. It isn’t until you reach a much higher level of maturity that you can say, thank God I got fruits and vegetables rather than a tub of ice cream. What if the universe was exactly like that?

That is a mental model, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out it’s a superior mental model. And regardless of whether the universe was friendly or not, if you believed the universe was friendly, your experience of life would be a whole lot better. 

How do you adopt this mental model? And the idea is recognize that it’s a superior mental model and look for signs that this is operating in your life. And I advocate people having a notebook where they write down the signs that the universe is friendly, and when you do that, you’ll see them everywhere.

I’ll give you an example. This happened to me yesterday. So I had a plumbing issue in one of my toilets, and I called the plumber and he came and fixed it. And after he did that, he had come to my house earlier, and he was missing a drill, and he thought he might have left it downstairs. So I went to the basement to check, and he noticed that there was a pinhole leak in one of my pipes, and discovered it purely by accident. But he looked at that and pointed to my attention and said, I’m here and I’ll fix it. It could have been quite major, and he fixed it. Completely serendipitous. That’s a miracle. It’s a sign the universe is friendly.

Most of the time when something like that happens, we dismiss it as a coincidence. So coincidence is a miracle killer. But when you start noting the ways in which the universe seems to be working with you and has your back, you notice so many of them that you’ll reach an internal tipping point. And in that tipping point, you will tip over from “the universe is indifferent” to “the universe is friendly.” And when you do that, your experience of life has such a tremendous transformation.

Andi Simon: And I think that the timing of your conversation today is so interesting because I too, I believe in, in those kinds of chance moments which aren’t clearly by chance. And there was nothing that made him go down there, except perhaps he left his drill down there and nothing that said, please take a look at a pinhole in the pipe or anything for you. I started a conversation today talking about where we’re going and the kinds of things we’re in. But, it is an interesting lesson for our listeners, a wisdom to begin to open up your mind to possibilities.

Srikumar Rao: That is the key point. You’ve hit the nail right on the head. Open yourself up to possibilities.

Andi Simon: Because that’s the only way you’re going to grow. As we know that the brain hates change, unfamiliarly. It fights everything that comes in and threatens what’s current. You have to overcome that cortisol that’s produced until it, nope, I want some oxytocin, because I think this is the greatest idea that I could begin to think about. But the only one who can manage that is you.

Srikumar Rao: Absolutely. And when you start living in a friendly universe, then you say something happens to you and you say, okay, you know, there’s a lesson in there for me. And what is the lesson and how soon can I learn it? And you’ll invariably find that the unfortunate situation resolves itself.

Andi Simon: So when you’re up at two in the morning thinking about something that’s really bugging you, let it go. Meditate, quiet the mind. 

So I’m watching our time and it’s almost ready to wrap up, but I want to talk about one thing more and that is meditation, mindfulness, managing your mind. Because unless you understand there are things you can do, in fact, I’m not going to say take charge of your mind, but quiet it, you’re going to think, I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know how to let go of those negatives to absorb the positive. Any things that you particularly like to do? I’ve learned mindfulness myself, but please.

Srikumar Rao: What happens? Andi we have this mental chatter going on, and you can’t stop it. It’s pointless saying, you know something is happening, don’t worry about it. If you could not worry about it, you’d not worry about it. But you’re incapable of not worrying about it. That’s okay. You cannot stop worrying about it, but you can observe and be aware of the fact that you’re worrying about it.

So one of the cornerstone exercises of mine is, look, you have this mental chatter that’s going on. And the problem is not that you have mental chatter. The problem is you identify with your mental chatter. And when you identify with the mental chatter, it can grab you by the neck and take you to all kinds of dark places. So sit back and observe your mental chatter. Observe yourself feeling worried. Observe yourself feeling anxious.

And as you create that distance, you no longer have your mental chatter. You’re the observer of the mental chatter. The velocity and the power of that chatter, it diminishes and it loses the ability to take you to places you don’t want to go. It’s very easy to describe and it’s very easy to start off on that. It’s very difficult to keep it there because you start observing your mental chatter and in seconds you’ve lost it and you become your mental chatter. When that happens, go back to being the observer. This is one of the cornerstone exercises of my programs and my coaching. But as you become better and better at that, you can be an observer for a longer and longer period, and you’ll find that the things that used to bother you no longer bother you because you let them go.

Andi Simon: And that letting go is a lot like what you have to do to grow up. Yeah. Let it go. And at any age, you can be, you know, still a child, let it go to get to the next stage in your own personal growth. I’ve enjoyed this so much. I do want to say one thing for our listeners and our viewers, that when you’re working, when you’re in an organization that may have gotten toxic or may seem to be unpleasant to get to work every day, or your folks are beginning to struggle, time to sit down with them and think about that mental chatter that’s going on. It may come from outside of the workplace or inside. Or maybe somebody said something to someone.

Think about the investment banker and the different ways he can deal with his wife, one of which is caring about the fact she’s been alone, or the other is angry that she cares so much about herself that she’s not thinking about him and the work he’s doing. Same situation, two different stories.

But, if you have an organization that seems to be fragile and it’s not a bad methodology to begin to sit down and listen to the conversation, observe, be an anthropologist, hang out, listen to the conversations at lunchtime. Begin to pull out of the stories people are telling that mental chatter that’s creating noise instead of joy. Because so much joy is there waiting to happen. The universe is joyful. Let it happen.

Srikumar Rao: Absolutely. The universe is benevolent. The universe is your friend. Recognize that it’s your friend. And the more you recognize it as your friend, the more signs you will get that it in fact is your friend.

Andi Simon: And then every day, coming to work isn’t work. It’s about growing and learning and teaching and gratitude and just having joy.

Srikumar Rao: Exactly, exactly, exactly right, Andi.

Andi Simon: Last thoughts? Dr. Srikumar Rao has been with us today, talking about his new book, Modern Wisdom, Ancient Roots. But it’s about you and about how you can turn work into growth. Begin to think about that, that chatter in your mind as something to let go. Some last thoughts.

Srikumar Rao: Your nature is happiness. You’re not this shell of skin and bones and blood that you think you are, who you really are is pure awareness. Your job in this life is to recognize who you really are and cast yourself free from this cage in which you have ensnared yourself. Trust yourself and recognize that the door to your prison is always open and unlocked. All you have to do is open the door and step out of it.

Andi Simon: This has been a pleasure. I could keep talking. I’ve enjoyed our conversation and I know our listeners and viewers will as well. Let me wrap up. It’s such fun to share people like Dr. Rao with you because it takes us to the next stage in our own growth. And I don’t care where you are, that noise in your brain is going to get in the way of seeing what’s possible. And in fact, the little challenge here or a little opportunity there if you let it turn into an opportunity. Next thing you know, you’re rising with it. And he’s smiling and so am I. So thank you for coming today.

Srikumar Rao: It’s been my pleasure. And I look forward to a wonderful association. And I don’t know which way it’s going to go, but I know it’s going to go exactly the way it’s supposed to. Thank you.

Andi Simon: Thank you. But the joyful universe is going to take us on its own way, and we’re going to have some fun. The timing couldn’t be better. Now, for those of you who come, remember, I love to help you see, feel and think in new ways. I can’t thank you enough for coming. Refer to us anybody you’d like to hear on our podcast. We are getting booked up for the rest of the year and so sooner is better.

My new book, Women Mean Business: Over 500 Insights from Extraordinary Leaders to Spark Your Success is doing extremely well. It’s full of wisdoms and people are learning. We often say, turn a page and change your life. Who knew? The book has an energy and a force well beyond being a book. There’s more. You’re smiling. The books aren’t books, are they?

Srikumar Rao: Books are in books. Books have a life force in them, and they reach out and grab the persons who are right for them. I could not agree with you more.

Andi Simon: Couldn’t say it better than you have. So I’m going to say goodbye. Let’s say have a great day. Please turn your observations into innovations. Don’t wait around. The world is waiting for your new ideas. Bye bye now.

Srikumar Rao: Let’s go further than that, Andi. Have a wonderful rest of your life.

Andi Simon: I love it. Everyone’s cup should be overflowing like yours and mine. Thank you.

WOMEN MEAN BUSINESS® is a registered trademark of the National Association of Women Business Owners® (NAWBO)

The more diverse your organization, the more successful it will be

Today I bring to you a most fascinating and consequential woman leader, Melissa Andrieux. Born and bred in Queens, New York, Melissa became a prosecutor, then Queens District Attorney, then civil litigator. She is now Chief Diversity Officer at the law firm Dorf Nelson & Zauderer. She is also Chief Client Relations Officer, and is tapping into her extensive experience in marketing, business development and recruitment to drive business growth within the firm by establishing a culture of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. What’s more, she helps other firms bring DEI&B into their own cultures. Melissa is not only a trailblazer but a beacon for others to emulate. Do enjoy.

Watch and listen to our conversation here

Key takeaways from our podcast

• It’s never too late. Don’t let people tell you that you’re only good at one thing. Just because you’re good at it doesn’t mean you should keep doing it. 
• Yes you should have a plan, but don’t get so fixed on it that you miss the opportunities that come. 
• You need diverse perspectives within your organization, because the clients out there are so diverse. They can pick and choose who they want to work with, who they want to give their money to, and if they’re not seeing representation at your organization or at your business, they’re going to go elsewhere.
• Diversity is a reference, a representation of different cultures, different backgrounds, different races, sexual orientations. Diversity can also be the differences in education, socioeconomic background, marital status. People often think that it’s just racial or gender, but that’s not it. There are so many different aspects to diversity. It’s what makes us different and unique.
• Equity at its basic level is about fairness and leveling the playing field. Contrary to what some people think, it’s not about taking from one group to give to another group. It’s about making adjustments to imbalances. It’s really about fairness. 
• Inclusion is related to belonging. Inclusion is, you’re being invited to the party to play, you’re being given a seat at the table, you’re being considered. And as a decision maker, as a colleague, your voice is being heard.
• If we do not start with the basics, the foundations, and understand why people feel a certain way, why people think that they need to gravitate towards their own groups, their own culture, then we’re never going to get to where we need to be. It’s all about knowledge, education and understanding.
• When it comes to DEI, the leader is instrumental because nothing can be done without the leader’s buy-in.

You can connect with Melissa by LinkedIn or email: mandrieux@dorflaw.com.

More stories of women making DEI a reality, not just an idea

• Maureen Berkner Boyt—Diversity and Inclusion: Let’s Go Beyond Hoping and Make Inclusion Really Happen
• Rohini Anand—Can Businesses Create Cultures Based On True Diversity, Equity and Inclusion?
• Andie Kramer—Can “Beyond Bias” Take Your Organization To Great Heights?
• Maria Colacurcio—Stop The Revolving Door. Help Your Employees Embrace A Diverse And Equitable Workplace.
• Businesses Must Sustain Diversity And Inclusion For Women

Additional resources for you

Read the transcript of our podcast here

Andi Simon: Welcome to On the Brink With Andi Simon. Hi I’m Andi Simon and as you know, as my frequent followers who come to watch our podcast, I’m here to be the guide and the host to take you off the brink. Our job is to help you see, feel and think in new ways. And in order to do that, you have to listen to people who have changed. Change is painful. Your brain hates me. But don’t run away. Today we’re going to have a great, great time. I have with us today Melissa Andrieux who’s an attorney whom I met at a wonderful party. And she has really given me some perspective on something that I think is important for us to share.

She’s smiling at me. Here’s a little bit about her background and then she’s going to tell you about her own journey. Melissa is an experienced litigator. She leveraged her background in law to lead Dorf Nelson & Zauderer, the law firm, in their initiatives as chief diversity officer. She’s also the firm’s chief client relations officer, and she’s tapping into her extensive experience in marketing, business development and recruitment to drive business growth within the firm.

But what’s really important is, she’s gone from being a litigator to being an expert in the diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging professional space. So she’s helping the firm help other firms begin. And this is my world: see, feel and think in new ways so they can begin to understand why having a lot of diversity of all kinds, including cognitive diversity and listening to each other is important, and understand how to include people in things that you might have not thought they were part of. Melissa, thank you for joining me today.

Melissa Andrieux: Well, thank you for having me, Andi. It’s a real pleasure to be on your show.

Andi Simon: Well, it was a real pleasure to meet you when we did the book launch at Josie’s. I asked people if they wanted to share their wisdoms and Melissa had a story she wanted to tell. She’s going to tell it again today. But first, who is Melissa? Tell us about your journey, please.

Melissa Andrieux: Well, when you called me up to tell my story, I was a little shocked. I hadn’t planned on being called upon. But I love sharing my story. I was born and bred in Queens. I am a lawyer, as you said. And I came to that profession kind of, I didn’t have mentors in my life who were lawyers or judges. I learned by watching TV what was interesting. That’s why I chose my profession and what was on TV? You’re a prosecutor. You are a criminal defense lawyer. So I chose the prosecution route.

I always wanted to be a Queens District Attorney, and I became one. I loved that job. I represented the people of the State of New York, the county of Queens, and as most people in government, we move on into civil practice. And then I moved into civil litigation. I did that for a very long time. You may find that shocking, but I did it for 12 years at a firm and then I moved to Dorf Nelson & Zauderer, which was then Dorf Nelson. Now it’s Dorf Nelson & Zauderer.

And I did that for a while, and it’s kind of sad looking back on it, but I did it for such a long time when I didn’t really enjoy it, but I didn’t know what else was out there. I had no clue what to do with this law degree. So I just kept on doing litigation, and it got to the point where I started speaking with people at the firm, and I was told that this opening for marketing and business development was available. And I said, well, I’ve never done either. I’m a litigator, I’m a lawyer.

But then it got to the point where I was just candidly miserable. I didn’t want to get out of bed, I didn’t want to go to work. So I said, you know, let me try the position, and I’m not a failer. I don’t like to fail. So I said, I’m going to put my heart and soul into it. And I started learning about the business side of law, which I had no idea that law was a business. I thought you just went to court, the depositions, blah blah blah, but I found it very interesting. I was meeting clients, I was meeting prospective clients, I was learning about the business.

And then that developed into marketing, which opened a whole new world for me. And with the marketing, I was looking at other law firms, I was looking at businesses, and the DEI aspect clicked. I mean, as you can see, I’m a woman of color in the legal profession, which another story is really not as diverse as should be, but we’ll leave that for another time. So I started looking internally at what we could do to make the law firm better, more inclusive, more attractive to candidates. We wanted to hire people. So what do you do? So I spoke with leadership. I had to get their buy-in or else this would never work.

And the first thing that we did is, we started a Diversity and Inclusion Council. And I hand-picked the members, and we just had candid conversations about what was going on at the firm, what they wanted to see change, and I studied. It was not easy. I spoke with people in the DEI space. I found the experts, I read, and it got to the point where I was being called upon to do panels and advise people on their own DEI journeys. I mean, it wasn’t a quick thing, unfortunately. It took a lot of hard work. I had a lot of mentors and sponsors in my corner.

Luckily, I’m one of those individuals who actually found people who wanted to invest in me, and that’s kind of how I ended up here. I know that a lot of people, and I’ve heard this, think that the law firm hand-picked the Black attorney to be the DEI officer, but I assure you that it’s not the case. I wanted this role. I advocated for this role, and I believe that I’m doing a very good job with the role. It’s not done. It’s hard work. And we continue every day to do the important work.

Andi Simon: Let’s reflect for a moment, which is how I think our listeners or our viewers want to pick your brain, because there have been a number of articles that have come out about how companies, large and small, are de-emphasizing the work of DEI or the Department of DEI. I’m not quite sure, being an anthropologist, why you need a department of it and who they put there. But, it’s a very important part of transforming the way we live together. And it’s both inside and outside. It changes how people come to work, what they expect of each other, how we listen to each other.

And here, give them some of your own, both learning and experiences, because while they didn’t pick you, they were wise enough to select you and to open up a space to let you go. I’m curious about that first group that you pulled together and how you managed to get them thinking. So give us a little of how did Melissa do it and how others might as well.

Melissa Andrieux: So the how-to is: I decided to leave leadership out of these council meetings because I felt that in order for me to get a true sense of how people were feeling, I couldn’t have the partners in these meetings because then people would feel like they cannot be honest. And that was the first thing that we did.

And then I took the feedback. I took the information, and I looked at our policies. I looked at the procedures, the internal information that the firm has. And then I went to leadership and I said, this is what we can do. Let’s do X, Y, and Z. Let’s look at our policies. Are they gender neutral? Do they apply to everyone across the board?

And we started slowly but surely. And as I say to everybody, DEI is in the long run. You cannot expect to finish DEI in a week, a month or even a year. It’s an ongoing process. So that’s how I started my DEI initiatives at the firm.

Andi Simon: You spoke about having mentors and sponsors. Clearly you had teammates because as you think about it, this requires people to stop and rethink their story. And the story of the firm they’re in. Their livelihood is dependent upon it, but also their personal experiences and what’s happening. So as they were working with you, were there some key issues? I can hear your policy changes, but policies don’t do much if people don’t do much. So what kinds of things were you beginning to implement?

Melissa Andrieux: So candidly, of course, as with any new initiatives, there is a little bit of pushback. So we had to get the team members at the firm on board and explain to them why this was important, why the time was now. And, it’s not perfect. Nothing is ever perfect. But people do understand why diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging is important.

I mean, the thing is, you want to attract talent. You want the firm to continue to grow. And the way that we do that is bringing diverse perspectives into the law firm, bringing different people into the law firm, because neurodiversity, everybody comes from a different place in their lives. Their thinking is not the same as, let’s say, somebody who’s been here forever. You want to bring in fresh blood. And so when they started to understand the business reason behind this, they started to really buy into what we were doing. And they embrace it and they welcome it at this point.

Andi Simon: One of the women I met recently is a Vassar professor who had a bunch of faculty go to court about equal pay for equal jobs. And of course, being a former academic, I remember well how they hired men at different salaries than the women and they came in with less experience. And that’s at a female college. Come on.

So give us a little bit of a breakdown because there’s diversity, equity, equal pay for equal work, equal position, equal opportunity, inclusion. And inclusion and belonging are a little bit different. Give us a little bit more detail. I think it would be helpful.

Melissa Andrieux: Sure. So diversity is a reference, a representation of different cultures, different backgrounds, different races, sexual orientations. Diversity can also be the differences in education, socioeconomic background, marital status is diversity. People often think that it’s just racial or gender, but that’s not it. There are so many different aspects to diversity. It’s what makes us different and unique.

Andi Simon: Somebody once said to me, we’re all diverse. And I said, that’s great. We’re all unique. Go ahead. 

Melissa Andrieux: And that’s what makes the world a great place to live. Imagine living with everybody who’s like you. I mean, I think that would be pretty boring. So that’s diversity.

Equity at its basic level, equity is about fairness and leveling the playing field. Contrary to what some people think, it’s not about taking from one group to give to another group. It’s about making adjustments to imbalances. It’s really about fairness. 

Inclusion is kind of related to belonging. But I look at them as two different concepts. So to me, inclusion is, you’re being invited to the party to play, you’re being given a seat at the table, you’re being considered. And as a decision maker, as a colleague, your voice is being heard.

Andi Simon: You mean you can say something in a meeting and people can hear you?

Melissa Andrieux: Exactly, exactly. They listen to you. They might not buy what you say, but they give you the opportunity to be seen and to be heard. And to me, belonging is an individual’s feeling that you feel that you are connected to the community that you belong to, that you can be yourself with the people that you’re around you.

Andi Simon: You find that you know humans. I’m an anthropologist. Humans are very tribal. Yes, they look at the world that they’re moving into, such as a workplace. Do I belong here? And it is everything from the tangible: Am I dressed right? Do I look right? Will people look me in the eye and trust that I make good decisions? Plus all of the intangibles that are there that often I don’t hear people talking about, which disturbs me because inclusion without belonging isn’t cool.

I did work for a university once and all the students at a conference we were holding sat at tables with others where they belonged, but none of them were diverse. And then they literally stood up and said to the administration, you think you’ve built diversity, but we are really in enclaves with our tribes. And yes, the whole place may have diversity, but we don’t feel like we’re diverse. We feel like we have a tribe to belong to, and that’s comfortable for us. But it may be uncomfortable for you. It was a very profound conversation about what these words mean.

Melissa Andrieux: It is. So I do some consulting, DEI consulting as part of my duties. And one of the things that I always start my programs with is defining what diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging and accessibility mean. Because if we don’t understand these core concepts, we’re not going to understand anything.

So I truly think that if people do not start with the basics, the foundations, and understand why people feel a certain way, why people think that they need to gravitate towards their own, their own groups, their own culture, then we’re never going to get to where we need to be. It’s all about knowledge, education and understanding.

Andi Simon: And an openness to want to know more about the other. 

Melissa Andrieux: Seriously.

Andi Simon: Ask questions and be happy when you can sit together at lunch and share. How’s life? Humans are human and nobody likes to be the whistleblower or the soloist. They want an orchestra where they can all play their instruments, but play them together with a good conductor. How important is the conductor? The leader?

Melissa Andrieux: Oh, wow. When it comes to DEI, the leader is instrumental because nothing can be done without the leader’s buy-in. And I truly believe that. If so, Jon Dorf, Jonathan Nelson, and Mark Zauderer, they are the leaders of the firm, if they did not embrace the concepts of DEI, what I am doing at the firm would never succeed. It would just be some box that you’re checking. You know, your documents. But because it’s something that they truly believe in, it’s in the fabric of the firm. Long before I got here, it just wasn’t apparent until I got here, I suppose. If you don’t have the leaders who have your back, we’re going to fail.

Andi Simon: Well, do they do intentional things in order to broaden their own comfort with a diverse workforce and with diverse clients? I mean, do they live the promise?

Melissa Andrieux: Absolutely, absolutely. One of the things that we do is: we started a scholarship at Pace University. It’s called the Beth S. Nelson Memorial Scholarship, and we wanted it to go to a woman embarking on a second career in law. And it’s in honor of Jonathan Nelson’s mom, who was a teacher and then she went into law. So that is something that the firm does in order to show its commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. We want to bring up the next generation. We want to give these women who are embarking on these second careers the opportunity to get in the law and graduate on time, and that’s one of the ways that we do it.

Another way that we show our commitment, that the partners show their commitment, is: they embrace every single client, regardless if you’re black, white, LGBTQ. You know you deserve equal treatment when you come into Dorf Nelson & Zauderer LLP and you need representation, never turned away.

Andi Simon: I think that it’s really a model for others to both hear about and to learn about. You also work with clients and how do you bring the purpose and mission out to them as a consultant or as an attorney or a little of both?

Melissa Andrieux: I wear many hats, Andi, I gotta tell you. So, being that I am a lawyer and working at a law firm doing business development, that has helped me tremendously when I go out there and I network because I understand the language. I know what clients want from their attorneys and what they don’t want. So I’m able to talk to them as they need to be spoken to.

And I also do consulting, which kind of develops organically as well. I go out and I do these panels. I go to these networking events and people ask me what I do. Somebody said, Will you do consulting for us? And obviously I said yes, because I love to do that. I love to teach and help other organizations grow and start their DEI journeys with the foundations, and then we move on from there as their needs become apparent, as whatever they need.

Andi Simon: So as you’re looking out there, you’re seeing some trends that are both interesting or disturbing to you.

Melissa Andrieux: Some interesting trends are that a lot of the firms that have started their DEI, they’re continuing it, which I’m so happy about, even post- the Supreme Court decision. They are doubling down on their DEI initiatives, which I’m so happy to see because we cannot go backwards. We absolutely cannot go backwards. It takes the courage of these leaders to say we are going to forge forward. We’re not going to let anything stop us, because it’s also good business. Having a diverse workforce is good business.

I always say, if you want to attract more clients, you need to have your organization reflect those clients that are coming to you for help. And one of the disturbing trends is, people who are using the Supreme Court decision as an excuse to not continue their DEIB initiatives, or those that say, we’ve reached the endgame, we can stop now. Unfortunately, that is not how you look at the DEI. I wish that were the case where we no longer needed these initiatives, but unfortunately they must continue and we are not done. We are never done. So to those organizations that think that it’s okay to stop, I caution you.

Andi Simon: But, you know, it’s an interesting philosophical question because it’s a gig to them. It isn’t fundamental. It isn’t transformative. It is a way of thinking about people or business. It’s something that seemed to be cool to do, like ESG [environmental, social and governance], you know, pay a little attention to the environment.

We’re social creatures. We live in a very complex society and don’t shortchange yourself by letting others put you into some box. Take the initiative and see why it’s so important. I mean, women who lead lead companies in very good ROI, their returns are there and the people stay and they become places one wants to work. And that’s not inconsequential, is it?

Melissa Andrieux: It’s not. People gravitate to people who are like them. So I always use this as an example. I will attract a different type of client than, let’s say, a John Dorf or a Jonathan Nelson. I will attract the women. I will attract the people of color. I mean, not to say that they won’t, but we’re just going about business development and recruitment differently. That’s why you need diverse perspectives within your organization, because the clients out there are so diverse. They can pick and choose who they want to work with, who they want to give their money to, and if they’re not seeing representation at your organization or at your business, they’re going to go elsewhere. So I think it’s a really good practice to have so many different perspectives within your firm going out there representing your organization.

Andi Simon: Often when I do workshops, I remind the CEOs in the group that 13 million companies are owned by women. And there’s a tremendous amount of effort to get women, women of color or people with diverse backgrounds into the supply chain, right into businesses so they can be in the supply chain. They’re looking for gender and gender fair. Johanna Zeilstra‘s company Gender Fair is trying to establish it as a standard, not as an afterthought, and this is sort of a very important time for us not to let us go backwards. And not make it hard. I mean, I don’t think this is hard work. It’s important work.

But I am just thrilled that you’re on this podcast because I think that many people aren’t really aware of the challenge and the opportunities that are before them. Is it easy? No. Should you do it? Absolutely. And will it help you and your purpose, your meaning, your business, your happiness grow. Aha! Oh, God. Melissa, it should be easier. Tell the listener as we’re just about ready to wrap up, give them 1 or 2 things that they should focus on.

I always like Oprah’s small wins. If you’re going to get somewhere and don’t try to move the battleship a little at a time, but know where you’re going. And let’s assume that what you want to build is a really exciting organization that embraces diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging intentionally and intelligently. And that’s going to help your business grow. Now, if they’re going to start and they can see that 1 or 2 things you think should be important for them to do in a small win style.

Melissa Andrieux: So before I answer that question, Andi, you reminded me the firm, the law firm, is Gender Fair certified, and we’re actually one of the first law firms to be gender fair certified. So that’s another way that we show to the world that the partners are putting their money where their mouth is. So I wanted to put that out there before I forget. 

Andi Simon: Little push for Gender Fair, because it’s a great way for you to demonstrate that you care about the right things in the right way. So that’s one of the 2 or 3 things you want them to small win by. But learn more. And we can certainly introduce you to Gender Fair and its leadership. That’s terrific Melissa. Please, some other things.

Melissa Andrieux: So from my personal journey, I want to share with your audience that it’s never too late, as I know it’s a little cliché, but for me, I always thought that I could never leave. I thought it was too late for me to unlearn being an attorney. Unlearn being a litigator. But then when I opened up my mind and decided finally that I was ready to make the move, I said, you’re going to do it. You’re going to be great at it. And it was a long process, but I did it.

So one of my things, one of the things that I always say to myself and to the young attorneys or folks that I meet in the world, is that it’s never too late. Don’t ever be pigeonholed. Don’t let people tell you that you’re only good at one thing. And I had a lot of naysayers in my life, not to be a Debbie Downer, but a lot of people thought that I had lost it when I made the career change, and because I was so good at what I was doing. Well, just because you’re good at it doesn’t mean you should keep doing it. So never too late. Ever.

Andi Simon: You know, it’s so interesting. I met you at a book event for our new book, Women Mean Business: Over 500 Insights from Extraordinary Leaders to Spark Your Success. And I’ve been doing podcasts with a number of the women who are in the book. There are 102 women, 500 wisdoms, and they all are sharing a good deal about their own life’s journey. Now, Lorraine Hariton we did the other day and she said no, there was no straight line. I was dyslexic, and I managed to realize I was really good at math. And from there I got into computers early, and then I was in Silicon Valley, and then I went to raise money for Hillary and I said, um, no straight line, is there, no straight line, no straight line.

And in some ways, that’s the exciting part about being a smart person, I’ll say a smart woman, but a smart person, right?, where you can see the opportunities. One of the wisdoms I love there is: sure you should have a plan, but don’t get so fixed on it that you miss the opportunities that come. 

I’m a big serendipity person, so it’s just listen. And here Melissa stood up at an event and said something and I introduced her and I said, please come and speak on our podcast. And I’m just thrilled that you were here today. If people want to reach you and talk to you more, put you on a panel or help you help them, where’s the best place? We will have it on the blog, of course, but sometimes they hear you and it sticks. Where should they reach you?

Melissa Andrieux: Well, I’m at Dorf, Nelson and Zauderer. My email is mandrieux@dorflaw.com and the website is DorfLaw.com. You’ll find me there.

Andi Simon: Good. This has been a great, great conversation. Every time I do these, I learn more and more about wonderful women who are really transforming our society and themselves. You, the company you work for, the people you work with, and I’m happy too. So let me wrap up for those of you who come and send me your emails and push out all of our podcasts. Last I looked, we’re in the top 5% of global podcasts, and in some places like South Africa, we’re really high. And it’s sort of like, really? So you never know where you are.

So the message today is: take your heart and follow it a bit. You never know what’s in it for you. My books, of course, are on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and your local bookseller. Women Mean Business is a fascinating book. I’ll turn around and I will bring it over here because as you look at a book, you begin to realize, it’s my third book, and the other two were all Amazon best sellers and award winners, but each book has a different insight. And so as you open it, I mean, I love Kay Koplovitz, not by chance, I opened it by chance. They teach you something, and I often say that a book has a fingerprint, and the fingerprint gives it a uniqueness, but its power is inside. And so as the book is opened at all of our events, and if you’d like an event, please let me know. What happens is something magical.

Kay Koplovitz said at one event, think fast and act fast. And she said: if I had time to analyze all the things I had to make decisions about, I’d never make a decision. And I said to myself, you know, as an entrepreneur, I thought fast and acted fast and that’s how we learn from others. We get inspired by them. And it does spark our success with new ideas that we know aren’t so crazy. It’s fun. So thank you again for coming. It’s been a pleasure. And we’ll see you next week as we post all of our great podcasts. Enjoy the journey. Thanks, Melissa. I’ll say goodbye now.

Melissa Andrieux: Thank you, Andi, for having me.

Andi Simon: It’s a pleasure.

WOMEN MEAN BUSINESS® is a registered trademark of the National Association of Women Business Owners® (NAWBO)

Learn how to escape or even avoid crushing student debt 

I am beyond thrilled to bring to you a remarkable young women, Bri Franklin, who co-founded the non-profit The Prosp(a)rity Project to help others avoid the massive amount of debt she incurred by attending an expensive college and being ignorant of the student loan consequences. She could have let the financial burden she experienced after graduation defeat her, but she decided to defeat it. Over many years she has worked tirelessly to pay off almost all of her debt. Now her mission is to help others in the same boat. Listen in, be inspired, and please share far and wide.

Watch and listen to our conversation here

Key takeaways from our conversation:

• Young people: think very carefully about who you want your future self to be, and make sure that the you of 10 or 20 years from now thanks you and is appreciative for the actions that you take today.
• Taking out loans have the potential to either upgrade your life or set you far behind the eight ball.
• Bri: If I could do it all over again, I absolutely would have heeded the advice of being very careful before just blindly signing any paperwork.
• College used to close the gap between socioeconomic groups, but now unfortunately, because of some bad acting, it has become the opposite and is now growing the wealth gap between socioeconomic classes and race communities.
• Predatory lending is subprime lending, taking advantage of a customer for the sake of financial gain. It’s basically taking advantage of customer and consumer ignorance, which tends to adversely impact people in black and brown communities.
• Bri’s hope is to educate young people and their parents through the educational system long before they make college loan decisions.

Want to connect with Bri? You can find her on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and her website The Prosp(a)rity Project.

More stories of courageous entrepreneurs making a real difference in people’s lives:

• Hamilton Perkins—An Inspiring Entrepreneurial Success Story
• Theresa Carrington—Transforming Impoverished Artisans Into Entrepreneurs 
• Lynette Guastaferro—Transforming How Teachers Teach In Over 700 Urban Schools
• Ivy Gordon—Providing A Powerful Voice To The Sexually Abused

Additional resources for you

Read the transcript of our podcast here

Andi Simon: Welcome to On the Brink With Andi Simon. Hi I’m Andi Simon. Remember, my job is to get you off the brink. And the way I like to do that is to help you listen to people, or see them if you’re watching the video, who can help you really understand the challenges in front of us in these fast changing times, and how you can see, feel and think about them with a fresh perspective. I like that fresh lens because unless you see somebody who’s addressing a problem, you really don’t understand the words, even if you read about it or maybe watched a video. There’s something very personal about some of the challenges that we’re facing that you might be as well. And so how do you address them?

So I met Bri Franklin, and Bri came to one of our book launch events for Women Mean Business: Over 500 Insights from Extraordinary Leaders to Spark Your Success. And I must tell you that the book tour has been extraordinary as well. I’m enjoying the people we meet there. So she and I spoke afterwards. Let me give you a bit of a biography of her bio, and then she’ll tell you much more about her own journey. And I think it’s an important one that you understand.

Bri Franklin is a businesswoman, philanthropist and student debt expert and thought leader with a passion for the socioeconomic and holistic empowerment of Black girls and women. And I think you’re going to think about this for all girls and women, but particularly women of color who are dealing with things in a particular fashion. Having taken on a financial burden that eventually ballooned to nearly $120,000 in student debt through her undergraduate studies at Dartmouth College, Bri developed an acute appreciation for the challenges many student debt holders experience, including their diminished ability to establish financial independence, take advantage of personal freedoms, or launch a business venture.

There was an article I was reading today about how the student debt for the generation who’s coming into the markets today is limiting their ability to buy a car. Today, a car is so expensive, it’s often as expensive as buying someplace to live. And 52% of the young people are living at home, not necessarily because they want to, because it’s impossible to find a place they can afford even if they share it. So our economy and our society is very challenging for young people because of the student debt and the inability to get past it.

In recognizing the extent to which other Black women in particular experience adversity at the hands of the $2 trillion student debt crisis and the lack of financial literacy, particularly not knowing what it means, not knowing what to do about it, Bri formed The Prosp(a)rity Project as a solution for eradicating the systemic barriers. Her work has been profiled in outlets such as Forbes, BuzzFeed, Authority Magazine, and Thrive Global, and she’s attracted support from audiences worldwide, generating nearly $400,000 in revenue.

But I think this is a more complicated and serious opportunity for you to understand what’s happening, how it’s impacting lots and lots and lots of young people, particularly Black women, and what we need to do to teach them how to be literate, but also how to use it wisely. Even businesswomen tell me that they don’t understand the finances and they don’t go after capital. So this is a big long term opportunity for us to educate them. Thank you for joining me today.

Bri Franklin: Oh my gosh. Well, your intro was incredibly flattering. Thank you so much for making space and the opportunity for me to be a guest today.

Andi Simon: You are a beautiful and brilliant woman. I’d like you to share with the audiences your own journey because as you shared it with me, I went, oh my gosh, we have to have you on our podcast so people can appreciate that, that nothing is a straight line from here to there. And your journey is not unique. There are many others just like you, but yours is the one we’re going to focus on. Who is Bri Franklin and what has been your journey so far? You’re a young person, but it’s been a complicated one.

Bri Franklin: It certainly has. I like to say that I had a very atypical post-graduation trajectory, and it was very much a jungle gym and not a straight line or ladder. So I came out of Dartmouth. I was the first in my family not to go to college but to go Ivy League. So I grew up in the Deep South, from Atlanta, Georgia, and always performed at the top of my class, student honor roll, principal’s list. You get the idea. And everyone just always told me, you’ve got to go to the Ivy League. You know, that’s where it’s at for you and that’s where you’re going to thrive and excel.

And so I really internalized that and thought, this is the only way to really honor my academic inclinations to the best of my ability. I started with one of the schools in my top choices and I ended up getting accepted, and it was between Dartmouth and Emory University. So, again, as an Atlanta native, it was a very close call because Emory was offering quite a bit of financial aid to the tune of all but $5,000 in grants, and that would have applied across all four years. So if I had chosen there, I would have walked away with no more than $20,000 in debt. That’s if I hadn’t done work-study or anything to offset my obligation versus the $100,000 that I came out of Dartmouth with.

And the deciding factor was, I was looking at the opportunity of going to an Ivy League and being in those circles, and the 18-year-old version of myself was also very much motivated by getting away from my parents and being able to break camp and go do my own thing. Not the best decision or reason for accruing so much debt, but that is how my story goes. So I came out of Dartmouth in 2017, as I mentioned, with $100,000 in debt principal, and then it quietly ballooned to about $116,000 within two years because of both interest and ignorance, on my part, and because of that ignorance, I also aimlessly wandered into other kinds of debt, and that included credit cards, and a car that was way outside my budget.

It impacted every level of my life, socioeconomically and mental health, and put me behind the eight ball in terms of achieving the typical milestones that young twenty-somethings often have made in the past, with little to no friction. So, and having dealt with that personally, I just became incredibly empathetic to others in that situation because it showed me that this was not the result of anything that I had done as far as breaking rules. In fact, I was trying to follow the rules, but unfortunately it worked against me because of what I now discovered is called predatory and subprime lending. So that’s exactly what my work focuses on resolving at a systemic level.

Andi Simon: When you went off, I’m curious, we all have kids and grandkids who are looking at college. And were you knowledgeable about student loans when you made the decision to go to Dartmouth without the grants as opposed to Emory with the grants? And was the reputation that much more powerful, did the colleges help you at all?

Bri Franklin: I get asked this a lot because people really were stuck trying to figure out why would I take the route that I did when Emory was literally making it so much more financially feasible? And that was because at 18, I call it the Know-It-All factor. A lot of teenagers are guilty. I think that’s almost the rule of thumb is that being adolescent and teenage, you just get in your own way sometimes and you think you know everything and that you’ve got all the answers. And that was really how I functioned, because no one had explicitly taught me what all was at stake.

You know, people just said things that were very nebulous, like, that’s a lot of debt. But I also would hear things like, oh, but you’re going to Dartmouth and you’re going to get hired immediately, and you’ll be able to write your own ticket. That was everyone’s favorite phrase: guidance counselors, teachers, relatives. A lot of people were just so convinced that by virtue of attending a school of that pedigree, that was automatically going to translate into an optimized advantage in the job market and increase my earning potential.

And so I just absorbed those promises and I didn’t really think to probe beneath the surface and take a step back and consider. Based on having majored in English literature, not having done a traditional internship, I didn’t know the first thing about networking. I didn’t know how to play those Ivy League cards. So I really came out almost with no measured advantage right away.

And, you know, for all intents and purposes, I think in those initial years, I could have been off to a stronger start coming out of Emory, but it was definitely a delayed gratification thing. And at these stages of my career, in my life, the Dartmouth Circle has come back full circle, and it’s now paid off in dividends in terms of the opportunities and the rooms that it puts me in. But I had to actively work for that, it was very much something I had to go out of my way to make up for lost time on, and it cost me quite a bit in the interim.

Andi Simon: What’s so interesting is that you’re a smart woman, and yet understanding the culture that you’re going into, there was no way to imagine it. You were imparting upon it your own sense of how it was going to benefit you. Even being an English major without having an internship, you were having a great time being you, and it wasn’t necessarily a good set up for the future, even if you didn’t have the debt. You’re missing something.

We talk in business about mentors or sponsors. Well, here’s an 18 year old who needed somebody who could guide you through your labyrinth and the jigsaw that you were going to be going through so you came out wiser, not poorer. So it’s interesting, as the listener is listening or viewing, how did you get yourself past the $116,000 in debt? Were you able to figure out a way out of it? Because I have a hunch that’s part of Prosp(a)rity Project‘s foundation.

Bri Franklin: So the short answer is, I’m still working through it. Unfortunately, I have not completely cleared it. However, I have made progress. I paid off about $40,000 of those various debts. So the total number, including the car, the credit cards, at the time was about $123,609. And I say, zero common sense. So I was able to shave off about $40,000, and I rolled up my sleeves and I threw pride completely out of the window.

And in 2019, I say that was my aha! I had a moment. I’d gotten so far behind on my loans, which for my private lenders alone were about $750 a month, irrespective of income. So because I came out and I was working temp jobs and contracts, I mean, I was making $15 an hour on a good day. And so I say my income was inconsistent at best, nonexistent at worst.

And the fact that my debt was constant regardless of what I was earning, that was, of course, very challenging to overcome. And just even at a practical level, having conversations with the lenders on the phone, the representatives, trying to appeal to them, get them to cut me a break, get them to give me some extra flexibility, it didn’t always go over well.

And so it all blew up in the summer of 2019, where my credit had taken a hit by about 150 points overnight because I fell more than two months late on my loans. And that also spilled over to my co-signers, my dad and step mom at the time; both of them had signed on to those initial private loans, and that had consequences for their credit. And it put us at odds interpersonally. And those relationships were always very valuable to me growing up over the years.

So it was just a cobweb of dysfunctionality and heartache, really. And so that was helpful, though, because it was able to just reroute me and caused me to take stock of my situation and just decide, as I said at the event, it may have started with these external factors. “This situation is terrible and I am irritated by it.” But even though it didn’t start with me, it ends with me. And so that’s why I rolled up my sleeves. I got two part-time jobs. I worked retail, which as an Ivy League graduate, takes a lot of humility to suck up the courage in your hometown, of all places, where you’re running into classmates and teachers and all kinds of people who are like, wow, that’s where Dartmouth landed you.

It was very much a pride component to it. But I was so motivated to get out of debt, I really didn’t care. I was like, if people are going to judge me for this, that’s their problem. I’m getting money by ethical means, and it’s building character, which it really did. So that was the foundation. I did what Dave Ramsey calls the debt snowball, and I started with the smallest balance listed out regardless of interest. And then I began chipping away. And because it does work as a psychological boost, when you can see the numbers go away, you feel like I can do this.

And it doesn’t feel like I’m draining the ocean with a teaspoon. This money does count for something. It is making a difference. It sets you up for progressive wins. And so I continued to keep those jobs through the end of that year, and I kept Orangetheory when I moved to the Bay area in 2020. I stayed and I enjoyed the increased pay difference because of the California minimum wage being twice of Georgia’s. But I was able to stay with family friends and not have to pay rent.

So I got all the upside and none of the financial downside, and I just aggressively knocked those loans down. And then once Covid hit, then it was starting from scratch all over again. And then once I started up The Prosp(a)rity Project, that summer was when I finally felt like my purpose was walking into place and I could see myself continuing down this route. And if all went well, being able to eventually climb out of debt along with the people that we helped.

Andi Simon: You know, I’m a visual person, and your story almost looks like a movie. Hopefully one day it’s real on the one hand, but I’m listening to you share with us the agony, the catalytic moment, the moment at which you realize that I can’t keep going like this. The impact you had on your family. None of this should be missed by the listener or the viewer because this is a very smart woman who found herself in a difficult situation that she’s working out of.

It’s not like she won the lottery but it is without a whole lot of help. It’s not as if everybody’s walking around on those, either the credit card or the car, but it is. And she’s also a representative of the generation that is finding themselves very much like herself in difficulty. You know, I’m a smart person. How did this happen? And once you got past that, how this happened, did it? Then how do I do something about it? Well, I can work hard. But now you’ve got Prosp(a)rity Project. Are you working on anything else? Or is this your business that you’re going to turn into a solution?

Bri Franklin: Yes! So Prosp(a)rity Project, this was my 24/7 life commitment for the last three and a half years. So we started up in the summer of 2020, and that took us all the way through this past December. And so we’re now at an exciting point of pivot where we’re using the last three and a half years of expertise, leadership, partnerships, just all of the gains and the wins that we’ve been able to accomplish collectively and through our work and turning that into an even more forward thinking solution.

So for context, Prosp(a)rity Project‘ is a 501 C3 nonprofit. The mission is leveling the socioeconomic playing field for communities most susceptible to and impacted by predatory lending. And in our first iteration of work, that was exclusively serving debt constrained, college educated Black women. We launched what’s called the 35*2 Free initiative, which draws its name from those two guiding statistics: $35 billion of student loan debt, as well as a 35% rate of financial literacy that Black women in the US hold collectively.

And so through that program, it’s a multi-pronged approach of not just helping that group pay down student loan debt, which we did up to $10,000 per person, but also training them on finance through what we call FinTech. So it’s six months of personalized financial guidance to give them a better roadmap for how to manage and steward their money and eventually build wealth, coupled with eight weeks of career development training, where they can put that into practice and then use that to go out for higher paying jobs and pivot into more lucrative industries, etc.

And so in doing those pilot runs, we did one virtual in 2022 with 12 women, we did a hybrid in the DC, Maryland, Virginia area last year with eight program members. We now have almost two dozen basically MVP’s, that we’ve been able to coach and get to know personally and turn that into the basis for an app that does the same thing, but to another degree by helping prevent it altogether with teenagers.

So we’re calling it Cadet Prosperity. And this is taking that IP and all of the user experiences and live journeys of these women, turning it into gamified avatars that can then coach and pay that information forward to middle and high schoolers who are sitting ducks, basically, for more predatory lending and usury. So it’s very exciting to bring it full circle and be able to help at critical scale.

Andi Simon: Let me see if I can take what you said and play it back so that I fully understand it. First of all, what’s predatory lending? You know, let’s clarify the words.

Bri Franklin: So predatory lending, as I’ve been explaining it in conversations and defining it through our work portfolio, is basically subprime lending or taking advantage of a customer for the sake of financial gain. So a lot of times that looks like very cryptic and underhanded paperwork or not being completely forthright in the terms, not going to great lengths to really make sure that the user understands what it is they’re signing up for.

So it’s basically taking advantage of customer and consumer ignorance. And that typically tends to adversely impact people in black and brown communities, whose parents or grandparents also were susceptible and didn’t know how to train them and break that cycle themselves. So it’s basically exploitation in the lending industry.

Andi Simon: Um, okay. Good. So understanding that, the other side of it is the ignorance of people to what that means and how to do it. And what you have had is now a dozen approximately folks who have gone through your program, which does two things, one of which is, begins to develop their career skills and the other helps them work off their debt, which if you combine the two, should get them a pathway to, I’ll say, prosperity at least, so that they can see the end of the tunnel and celebrate where they’re actually going to arrive. And if you don’t know where you’re going, it’s difficult to get there. And now we’ve turned the nonprofit into a for-profit application for gamification, for younger borrowers. Is that what I hear?

Bri Franklin: You summed it up beautifully.

Andi Simon: Well, I heard what you said, but I also know sometimes, as the listener is paying attention to it, they don’t quite necessarily put all the parts together. And I know that you’ve gotten on the one hand a training and development program nonprofit is that going to stay around, or are you going to move everything into a for-profit mode?

Bri Franklin: In all transparency, that’s a decision that we’re going to be huddling on in a couple of weeks just to weigh the pros and cons either way. I want it to be completely certain, whichever direction we move it in, so that it wasn’t a start-stop, because there’s still a lot of merit to keeping the nonprofit intact. But at the same time, in just taking stock of the current fundraising climate, I think, user listeners and audience members who are also in the philanthropic space, we can all collectively agree that 2023 was not a great year. And especially in our case, being a social justice-founded organization that was unapologetically Black, serving for so long, it was a moment in time and certainly not a forever movement. 

And so we’ve seen a lot of appetites go back to pre-George Floyd pre-COVID business as usual. There’s a diminished sense of urgency around closing the gap for the black and brown community. So, my inclination is that we will at least just focus our efforts on the for-profit, even if we don’t legally retire the nonprofit, just perhaps having it on freeze for the time being until we can reintroduce these initiatives, perhaps through a foundation at some point down the line, once the for-profit is revenue-generating and off the ground.

Andi Simon: This is very important to hear, because your business challenge isn’t like other business challenges. The not-for-profit side needs funding through different sources than a for-profit side does. Right. And the application is now up and ready to go. And in schools themselves, if I remember you were telling me, not yet.

Bri Franklin: The FinTech app, we are in the very early stages, looking to raise pre-seed funding and just building out our initial team. And we do have a target go to market by next January when we would be ready to roll it out, ideally as a first version into schools. But, we definitely got our work cut out for us before then.

Andi Simon: I think you’ve opened up a very different opportunity where individuals, schools, training centers…my head’s already thinking about folks who I need to introduce you to, who you get into the high school training milieu and are really concerned about developing those young folks with the right skills and tools to do it. It’s very interesting and just curious, strategically, are you thinking of this being something bought by schools or by individuals or by parents? I mean, who’s the market?

Bri Franklin: So my co-founder and I, we just ironed this out over the last 48 hours. So we’re looking at B2B to see, the sell would potentially be to perhaps like a large banking institution, perhaps a tech developer itself like Apple and have it pre-installed on devices that are going to schools from the distribution standpoint and honoring the fact that a lot of school budgets tend to be very shoestring and don’t have a ton of money set aside for major app rollouts. It’s subsidized largely from school partnerships. We’re thinking that it would be one of those two routes as we see it right now.

Andi Simon: That’s exciting, because if you get the endorsement of a distribution channel like an Apple or something, or even the banks who could really see this as part of their community development initiatives, you get legitimacy and co-branding on it. And that takes it from a startup to something that could have great legs and go further. When you have tested it, have you tested it? I mean, I’m sort of trying to remember what we talked about, but have you tested it among youngsters and do they find it a wonderful game?

Bri Franklin: So the game itself is still being developed behind the scenes. However, we have been in touch with their would-be gamers’ parents, so we do have some focus groups that we’ve built out with mothers, fathers, of middle and high schoolers. And again, going back to drawing from my own experience, that know it all factor, we’re trying to get the best of both worlds, where we are that conduit for mom and dad, because we realize that a lot of this information is as simple as table talk, dinner table conversation. But there’s the lalala, I can’t hear you because you raised me sort of thing going on.

And so we’re trying to solve for that, but also not have it backfire to where it interferes with screentime parameters and household rules, parents keeping kids off of devices past certain hours or things like that. Certainly not letting it slide into an addictive user experience or anything. So we are trying to have those conversations now. So that informs the build out and saves us having to go back and rewrite or take out things once we’ve already done the heavy lifting.

Andi Simon: It’s so interesting because everything has its challenges. We have a society where the youngsters are quite not savvy on how to use applications like these. Can we use them to really educate them so that they can be wiser and make better decisions as they’re approaching their adulthood? At the same time, that it could interfere with their focus on other studies and other pieces.

Bri, this is so profound because the problem isn’t a little one. It’s a big one. I’m glad you’re sharing it with us because I’m not sure how I would learn more about it. It’s sort of like, where does this fit into the whole context of what’s going on out there? You can hear about, a president wanting to eliminate student debt and then people objecting to it, and it just breaks your heart. To some degree, it is a reflection of our society.

Bri Franklin: It is. And that’s where we also see the opportunities because it’s a knowledge gap on so many levels. And I’ve done personal crusading, you know, through going in and speaking to companies and trying to build the empathy because so many people put blinders on because they remember how it used to function when they were in college, which is how it was supposed to work. Higher education used to be a gap-closing convention. That was how people were achieving upward mobility in the 40s when the GI Bill was first introduced, that paved the way for the current student debt crisis. It looked nothing like it does now.

Student loans were capped at 1,000 USD per year, and it was directly tied to a boost and a measurable advantage in the job market post-graduation that you then use to repay the loans in full, get your mortgage, marry, start a family, and live your most prosperous life. And then, around in the 70s, people started to catch on just how lucrative it really was and how much demand there was. That’s when it privatized and opened the floodgates for the hell that we know today.

And, you know, the Student Loan Marketing Association became what we know as Sallie Mae. And then there was the lobbying in 2004 that prevented people from being able to discharge their loans through bankruptcy. So there’s just been so many factors that are greed and profit driven, as opposed to opportunity and people driven. And so that’s where we’re coming in to reset the clock and the board and just say, time out, things like this cannot go on.

My motto was that every bubble bursts, just like the housing bubble burst. And so many others. We’ve seen an economic collapse before. I don’t think this will be any different. And so that’s why we are positioning this as something that is not only innovative, but critically necessary. I’ve gone so far as to compare it to a vaccine against the virus of predatory lending, or the equivalent of equipping teenagers with a driver’s license so that they can legally operate a car.

We’re saying debt doesn’t have to be the enemy. It’s the ignorance that creates the problem and has potential to turn it from a tool to a trap. So we’re solving for a lot, and it’s educational at every turn, which is why we want parents to be on board with us and to not look at this as a tool to create controversy or to challenge their beliefs in a way that undermines their parenting, but rather to bring them up to speed and help them understand what’s at stake for their child.

Andi Simon: You are a very articulate young woman. Thank you. I loved listening to what you just said because you really understand the complexity of this. There’s no simple answer. And you have a passion and a purpose. You understand it and you want to stop it. And I am just honored that you are on our podcast today to share it. Thank you for joining us. It’s just so much fun. I think we’re about ready to wrap up.

A couple of things you want our listeners to remember or our viewers to hear you say: one, two or three things that are really important for youngsters to know and parents to be aware of, and the universities that won’t pay attention to right now.

Bri Franklin: Yes, because I do have advice for all three groups, but I’ll stick to those first two. So for young people, if you’re listening, if you hear this in Mom and Dad’s car ride or come into it on your own, I would say think so carefully about who you want your future self to be, and you want to make sure that the you of 10 or 20 years from now thanks you and is appreciative for the actions that you take today. Because things as serious as taking out loans have potential to really either upgrade your life or set you far behind the eight ball, and take it from someone who has spent all of her 20s trying to catch up and get back on track to achieve the things that used to be so typical for my age group.

If I could do it all over again, I absolutely would have heeded the advice of being very careful before just blindly signing any paperwork. For parents on the other side of that coin, I know that there’s a tendency to just say college or bust and to insist that our children, our nieces, our nephews are keeping the family legacy alive by going to our alma maters or just going to college. It’s become more of a tradition.

But we’ve got to remember the why again. College used to be unanimously gap closing, and now, unfortunately, because of some bad acting, it’s become the opposite and is growing the wealth gap between socioeconomic classes and race communities and everything. And so we want to just make sure we’re setting our kids up for success no matter what that educational means looks like.

Andi Simon: All right, now I’ll let you talk to those colleges. So the warning for them is…?

Bri Franklin: Do better. I think that there certainly is a place for academia, and I have great respect for what’s come out of colleges: vaccines, academic research, forward-thinking initiatives. And I remember the upsides of my own college experience, but it’s just unacceptable to keep driving tuition rates up with no correlation to how that’s going to better the student’s job experience post-graduation. So I would say that the short of it is that we have to remember that it’s about serving people and not gaining profit.

Andi Simon: Yes, I agree. What a wonderful podcast to share with our audiences today. I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed meeting Bri Franklin, and I think you should take a look at the Prosp(a)rity Project and see how you, too, can be of help to her and to those who are trying. Now, they’re just the two of you, or is it a bigger organization than that?

Bri Franklin: So on the 24/7 main buildout it is myself and my co-founder, but we are basically migrating our existing task force from Prosperity Project over to Cadet Prosperity. We’ve begun to start getting feelers out there for advisors and potential board members. So we’re growing quickly. But in terms of the day to day diligence, it is myself and Kaylee for right now.

Andi Simon: You’re great. Great. Well, I’m honored to have you here today. It’s been a pleasure. Let me say goodbye to our audience. Thank you for coming. Remember our newest book, Women Mean Business: Over 500 Insights from Extraordinary Leaders to Spark Your Success has just become a really cool book. And I can only tell you that I’ve written three but this one touches my heart because as I open it, people in the audience say, ah. I actually had a client who yellow marked it all and when I met with her, she went, oh, you’ve changed my life. It’s available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble in your local booksellers.

I can only tell you that I met Bri through a book tour event at Eileen Rosenthal’s in Washington, DC, and every time I do one, I meet some others who say, oh, this is a great book. It’s the wisdom of 102 women, and they can’t wait to share with you what they’ve learned and how you can succeed as well. Thanks for joining me today.

Bri Franklin: Thank you again for having me. The conversation just went by in a flash, and I look forward to this being the first of many dialogues that we have.

Andi Simon: I’m looking forward to it as well. I’m going to stop and say goodbye to all of you who come. You remember you’ve taken us to the top 5% of global podcasts. I’m honored. Thank you so much. Keep sharing and sharing Bri’s so that her message can get out there to parents, kids and everyone else. Bye bye now.

WOMEN MEAN BUSINESS® is a registered trademark of the National Association of Women Business Owners® (NAWBO)

Hear this incredible story of steadfast bravery and human kindness

I am truly honored to bring to you today a very special guest, Panos Manias. A self-made entrepreneur who started his own industrial company in aluminium packaging materials, Panos is an inspirational and visionary businessman. But what we focus on in our interview is his personal story of how kindness and moral obligation saved lives during The Holocaust, and possibly can change the world today. You will feel uplifted and deeply moved, I know I was.

Watch and listen to our conversation here

More stories of courage and human kindness:

• Blog: You Can Find Joy And Happiness In Turbulent Times!
• Podcast: Rebecca Morrison—Women, Are You Ready To Find Your Happiness? Is It All Around You?
• Podcast: Patrik Birkhane—Helping Us Live Healthier, Happier And More Peaceful Lives

Additional resources for you

Read the transcript of our podcast here

Andi Simon: Welcome to On the Brink With Andi Simon. I’m Andi Simon, and as you know, I’m your host and your guide. And my job is to help you get off the brink, to understand things and see them through a fresh lens. I’m a corporate anthropologist, and I’d love to share with you information from different cultures and times that will help you put into perspective your own situation today, and how to make sense out of it and understand it better.

So I’m really honored today to have Mr. Panos Manias with me. Panos is in Greece. He’s in Athens. He was introduced to me by a wonderful woman here in New York who wanted me to share his story. Now, Panos’s story is set back in the period when the Germans came into Thessalonica and really took over the city. And so I’d like him to begin to understand how to share that with you so that it is held in posterity so we don’t lose the story, and that the wonderful actions that he and his family took then are preserved.

So let me tell you about Panos. Panos Manias was born in 1934. He was one of five children. He’s married now and has two wonderful children and four grandchildren. He holds a bachelor’s degree in business, economics and international commerce from the Athens University of Economics and Business. He’s a self-made entrepreneur who started his own industrial company in aluminum packaging material in 1965. It’s now managed by his two children.

Panos, in his professional career, has spanned more than a half a century, and he’s proved to be an inspirational and visionary entrepreneur. His personal and business integrity, together with his determination on focusing on personal relationships, has been passed to the next generation of aluminum and continue to be the key drivers of the company’s success. Now, Panos is an amazing man, and I know he wants to tell you about the situations when the Germans came into Thessalonica, but what I’d like him to do is begin with his own journey. Tell us about yourself. How did you develop as an entrepreneur? Panos, give us some context to understand your own personal journey here. Can you do that, sir, please?

Panos Manias: Yeah. All right. Well, after finishing the American Veterans College, which is an American school and one of the best in the country in Greece, in Athens. I started working for a big company specializing in aluminum. And slowly they appreciated the job I was doing. And they offered me to go into a joint venture with this big company, whom I will never forget, because they really gave me a very good chance in my life. So I started working for them and they appreciated what I was doing, and they offered me to go into a joint venture in aluminum products.

And slowly but surely, it was expanding and expanding and expanding. And to make a long story short, after so many years, we are proud to say that we are a company which is 100% export oriented. We export everything all over the world and, thank God, both of my children, when they finished their studies in Greece and the United States, were both Brown University alumni. When they came back, I told them very openly and very clearly, now you are here, what do you want to do? It’s up to you. You decide, and I will respect your decision.

So they both said they want to continue working for me, I mean, for the company. And they said something which I will never forget. Listen, it’s your decision. You are never going to tell me you are not happy. If you are not happy, tell me now. They both agreed. They followed my steps and I must say that they did much, much better than I did. And I’m very proud of it.

The story we’re talking about starts in and stays where we were living. Before the war, we had the building, we had the big three stories building on our own, and we were living there. And the time was during the German occupation. It was a very difficult life, was very, very difficult, because people were asking questions and this and that and my aunt and my uncle who were living in the cellar, they were partners with my father, who was in Athens. They had both a joint venture in the food industry.

So one day he calls my father and he says in Salonika, there is a very good friend of the family, a Jewish family called Caruso. They were both living next to each other in a street in Salonika and were excellent friends together. They were not friends. They were brothers, although one was Jewish, neither was Christian. Every day they were going to meet together to discuss their problems, this and that. Before the war, everything was okay. And then when the German occupation started, everybody froze because they didn’t know what would happen. And unluckily the Germans were trying to find out if there were Jewish people in every neighborhood.

So one day they go to my father’s, to my uncle’s house, and they say that they would like to take it, not rent it. They wanted to have an officer living there, a German officer. They were frozen. So this is okay. And they didn’t know what to do. So they decided to take the Jewish family in their own home, hide them in an attic, but nobody would see them in the morning. And that’s okay. You can now have the home, the home which they knew was Jewish, but they left there. They’re not here. I don’t know where they are because they disappeared. And the Germans were living next to them. And it was very difficult. Very difficult thing to do.

And my uncle wanted to take them out of Salonika again, because in Salonika it was terrible. The Germans were killing Jews by the thousands. It was a genocide. It was incredible. I have to say something. My uncle, my parents and my father, they were very good businessmen, but they were not, as today, educated and things like that. But they had a good straight mind. So he called my father from Thessaloniki, and he said to him, Listen, there is a family here, that we are brothers with them, father and mother and four siblings.

So they said they made the plan. First of all, my uncle had very good connections with them. Then probably what they laughed at is the guerrillas who were fighting against the Germans, they issued for them fraud identity cards with the name Angelides. For Angelides, that was the name. And then he said he discussed it with the father and the family left and went to a fishing village very close to this island to hide themselves, waiting for a boat to take them to Athens. The boat was not arriving and not arriving, and the mayor of this small fishing town started asking questions. Who are they? What are they doing? Why are they here?

Somebody told them that he was going to call the Germans, that there is a Jewish family living on this island. They were frozen to death. And then they left because the Germans said, if you don’t give them up to us, we’re going to burn the whole island. They were doing it. Burn the whole island. I’m sorry, village. So the mayor told them, Listen, the whole village is in your hands. So the fact that they said, no, forget it. We are leaving right away. And they left and went back to Thessaloniki. They decided to return to Athens for sure.

Then you know, at that time there were no trains, there were just big old buses that were going from Salonika to Athens, which would take ten hours. And he decided after having the fake identity cards to put them on a bus and take them to Athens, where my father was living, my family, so that they would hide in Athens and nobody would know anything about it. My uncle insisted that he send them to go all together. Listen, he said it is a massacre. They killed Jews by the thousands. You must all go together. No, Mr. Carlson said, No, Mr. Manius. No. I’m going to stay here with my wife and the two children.

And he sent the other two with a bus. He didn’t take no for the reply. So my uncle said, okay, you want to do that? Do that. So with the fake IDs, they went to the bus station. They stayed in the third row and the fifth row, but far apart from each other, so that they wouldn’t know that their brother and sister and they were going in Larissa, which is half way from Athens to Thessaloniki, the bus stop for the rest. And the driver, who was not a good man, understood that something was wrong with these children. I don’t know how. He went and looked at them and said nothing, and he was going down to report it to the Germans.

All of a sudden, and this is something which is unbelievable, one sturdy man, very big, with not a knife but with a stick, stood up and went to the driver and told him something in his ear. And the driver froze to death. And he didn’t report to the Germans. He was going to tell the Germans they were Jewish and he would get money for it. So this was a big obstacle. Thank God they continued to Athens, where my family was living, and they were accepted by my family. And they stayed in our house. But, people there started talking. Who are they? What are they doing here and all that?

And my father thought of something very smart. In order to have them do something, he said, Listen, I will give you money. You will buy olive oil, which was during the German occupation, it was more than gold. I will give you bottles of oil. You will stay and you will sell them for peanuts and get some money. Not only this, they will say he’s a Greek doing some business to make some pocket money. And every day there was a Greek officer of the police passing by, and the guy in the garage gave him one bottle of oil free every day. Every day, every day, every day.

After maybe one month, the other policeman got a little bit suspicious. And what is this? So they go and ask him, who are you? What’s your name? His name was Angelita. They didn’t believe him. Where are you coming from? Listen, I’ll take you to the Gestapo and they will take care of you. He took them. He took the boy. And he was going to the Gestapo. And then he asked a policeman to take them to the Gestapo. And I don’t know how this happened. The policeman was the same who was getting the oil for free. So he gave back the little boy and he let him free. And the boy asked him, what are you going to say? I said, I slipped and you ran away. So he was saved.

He went back to our house where they were living. And then after that, I guess after that they started discussing who these are? Who is that? And my father went a little bit far away and rented a small apartment for them, and they were safe there because nobody knew them. And then they gave them the food and clothes and everything. And then the lady who owned the apartment started getting a little bit curious. Who are they?

By that time, the German occupation was finished. The Germans left the country and they were freed.They came back home and they said, we want to go now to the Serengeti to find our parents because the parents were there. So they went to Salonika again and my uncle told them they had to tell them where their parents were. The parents with three other children were caught by the Germans, and they were put on the last train from Thessaloniki. 

Some years ago, we had a wonderful, very emotional meeting with the descendants of the Carrasco family in their house. That was maybe ten years ago. Maybe 15 years ago. They invited the whole Carrasco family and the whole Martinez family for dinner at their home, and we were about 35, 40 people. And I will never forget something that the old lady said. She said, of course she raised her glass to say hello to everybody and say, listen, Everybody listen. If there were not the Manias family, nobody would be here. Nobody. Both the Manias and the Carrasco, they would all be dead. This I will never forget.

So you know, we tell you all that because I think I have a moral obligation. I think because I’m an old man now. I am 90 years old. And I think I have an obligation to the coming generations to hear this story, to have the same feelings. No matter if he’s Jewish or Armenian or Hebrew, I don’t care. Human beings. Human beings must behave like human beings. And I hope this is going to be a good heritage to the coming generations. That’s why we tell you this story.

Andi Simon: The reason this is so beautiful is because at times you worry that humans have forgotten how to be human, and the Manias and Carrasco families are a tribute to what the good in us can do, isn’t it? If we can be kind, we can care, we can love each other, and we can help each other thrive. And it’s a beautiful story. And Panos, your tribute to your family and to theirs and to everyone is absolutely exquisite. It’s beautiful. Your English is very good too, sir.

Panos Manias: Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

Andi Simon: Would you like to say anything at the end here to your sons and daughters and their grandchildren and anything special you would like to end with? Because you’ve told a beautiful story. But I have a hunch in your heart you just want to hug everybody.

Panos Manias: You mean to say something too.

Andi Simon: Did you want to say something in the ending to your story. 

Panos Manias: Yes, yes. I just want to repeat that as human beings, we have the moral obligation to behave like human beings. And look at the people who are around us not according to the religion or the city, I don’t care what they are. They are human beings. And we must behave like human beings. We must have the moral that God, Almighty God, whether it’s God or I don’t know what the name Almighty gave it to us and we have to respect what we get.

And I believe very strongly that really in life you get what you give. You give love, you get love, you give hate, you get hate. So simple. But simple things are difficult to understand sometimes. So I’m very proud that I leave this heritage to my family, and I hope they will have the same mentality to behave like human beings. Human beings. 

Andi Simon: This is a beautiful story. I’m honored that you gave us the opportunity to share it. I’ve been to Greece several times, and I did my research in Greece, and I was in love with Greek people because they embraced the work I was doing to better understand how people embrace change. And this is just a wonderful compliment.

So I’m going to pause for a moment and say goodbye to my audience, and then I will come off the tape and we can talk for a moment further. So bear with me for a second, because I want to thank everyone who listened today or watched. And I know Panos is going to be sharing this. So for those of you who are not familiar with our podcast, what we try to do is help you see things through a fresh lens. I will tell you that we live the story that’s in our mind. So think about Panos’s story and his desire to tell it. It’s one thing to have it, it’s another thing to want to share it. And by sharing it, hoping to spread his own big heart with others.

You’re smiling at me, Panos, because this is a gift that you’re giving to others, and there’s nothing better for their well-being and your own than to share this gift. So I want to thank you all for coming today. If you’re watching or listening, and remember that our job is to help you get off the brink and soar. So thank you again. And thank you, Panos and your family for joining us

Panos Manias: And do me a favor when you come to Athens, you are going to visit us.

Andi Simon: Oh, absolutely. Let’s do it quickly. Is it sunny there? Because I need some sun.

Panos Manias: Oh, it’s beautiful today.

Andi Simon: I know, hold on while I say goodbye to everybody.

P.S. You can read a more in-depth version of Panos’s story here.

WOMEN MEAN BUSINESS® is a registered trademark of the National Association of Women Business Owners® (NAWBO)

Hear how to open yourself up to a world of infinite possibilities

As you know, I like a fresh lens. That’s what we do as anthropologists. We go out and help you see what’s all around you, and sometimes you can’t see what’s right here. Today, I have a wonderful woman, Roberta Fernandez, who’s going to help you do the same thing. Together, we’re going to help you realize that change is painful in some ways, but an opportunity for you to transform who you are in a great way. A personal and professional development consultant, Roberta takes your full self and helps you look at it a little bit differently. I love the word development. It isn’t a coach. It’s how do I help you grow? And how do we take a challenge and address it? Listen in to find out.

Watch and listen to our conversation here

Key takeaways from our conversation:

• You cannot change a culture until the people in it change.
• Emotion drives all behavior.
• We all at some point in our lives should “clean out our closet” — get rid of those limiting beliefs and the stuff that really isn’t a part of you, and open the door for that higher self.
• If we’re only focused on the problem, that’s all we’re going to be able to see. We have to focus on the solution, what we want.
• The story we tell is the life that we create for ourselves. And it’s the life that we get stuck in. We stand in our own way, and what we want to do is to be able to open ourselves to this world of infinite possibilities.
• Most of our thinking is habitual, just automated. When we become aware of how we think and what we feel as an individual, then we can recognize those things in other people.
• The reason why we want anything is because we think we’re going to feel better when we can have it. So even though we don’t know the answer to something, we know how we want to feel when we’ve accomplished it.
• If you look at any great artist or scientist or inventor or highly successful person in general, they’re going to tell you that changing how they think, how they process, and how they see things differently than anybody else is what has contributed the most to their success.

You can connect with Roberta on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and her three websites: Roberta Fernandez/AHARA, Conscious Napping and Conscious Napping For Business. You can also email her at roberta@consciousnapping.com.

Want more on how to actually bring about real change? Here’s a start:

• Blog: Okay, Okay, I’m Ready To Change. How Do I Do It?
• Blog: Three Ways Corporate Anthropology Can Help Your Company Change
• Podcast: Valerio Pascotto and Amit Raikar—Yes Change Is Painful But It’s Necessary!

Additional resources for you

Read the transcript of our podcast here

Andi Simon: Welcome to On the Brink With Andi Simon. I’m Andi Simon, I’m your host and your guide. And if you come to my podcast, like so many of you do, you know my job is to help you see, feel and think in new ways. And remember, I tell you that because until you see something, it doesn’t exist. And if you don’t feel it, you don’t know how to respond to it. And so my job is to bring you people who, through their stories, will help you think about yourself through a fresh perspective.

It’s not exactly the right metaphor, but I like a fresh lens. And that’s what we do as anthropologists. We go out and help you see what’s all around you, and sometimes you can’t see what’s right here. But today, I have a wonderful woman, and she’s going to help you do the same thing. So together, we’re going to lift you up and help you realize that change is painful in some ways, but an opportunity for you to transform who you are in a great way. She’s smiling.

We are very aligned and it’s so exciting to meet Roberta Fernandez. I’m going to read her bio a bit as a personal and professional development consultant. It’s interesting, when I launched my business, it was as an anthropologist that helps companies and the people inside them change. Not that different, but to be a personal and professional development consultant takes your full self and helps you look at it a little bit differently. She offers programs for individuals and organizations that develop emotional intelligence, EQ, and guides them through a change process to awaken their full potential and realize their higher abilities.

She’s perfected individual personal development, and that’s different from coaching. And I love the word development. It isn’t a coach. It’s how do I help you grow? And how do we take a challenge and begin to address it? And wellness. And I love self-care and well-being, executive managerial and team corporate training programs, particularly in the area of sustainability, culture change and emotional intelligence. She’ll get you more familiar with the sustainability part of her career, but there’s a whole package here that comes together with Roberta that you’re going to enjoy.

She’s conducted thousands of individual client sessions, more than 85 noteworthy presentations and trainings over the past 15 years. She’s going to talk to you about her new program called AHARA. I’m going to let her tell you about it in just a little bit. It’s a sacred term that refers to the support of consciousness, eliminating everything which is not the intrinsic or higher nature of yourself. It’s interesting, I was supposed to do a podcast with somebody earlier who was going to talk about something similar in her own discovery. When we got together, she wasn’t quite ready to talk about it, but in some ways, we must be facing an interesting moment where we are looking for our higher nature and the world is a very fragile place. And she’ll also talk about cleaning your own closet and conscious napping. She’s very clever lady. Roberta, thank you for joining me today.

Roberta Fernandez: Thanks for having me, Andi. I’m really excited to be here. And I’m excited too, because I think we are such a good fit for each other with how we think.

Andi Simon: I think it is, and it’s always interesting how we came to think the way we think.

Roberta Fernandez: Right it is. It’s been a journey. It is.

Andi Simon: So let’s talk about your journey. This didn’t all just drop into the bucket right here. You’ve had a wonderful life professionally and personally. Share it with us. And that’ll set the stage for what the programs are that you’re offering today. Please. Who is Roberta?

Roberta Fernandez: Well, I think I am a culmination of many, many years, getting into that last third of my life now, which is a pretty exciting time. I’ve been a serial entrepreneur since my 20s. I’ve done a lot of different things, but I think the thing that really changed my life, I had founded a Montessori school for 3- to 12-year-olds. So talk about anthropology. Montessori. She was an anthropologist, too, as well as a doctor way ahead of her time.

I didn’t know what I was going to do with my life. And I was sitting in a theater one day and I saw this movie, An Inconvenient Truth, and it just rocked my world, I have to tell you. And so I went home on the website and buried deep with this link, “Apply to be a presenter.” And I thought, okay, I can talk, I know how to talk, right? So I did. I forgot all about it. Probably 5 or 6 weeks later I get a call, it’s Al Gore’s office, and he invited me to be one of the first 50 people that they were going to train to give this climate talk.

Andi Simon: It was, see, I believe in serendipity. Absolutely.

Roberta Fernandez: And I was looking for my next stage and I had no idea what it was going to be. And so I went to Nashville. Long story. Mr. Gore trained a thousand people to give that climate talk over probably a six month period. And it was a wonderful grassroots, nonpartisan movement. I learned a lot from it. It opened my world, my look at my world, to a whole new area of sustainability, which was at that time not a very common term.

And I ended up working with a company out of Sweden on sustainability, and became a consultant in that field. But what I learned really quickly is there was such resistance to that term, and you can’t imagine why. Oh my gosh, you cannot change a culture until the people in it change. I mean, you can fire them, you can get rid of them, which sometimes is the right thing to do. But really you can’t delegate the way people think. You can’t do that top-down.

So I did that for quite a few years, and I did a lot of corporate training for really big companies and universities and even cities. And then I found hypnosis, which really is a whole different way to take my career. But in actuality, it’s the same thing. It’s just a different tool. With hypnosis, we’re looking at changing people’s perspectives with the way they think and the way they behave, because emotion drives all behavior. And so the last 12 years of my life, I’ve been working with individuals, helping them to change.

And a few years ago during Covid, Covid changed everything for everybody in some way, I decided I’m in the last third of my life. What’s my legacy really going to be? And I decided to take the last 20 years of my experience and roll them into a process that I call AHARA. So there’s several things that I do: cleaning out your closet is really getting rid of those limiting beliefs and kind of getting rid of the stuff that really isn’t a part of you, and opening the door for that higher self.

And then we start the Aha process, which is a year-long program where people learn to change how they think. I was really inspired by Einstein’s quote: “I look at the world and all the problems that we have that seem insurmountable and we’re not making very good progress with changing some of them.” And he said, “the problems that we have can’t be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.”

And as a hypnotist, I know that what we focus on expands. And if we’re only focused on the problem, that’s all we’re going to be able to see. We have to focus on the solution, what we want. So if we look at that, that is the basis of an aha, and that is exactly what you described: changing how people think, how they feel and then how they behave in the world.

Andi Simon: You know, Roberta, I’m an anthropologist. I’m a reader in neurosciences and the cognitive sciences. And, you know, we’re remarkable critters. We’re meaning-makers. I love the work that begins to show us that we have a story in our mind. And where it comes from is complicated. I’ve actually done hypnosis, so I’m sort of fascinated with our talk today. But once you have that story in your mind, it becomes your reality.

Roberta Fernandez: It does.

Andi Simon: And I tell folks, it really is an illusion. There is no reality. The only truth is there’s no truth. That’s right. And once you have it, though, you look for other people who are part of your tribe, the place you belong with your story that fits their story, and you all reinforce each other’s common reality. There’s nothing but one story.

And so when I get into a corporation or community group that’s stuck or stalled and you try to pull them away from that story, the first thing they say is, oh, no, we don’t do that. And I laugh and I said, well, that’s the problem because you don’t see it. You don’t see what’s right in front of you. And so you’re onto something for our conversation today that’s extremely important, a little different perspective. But this mind is really powerful at creating something that may or may not be good anymore.

So as if you’re thinking about the next phase in your own career, I want to hear more about what you’re creating and how you’re applying it, and why it’s working.

Roberta Fernandez: Yeah. Thank you for that. And you’re absolutely right. The story we tell is, it is the life that we create for ourselves. And it’s the life that we get stuck in. And the problem is, that’s just me and you. When you’re in an organization, you’re in a sea of those different perspectives and learning how to navigate all of those perspectives without losing your own identity, without losing your own opinion. And yet respecting and honoring those other perspectives allows us to do something amazing. And that is to create a new story and create a new reality.

I think when we look at how stuck people get in their own way of thinking, we stand in our way, and what we want to do is to be able to open ourselves to this world of infinite possibilities. And when we really look at how our mind works and how we function in a traditional environment, we’re only really looking at about 25% of what our opportunities are.

And so AHARA, at its core, is really teaching people to become aware of their own thinking because, as you know, most of our thinking is habitual. It  is just totally not responsive, it’s just automated. And so when we become aware of how we think and what we feel as an individual, then you can recognize those things in other people. And the Aha process is designed to teach you how to navigate that sea of perspectives.

Andi Simon: Well, you said something very powerful there. The thinking is habitual and what AHARA allows you to do is, I’m not going to say break the habit, but maybe it’s part of that. Habits are very powerful and very important. I mean, they make you very efficient. And the problem with breaking them is the brain doesn’t really want to work hard on learning something new, even when you’re getting educated. 

You can feel your brain working really hard, trying to figure out what they are saying and how they are telling me to do this. And until you actually do it, it really doesn’t exist. And then all of a sudden, you practice and you practice, and you get it. It’s a little like learning golf. I was thinking of which metaphor I could use. I’m a 12-year golfer, and I remember having a club and a ball and a book, and I don’t know why someone gave me a book to learn to play golf. It was irrelevant because I could read about it. But until I hit the ball, I went, oh, is that what they meant? And then I hit it twice. That was bad because now I could play this game. I can’t play the game. It takes a long time to finally get it so that it works.

So this is important now when you’re helping people through the process. There are multiple levels at which you’re working. You want to talk about the differences between the elite and the club and all of this because I think it’s important for people to hear that.

Roberta Fernandez: Yeah. Thank you. So really, it is one-on-one. So that is a very intensive way to look and learn the AHARA tenets. When I started three years ago, that’s the only way I offered it. I would work with a client over six months and we’d meet twice a week. So it was pretty intense. There’s some advantage to working one on one in that. It’s like immersion and that’s always a good thing. And you’re focused and you’re really into it. So you become acclimated to it pretty quickly, that’s not reasonable for a lot of people. And it’s also very expensive to do that.

So AHARA Club and AHARA Team are the same program. It’s just in the delivery that’s different. So both programs last a year. We have a couple of group sessions a month, a one-on-one session a month, and a whole slew of other things that go into the program. Team is just within one company. And the advantage there, and this is what I found in my sustainability work, especially the larger companies, they’re so siloed.

I remember in Target, for example, they had two sustainability divisions. One was architectural and one was in-store and processes. They never talked to each other. And so this idea of having a common language and a common approach and common goals that you set with each other. So a team is just within a company, it might be the leadership team, it might be the advertising team, the sales team, but they’re focused on their company’s issues.

AHARA Club involves people from lots of different backgrounds. So entrepreneurs, leaders, individuals who want to better themselves. And I love that too because you get such a different perspective on how people are applying what they’re actually learning. The key to AHARA, I believe, is that everything that we talk about, all these things you and I are talking about, are some of the basic tenets of AHARA. But it’s one thing to know them, it’s another thing to integrate them as a permanent part of your being, of how you function in life.

And so over the course of the year, as the members of the cohorts participate, they have activities that take these tenants and encourage them to use them in real life scenarios. So it really is an integration process. It’s not like a coaching program where I’m holding people accountable and coaching them. It really is about changing the way you think, the way you problem solve and and the way you live your life. And that starts individually. So there’s a big focus on the self. But once that awareness of how you’re thinking of how you’re interacting with the world, then how do we incorporate that on a personal and professional level? And that’s what it is.

Andi Simon: Possible to share an illustrative case with the listener or the viewer to concretize what you’re saying because I’m trying to imagine what you’re saying, and I am not getting a good imagination on it, and I don’t want it to be external from us. This is something that goes inside us and is extremely transformative, if I hear you correctly. Can you give an example?

Roberta Fernandez: Yes. So an example would be one of the women that went through AHARA, she was very successful in what she did, but she was bored to tears and she was thinking she needed to change careers, but had no idea what that was. And even though she was very successful in what she did, we found in working together that imposter syndrome was a big part of her life, and even thinking about doing something totally different was just beyond her capability because of a lack of confidence.

So first we had to work on those issues. We had to clean out the closet, so to speak, of those limiting beliefs and really look at what was driving those things to begin with so that she could better understand who she was. And once we accomplished that, then it became looking at the specific tenets of AHARA. For example, you mentioned how reality, how your thoughts create your reality, how that reality shapes your life because there is no reality, there’s a map, but we all use that map in different ways. We all experience that territory differently.

And so looking at where her focus was was really challenging for her because she didn’t know what she wanted to do. So we started with having her vision, the solution. And when I talk about problem solving from the solution, what I really mean is the first thing, because she didn’t know what the solution was. She didn’t know what she wanted, but she knew one thing, and that was how she wanted to feel when she was there.

Andi Simon: Love it, love it, love it.

Roberta Fernandez: Because here’s the thing: the reason why we want anything is because we think we’re going to feel better when we can have it. So even though we don’t know the answer to something, we know how we want to feel when we’ve accomplished it. So we started visioning, doing some visioning work with her on how she wanted to feel. And it was really interesting to see how that vision started to work its way backwards. And bottom line, what she found was she didn’t want to do anything different. She wanted to do what she was doing differently. It’s a huge idea and it made all the difference in the world.

And it’s so interesting because she’s a mortgage broker and that industry has taken a beating lately, and a lot of mortgage brokers don’t exist anymore. When I look at her website, when I look at her posts on Facebook and Instagram and social media, I see AHARA all over it and she’s still actually attracting people that think like she does because her whole thing was in her company, she built a company, but she had not built a family, and that was super important for her. When she first started implementing AHARA, it was very much in her family, juggling her kids and her husband and all their responsibilities. And then that started integrating very much with her as a person, as a business person, and gave her a gift.

Andi Simon: You gave her a gift, didn’t you?

Roberta Fernandez: Well, she gave it to herself. I have a process that helps you discover your own answers. And I think that is really essential for all of us. 

Andi Simon: I have a leadership academy, I have several, and I’ve been doing them for several years. And I love taking emerging leaders, once a month, beginning to get them to see themselves as no longer those managers, but as leaders. What do those words mean? I often say that the words create the worlds we live in, and if you’re going to go from manager to leader, something has to stop and something has to start. You can’t just add more on.

Yeah, well, the first session and it’s coming up, I asked them to draw pictures and tell us stories about themselves today. And then I asked them to visualize what it is they would like to see themselves become. Tell us a story about that, because I got to start them to see, feel and think about themselves through the story in their mind. And what you’re telling us, it’s a different approach, but very much the same. If I can’t see it, I can’t ever become it. And then we try to backward plan, small wins to begin to move ourselves closer to that. The vision changes, you know, as life gets in the way of where I want to be. It actually takes you in better places, because you can begin to see it as part of this complex thing that you’re crafting.

Roberta Fernandez: Absolutely. And I think when you look at, and this is the value that I have gotten from being a hypnotist for 12 years, the imagination, the subconscious mind, which is home to the imagination, home to your emotions, home to your rules about life and how you think. What created you as a person when you can tap into that? I always tell people, everybody came to me as a hypnotist for one reason and one reason only, and they would be dumbfounded by that. They would say, well, how will you deal with all these people with all these different problems? And I would say that’s only the symptom.

The reason why people would come to see me is that there was a disconnect between what they consciously wanted and what their subconscious mind believed was possible. And inside of you, the one thing that I am absolutely sure inside of each one of us are the answers. We just can’t connect to them. And that’s the bridge that I played as a hypnotist. And I learned so much about human behavior and how the mind works and how really simple those answers are. Once you can get clear. 

Andi Simon: Pretty, pretty cool stuff, huh?

Roberta Fernandez: It is. Yeah.

Andi Simon: So now, how are you building? This is a new line of business for you. As if it’s not quite a startup, but it is the next step in it. 

Roberta Fernandez: You know, it’s new and it’s old because this is really the same work that I did in the corporate sector. I just did it on larger scales, right? I would have large training sessions and that kind of thing. So AHARA, any of the group ones are 12, we limit it to 12, 8-12 people at the most, but still more than one-on-one, because I also realize when we’re looking at it professionally, having a variety of opinions and ways of applying what you’re learning is so very important because people ask questions that I never would have thought of. And that’s a learning experience for me. So I love the idea of working in small groups, but it really is the same thing I was doing before. I’m just packaging what I’ve learned from several careers, actually, and putting it all into one tool, if that makes sense.

Andi Simon: I think that’s wonderful. So it’s not a startup, it’s a restart instead of branding. It’s a rebranding. But it is your skills, well-honed in your expertise and experience. This is not an imposter syndrome stuff. This is a woman who has had a great experience listeners might benefit by and do it in a very different way.

I can’t tell you how many times I became an executive coach. I don’t sell it, but often my clients need it. And so I go from consulting into coaching, mostly to become a listener and to help them get some perspective, but it’s amazing to me how without that, people have a hard time thinking. They have a hard time doing and they need to somehow, I won’t say the word vent, but to express the dilemmas that they’re facing.

And often it’s well beyond what you ever could have imagined and sort of like, I’ve had some clients and they’ve had family issues, and we get on a phone call or a Zoom for a business conversation. We never get to the business, the whole people and the combination of home and work sometimes just need a hand, you know? Let’s see if we can help you rethink what you’re doing and move forward some way, right?

Roberta Fernandez: Yeah. You know, I remember when I was young, there was the attitude of, you have to leave your problems at the door when you get to work. And no, that was a thing, right? You’re right.

Andi Simon: I am the same age. It was exactly. Absolutely.

Roberta Fernandez: And it’s impossible. It’s like saying you can separate the body from the mind and the spirit. You can’t. We are a whole package deal. And how we are personally definitely impacts who we are professionally. And we tend to think of ourselves as a different person when we walk in that door. And that is not the truth. It is not the truth.

And what is really cool is when we realize that and we can learn how to integrate these processes as part of who we are, we become more efficient in both our personal and professional life. And so when I was rebranding myself as not just a consultant, I really was specific and intentional in saying a personal and professional development consultant because they’re inextricably connected.

Andi Simon: And if you can structure a process for yourself of moving between roles, I often tell my clients that life is like theater. You don’t see it that way, but it’s just another metaphor. And in each place you are, you’re playing a role, sometimes well-honed, in others not. But I used to find that when I came home from business and my two kids were there waiting for time, I’d say to them, mom has to take a shower first. And I took the shower, I sat on the floor outside the shower, and I took the shower as a quiet downtime to move from business to mom.

And then I came out as a mom, and I vividly remember saying to myself, this is very healthy for them and for you because as you walk through the door, you’re still there and now you have to come here. The mom and I never quite tried to master that, but I remember having to because it was intense, both the business side and the mom side and being a professional person, you know, it was always managing a blended life. You had to figure out how one person could keep shifting rolls. And I remember we had one party for one client and it was on my birthday. My daughter came with me, and it was with great pride that I showed her off and brought her in. It was okay. So I think that these were complicated critters, and I do think it’s time that more people need them. 

Roberta Fernandez: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes. So  I think I agree with everything that you’re saying, Andi. And I think if the audience can really take something away from this is that, really exploring, you mentioned that you’re a neuroscientist. My daughter is a neuroscientist as well. And we have very interesting discussions as a hypnotist and a neuroscientist together about how the brain works. It’s really important to understand that; you mentioned earlier the brain has to be efficient.

And so the majority of things that we do day in and day out are just habits. It’s something, and our thoughts too, just thoughts. We keep thinking over and over again but change is possible because it just is. And the way it’s possible is by becoming aware of how we think.

And when I look at the acronym of AHARA, A Higher Awareness leads us to Realize our Abilities, because we cannot fully realize our potential and reach that potential until we are aware of who we are, how we think, and how we navigate this world. And once we can tap into that, then the sky is absolutely the limit.

Andi Simon: You almost answered my question, which was, Roberta, tell the listener one or 2 or 3 things you don’t want them to forget. That sounded like the one.

Roberta Fernandez: Oh, it’s one.

Andi Simon: Yes it is. You know, because we’re about ready to wrap up. Is there a 2 or 3 you can add to that, or shall we just end on that note?

Roberta Fernandez: I think here’s how I’d like to end it. If you look at any great artist or scientist or inventor or just a highly successful person in general, they’re going to tell you that changing how they think, how they process, and how they see things differently than anybody else is what has contributed the most to their success.

Andi Simon: Good. So now we have a great podcast to share that you can change. It is painful. The amygdala really hijacks most new ideas. The habits make you efficient, but not necessarily productive. I love the story of the woman who wanted to stay and do what she did, but do it differently to add real value to herself and others.

And change is painful. But it happens. And I also love the fact that when you’re understanding that the words we use create the worlds we live in, sometimes we have to shed some ideas deliberately. And I like the idea of doing it in groups of 8 or 10, so you can help each other stay on course and not fall back. Because sometimes we fall back, even though we really don’t want to.

We don’t even see ourselves. It’s just the old habits rising to the surface. Oh, we’re complicated humans. God, if only it were easy but there’s progress. Now, remember, Judith Glaser does great work with conversational intelligence, and her stuff about the brain literally changes when you hear stories like we’re telling. So just so you know, listeners, you listen and your brain is adapting to what you’re hearing. Your story is changing, and there’s actually DNA that’s gone through a transformation there. Maybe.

But I love the idea that this is casual and outside of us, but comes inside of us and begins to be transformative, like your work. So absolutely, I’m going to say it’s time to wrap. I always love our podcasts. This is a great one. I’m so glad you came to me. I don’t know where, serendipity and there you are, but it’s been a great conversation about things that I sort of knew, but I didn’t know a lot about for our audience. Thank you for coming. It’s always a pleasure to help you see, feel and think in new ways.

Remember my new book, Women Mean Business: Over 500 Insights from Extraordinary Leaders to Spark Your Success is on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and elsewhere, and I think that it’s a time for us to begin to understand how change is possible, and we should be changing. The joy of writing this book is that 102 women want to share their wisdom with others so you can thrive in business as well. And that is a very big change. When you read those stories and look at their wisdoms, you go, oh my gosh, that’s a great point. I can do that. Not the least of which is serendipity is a great way to start the day, and we have been serendipitously happy today.

Goodbye my friends. Thanks. Send us your emails at info@Andisimon.com and we will bring more great people onto the show. Goodbye again. Bye bye. Have a great day. Thanks, Roberta.

Roberta Fernandez: Thank you.

WOMEN MEAN BUSINESS® is a registered trademark of the National Association of Women Business Owners® (NAWBO)

Hear about perseverance, pivoting, and putting yourself out there

In today’s podcast I bring you Gemma Toner, former media and telecommunications innovator and one of the 102 amazing women leaders featured in our new book, Women Mean Business: Over 500 Insights from Extraordinary Leaders to Spark Your Success, co-authored by Edie Fraser, Robyn Freedman Spizman and myself. Gemma and I talk about not being afraid to take a job or head up a project even if you think you’re not 100% quailified. Believe in yourself and offer yourself as a smart person who can grow—that’s when amazing things can happen. Listen in!

Watch and listen to our conversation here

8 takeaways from Gemma for your own journey

1. Just start. And then keep going. This the best advice Gemma received from one of her mentors.
2. Everybody makes mistakes. Learn and start again.
3. Find people that are like you that can support you, in good times and bad. We all need a support team.
4. Don’t forget where you came from. Remember your roots.
5. Be open to lateral moves. There are many ways to build your career. Even roles you don’t like can lead to great opportunities.
6. Sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know. Be open and curious.
7. Share your wisdom and experiences with other women. As you rise, lift others.
8. Don’t let setbacks limit you. Handle the disappointment, learn as much as you can from it, then let it go and move on.

To connect with Gemma, you can find her on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and her company website Tone Networks. You can also email her at gemma@tonenetworks.com.

For more on becoming the best you can be, here are some of our favorite podcasts:

• Elizabeth Rosenberg—Can An Extraordinary Coach Bring Out The Unseen Beauty In Your Strengths?
• Jodi Flynn Takes You From Dreaming To Doing
• Shayna Bergman—How To Identify Your Values And Live Them Every Day

Additional resources for you

Read the transcript of our podcast here

Andi Simon: Welcome to On the Brink With Andi Simon. I’m Andi Simon and as you know, I’m your host and your guide, and I love doing podcasts so that you can see, feel and think in new ways. Why is that important? Well, these are very fast changing times, and regardless of who you are or where you are, something is pushing against you a little bit and you’re not quite sure. Do I like it? Don’t I like it? Most humans hate change. It creates pain in the brain. But it’s time to change. And the sooner you make change your friend, the more happy you’re going to be.

My job is to get you off the brink. So today I have an amazing woman here. Gemma Toner is a fabulous woman. She’s part of our book Women Mean Business: Over 500 Insights from Extraordinary Leaders to Spark Your Success. You can see behind us, and I’m going to show you her picture. And each of them provide five wisdoms. And what I love doing is sharing their wisdom on the podcast because sometimes it comes alive even better. Gemma, thank you for being with me today. You’re smiling, I love you.

Gemma Toner: I am so grateful to be here. Thank you.

Andi Simon: Gemma and I are going to have a great lunch after our podcast. But first we have to get through our podcast. Let me tell you about her so that you, our viewers and our listeners, know why you should listen up because it’s important.

Gemma is a media and telecommunications leader known for driving innovation. In 2017, she created Tone Networks. And we’re going to talk about Tone today as a SAS microlearning platform designed for early- to mid-career women. Although as I looked at them, I think it’s for all women to stay in advance in the workplace. She’s been a board member of publicly traded companies including Sandvine, and is currently Co-Chair of the Women Business Collaborative.

Before founding Tone Networks, Gemma held executive positions in media and technology for AMC and Cablevision Media, running the fastest ISP in the country. We’re going to hear more about that in a moment. She’s been granted patents for data analytics, and she proudly serves on the board of the global humanitarian organization Concern Worldwide. Don’t you love that bio, audience? I think this is a wonderful time because you had that great article in February of 2023 about The Great Breakup. So here you’re going to hear about Gemma in the corporate world and then founding a new company to help women do even better. And this is something that is extremely important to me and to her. Tell us about your journey. How did you get into corporate? What was it like? 

Gemma Toner: All right. Let me tell you about my journey, because it is not one that people immediately think of or hear. And that is that. I think of myself as a mother and a wife and a business person, a technologist, and I’m a data geek, but I’m also an immigrant. And that’s important because it’s such a strong part of my identity. And it’s also kind of driven me throughout my whole life. And so you ask how I got into corporate? Well, I’ll tell you.

My parents immigrated from Northern Ireland when I was about 4 or 6 months old. When you’re an immigrant, and this was back in the 60s, your family actually became your friends. And at least for our family, we were packed up every summer and spent time with all our family that my parents had left back in Ireland. So I have this kind of bifurcated life which sometimes I didn’t always appreciate.

You ask me again how I got into corporate. Well, I kind of looked at my dad and saw what he accomplished, and I was the oldest in a family of three girls. I thought, well, I’ve got to do better because he came here literally with nothing. He had very little money, very little education, but he had the dream that the American dream was possible. And you know what? It really was for him. And he became wildly successful here in the United States. So I had some big shoes to fill. And my dad didn’t go to college.

So the first step for me to get to corporate America was actually to get to college. And so I did. I got into Villanova and had a great experience there and ended up studying accounting. That wasn’t necessarily the most strategic. I happen to be really good at it. I happen to also be one of the few women in the room, and I didn’t mind that. So it was a great school, great experience. And I popped into corporate America and my first job was at a great company now called Ernst and Young. And I got to spend a lot of time at Time Inc. and again, this was again for this immigrant girl, this was corporate.

America was not something I grew up with. I did not know about mentors or sponsors. I didn’t even know that those names or terms existed. I certainly didn’t know anything about networking. But what I did know was that, keep your head down and work really hard. So I got to see corporate America kind of in its heyday. When you’re working for those types of firms, you actually get to see the world at a pretty high level, even though you might be doing pretty mundane things as an entry level employee.

But what it turned me on to and what I’m very grateful for was I got to really learn about the media business. And I realized pretty quickly that, Hey, this is actually where I want to be. And so I came home to my father, who had worked so hard and given us so much opportunity and said, Dad, I really don’t like this accounting thing very much. I think I want to try something else. And he said, Gemma, you can do anything. And he didn’t make me feel bad that I had just spent four years studying accounting, which is a great degree. I highly recommend it. Working at Ernst and Young was a great experience. But, it was time for me to make the jump.

You’ll hear often in my career, I kind of jump off cliffs and eventually fly. It doesn’t always go seamlessly, but it happens. And so I jumped. And so it wasn’t easy to have someone to have a media company hire an accountant, because certainly they didn’t think I had a marketing background and I didn’t, but I was entry level. And so it was a great time to kind of jump in and make a career switch. So I was fortunate enough. I actually started out at a company called Rainbow Advertising. So I got to see the world of advertising. And then I landed this fantastic job working for a woman. Her name is Katie McEnroe at AMC Networks. And that was where I had that first moment of: I see her, I want to be her.

Andi Simon: Ah.

Gemma Toner: And she was president of this network. We were in heavy distribution and marketing mode. And it was run by Josh Sapan at the time, another fantastic human being to work for. And it was probably one of the best experiences I could ever have. I got to see so much. I got to do so much. We were all so supportive of each other. We were very aggressive, but in an okay way, at a time in the telecommunications industry where it was really a bonanza of creativity and technology and distribution, it was just all these new things that were coming out.

And so from there, that was sort of how I landed in corporate, and then towards the end of my time at AMC Networks, I got really fascinated with this thing, I’m going to date myself a bit, called New Media. And I was always a bit of a geek. And, you know, I love computers and machines and things like that. And so I was able to persuade my boss at the time to create a new job, which was, how do we create content for this new medium, the internet. And more importantly, it wasn’t just about the internet because this was, again, where you had to dial up. It was really about this next thing that was coming, which was high speed data, which most people didn’t even know the name of.

So I got to create content. We learned, we made a lot of mistakes. I learned very early on that the programming and the content had to be really short. And this was way back, like in 2000. We knew it needed to be short. So we made a lot of mistakes along the way. But it was a great ride, and I share that because that transitioned me to yet my next gig, which was, I got asked to interview for this job working at a company here in New York called Cablevision to run this fledgling product called Optimum Online. And at the time it had a lot of optimism. And the CEO of Cablevision and President wanted someone that had a really good branding background. And if there’s anything AMC Networks can do, it really teaches you how to brand and how important it is and to understand your audience. And all of that will follow through as we talk about Tone Networks.

So anyway, I was fortunate enough to land the job, and at the time, I’ll just say, so for anyone that ever has had this experience, I landed the job, I got married and then ended up becoming pregnant all within like three months. So I thought to myself, what in the world have I just done to myself? But I did it. So I jumped again, jumping into a big cliff or off a big cliff. And it was probably the hardest job I’ve ever had. You know, it was, now I was working at a cable company. It was heavy in the technology space. We were also in a place where people didn’t know what high speed access was and they kind of liked that old dial up sound. So it was quite a challenge.

But it was really the beginning of a fantastic career journey at this cable company because not only did I get to be a part of launching and building that, but I also got to be a part of launching other new technologies at the company, namely Optimum Voice. I got to be a part of that team, as well as Optimum WiFi and then again at Cablevision. It was very entrepreneurial, even though we were a publicly traded company. It had great visionaries at the top and mentors.

Quite honestly, I got picked to solve a problem. And the problem was, Here we were, this company that had all of this data, and this was again early, before it was even called big data. And what could we do with it? How could we monetize it? How can we make products? And so I got to do something that I never in my wildest dreams imagined I would do, which was to run this data analytics team. And they were brilliant. And, again, it really speaks to you may not have to know how to do it. You just need to know how to lead and have some vision.

Because truly, Andi, you and I were talking about one of my main criteria was, I needed a social anthropologist. We needed to understand what all this data and behavioral data meant. But we had data scientists. I mean, it was just an extraordinary time and we ended up creating new products. We ended up getting some patents. And so that was really my life in corporate America. And it was a wild ride. It was not easy, I want to be really clear. I think so many people come on podcasts or do media and interviews and they don’t share that. It was hard. It was really hard. I cried a lot, I want to be honest. I cried myself to work some days with the pressure and everything that was coming at me.

But, you know, I think one of my mentors always said, keep going. And I think that is something that I want everyone to remember. Just keep going. Keep going through it. You’ll get through it. And so I stuck with it. I had this great opportunity, and then I had something very personal happen. And that was, a very good friend of mine who I had watched struggle with colon cancer for five years, passed away. And I went into the office after she had died. I watched her fight day in and day out for another day with her boys. I had this great gig. I got picked for the really cool stuff. It was the hard stuff. But I loved the hard stuff. I had an executive coach.  I got to go to Stanford. I lived 20 minutes from my job. You couldn’t have asked for a better dream job. But I walked in and I was like, I’m done. And I didn’t know it was very emotional. So I wouldn’t say, go do this, but I did. So I’m just being honest and vulnerable. But, I came home that day and I spoke to my husband and I said, I don’t know what it is, but it’s just not this anymore. And so I retired.

When you retire, when you’re kind of at the top of your game and you have a really great gig, people look at you funny. So again, I will let you know that people are like, Why are you leaving right now? You know, here you are a woman, you’re at the top of it, it didn’t make a lot of sense. But what I knew inside was that I needed something different. And that’s all I knew. I did not have a strategic plan, so I recommend others have a strategic plan. Mine was a very emotional decision, but I also needed to take a break.

And so what I did was having had an executive coach, which is truly life-changing and transformative, I knew enough about myself and my own neuroses and my A-type that I am, that I might squander this gift that I had given myself, which I thought was retirement. And I thought, I need to have my executive coach help me through this because the last thing I want to do was to lose this time worrying about what’s next and not use it. I’ve worked for as long as I can remember. Well, we had monthly meetings, and she really helped me keep on that path of taking this time for yourself, rediscover yourself. I also had a girlfriend who gave me a book, which I highly recommend. And Brené Brown, if you’re listening, I want to be your best friend, which is daring greatly.  And it was really about vulnerability. And that really resonated with me because I did not grow up in an environment where I felt I could be vulnerable. Making vulnerability equate with courage really spoke to me. It really sung to me.

And so during my retirement, I got asked to be on those boards, which was fantastic. And I have another story which will take way too long, but it is about saying no. So we’ll save that for the next podcast. But that was about how I ended up getting on those boards and how that snowballed, which was fantastic. And then during my, I guess you would call it a sabbatical, I got asked to serve on the Board of Concern Worldwide, and I hadn’t heard of it. They were happening. They were looking for someone with a data analytics and marketing background. So I just happened to get lucky and interview for that position, and I thought this was for me, Andi. I thought, this is it. I want to give back. I need something more. I’ve done the corporate America thing and I thought, okay, thank you, thank you God, here it is. And so that’s how I proceeded.

Now, as being a board member, I was supposed to go to Haiti and go on a trip. And at the time, Haiti became too unstable for us to go. And so that trip was canceled, and I got to speak at a women’s leadership conference because I was able to say yes to that. And I was very vulnerable. I didn’t know what I was doing. It was for women in cable and telecommunications. And Maria Brennan, who was the CEO, called me and said, You need to talk about career pivots at the senior leadership conference. I was like, Marie, Maria, I’m in a personal pivot. Why would anyone want to hear from me? It’s like, that’s exactly why you have to. So I think Brené Brown is playing in my head and I think, I have to go and be brave, got to be courageous. And so I go and that blows my mind.

This is a senior leadership conference in an industry where there’s a lot of access to learning and great organizations that deliver education. And I was like, why are these women, some of them I know, why are they who are here to talk, going to listen to what I have to say? So I said, here’s how I did it. And I was retired. So I had some headspace and I’m walking back to get the train home. And I thought, I’m no different than all those women that were in that room. So what was it that made me able to make the jumps that I did? And all these super talented women are struggling, and I thought I had access. And what does that mean, access? That means, for better or worse, somehow, because I didn’t know what a mentor sponsor was, I got access to a mentor, I got access to role models, I got access to sponsors, I got that executive coach.

And all of those things are scarce resources. Right at the end of the day, there’s not enough of them. Not everybody gets that. I understand the economics of executive coaching. It’s really expensive. And so I started to think about, what can I do about this? And I was like, Hang on, I know how to build software, I know content, I know data analytics. Wait a second. And so then I just started rocking on what could this be? And there you have it. So that was a very long-winded story of my drift from getting into being an immigrant, getting into corporate America, and then actually starting to create the idea of what a company could be.

Andi Simon: But, I mean, remember, our job is to help people get off the brink. And you are an extraordinary role model, because in many ways, it wasn’t as if you had a destination. You were curious and that curiosity and trust in yourself, and you can call it vulnerability. But that’s a word that often doesn’t mean anything. So just a cool word. Just supposed to be vulnerable. Well, what does that really mean? But what you found was that if you trusted your own feelings, calm instincts, you made some good decisions. Doesn’t sound like you had many detours along the way, but you might have. 

Gemma Toner: Oh, I did.

Andi Simon: Yeah, I know we won’t talk about it again. I want to be honest.

Gemma Toner: I made lots of mistakes. You know, those were the highlights. You know, everybody makes mistakes. And so, again, I just like to be practical and honest. If you’re not out there swinging and you’re going to miss a lot, you’re not going to get some of those peaks, right? I think that’s really important for us to communicate because none of this is all hard. 

Andi Simon: Well, you’re talking about chance. You know, it could have been luck, yes, but life is a series of showing up. People say, How did you grow your business? I say, I showed up because who knows what’s going to happen in the elevator when you meet Renée Mauborgne and she becomes a blue ocean strategist? I mean, the conversations are trusting that there’s some magic here that’s going to be, I don’t know, magical. And so you have moved along without saying, I need to go help women, but you had an experience.

And I want to emphasize that to our listeners. There was something experiential that said, Ooh, what is it? I could help those women because they need to see things through a fresh lens, and have the trust that this is why they feel the way they do?

Why don’t you begin your next story? Talk to us about Tone Networks because I am intrigued by how we can help women become the best they can be. I like men too, but it doesn’t matter whether you’re a guy or gal. I’ve coached both. I have many of them as clients but they all come and the brain hates change. It creates cortisol that says, This hurts. Help me do it. How am I going to help you do this? Because you need to do it. We need to figure out a way for you to see yourself in a new fashion, try some new things.

So Tone Networks. And I’m not even sure how to understand the name of it because it’s not physical. It’s not toning you up, but it is toning you up. Um, so I’m curious. I’m curious. Out of it came this platform that is helping people, women in particular, become the best they can be. You share with us. How do you see it? How did you create it?

Gemma Toner: You know, it’s so funny yourself. It really is. Everything that I learned throughout that long-winded story I just shared with you really is used in the creation of this business. And so the data geek in me, how do you start a company? You know, again, I came from corporate, where I had started lots of new products. And so I knew my process which isn’t necessarily what most startups do. So I was starting up as someone with corporate experience, so I don’t know that I did it the right way, but I did it my way and my way was to start to really understand what the challenges women had. I didn’t want to just trust my own self.

And so we went out and did research and we did primary research. We did a national study, and we asked questions like, What stands in the way of your personal and professional development? Because long before the pandemic shone a light on the challenges that women have, I was a firm believer in my personal life did not get left at the threshold of my office door, that my personal and professional life were deeply intertwined, and the technology was going to make it even deeper.

And so if we were going to solve and try to help women, I think we had to acknowledge that you didn’t have clear boundaries. An example would be, I’m just about to go into a meeting and my daughter would text me. You know, Mom, I need you. But I mean, it happens to everyone. And whether it’s a child or a parent or whatever, the gift of technology is we’re more connected. It also interrupts us in some ways. So that’s what we really looked to solve and what we did tons of research on, and I love research. So again, this is the geeky part of me.

And what it bubbled up to were a couple of things. And it was when you asked women, all different ages, quite honestly, not just early- to mid-, all different types of women in different types of business categories. And it was this time factor. I don’t have time to do sort of traditional learning. Access was made for me. I don’t have time to go searching for everything and I just make it what I can. It’s just for me, make it feel like it’s just for me. And then the last, which is sort of the saddest, but it’s a reality. It was confidence. And tucked under confidence was permission. And that whether we like it or not, the majority of women that were part of this study, and it was a statistically significant study, we’re like, I need permission to take care of me. And I’m like, okay, so if that’s what we need to do, then let’s figure out how we can do this.

And so that was really the beginning. And that became the pillars of Tone Networks. And so what Tone sets out to do is use microlearning. I am not a learning and development specialist. I know what it is to build products and content that engage audiences. And so that’s really how we’ve created this learning tool. We’ve created it more like you would create a media experience than an education experience. We have no textbooks because what we’re really looking to be is your TikTok for your personal professional development.

So instead of going into that death scroll of Instagram or Snapchat or whatever, you can just jump on Tone and do something good for yourself and really enrich yourself. And so that’s really our goal. That’s how we make an impact. And what’s really cool is we use technology to make it very personalized. So we ask you what you’re interested in. The last thing I want to do is waste your time because I know how precious it is, because I’ve been there and I do not want to serve you things that you’re not interested in. So if you are not a working parent, a working mom, we’re not going to send you progressive parenting videos because that’s not respectful. We need to be respectful of your time so that if you only have 3 or 5 minutes today because honestly, you just can’t breathe, you can’t catch a break, it’s okay. We’ve got you.

And so that’s really how we developed the product. But we also developed it knowing, and again I know you’re expert in this, behavioral change. And how do you know the nudge theory of behavioral change? So we’ve listened to women and they say, Make it for me. Make it easy. Give me a one, two, three because the last thing I want to do is write an essay or get homework, I have a long enough to-do list. And so what we did was, we made these really short-form videos, and at the end of every video we have your Tone Takeaways, which is kind of your one, two, three. The system actually sends you positive reinforcement the next morning and says, thank you for watching. Here are your Tone Takeaways. Why not? Because I’m being polite, but I am a very polite person. But because I want to remind you, you did something good for yourself and here you go.

You can tell we worked with neuroscientists as well. We can pull that information out and recall it. And you know what, maybe you can take that first step or maybe you’ll just watch it again. That’s okay. Change is hard. I’m so with you when you say that, right? It is so hard. So that’s part of the way the product works for the end user because we were designed to be both a consumer platform and a B2B platform. Right now we’re working on the B2B front, but trust me, I want all women to get access to this, whether you’re in corporate America or not. But today, that’s where we are.

And so what we can also do is help inform our business partners, the companies we work with, with a new data set. But this comes back to, my data geek days are anonymized. Why is it anonymized? Because if you won’t watch, my boss is a narcissist. If you know that your company is tracking you. And you know what, if you have a boss that’s a narcissist, you should know how to handle that. And I’m okay with that. If you don’t have a boss, you have someone in your life. Everyone’s got a narcissist somewhere. I mean, it’s just an upward trend in our society.

But the game plan here is to add value and new insights and to really be a contender. We are not looking to be your typical learning and development platform. There’s plenty of companies out there doing that. We’re really looking to deliver the knowledge that you get from having access to executive coaches and experts. The really good stuff that you get deeper in your career. Why shouldn’t women have that earlier? Because my goodness, it really is life changing.

And so that’s really how we set out to do it. It was really listening to the audience talk about mistakes. I made a lot of mistakes. It took us a long time to get the format right, to get the tone right. We’re in a good place now. I have to brag a little. We do have an NPS of 66, which is pretty darn amazing for such a young company.

Andi Simon: So just saying, are you better with an NPS?

Gemma Toner: Net promoter score? And so that’s when you just have a simple question. You know, Would you refer a friend or family member to this? And the good news is, a majority, and that’s a really hard number to get, of people are saying, Yeah, I would. So we have 95% of our business clients renewing. We know we’re hitting it. And I think we’re hitting it because, again, women don’t have much time. And we have to really redesign and re-engineer how we run our lives, and you know how we are.

Andi Simon: You know, Gemma, I’m listening and smiling because I share many of the same purposes and passions of wanting to take what we know and multiply it so others can rise with it. Sandra Quince says, As I climb the ladder, I lift other women with me. And I said, What a beautiful way of talking about what all of us are really interested in doing, not simply being acknowledged for accomplishments as you were and staying there, but thinking, I mean, your sabbatical was a growth period for you, but it didn’t stay there. It wasn’t just me on board. It was what I learned that I can now share and multiply joyfully so that I can lift others. And that is not inconsequential. And yeah, you can go speak, but when I walk out of the room at the end of a gig, as I know I want them to do one small win, you know, do an Oprah, one small win to lead you forward. But when will that be? How will I change? And it is purposeful and passionate. But you’re also having a good time, aren’t you?

Gemma Toner: I am, and I have to also credit my mom and dad for, again, you know, being immigrants and coming here with not much in their pockets. I think what they instilled in us was, and I saw it, there were so many people that helped them along the way and I recognized that but I didn’t know the terms. But the people that I would say helped me along the way, those mentors and sponsors, I don’t forget them. And what I recognized when I had a moment to like, think and take a beat, was that not everybody gets that. And so that’s where I think my father would always say, Never forget where you came from, always put out a helping hand. And that’s the truth.

And so I think, it does for me, it matters about my humble beginnings and being able to help more because we live in this country and we’ve been really fortunate. That means you give back. Let me clarify, I’m a capitalist. So this is not a nonprofit business. I believe in capitalism. And I also believe capitalism is probably the most effective way to create social change and upward mobility for women. But that’s why I’m doing this.

Andi Simon: You don’t have to justify yourself.

Gemma Toner: It’s just, I think it’s really important because someone says, Oh, is this a non-profit? I’m like, no, no, we’re not.

Andi Simon: You know, I met someone who’s trying to change the way kids understand debt and it’s not a not-for-profit. She’s finally made herself a for-profit. And I said, That’s good. It’s okay to make money and to spread it. It’s okay to remove the guilt factor because I’m in here for some profit. I don’t quite know why we’ve given that such a bad name, but I do think there’s something else about you as a woman leading others.

People ask me, Do women lead differently? And I say, Well, I’ve had dozens of clients. And I was in corporate life for a long time. And are women different from men? Yes. But leaders need followers, and they don’t follow people casually. They follow people they trust who can get them someplace together and who they believe are authentic and want to be accountable to. Do you find, you’ve had some good women bosses and men bosses, and do you think that women are leading differently or are we just women? 

Gemma Toner: I think it depends, and I think it’s, men, women, it really depends on the individuals. There’s some great male leaders. There’s some great women leaders. There’s also both not so great, so do I think I led differently? Probably not early in my career. I would say I, probably just like the female role models that I was emulating, they were leading like men. And so I would say as I became more comfortable as a leader,  I definitely had a different approach. I actually sometimes, early in my career, when I was running a region, when I saw my old team, I apologized to them. And I’m like, Thank you for still being my friend because I was really rough around the edges as a young leader. And you kind of grow into, at least I did, grow into the way you want to lead.

Andi Simon: Well, I do think that the value you brought to everyone along the entire way was your curiosity, this kind of openness to see things through. You wanted to bring a social anthropologist on because we know that out of context, data do not exist. What does all this data mean? Well, it can mean anything. I want it for myself. So which data do I have to do? And then how do I interpret it so that it makes the most sense. So it’s really interesting.

I think you and I could talk a great deal for a lot of reasons, and I’m enjoying every minute of it. Thank you for sharing with us today. For our audience, one or two or three things you don’t want them to forget? What would be some real good takeaways?

Gemma Toner: You know, I have to say, the takeaway, as much as I was long-winded is, You don’t forget where you came from. You know, always look back. I also think some of the takeaways that I had in the book really are important to me. And that is, Get out there and just start, raise your hand. Even though I can tell you, most of the big opportunities I had, I was not the first choice. And that’s okay. It’s okay to be the consolation prize because it’s what you make of it. And they were great opportunities. Two of my big opportunities, I was not the first choice, but I hung in there and I didn’t have all the skills they wanted. But, last man standing, I got it, you know? So I think that’s really important because so many of us are just like, Oh no, that’s over my head. No it’s not, give it a go.

I think the other is, Just keep going. It’s hard. Let’s not kid ourselves and let’s not mislead each other with, sort of saying, it’s all perfect. It’s not, but you will get through it. And I think what’s really important about that is, and it does take a little time, and I didn’t always do this myself, so I want to be really honest about finding people that are like you that can support you. So it’s having that personal board of directors. It’s also having a few friends and friendly faces that can help you when you’re just having a really tough day and can also celebrate with you as well.

Andi Simon: Well, we’re people and we need others, and they need to be trusting and trustworthy. And trusting is important, that we have folks we can turn to and can I just vent? You know, it’s not an uncommon call I make to my favorite friend, can I just vent? Then by the time I’m done, she says, You feel better? I said, Oh, that was perfect. I just needed a safe and an executive coach. But even there, sometimes you just go talk to your friend, let it come out.

You know, we had an ERG presentation the other day, for Eightfold, a company out on the West Coast, a software designing company. Really cool folks. One of the women said, you know, do women really have to check off all the boxes before they can move up? And all of us, there were three of us, said, That’s not how you’re going to move up. The move up really comes when you really don’t know what you don’t know, because you can’t possibly ever have all the boxes checked. Believe in yourself and offer yourself as a smart person who can grow. And those are better words than, Am I ready? You’re never ready then. You know, I never became ready.

Gemma Toner: And I like to remind my team, We’ll figure it out.

Andi Simon: Yes, we’ll figure it out. It’s a complex problem to solve. That’s exactly right.

Gemma Toner: Figure it out and just know you don’t have to figure it out by yourself. You can ask a lot of people to help you.

Andi Simon: Yes, and you won’t ever be exactly right. Perfection isn’t really necessary. And so all kinds of wisdoms. This is such fun. So let me wrap up. I do want to thank you, and the National Association of Women Business Owners, who owns the trademark on our book Women Mean Business: Over 500 Insights from Extraordinary Leaders to Spark Your Success. And we always like to recognize them and thank them for the use of their title for our book, Women Mean Business: Over 500 Insights from Extraordinary Leaders to Spark Your Success.

And as you can hear, Gemma Toner is one of those extraordinary leaders. And our conversation today was to help you spark your success. Get off the brink. Keep going. Be perfect. The books are all on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. My three books are there, with the third one, Women Mean Business: Over 500 Insights from Extraordinary Leaders to Spark Your Success, co-authored with Edie Fraser and Robyn Freedman Spizman. I hope you have fun with them. I actually had somebody shoot a picture of one of my books on the beach where he was reading it and I went, Oh my gosh, a beach read. I didn’t know I had a beach read!

Gemma Toner: Andi, can I plug one event that we have coming up? It’s going to be in March. It’s a pay equity event that’s free for all women. So all of your listeners and men are welcome. LinkedIn will be promoting it everywhere. It’s really about getting women particularly equitable pay. And this will not be about talking about the stats. This will actually be practical tips as to how you make sure you are getting paid fairly. So mark your calendar in March.

Andi Simon: Sometime in March though, we have to come back to Tone sometime in March.

Gemma Toner: It’ll be on the day. Yeah, it’s actually, we’re just waiting to get the actual date. March 15th, something like that. It’s on Pay Equity Day. It’s something, again, you talk about purpose. It’s very important to us.

Andi Simon: Despite the fact that Barack Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Law in January of 2009. It’s not always true that women get paid what they should get paid for the same job that the guy is, much less at the same time. It’s really tough. Oh, boy, we can keep going, but we’re not. We’re going to sign off, say goodbye. Come again. Send me your favorites so I can bring them on. And I have a lot of great women and men to share with you coming up. It’s been wonderful. Goodbye now, and thanks again. Bye bye.

WOMEN MEAN BUSINESS® is a registered trademark of the National Association of Women Business Owners® (NAWBO)

Learn how to nurture your unique gifts for a career you really love.

I bring to you today Lorraine Hariton, a brilliant women with a brilliant career who shows us that success doesn’t have to come in a straight line, it can have many twists and turns. As one of the 102 women featured in our new book, Women Mean Business: Over 500 Insights from Extraordinary Leaders to Spark Your Success, co-authored by Edie Fraser, Robyn Freedman Spizman and myself, Lorraine is President and CEO of Catalyst, a powerhouse non-profit dedicated to helping women thrive, from the shop floor to the C-suite, so that everyone can be successful by their own definition. What I love is that Catalyst not only focuses on how women can be effective and improve their capabilities and skills, but on changing the work environment by creating workplaces that work for women. Want to learn about the future of work? Listen in.

Watch and listen to our conversation here

Key takeaways from my conversation with Lorraine

• Life is a journey. And that journey is to understand what your passions are, what gets you excited, what gets you up every day enjoying it.
• In terms of your skills, what do you have with which you can contribute the most to this world? 
• There are lots of chapters in life. Make sure that you have the resiliency and the learning mindset to go from one chapter to the next.
• Life can take you in different directions, but you’ve got to be a lifelong learner. You’ve got to lean into your strengths. 
• Periods of transition can be real opportunities.
• Align your strengths and what you really love to do behind your passions.

To connect with Lorraine, you can find her on LinkedIn.

Want to know more about women breaking barriers in the workforce? Start with these:

• Blog: How Can Women Overcome The Roadblocks To Building Their Businesses?
• Blog: Best Tips And Tricks For Women To Work In Male-Dominated Industries
• Podcast: Kerry Flynn Barrett—Learn Why So Many Brilliant Women Have Ditched The Corporate Ladder To Start Their Own Business
• Pocast: Jennifer McCollum—How Will You Change The Face Of Women’s Leadership In Your Organization?

Additional resources for you

Read the transcript of our podcast here

Andi Simon: Welcome to On the Brink With Andi Simon. I’m Andi Simon, I’m your host and your guide. And as you know, because so many of you come to listen to our podcast, my job is to get you off the brink. I want you to see, feel and think in new ways so you can change, and the times are changing quickly now. I look for guests who are going to help you understand things from a fresh perspective.

Today I have Lorraine Hariton here with me. She is a marvelous person who is in our new book, Women Mean Business: Over 500 Insights from Extraordinary Leaders to Spark Your Success. And when you hear what she’s going to tell you today, you’ll know why Women Mean Business has been such an absolutely amazing experience. Every time I open the book, it sheds new light on what women are doing in business. Lorraine’s bio: She’s president and CEO of Catalyst. Now, if you’re not familiar with Catalyst, it’s a global nonprofit working with the world’s most powerful CEOs and leading companies to build workplaces that work for women.

Catalyst’s vision and mission are to accelerate progress for women through workplace inclusion. This lifelong passion for Lorraine has helped her build a career with senior level positions in Silicon Valley as an entrepreneur and executive, and beginning at IBM, Lorraine then served in the administration in the Department of State and developed the global STEM Alliance at the New York Academy of Sciences. She has also served on the UN Women Global Innovation Coalition For Change, the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University, and the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs and Executives, but it is as president of Catalyst that I met Lorraine. And that’s what we’re going to talk about today: about what organizations can do to really build workplaces that work for women. Lorraine, thank you so much for coming today.

Lorraine Hariton: Andrea, thank you so much. It’s my pleasure to be here.

Andi Simon: It’s so much fun. Tell the audience more about your journey because I can read the bio. But you’ve had a wonderful career with a passion and purpose, and I’d like you to share that if you could.

Lorraine Hariton: So first of all, I want to say that the career that you just talked about is very different from the career I might have imagined when I was young. It’s gone in a lot of different directions. And I look forward to sort of talking about that. So when I was a child, my biggest influence was really my mother, specifically when she came into the workplace, which was in the 50s. She was originally a teacher. And like many of her generation, she went back. She left the workplace when she had her three children. But then she went back and got a master’s degree and eventually a PhD in psychology, actually around women’s sexual fantasies during intercourse. It was very controversial. She ended up on the front cover of Psychology Today, and then she had the next phase, a career as a psychologist and a lecturer out on Long Island. So she really gave me a sense that you can have different phases in your life, you can accomplish different things, and women should have independent, strong careers.

So she was a big influence. Then the other big influence on me was, I had dyslexia, I still have dyslexia. And because of that, I had certain real strengths and certain things that were limitations. I wasn’t very popular. I wasn’t a great athlete, but I was good in math. I ended up using that math ability to have a career in technology very early on. In fact, when I was in college — I originally went to college in upstate New York, at Hamilton College — my calculus professor suggested that I take an independent study computer science course at Hamilton College before there were even computers on campus. We just had a teletype terminal into the Air Force base in Rome, New York. But I wrote my own computer program. I fell in love with it, and it caused me to transfer to Stanford, where even at Stanford, they didn’t actually have a computer science degree. Undergraduate is math sciences, math, computer science, statistics, and operations research. But it really gave me this great foundation into something that my first passion was really around: computers and the application of computers into solving problems.

So I transferred to Stanford. I got a sense of that environment. I ended up taking a job, actually, back in New York for American Airlines, doing a big linear programming model for ferrying fuel around the American Airline system. But, I decided I didn’t really like just programming. I wanted to do something that was more people oriented within the computer industry. So at that time, IBM was a big place to work. It was like the Google or the Apple of the time.

So I got a job actually in sales working for IBM, and I worked in the apparel industry in New York, knocking on doors, selling mid-sized computers to the apparel industry, which was really fun. I really enjoyed it and I excelled at it. So I decided I wanted to be on the business side of the technology industry. I went back to Harvard Business School, got my MBA, and decided to go back to California working for IBM, the next level in the sales track at IBM. And there was the other reason I went back to IBM: to look into all the jobs at Harvard Business School that IBM had for women in leadership roles. It had the ability to balance career and family and a proven track record of enabling women to do that. I was really looking for a workplace where I could be successful balancing career and family, which is still the number one challenge for women in business.

And, through my work at Catalyst, I see that every day. So I went back to IBM, but eventually I went into Silicon Valley. IBM actually acquired a company in Silicon Valley. I went to work for them. And then I ended up having a career at IBM. So I started in Silicon Valley, started at IBM, and then I left them to go to become an executive at a mid-sized company. And eventually I actually did two startups in Silicon Valley. So I had a career at all these different levels.

But in my early 50s, I wanted to really do something that was more impactful. I had had a successful career there and I became involved in women’s leadership issues because really that was a defining thing around my success and my lived experience. I initially got involved in the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs and Executives that became WaterMark. That was a women’s leadership network in Silicon Valley. I really benefited from my relationships that I had with women in Silicon Valley. We all bonded together. We even did great trips, like we went to India and Vietnam together. I went to the Clayman Institute for Gender Research. I then decided to, after I left my second startup, to get involved in helping Hillary Clinton run for President of the United States in the 2008 cycle.

So I took all my sales skills and my business skills that I had learned, and I focused on fundraising for her. And as a result of that, I became one of her top fundraisers in the Bay area and really expanded my network. I got to know a lot of people and that enabled me to go to work for her, even though she didn’t win the the nomination, of course, we all know, but to work for her at the State Department as a special representative for commercial and business affairs. And, by the way, through all of this, I had my two children. I raised my two children in Palo Alto, California. And of course, that was the other part of my life that was, is, and continues to be very important. I now have three grandchildren as well as part of that.

So that balance of career and family has always been important to me. I also will mention that being in Silicon Valley in tech in those days had a lot of challenges. And I think that is why that’s been so important to me as the second major passion that has driven my life. This focus on women in the workplace, and understanding that I was part of the first generation of women who really came of age after the very substantial change in the women’s movement that happened in the late 60s and early 70s, that opened up the doors for women to have real careers. 

Like my mother, in her generation, you didn’t have young children and work. You couldn’t go into the workplace and have a career. We read about Sandra Day O’Connor recently. We know that she wasn’t able to do that. Ruth Bader Ginsburg wasn’t able to do that. I was part of that generation that went into the workplace that was able to look ahead and develop a career, and was thinking about balancing career and family. But we had a very, very rigid environment.

You know, when I had my first child in 1985, we had to order business maternity suits from a catalog. I could only take six weeks off because they didn’t have maternity leaves. They just had disability, and when I’ve met with some of my friends and we talked about this, we all had the same circumstances, didn’t have the type of environment that you have right now. So I have that perspective of wanting to change that workplace. And we still have work to do on that.

So my reason for wanting to help Hillary at the time when I had the luxury to be able to do that, was because I really wanted to see the world change in the first woman president. But not only did I pursue that passion and use the skills that I had learned through my business and for my sales career to help her, it opened up a whole new avenue for me that became the next chapter in my life for ten years, really focused on that.

So I went to the State Department, and in the State Department, it was great. I was able to travel all around the world representing the United States, help businesses overseas, do diplomatic agenda around economic and business issues. And I also launched a big program called the Global Entrepreneurship Program, which is still at the State Department, where we worked on capacity-building in countries to take our innovation agenda and bring it overseas as part of our diplomatic agenda. So that was a very fulfilling experience.

I left in 2014 because it was a political appointment. It ended and then I thought, well, I think there’s a very good chance she would run again. So I did a portfolio career of doing consulting. I worked at the New York Academy of Science, as you mentioned, doing business development for them, and launched this Global STEM Alliance program. I launched a great program called 1000 Girls, 1000 Futures, which was a virtual mentoring program for girls in STEM.

I helped Hillary but of course, we know the end of that story and that didn’t happen. And by then I was lucky enough to be recruited to Catalyst, which has been just a wonderful opportunity for me. So I joined them in 2018. I am going to be retiring from Catalyst when we find a replacement. So it’s been about a five and a half years’ journey at this point that’s been really fulfilling for me because it really has aligned this great passion I have with all the things I’ve learned over my career to really make change for that organization and to really impact women in the workplace.

Andi Simon: You know, as I listen to you, and I want to stay focused on your career, but for the listener or the viewer, there wasn’t a straight line. This was a journey with detours and serendipity and moments and all kinds of things that you capitalized on. Were you particularly risk averse or were you particularly adventuresome? I mean, when I take my archetype, I’m an explorer or a philosopher, and I’ve been to 37 countries and I worked abroad many times. I, like you, don’t need a structure, I need opportunity. I need an adventure. Sounds like you have had adventure through life without care about whether or not it was the end, it was onto something new. Tell the listener a little bit about how you do that? Do you do that with that particular mindset that simply says, go for it, what the heck? Or do you have to plan it out?

Lorraine Hariton: Well, you know, I’ve evolved over time. I am very planful. And in the beginning of my career, I was focused. When I joined IBM, they had a clear path for you. You didn’t have to think about it. “This is what you needed to do.” And I bought into that path. Over time, sometimes when I had my biggest bumps in my life because I’ve been fired, I’ve been put someplace else, maybe not fired, but it was a detour. Those things have happened. But, you know, out of those things, in those moments of reflection, is when I think I was able to grow the most, to really learn and reflect on my strengths and weaknesses and what motivates me and to reorient myself. These periods of transition can be real opportunities.

And in my late 40s and early 50s is when I really started to understand that what I needed to do is to align my strengths and what I really love to do behind my passions, and to let the universe help me understand what those passions are. And in fact, that’s what I’m doing right now, as I look to my next chapter after Catalyst. I’m trying to open up the aperture and give myself time to evolve and think and let the universe take me in the direction, but with an understanding of what I really enjoy, where I have passion, what I’m really good at, where I give, and even in this moment, I try this out, I’m not that excited. Try this out, yes, I’m really excited about it.

And yes, I find that I can do the things that I really am in the zone on, that I naturally do well and then I focus on those things. So that evolution, it’s not really a risk thing. I’m a pragmatist. I’m very practical, focused, like a doer, but this understanding that life can take you in different directions, but you’ve got to be a lifelong learner. You’ve got to lean into your strengths. You got to evolve those is the way I found the most meaning and purpose and fulfillment.

Andi Simon: And to your point, when people say to me, how did you get to be a corporate anthropologist? I say, I made it up. And they say, you know, the imposter syndrome. I say, I’ve lived my whole life doing imposter stuff. I’ve never been fully skilled at whatever I’ve been. I spent 20 years in industry as an executive, in banks and in health care. I was a tenured professor, and I’ve been in business for 21 years now, making it up as we go along because each client’s different, each opportunity is different. But the joy is the joy of creating.

And I think that what you’ve done at Catalyst, and I want to go back to Catalyst for a moment, because I do think it’s been joyful for you, but it’s been a creative process. My hunch is, you’ve brought it along in a way that has been quite meaningful for you in the organization. Can you share with us a little bit about your own thoughts about Catalyst, about what’s happened in women in the workplace? Because this is not inconsequential. When I was an executive, I went to board meetings. There were 49 men and no other women than me. We didn’t say much. We sat there hoping we could finish the meeting without getting in trouble. It’s a different world today. What do you see happening and how is Catalyst doing stuff?

Lorraine Hariton: Well, when I came to Catalyst in 2018, Catalyst had been around almost 60 years, and it’s an iconic organization. For those of you who are not familiar, we have around 500 major corporations. We have a board of directors made up of CEOs of major organizations. I mean, it’s really a who’s who and has a tremendous brand, but the organization itself had lost some momentum. So I was brought as a change agent. I sometimes say, it was this beautiful brownstone in Brooklyn Heights that the old lady had not been renovating as much as they should have.

So I had to do a lot of infrastructure and internal changes as well as set the strategy and the plan. It’s really been a transformation. And we’re still transforming. The rate of change, the rate of technological change, is so great that every organization needs to move forward. And what Catalyst needed to do as an organization has changed over time. We celebrated our 60th anniversary a couple of years ago, so I really had a lot of opportunities to reflect on what Catalyst was.

Catalyst started with a woman who had been a Smith College graduate who wanted to go into business, and after her children got into school, she saw the doors were closed for her because in many cases, classified as gendered. You know, you could be a secretary, but you couldn’t be a salesperson. You couldn’t be an executive. Very limited choice. So her objective was to provide part time work for educated women after their kids were in school. That’s what she was trying to do.

Today we’re trying to help women thrive, from the shop floor to the C-suite, so that everyone can be successful by their own definition. Now, along the way, there’s been a lot of changes in what Catalyst focused on. And of course, what happened for women in the workplace. One of the key things that changes Catalyst is a focus not only on how women can be effective and improve their capabilities and skills, but how we change the work environment. That’s why we now talk about our mission of creating workplaces that work for women.

So a lot of Catalyst’s work is helping these companies create the environment where women can be successful. Catalyst does research and it provides a whole range of tools and capabilities to help these companies be successful, and then a lot of community and convenings to bring them together to share best practices, the need for tools and capabilities, in addition to research, has accelerated over the last ten years or so as companies really dig in to make those changes to create that environment that works for women.

So we think about things like: now we call them paternity leaves, not just maternity leaves. And in many cases in the large companies, they’re as much as four months and they’re trying to get men to do them as well as women. That’s a sea change, more flexibility. The whole pandemic accelerated this move to more flexible working, but that’s something Catalyst has been talking about for a long time. Measuring change is really important and that’s evolved.

Our most recent report that we’re going to be putting out shows that 93% of companies, large companies in the Catalyst portfolio, do pay equity studies. Now, even five years ago, they were not doing that. So that’s changed. The environment has changed radically and Catalyst has evolved with it. Also the infrastructure to support the types of skills we need, the type of technology we need, has evolved with it. But you know, just to think about this, today there are over 10% women CEOs in the Fortune 500. In my early career in the 80s and the 90s, every year that they would come out with the Fortune 500, I would look and the only person who was the CEO was Katharine Graham, who took over The Washington Post when her husband committed suicide. Now she did a great job, but she was not doing it all on her own merit.

What we see is the women who came into the workplace, like I did in the early 70s, early to mid-70s, all but in the 1950s, all entered the workplace in the 70s. Those are the ones who became CEOs around the turn of the 21st century, starting with Jill Barad at Mattel, Andrea Jung at Avon, Anne Mulcahy at Xerox, followed by Ursula Burns, Ginni Rometty at IBM, Indra Nooyi at PepsiCo…a diverse group of really talented, amazing women were the first group who really were able to do that.

Over the last five years, we’ve doubled. We now have over 30% women on boards. And in the Catalyst community, we have over 30%  in senior leadership, in our membership. So what that means is there’s a new norm that’s a critical mass, 30% is critical mass. So we are critical mass on a lot of these measures. That is why Catalyst now is not focusing on women on boards. We’re focusing on how all women can thrive from the shopfloor to the sweep and every level.

So that’s an evolution of who Catalyst is. I’ve been driving that broader definition of success as we’ve evolved to what really needs to be done, and also in response to companies who understand that women have 60% of the undergraduate degrees now. They’re graduating more law degrees and more medical degrees. We have a much more diverse population. We’re focused on diversity. And that is why there’s a lot of things, a lot of political issues around DEI as a word. But the fact of the matter is, companies are very committed, so they know they have to have a diverse workforce. They’ve all got to work together. They’ve all got to feel like they belong. And in the United States and around the world, we have to be able to work together to have a really impactful, innovative workforce. So that’s what we’re working on.

Andi Simon: I am having such fun listening to you. And I don’t know if you and I have had enough time for me to hear, or my audience to hear, how the world has changed. Remember, I’m a corporate anthropologist who helps companies change. What I love to do is change, and what you are articulating is your own career evolved. Catalyst’s whole mission and purpose have evolved, and the workplace that you are focused on is evolving into a whole new and much better, inclusive, exciting place for women to thrive. And isn’t this exciting to watch and see?

I’m not quite sure it’s going to go backwards, because I think that the pressure from talented women for new ways of doing things is going to transform the workplace. You know, how do you have a blended life, if not a balanced life. I met one person who was building childcare at the office because he knew that was the only way he was going to keep his workforce. What’s so hard? Why are we not paying attention to our children? You know, bring them to work and make them part of the whole culture that we have here.

And I don’t think the pandemic has been all that bad. My clients that I coached during that time, we’re actually having a wonderful experience of being home and working and doing it with a different use of time and space. But it’s a really interesting opportunity for you to see that and now to think through what’s next, a radical next. Because I have a hunch you’d love to radically change the next phase in some fashion. It’s technology, it’s transformation, it’s new openness to it. What do you see coming next?

Lorraine Hariton: Well, you mentioned technology and I mentioned I am a technologist by training. Technology drives change now. The changes that allowed women to become part of the workforce were driven by the birth control field, the vacuum cleaner, electrification, the reduction of the need for women to stay home and do all these tasks. The knowledge worker being the key person in the workplace. And that’s only accelerating. So we should understand we are the result of the worlds we live in.

My mother was a result of that. RBG was a result of that. My daughter is going to be a result of the environment that she’s a part of, as well as my grandchildren. So technology is the biggest driver of those changes. We are going to be living in a world where I hope we have more flexibility to integrate career and family, and to really be able to have women really have equal ability to make their own decisions on how they want to balance their life. I mean, that’s what we’re trying to do so that every woman thrives by their own definition of success. So that’s what we’re working towards.

Andi Simon: You know, I’m sitting and listening and I’m hopeful. I have a woman I know who’s president of a large insurance company. And we were sitting and talking not too long ago. She said, Well, let me tell you, I was a coat girl. She said, I’d walk into Lloyd’s of London with a deal, and they’d hand me their coats as the men walked in, one after another, they thought I was a coat girl. And finally after they all had sat down, and I turned around and sat at the head of the table and saidy, Now let me tell you about the deal I brought you. And the guys all went, Oh! And she said, Do you think that will ever stop? And I said, Yes. I’m not sure when but I guess you could have stopped it if you wanted to at that moment. But somehow the woman has to be able to comfortably say, I’m sorry, but the coat rack is over there, or No, I’m not taking notes today. Who shall we have as our note-taker today? How do we assert ourselves in a way that establishes a more balanced role? Now you’re smiling at me. You’re thinking about something. What are you thinking of? 

Lorraine Hariton: I think there’s a two way street here. Catalyst has done a lot of work on this. Not only do the women need to do that, but the men need to become advocates and allies for women in the workplace. In fact, Catalyst has a whole initiative called MARC: Men Advocating Real Change. We’re helping the men understand how they can be part of that change because I think the clearest example is, they say that women don’t negotiate for salary increases as well as men. There’s a big pay gap, and it’s a result of this. It’s not just the women not negotiating. It’s the culture that doesn’t enable them to negotiate.

So a woman in general is much better off with someone else asking. Because it’s like this poster that I have in the back here from an unconscious bias campaign we did which says: She’s not aggressive, she’s assertive. Well, if a man goes and asks for a raise, he’s assertive and he should get a raise. A woman goes in, she’s aggressive, you know. So, we’ve got to do both of those things.

Andi Simon: I often preach that the words we use create the worlds we live in. And you just made an important point there, because the word that you use takes the same behavior and makes it good or bad. And it is very interesting because the definers of those meanings…humans are meaning makers. And if the guys are the definers of the meaning, one thing happens. But somehow we’ve got to get a balance in how we think about the behavior as being. Is it assertive or is it aggressive? Well, it’s the same behavior. Who’s defining it? And how do we then create a mirror back so the women know that that’s the right behavior and the guys understand that that’s not acceptable from them.

I work with some companies where I watch the guys’ backlash and I say, Why don’t we collaborate on the transformation instead of becoming adversarial or resisters to it? Change is humanly painful. The brain hates it. So let’s create a new story because we’re story-makers. And if I can create a new story, then we can live that new story. But if we’re going to fight the story out, it’s going to be quite interesting.

I know too many women who have left corporate because they were tired of the story that put them in the wrong role, and they went out to launch their own business or find some other place. And so it’s an interesting time for women to see what can be done and for men to help create a new environment. Are there some illustrative cases that you can share, or are they all proprietary and it’s not possible to share them? Any kind of story that might illustrate how it’s actually happening?

Lorraine Hariton: Well, I will say there are many, many stories of success. If you go to the Catalyst website, we have tons of success stories, the stories of companies that transformed themselves. We have The Catalyst Award that we give out every year at our big annual conference in Denver. People nominate themselves. They go through an application process. It was very rigorous last year. The Hartford is one of the winners of it. They have transformed the company at every level with all the things we’re talking about, measurements. They were able to get affecting bias sponsorship programs, really changing the fundamental culture of the organization. You can listen to what they do, but there’s hundreds of examples of companies that have done great jobs around it.

And of course, we have lots of examples. I mentioned some of the trailblazers, the Fortune 500, you read interviews, and books. And so there are many, many examples of successes, people who’ve affected the odds. People, companies who’ve done a great job of changing the culture. It’s all over the place. So rather than name a specific one, I think that’s good.

Andi Simon: And if people are looking for companies to work for, they probably can find illustrations at Catalyst and your website to begin to go through. And that is a real resource to be available. You know, this has been such fun. I think that we’re probably ready to share with our listeners or our viewers 1 or 2 things you want them to remember and then how to reach you if they’d like more information about you or about Catalyst. What do you think? 

Lorraine Hariton: That sounds great. I think the overriding thing to say is that life is a journey. And that journey is to understand what your passions are, what gets you excited, what gets you up every day enjoying it, and then what do you really enjoy? In terms of your skills, what do you have the most to contribute to this world? And if you can align those, that’s what I try to do.

The other thing is to realize that there are lots of chapters in life, and you would need to make sure that you have the resiliency and the learning mindset to go from one chapter to the next and open the aperture around it. I’m happy to talk to anyone on this call. You can go to the Catalyst website at catalyst.org if you want to learn more about the work that we’re doing. You can get ahold of me that way as well. I’m going to be going on to my next chapter as well. So I’m opening the aperture up.

Andi Simon: Well, I can’t wait to hear about your next chapter. I have a hunch it’s going to be full of adventure and joy and beauty. And you leave behind you better places and with great purpose. Move forward. So it’s been a pleasure. Thank you for joining us today.

Lorraine Hariton: Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. I really enjoyed it.

Andi Simon: I just think it’s a special moment to be able to go both into your life and all the work that you’re doing in the wonderful way it’s making a difference for my listeners and my viewers. Thank you for always coming. Remember, our job is to help you see, feel and think of new ways. And I think that a visit to Catalyst might help you see organizations that are already doing this and want to keep it going, and you can as well.

My books Rethink: Smashing The Myths of Women in Business and On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights, and our new book, Women Mean Business: Over 500 Insights from Extraordinary Leaders to Spark Your Success with Edie Fraser and Robyn Freedman Spizman are all available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble for you. It gives you a perspective both of how anthropology sees the world and helps you change, and what we see happening, particularly for women. 102 women in Women Mean Business are all here to help you change your life.

We often say turn a page and change your life. Lorraine’s chapter is wonderful. I love her little thing. Here she talks about how she navigated with her dyslexia and her principal is major. Your major is to nurture your unique gifts. And that’s what we heard about today. Thanks again. Thanks, Lorraine. It’s been a pleasure. Bye bye.

WOMEN MEAN BUSINESS® is a registered trademark of the National Association of Women Business Owners® (NAWBO)

Hear why a great customer experience means everything

I first interviewed Melissa Copeland for this podcast in May of 2022 and loved her story so much that I want to share it, and her, with you again. Melissa had a wonderful career, as so many women have had, only to discover that flying all over the world was not great for her family, or herself. So what did she do? Pivoted and launched Blue Orbit Consulting which focuses on improving customer interactions with her clients’ products and services. Her company’s motto: “We help clients deliver outstanding customer service by combining the best of technology and people for world-class customer experiences.” Clients love this approach, and you will too. Enjoy.

Watch and listen to our conversation here

The key? Delight your customers.

Since 2014, Melissa Copeland and her team at Blue Orbit have worked with dozens of Fortune 500 organizations to deliver dramatic improvements in customer-centered experience. As a testament to her pragmatic approach, her clients often achieve benefits in excess of 10x their investment. Her goal is to craft solutions that empower employees, delight customers, and astonish owners.

The topic of culture change is one Melissa and I know a great deal about

As you’ll hear in our podcast, Melissa and I learn from each other as we share our ideas, experiences and know-how. You can read in my book, On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights, how frustrating it is for companies, then and now, to address the core service imperative of their organization’s business. My hope is that you take away some great learning around how to step back and look at your own business with fresh eyes, and see where you might need to make some changes that will make all the diference.

If you’d like to reach out to Melissa, you can connect with her on LinkedIn, her website BlueOrbitConsulting.com, or email her at melissacopeland@blueorbitconsulting.com.

Want to know more about how to make your business’s customer experiences great ones? Start here:

• Podcast: Randi Busse—How To Turn Customer Experience Into A Competitive Advantage
• Podcast: Carmen Effron—Digitization of the Customer Journey
• Blog: 5 Ways to Find New Customers. They are all around you! 

Additional resources for you

Read the transcript of our podcast here

Andi Simon: Welcome to On the Brink With Andi Simon. I’m Andi Simon, I’m your host and your guide. My job is to get you off the brink and I go looking for people who have really interesting ideas to share with you to help you see, feel and think in new ways. That’s why today I have Melissa Copeland. And Melissa is here to talk about the customers of tomorrow, and how to serve them. But what’s really interesting is her own journey and what she sees going on in the market, and how she can help you see it through that fresh lens that I want you to have. Remember, time to get off the brink, and the times they are changing. So let’s soar together. Melissa, thank you for joining me today.

Melissa Copeland: Thanks for having me.

Andi Simon: Share with the listeners, who is Melissa and when and how did you get to where you are now? And why are you so interested in it? Please share your story.

Melissa Copeland: Sure, it’s a wandering path, but I think many people have those nowadays. It was less common when I started working, but I actually started as a documentary producer producing travel documentaries and traveling around the globe doing that which I love. It didn’t take long, about two years, for me to learn that it was really hard to afford my rent and lunch and a bus pass on the salary a documentary producer makes. So I went to business school, and business school wasn’t at all what I expected. It was much more of a structured education versus some of the intellectual inquiries that I was expecting to find. So if there is such a thing, it sounds like an oxymoron, but I was a bit of a countercultural business school student coming out of grad school.

I landed in a job in strategy at what was then Ameritech, now AT&T. I was sent to one of the wholesale divisions. So think of the really technical engineering, kind of in the more old-fashioned parts of the company. And here I was, this kid who had been a documentary producer. And my background was in history and writing. And I learned to speak engineering, and I learned to speak pension. I had more fun than I ever thought I would in the corporate world. So I was rotated in the seven years that I was there, through almost every functional area. I got a taste of strategy, sales, marketing, and wound up doing two types of international assignments. One was a startup based in Chicago. And the second was an assignment based in Brussels, Belgium for two years. And those were amazing.

A couple of the things that I really learned was that the language of business is really one of figuring out how to connect with people, and how to define problems, and then organize toward a solution, whether it’s through collaboration, whether it’s through directing, or self-directed teams, or any of those pieces. And so one of the things I didn’t expect that I’ve used my entire career since then, was during that time in Brussels, the techniques that you learned growing up in the United States to influence people with money, or sales incentives, or performance incentives, didn’t work the same way in a different culture and context. And that notion of what is my culture and context? And how do I get the results I need?

One of the things I learned was, in the US, if you wanted to get something done, you have a meeting, you divide up the tasks, and everybody goes in, does it. In the situation I was in, in Brussels, if you had a meeting, the way to get people engaged was to give everybody the opportunity to participate in the brainstorming, right? So no matter what it was, if you call it brainstorming, people were highly engaged, because everyone wanted a piece of the ideas and to really feel like, what would they be called, an influencer, but to really be part of the solution, and then folks would happily go and participate in terms of behavior change. So that has actually become a signature part of the consulting I do today.

Some from that role, I moved through a couple of different roles, but I stayed in that arena of really working on customer experience and employee experience, and helping folks move through changes that almost always benefit customer experience and customer loyalty. And that’s when I would say my love affair with customer service and contact center organization started.

Andi Simon: You formed your company Blue Orbit Consulting in 2014. Typically, I would start any interview like this and read your résumé. But I really prefer you to talk about this journey because it’s a setup for what’s happened since you set up your own company. So how did you come about? Your insights are extremely valuable today. We don’t motivate people by giving them more money that doesn’t do anything for the research work. You can give them more money, but it doesn’t mobilize them. It doesn’t motivate them. It’s not what makes them work. There’s something that took you from being inside to being a consultant having your own company. What was the catalyst?

Melissa Copeland: So I worked for many years for a consulting firm called The Northridge Group and helped build the firm, and was able to be the generalist moving across a lot of areas. The firm had tremendous success. And I have one of those hard learnings. After about 12 years there, my kids were eight and five, and I was continuing to travel almost every week. And no matter where I was, I was on the wrong continent for somebody. And we got to a point where more often than not, it was my kids, you know, or team members or clients. But it really became a challenge that it was my kids that were on the wrong side of that. So I left and I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. And that lasted, that break lasted about two months.

And we learned that I was terrible at carpooling, that I hated doing laundry, and got rid of all of our household help. But, former clients and colleagues started calling with projects and saying, hey, you’ve always been really good and helped me think through hard problems, will you come help me do this global technical support? Will you come take a look at this process problem in my organization? And that’s fundamentally how Blue Orbit was born.

So in 2014, I formed Blue Orbit. It was just me, and a couple of high school and college babysitters taking care of my kids, you know, before and after school. And as the firm grew, I really drove more focus around not just taking  every phone call, though anyone that calls and says, can you help me think through this hard problem, I really enjoy hard problems. So I’m happy to help think them through, but really, drove more focus around the pieces that I think are really important as businesses grow and move forward. And that is thinking through not just the customer journey, and some of the buzzwords around that, but also thinking through the service design for how you support that customer journey, and more recently, a lot of emphasis around employee engagement.

So how do you make it easier on the employees to deliver the service design and a fantastic customer experience. So little by little, as the firm grew, it started being engagements with me and then I started building more team-based engagements to be able to implement at large organizations. Then we land where we are today where the business supports both some startup companies that are just starting on that journey. It’s tons of fun when we have a blank slate, and you’re starting with the service design from the beginning. And then the large organizations where you might have hundreds or thousands of people that you’re trying to orchestrate. And then it’s really more that collaboration and building a funnel of ideas for how can we accomplish the goals we need to get to.

Andi Simon: You and I both understand the complexity of human interaction and conversations. And the question is, what do we say to whom in what way to get what done? And that’s not casual, and every culture is different. The culture is inside each one of these, small, large and otherwise, whether in Belgium or in the States, or whatever they are, and just do things differently. And your description of the Belgium folks who wanted some autonomy, mastery and purpose, which is what we’re talking about these days, was quite different than here where command and control tell you what to do, and tactical and practical, and not much gets done. So it’s an interesting time. So some of the insights that you’re pulling together, working over the last years, 2014 was a short long time ago. And between the pandemic and all the things going on with technology and customer transformation, there’s some key themes that you and I chatted a little bit about. Can you share them with our listeners or our audience? I do think they are going through them and they want to know, what do I do now? How do I do this? Some thoughts?

Melissa Copeland: Sure. I love how you you reference the autonomy and the mastery. One of the pieces that I first tried to size up is that culture and context and organization. I do feel compelled typically to look at data, because you always have people in your team or your organization that need to be data driven. And then we also have to look at some of the more qualitative aspects of what does it take to drive change, like, are we talking about a jello situation where you’re going in and going back out? Are we talking about a situation where people are highly receptive to doing things differently?

Some of the themes and particularly changes since 2020, a big one affecting a lot of organizations, whether we call it the great resignation or not, but the balance of power has shifted in terms of employees making choices about where they want to be. And so I challenge that many large organizations and in particular contact centers are dealing with the vacancy rate in roles that may be as high as 30%. So I have two clients right now that are down about 30% of people. And that puts enormous pressure on the organization and its ability to serve customers.

To that end, there are two big themes that I’ve been working with a lot of clients on. One is the theme around, what if the customer isn’t always right? And so how do you handle that? The first studies I’ve seen in years, probably as long as I’ve been working in customer experience, started coming out in the fall, illustrating a significant change in customer behavior, meaning, historically, customers really cared about that the agent I spoke with was friendly, were they pleasant, so we’ll call that friendliness. And then they care about, is my question answered, or has my problem been resolved?

The shift in the research over the past six months is that customers care much more about how fast something happens. So the friendliness isn’t at the top anymore, although I’d say it’s table stakes in most organizations, it’s really how quickly can you get to my question, or get me an answer. And can you do it in the media that I choose to interact with you in? So can you do it by voice? Can you do it by self service? Can you do it by chat? What are the different ways that I can connect with you? So that’s one huge arena.

The second that combines the two, getting answers quickly, and then struggling with kind of making the workplace attractive for employees and making their roles easier. And so I’ll call that the employee engagement or employee enablement tools. So in customer service, and contact center, lots and lots has been written and talked about around how artificial intelligence or AI is used in bots and self service so customers can do things themselves. The real frontier that I’ve been working with clients on for the past year, and I think it’ll become bigger in the next two years, is really around how do you use that power to enable human-to-human interaction? So how do I help an agent, right, be as quick and effective with a customer that wants to interact by voice? Or they have a question or a challenge that’s too complicated for the self service arena and so how do you deploy those tools on the market in a way that really makes the agent’s job easier, and makes employees feel like they can succeed in a difficult environment, or ultimately make that environment better? So I’d say those are the two big ones that I’ve been working with folks on that I think are the trends that are here to stay for at least 2022 to 2024.

Andi Simon: As a culture change expert, I’m curious, because I had one client who had a very bad help desk. And we actually suggested they go and make their folks remote before the pandemic. They were in a fabulous position when the pandemic hit. But the remote gave their staff a much better work environment and they lost the turnover. They speeded up the responses and they realized that having them come in and sit and wait and have to get things done in place was dysfunctional for this particular organization. They were an outsourced service provider, but what was important was that the people thought about it in terms of what mattered to them. Where did it matter that they work? What hours could they work, as opposed to a box that they had to fit into, and that autonomy and mastery. They needed something to motivate them to mobilize them to want to do this as opposed to being forced into it. And so that became interesting.

My second point is that both consumers and employees are people. If you think of them as the same as very important people, then your customer and your staff are connected. It’s not separate. And so now, if we step back and look at them as one ecosystem, it’s no longer what the customer wants, it’s how the employee and my customer can solve a problem together, collaboratively, as opposed to I’ll do it in my time. You can’t. It’s really less adversarial or competitive and much more collegial. Are you seeing some of the same things?

Melissa Copeland: Absolutely. So I think one of the really interesting takeaways is, remote work is something that has been talked about for a long time. And then companies that explored it particularly for contact centers or tasted different pieces of it in very targeted areas. The pandemic forced folks to do it on a mass scale. And what many organizations found was no productivity was lost. What they had to do, though, was figure out how to recreate some of the cultural aspects that existed when you brought people together.

It’s a great example you give around the IT help desk because one of the bigger satisfiers for folks that work in centers are being able to have hours that they can manage more effectively. And so for a center, the benefit is that they can have more people working part time or split schedules or different approaches. And for employees, you’ve removed the transit piece. So they’re more open to working. So I think those are often terrific solutions.

And it’s interesting to see organizations work through what’s here to stay because when folks flipped the switch on March 2020, right, all the old processes went with them. There’s a really interesting opportunity for organizations that are willing to take a hard look. It’s one, I’ll be honest, I thought it was going to happen in 2021 and it didn’t happen that much around getting rid of some of the low value processes and activities. But I’m optimistic that this year will be the year that many organizations step back and say, we really need to do it that way, or can I make it easier on everybody. And then I don’t think I can say it better than you did around the collegial approach to problem solving.

So it’s typically a terrific scenario, when you can have an agent empowered to conduct a conversation the way they want to. And that requires a couple of things. It requires organizational trust, and having the metrics or ways to measure the effectiveness of a conversation that go beyond process compliance. So a traditional way of doing it was, here’s the process and you’re measured on how you follow it that doesn’t drive the autonomy and mastery of that process. But it doesn’t drive mastery of the customer interaction. And so seeing more organizations move toward some of the enablement tools that in order to allow agents to have the conversation that they want and need to have with a customer, you have to solve the problem.

It’s very different to achieve the same goal. So an example of some of the cooler new tools that are coming into play is some of the same artificial intelligence technology that makes self service bots work can be deployed to help agents. So the bot can be sort of listening, if you will, to the conversation and picking up key words and tone from the customer. And then prompt the agent. Here are some documents that might help you. Here are the links and the reference material so that the agent can focus on the conversation, not zooming through multiple apps, or wikis or web links, to find the information they need. And that goes toward your point around, you can really drive a collegial situation more than you can an adversarial one. You give the employee a great shot at success versus the employee feels like they’re on the front line.

Andi Simon: You raised a very important question. How do we evaluate, assess and appraise our employees? There was a great article that talked about how I never see them. I used to evaluate them based upon how I felt about it. I mean, some of the reaach proves that’s how you evaluated them. It wasn’t on their performance, per se, it was how you liked them or not. And so now they’re having a difficult time knowing what to evaluate. It’s not just compliance with a rigorous help desk script, or how fast you answer the phone, or how fast you solve the problem, or how the customer evaluated you. This is all experiential, and it’s richer in many ways and more challenging to evaluate another.

I’m not quite sure how to tap into the customer satisfaction. What does that mean? l’ll give you one little speed thing. One of the CEO groups I was doing my research with, a gentleman in fertility centers said, it used to be that we could set up an appointment with someone interested in our methodology with a doctor, you know, over time. Now they want it immediately. And if I can’t get the doctor to contact them immediately, however fast that is, they go somewhere else. And I say welcome to a world of instantaneous gratification. You know, they’re ready right now. I want that conversation. And he said, I don’t know how to put a young person in charge of it now, so they can appreciate what that young person is looking for because I can’t figure it out at all. So now, my question for you is, as you’re looking at this, how do we appraise the success of our customer service system? And what should people think about as they are evaluating their evaluation system?

Melissa Copeland: Those are great questions. So the first one is relatively straightforward. So when looking at the success of a customer service organization, or the customer experience, many of those metrics don’t change, what changes is how you use them. So in terms of data, one of the fun things about contact centers is they usually have an overwhelming amount of data. So you can see how quickly our customers connect to the answer that they want. And you should be able to calculate how many times you’re getting the customer the right answer the first time. If you can’t calculate it, that’s a great subject for us to talk about and brainstorm how to get to it. But you should know how often the agent is able to satisfy the customer. And when they can’t, you need to divide into two groups, the things that are agent specific, and the things that are systemic.

So right, no agent could have solved it, because of other other reasons. So there’s an overall framework for looking at how quickly am I serving the customer? And then, was the customer satisfied? And I would argue, most importantly, was their issue solved on the first call? That does push by the wayside some old metrics. So an older metric would be looking at how long it took. I, Melissa, typically, I don’t care how long it took, if you did it right the first time and the customers were happy, we’ve avoided future calls and interactions that become more expensive and more time consuming. And we’ve made that customer of tomorrow happy because they have patience for very little and certainly not for mistakes or ongoing back and forth about the same issue when it comes to appraising the individual.

That also is something that I love, your example that is shifting, right. So it was always something where, when people were in the same place, you would see someone at their desk, you would see if they were working, and that vision that I can see you isn’t there anymore. So that does drive more dependence on metrics. And it does drive more conversation with the individual. So one of the things that I’m seeing is more and more trends toward talking to people about how they feel. Yes, I’ve never had so many conversations about feelings. You know, I’m working with one client right now and we’re doing a large transformation program. And a lot of our conversations are, do you feel competent? Do you feel empowered? What are the things you’re struggling with? And how can I help you? So it is a much more honest move toward what I would call true coaching and development and away from some of the performance management.

And some of those organizations wind up being my favorite clients because they’re really interested in elevating the business’s performance and the people providing it. That doesn’t mean you don’t have to deal with some specific performance situations. But it’s a very different philosophy around, let’s look at your metrics, and let’s talk about how to make them better. As opposed to, here’s the threshold and that’s where you have to be.

Andi Simon: I love what you’re talking about. A great transformation, isn’t it? Because slowly we are recognizing what can mobilize people. We’re learning so much from the neurosciences, the cognitive sciences, everything from the curiosity quotient, and the emotional intelligence and all the ways the amygdala and the brain works and what really gets people excited about what they’re doing. You couldn’t have done this without the pandemic, generating this great transformation. And now we’re changing how we’re managing people, asking them to feel the way we’d like them to. People didn’t know what those words meant before but now we decide with the heart and the eyes, and how it feels. How does it look? And then intellectually, we can look at the numbers that come out of that. It’s interesting. One of the podcasts I did with Lisa McLeod was about purpose. And Joey Ryan’s work on purpose, purpose-driven companies. If you have purpose with mastery and autonomy, you mobilize people to do far better, and any other kind of ratcheting down to data-driven metrics, the data comes from being happy. And that’s not so terrible.

Melissa Copeland: I would add, though, that for many organizations, it’s a really difficult shift. People have been rewarded for a long time for complying with the process, doing the right things, and being where you’re supposed to be. There’s enormous opportunity in this transformation. But there’s also a lot of fear and support required. And so, I think the other interesting trend is, many organizations, whether you call it change management or organizational change management, or you just call it transformation, or I have been known to call it whatever I need to call it to get it done so we can call it process work. But really thinking through, how do you help people through that difference? Because particularly tenured employees will have a lot of trouble making the move.

Andi Simon: I want to add something and then we’ll wrap, because the points you’re raising for our audience are very important. We live the story in our mind. The way humans survive is that we create a story in our mind and that becomes our reality. And Melissa says something very important because the tenured employees have a story that registered well for them in the past. They really knew how to do that and keep their jobs and keep the boss satisfied. They played it really well, it was like a role on stage, where they knew how to play Macbeth really, really well. And now they have to play Hamlet. And they don’t have a clue what the script is or how to perform. And it isn’t that they resist the change, they don’t really know how to. If you put them on stage and told them to play a new role, they don’t know what to say or how to say it. They don’t know how to behave with each other. They don’t know what to expect. It’s very scary legitimately.

And the brain hates to change, it’s got a lot of cortisol floating around up there. So as you’re looking at your employees, don’t get angry. Figure out how to hire Melissa to come help you invent new ways to show them how to come to the new. We used to say, if you want to change, have a crisis or create one, because if not, your brain doesn’t pay attention. I never expected this kind of crisis. I don’t really want another one. But don’t waste it. It’s a great time. Listen, this is such fun, tell the listeners two or three things that you don’t want them to forget.

Melissa Copeland: Number one, whether or not the customer is right, finding that collegiality and collaboration is critical to customer experience moving forward. So figuring out your service design and how to deliver it is absolutely paramount. The second point would be employee enablement, and letting employees lead but giving them the tools to do so. So freeing them from some of the process compliance of prior iterations is a terrific tool to do it. And you know, I’m happy to brainstorm or chat with anyone about those.

And then one more item that your last comment made me think of is, I myself had one of these epiphanies in November. My daughter and I went from Chicago to New York, and we saw Six on Broadway. And so for those that aren’t familiar with Six, it’s about the wives of Henry the Eighth, many of whom wound up decapitated or died of illness, had all these extraordinary adventures. And we brought my aunt with us. So we covered multiple generations, and my aunt knew the history better than anyone and loved the show for the history. My daughter loved the pop music, and the takeoffs of Beyoncé and Adele, and the music that was there, and I got about half of each, and still loved it. And so I think of that as inspiration for listeners. You don’t have to be at any one extreme, but you do have to find a way to find some of the fun in it. And if you can find the fun, then you can move the culture forward.

Andi Simon: That’s a beautiful metaphor for everything you do for life, in fact, because it is the same experience seen through very different eyes. The lenses were completely different. The story was exactly the same. You all sat in the same seats and watched it and had very different experiences. How better can we wrap up our conversation today? If they’d like to reach you, what’s the best way to get ahold of you?

Melissa Copeland: I’m easy to find on LinkedIn, you can find me, Melissa Copeland, or my firm Blue Orbit Consulting, or by the website, theblueorbitconsulting.com.

Andi Simon: That’s terrific. And we’ll put all of this together on our blog. This is such fun, you and I could talk a great deal about the dilemmas and the opportunities. Remember, don’t waste a crisis and you’re coming out of a very unusual one, but this is a time that has pushed us to transformation, great transformations. Some of us love it and others can’t figure out how to get back to what was, but you can’t. I doubt we’ll ever see what was, we don’t even remember what it was. So it’s hard to go back. But instead, it’s a time to create your future. So don’t waste it. It’s a great time to do it. And this has been terrific today.

For all of you who come, thank you for joining us. You come from around the globe. I mean, we’re ranked in the top 5% of global podcasts. I’m honored. You send me great people to interview. info@andisimon.com is where you can get to me. But the most important thing today that I’d like to share is, buy my books, On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights and Rethink: Smashing The Myths of Women in Business. You can get them on Amazon or Barnes and Noble or wherever you like to buy books. But the point of the books is to help you see, feel and think in new ways. And this podcast is here to do the same. My job is to help you get off the brink and soar. And sometimes you need a little catalyst, a little push, a little nudge because as we know, we get attached to that shiny object and we don’t want to let go but the times are changing. So enjoy the trip. Stay well and enjoy your day. Have a good one. Bye now.

WOMEN MEAN BUSINESS® is a registered trademark of the National Association of Women Business Owners® (NAWBO)

Hear how a family firm can remember its roots while focusing on the future 

As they say, family is family and business is business. But in many cases, the two can coexist, often quite profitably. Did you know that almost 80% of the businesses in the U.S. are owned and run by families? As a corporate anthropologist, a culture change expert and a daughter raised in a family business, I have a particularly strong interest in family firms, which is why I’m so excited to bring to you Dylan Rexling, the fifth generation to work in his family’s farm operations in southwestern Indiana. He read my book On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights and was inspired to incorporate many of its teachings into the way he runs his company. Whether or not you have a family firm, listen in to learn about running a successful business.

Dylan is that rare business owner who values every employee and actually listens to his customers.

Key takeaways from our conversation:

• Get to know your employees. He has a monthly Friday breakfast where everyone talks about who they are, why they’re at the company, and what their goals are.
• Admit you’re not perfect. Dylan’s message to his workers: “My door’s open. Come see me. If we do something that we shouldn’t have done, or we said it in a way that we shouldn’t have, come talk to us because we don’t know if you don’t tell us.”
• Culture is very important in a business. He specifically hired culture experts who brought in the concept of culture to the organization.
• Always be willing to learn and get better. There’s always room to go a step higher.
• Do everything you can to service your customer. If they need something, do everything in your power to say yes, even if it’s not easy. The old saying is still true: the customer is first.
• Treat your employees well. And your customers. Dylan writes an anniversary card to every one of his employees every time they hit an anniversary date. “I just write a little thank you that says, ‘I really appreciate your contributions to our team and look forward to working with you in the future.'” He also sends handwritten notes to customers thanking them for their business. “I think those little things are what matter.”
• Take a step back and look at your business from a high level. “And I think you’ll be very happy that you did so well,” he notes.

To connect with Dylan, you can find him on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter or his website PFL Logistics.

Want to learn more about the importance of culture, especially in family firms?

• Podcast: Jake Manthei—A Family Firm That Lives Blue Ocean Strategy®
• Podcast: Amy Bruske—A Guide for Sustaining Great Family Businesses
• Podcast: Marcella Bremer—Build a Better Business With an Amazing, Positive Culture

Additional resources for you

Read the transcript of our podcast here

Andi Simon: Welcome to On the Brink With Andi Simon. I’m Andi Simon, I’m your host and your guide. And as you know, what I love to do is find people that are going to help you see, feel and think in new ways because that’s how you open your mind and begin to see opportunities. We often say, the future is all around us, it’s just not widely distributed yet. But what if what’s happening is something you could see so that you can understand it? Maybe I can as well, because in some ways, the story that you’re going to hear today is going to help you rethink what you’re doing and begin to open that door so that you can get off the brink.

I have with me today, Dylan Rexing. I’m honored to share him with you. I met him out in Indianapolis at a Vistage group, and I think what they’re doing is transformational to an industry that’s sluggish. I’m going to let him tell you more about it, but let me tell you about his bio. Dylan Rexing is president and CEO of Rexing Companies, an Evansville-based network of family-owned and operated companies. So if you have a family firm or are thinking of building one, this is really good insights to share.

Dylan is fifth generation in his family’s farm operations, where he grew up learning the value of hard work and financial responsibility. But under his leadership, the Logistics Division of PFL Logistics has earned recognition as one of the 5,000 fastest growing private companies for the past four years. I’m going to let him tell you his story, but I think you’re going to enjoy his journey because it’ll change your own story about what’s possible. If only you can open your mind to see and then do some observation into innovation. Dylan, thank you for joining me today. I’m so excited to have you.

Dylan Rexing: Yeah, thanks for having me. Good seeing you again.

Andi Simon: It’s good to see you again. Dylan said he was away and read my book and I went, Oh, isn’t that good reading on the beach? And I appreciate it. Dylan, please, let’s hear your story. Your journey as you were sharing it with me is really a perfect setup for today’s talk.

Dylan Rexing: So, as you had mentioned, I’m generation five in our family business. When I took over the family operation, we were really just an agricultural-based company. We farm about 3000 acres. We had 120,000 chickens. And I took over out of college. I have a bachelors in accounting. And I determined that I didn’t want everything that we did to be out of our control. So as a farming operation, we’re not in control of the weather. So when we plant our crops is not determined by us, the yields that we get are also determined by Mother Nature. Then when we take it to market, it’s really what the market bears.

And so I sort of took over our organization. We still farm. It’s still part of our legacy. Farmers are a backbone of the American economy. I don’t want to necessarily downplay that by any means. It’s still an important part of our business. But I sort of took our business and made a full 360. We have about 90 employees today in the supply chain space. And so we have three companies: cold storage, warehouse trucks and a trucking company where we have trucks and drivers, and then a freight company where we sort of work with our customers and partner with our customers to move freight all over the country.

And so, for me, as you mentioned, I was on vacation last week and you were nice enough to give me a copy of your book On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights, and I read it and talked about how you sort of put on a different lens and look at the world in a different way. It resonated with me. If you get an email from me, at the very bottom underneath my signature it says: “The most dangerous phrase in the English language is ‘as we’ve always done it.'”

Andi Simon: Dylan, you have no idea how many clients hire me to help them change that. The first thing they say is, No, we don’t do it that way. And I say, Then you don’t need me. If that’s the way you’re going to do it, the habits will drive you. But the times are changing, and maybe those habits are no longer viable or valuable or reliable for you.

But, you know, you have a curious mind. And as you and I were talking, that curiosity factor is not to be underestimated. How did you begin to figure out the logistics part? Or, you could have abandoned where you were, but you didn’t. You could have sold it, which you haven’t. But now you’ve taken a bigger picture and have begun to develop a new set of solutions for the whole supply chain of. And I have a hunch there’s some interesting new things coming as well. How did you begin? Where did it start?

Dylan Rexing: Well, believe it or not, you might wonder, how does agriculture and supply chain tie together? And the fact of the matter is, it’s very common for farmers to own supply chain-driven businesses. For example, farmers have to have semis and trailers to take product out of the fields and take them to market. But they only do that for several weeks or a month or so, two months a year. So you buy this equipment and it just sort of collects dust per se.

So the way it started was, we had all this equipment lying around that we were trying to figure out, What do we do with it? And then the cold storage business is kind of the diamond in the middle that sort of connects it all. Our cold storage business: we have customers, big and small, from large poultry companies to bakeries to anything in the middle. And so those all tie in because of the stuff that we store in our warehouse. Our cold storage food product that we store, it has to get to market. It has to get to the grocery store, or it has to get to a plant to be further processed. And so it was all sort of tied together through a supply chain lens.

Andi Simon: Now your clients come to you for any particular reason? Have you differentiated your cold storage in some fashion? Is it fully integrated? You make it simple and easy for them. What are the kind of core attributes of it?

Dylan Rexing: So we like to tell folks, we’re a one-stop shop. So you can call us and we can store your products, you can call us and we can haul your products. We don’t necessarily have to, but we just try to make it easy and convenient for our customers. The cold storage business is pretty niche. There aren’t a ton of companies in the US that are in the cold storage warehouse space and buy cold storage warehouses. For your listeners that maybe don’t understand that, it’s basically a building where we store products that are frozen, refrigerated, fresh, so that they’re nice and healthy for folks in the supply chain, but just a high level of how that works.

Andi Simon: Okay. But you bring them into the cold storage. You said that there aren’t many cold storage businesses, and I am always curious whether you’re doing it like everyone else. And, you and I were together when we talked about being another “red ocean,” or someone who is creating a market. And I hear you because you make it simpler and easier for your clients to get what they need done without having to work as hard, making it simple instead of complex, and beginning to see ways to add value innovatively so that maybe it’s not a Blue Ocean®, but it has all the attributes of a good market creator, not simply “we are another.” Am I saying that correctly?

Dylan Rexing: So I would say, there’s only two large players in the cold storage business that own over 60% of the market. And so one of the ways we differentiate ourselves is by answering the phone when the customer calls. No offense to large companies, but when they get big, there’s several layers of folks in the middle.

And so one of the ways we differentiate ourselves is, we personalize our approach to the customer. If they need something, we do everything in our power to say yes, even if it’s not easy. And so I think ultimately the farming background that I have is sort of driven by the fact that, it sounds a little cheesy, but the customer is first. And we do everything that we can to service that customer.

And interestingly enough, most of our customer base does business with all three of our companies. So we try to anchor them in from one or the other and then convert them from being just a single customer to three of our operating entities. But our secret sauce really is just doing what we say we’re going to do, answering phones, answering emails, and just providing a good service.

Andi Simon: How interesting, simple and yet very profound and very much appreciated and needed by your community, by your markets. Are you located just in Indiana or are you across the country or where are you located?

Dylan Rexing: So our warehouses, we have four locations in Indiana, all in southwest or southeastern Indiana. Our trucking division, we have a location in Owensboro, Kentucky, about 45 minutes from us here. And we also have an operation in the Carolinas. We have several employees out there in the Charlotte, North Carolina area, a little city called Troy. So we aren’t all over the country, but we have trucks that travel in all contiguous 48 states. But our headquarters is mainly here in southwestern Indiana.

Andi Simon: It sounded when you and I were talking, though, that so many companies today have people problems. But I have a hunch you don’t. And I have a hunch there’s some core values that are working well for you. Can you share with our listeners about how you attract and retain? Is it the metaphor of family? What do you find works particularly well? Because I do think that’s a much needed wisdom to share with folks who aren’t quite sure how to do that anymore.

Dylan Rexing: You know, I would say that we’re not perfect, and I don’t think really anyone is. We’ve grown over the years. I mean, if you look back in the history books of our business in 2010, we had zero employees and 13 years later we have 90. And so we’ve obviously had some struggles along the way. We’re still learning. I tell folks, when we onboard, we’ve hired so many people as of late that I don’t know their faces. I don’t know their names, I don’t know what their hobbies are or what makes them tick. And so we started having a Friday, a monthly breakfast where we bring in bagels and sit down and just talk about who they are and why they’re here and what their goals are and those kinds of things.

And I just found it important to sort of personalize each person; it’s kind of embarrassing when someone works for us and I don’t know who they are. And so I made it a purpose to sit down with them and just take an hour out of the month and just get to know them. But when I end those meetings, I tell folks all the time that, you know, we’re not perfect. My door’s open. Come see me. If we do something that we shouldn’t have done, or we said it in a way that we shouldn’t have, come talk to us because we don’t know if you don’t tell us.

And so I would say that culture is very important in a business. I didn’t even know what the word culture meant probably 4 or 5 years ago. I didn’t really understand it. I thought you just went to work and you busted your butt until you got the job done. And again, I didn’t really understand it. And we hired a couple of people that really brought culture to our organization.

And so I would say, you know, as far as attracting and retaining talent, we’re better than the average company. We still have room to go. One of the things Vistage will teach you, and I’ve only been in Vistage a little over almost two years, is if you’re not willing to always learn and get better, you’re just going to get passed by. And so when people say, Well, how do you know how you are doing? And in the employee area, I always tell folks, I think we do a fabulous job. But, you know, there’s always that room to go a step higher.

Andi Simon: Particularly since the folks you’re hiring are all coming from an age at a different time. They’ve had different experiences, you know, and the Google search for culture and culture change is has been going up like this for a couple of years now, something we specialize in because people don’t know, as you’re saying, what is it? And if you have a toxic one, you don’t even know why. And if you have a good one, you can’t figure out how to keep it going. And it’s the thing that makes humans so special.

We must have meaning, and as you’re talking, it’s important to get your folks to understand that they matter in the larger scheme of your business, that they aren’t just a cog in the wheel, that their feelings matter and and they’re changing and you want them to help build a better business. And it’s interesting because I have a hunch your clients look upon them as assets, as real value providers, not just tactical and practical people. I mean, is there kind of a blend of your culture into your clients?

Dylan Rexing: Yeah. I mean, I would say we have customers, we have employees on site at customers’ facilities. We have some that work on their site. Not only are they there occasionally to do a pick up or a drop, but we have sites where our employees sit at a desk next to our customer, which is a little odd at times. And so we have to sort of manage that.

Our culture and their culture have to kind of mix and we have to make sure that our employees are in a good space. But, I would say it’s important to have employees that want to work for you. And that you treat your employees well. One of the small little tricks that I’ve taken from my time and in some books I’ve read, is that I write an anniversary card for every one of our employees every time they hit an anniversary date. I just write a little thank you that says, I really appreciate your contributions to our team and look forward to working with you in the future.

It’s really short and sweet, but I think we’ve sort of lost touch as a country or a globe, that everything is social media driven and everything’s on our phone. And so our folks appreciate me taking the time to just literally get out a pen and write down a nice little note. And we also do that for customers. So we’ll send handwritten notes to customers thanking them for their time listening to us about X, Y or Z. Maybe it’s the curious mind in me, but I just sometimes think those little things are what matter.

Andi Simon: Oh, I want to say, sometimes I think it is. I was on a plane coming back from Houston, Houston or Lexington. Unfortunately, I’m on a plane every week, and this flight attendant wrote me a personal note thanking me for being Executive Platinum on American Airlines, and how much she appreciated my loyalty and service. You know, often I get things from American to thank me but this is the second time I’ve gotten a handwritten note and I took a picture of it. And I just think it’s a nice touch that makes it seem like you’re not just a cog in this thing, that maybe it matters. And it mattered to this particular flight attendant. And she was very gracious about it. She said, I just want you to know how important this is. And I went, Well, I don’t know who trained you, but you got a heart that’s bigger and sometimes the flights are good and they work, and sometimes they don’t. And after a while you just take whatever you get, right? But it was very touching.

So yours has a ripple effect because I have a hunch your folks then say thank you to their folks and their clients say, Isn’t this a nice thing? And all of a sudden the community has an appreciation for each other, bigger than the task at hand, am I right?

Dylan Rexing: Yeah. I mean, ultimately, I think what we try to do is, and it’s changed over time, but we want to make our community and our world a better place than when we took it over. Right? And so the little things about saying thank you and writing little notes to your employees and customers, I hope that puts a smile on our people’s faces. And I hope when we send it to vendors and customers that it makes them feel better. And it’s just trying to make the place we live in a little better. Ultimately, I don’t know the exact statistics, but we spend more time with our colleagues at work than we spend at home with our family. If you don’t love or enjoy where you work, you need to make a change, right?

Andi Simon: Well, you can tell the folks how to reach you if they’re curious and how to join you. I am curious, though, when we were talking about the future and the things that you’re already seeing as ways to improve, even a very good model that you’ve got. And I do think that the times are changing fast, and sometimes there’s a little idea that comes and adds great value. Can you share something about the work that you’re doing now?

Dylan Rexing: So we’ve got a new program with one of our companies, PFLAG, that we’ve been working on bringing to light. It started in July. Let me take a step back. The biggest fear I have as a business owner is that I’m the taxi cab that gets replaced by Uber, a great metaphor, or I’m a Blockbuster that gets replaced by Netflix. That’s my biggest fear is that we started and we put all this tremendous effort and thought into our industry or in our several businesses, and that’s just my biggest fear that someone comes in and just replaces us like that.

And so I’m always trying to think of different ways to differentiate ourselves. And so we’ve got a new program for our logistics business that’s really unique. It’s probably the only one in the country. And we ultimately give our customers more control and transparency over their supply chain and where their product is and how much it costs and those kinds of things. So it’s kind of cheesy to say, but we’ve become a partner of our customer, not really just a vendor. We’ve become partners. So we’re integrated into their system. And like I said, we have employees that sit next to their employees in their building. And so we’ve just become an important piece of their business. And just the reason it came up is, again, I just was extremely concerned that we were going to be the taxicab. And I just don’t want to do that.

Andi Simon: But your metaphor, your aha, is that it’s happened, to Airbnb and Blockbuster could have bought Netflix, but didn’t think that was anything. Let’s not forget, there was a Sears catalog before an Amazon ever existed. And now no more Sears and lots of Amazon. And you wonder who’s going to tackle that one.

But to your point, unless you try and you don’t really know what’s of value to your partners, I love the idea they’re collaborators with you. Together you both rise, and without those customers partnering, you can’t grow either. I mean, you can’t have empty  cold storage. It doesn’t do much good. And we can’t because you’re delivering the food to us in a way that’s fast and easy and really affordable.

More often than not, we believe it’s getting to be challenging. You know, I’m enjoying our conversation. The thing that I really do think is that there are some lessons that you’ve learned that you want our listeners to hear: one, two or three of them that really impacted you because you are different than when you started to do this transformation and things are working, I have a hunch, better than you might have anticipated, but we can’t necessarily know the future. We just can plan for it. Some lessons you’ve learned that you want to share.

Dylan Rexing: You know, I’m going to hit the same topic again. But I think it’s extremely important. I think for someone that’s trying to start a business, or maybe they’ve already started one and they’re kind of in a growth phase or anything in between, I think you need to walk in every day and think about how you’re going to replace yourself. Because if you don’t walk in your office every day or your building or wherever you work every day and think about how am I going to get replaced, someone’s going to replace you. Maybe it’s not tomorrow. Maybe it’s five years from now. But ultimately that’s the world that we live in. It’s moving much faster today than it ever has. So I think that’s one important piece that I’d like to share.

The other piece I like to share is to listen to all the stakeholders in your area. So listen to your employees, listen to your vendors, listen to your customers. You learn more from that than you’re going to learn anywhere else. There’s my neighbor who ran a $1 billion manufacturing plant down the street from us. And he said, What I would do is, I’d have this scheduled time every Wednesday, I think it was where I’d walk the plant floor. It was a manufacturing business, a big one in our area. And every week he made a point, for a couple hours, to walk around and just walk the plant floor and talk to his people.

A lot of folks in today’s world, especially in my age group, I like to pick on my age group, I’m a little younger and we do some things better, but we also struggle in some areas, and people in my age group want to manage behind a desk or behind a spreadsheet or something of that nature. And I think it’s just important to kind of get out there and get in front of the stakeholders of your business.

Andi Simon: Well, you know, as an anthropologist, I can tell you that you really don’t know what you don’t know. And you can ask people and they’ll tell you a story about what they think it is you want to hear. But that gentleman who went out to look and see is how we actually learn. And unless you’re in the trucks or in the cold storage route with your own customers, you’re imagining what it is they’re struggling with and where you could add value innovatively.

My husband was a serial entrepreneur in his last business. He spent a whole lot of time just listening, trying to hear what people were challenged by and not assuming we knew because we really don’t know. We think we know, but we are imagining what it is like there. And so that point is a really powerful one.

You know, this has been fun. Do you have your folks also coming back with things they’ve heard from customers that feed into an innovation, you know, culture in some fashion? My last question and then we’ll do a wrap up because I do think they hear more than we will ever hear.

Dylan Rexing: So when we were at Vistage in Indy together, you had spoken about going to your customer service team to listen. Our business isn’t necessarily set up that way. And so it’s still in the back of my brain as to how to get ideas from not just myself talking to folks, but to get ideas from other folks in our organization. So stay tuned on that. It’s one piece that I sort of wrote down as a takeaway, and an important one for sure. I think what Vistage says is, It’s a day to work on your business, not in your business. That’s kind of their metaphor.

I think my last piece of advice would be: sometimes we get really busy in the day to day of whatever fire is out there. Take a step back and sort of look at your business from a high level. And I think you’ll be very happy that you did so well.

Andi Simon: And I love the idea of taking a Wednesday and being an observer, and give it enough frequency so that you can really begin to see. And offline, you and I can talk about some ideas about how to get your talent out there to begin to feed things back in because there’s always gaps for pain points that they hear.

My favorite story is someone who said to a Vistage member,  what “What if’s” could you have benefited from? And he said, We ignored all those. That wasn’t what we sold him, and then we asked where all the opportunities were. So he created the “what if” sales process. Don’t sell what we sell, listen to what they need. And I went, Oh, that’s not hard. And he said, But I didn’t hear a word that customer was saying, and that’s where all my opportunities were. So it’s pretty cool stuff. Where can they reach you if they’d like to get ahold of you?

Dylan Rexing: The best way is the Contact Us page on our website. My office number’s on there. My email address is on there. I’m happy to talk to anybody at any time and see if there’s a way I can improve your business.

Andi Simon: Good. I am reluctant to share on the recordings because they’re there for a long time and sometimes we don’t want them there for a long time. But I thank you so much. It’s been such a pleasure today. So this is fun. I have to tell Steve McFarland this was just a treat and he should send me some more of his folks. They’re really remarkable people. It was wonderful.

For those of you who don’t know about Vistage, I’ll put a plug in. I think I’ve done 503 or 504 Vistage talks, mostly on: change matters, how to find new markets Blue Ocean Strategy-style or culture change or innovation. But Vistage is an organization of CEOs and key leaders from companies across the world now, and it brings them together for them to listen and grow and learn.

In my book, On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights, six of the eight stories in there are Vistage members. And it’s a great way to understand how Vistage folks begin to open their minds to possibilities, and it gives us great opportunities to help them see things through a fresh lens, which is my job.

For those of you who came today, as always, thank you for joining us. It’s so much fun to do podcasting. It’s a way of sharing people and ideas and you don’t need to listen to me alone. This was a marvelous time to share and I’m just glad we’re growing together. I feel like a partner. Our new book, Women Mean Business: Over 500 Insights from Extraordinary Leaders to Spark Your Success, co-authored with Edie Fraser and Robyn Freedman Spizman, is behind me here, and for those of you who may have bought it, I’m getting great reviews on Amazon. If you haven’t bought it yet, Amazon, Barnes and Noble and local booksellers have it, and we are on the book tour. If you want to hear us speak about how Women Mean Business, I’d be delighted to share with you. There are 102 women in it. They’re all leaders in their field who share their five wisdoms, and help others do better together. And that’s what we’re all about.

So it’s been fun. Thank you for coming to On the Brink. My job is to help you get off the brink. And, so thank you Dylan, it’s been a pleasure. Have a great day. Bye bye now.

Learn how to be your own boss and the power of saying no  

Those of you who are wondering whether it’s time for you to leave that corporate life and start your own business, you’re going to love my guests today, Julie Barlow and Jean-Benoit Nadeau. They’re freelance writers and translators and the authors of the new book Going Solo: Everything You Need to Start Your Business and Succeed as Your Own Boss. Many aspiring entrepreneurs have plenty of skill and passion but don’t have a sense of how to run a business, which makes their advice so valuable. Are you an entrepreneur or solopreneur? You really should listen in.

Watch and listen to our conversation here

According to Julie and Jean-Benoit, a good business plan is basically six questions:

1. What do you want to do?
2. Why do you want to do it?
3. What’s the market?
4. What price do you want to offer?
5. What will you bring to people?
6. What’s the purpose, the “what for”?

To connect with them, visit their LinkedIn page or their website.

Want to learn more about what makes successful entrepreneurs successful? Here’s a start:

• Blog: 10 Qualities To Drive Your Success As A Female Entrepreneur
• Blog: The 5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Scale Your Business
• Podcast: Marsha Friedman—How A Woman Entrepreneur Took A Little Idea And Turned It Into A Big Business
• Podcast: Sharon Cully—Great Ideas to Help Entrepreneurs Gain Time and Success

Additional resources for you

Read the transcript of our podcast here

Andi Simon: Welcome to On the Brink With Andi Simon. I’m Andi Simon, I’m your host and your guide. And remember, my job is to get you off the brink. So I want to bring to you people who are going to help you see, feel and think in new ways. You know, and this is always my starting speech, because what I want my audience, whether you’re watching or you’re listening, is to learn something new. And the best way to do that is to see it and feel it and begin to get the stories from someone else who has done it and say, Oh, I can do that too.

So today I have a wonderful couple here to share with you their story and a new book. Let me tell you about them. Julie Barlow and Jean-Benoit Nadeau are the authors of Going Solo: Everything You Need to Start Your Business and Succeed as Your Own Boss. So those of you who are out there wondering whether or not it’s time for you to leave that corporate life and start your own business, or you’re already starting the business and want to know how to succeed at business, or you’re really thinking about, I don’t know, going back into business, it’s a good time to listen in and think about your own purpose and passion and where you could really have a great trip.

They are prize-winning authors and journalists. The husband and wife pair have been running a freelance writing business for over three decades. Look at the books behind them. I just love books and so many folks have no books. And I’m a book author and I love books. They’ve spoken across Canada, the US, Europe and Japan. Their work has appeared in The New York Times, USA Today, The International Herald Tribune, France’s L’Express, and more.

They’ve published 15 books, written over a thousand articles, won more than 30 journalism and literary awards. They’re avid travelers, they’ve lived in Paris, which I love, where John Boehner was a fellow of the Washington-based Institute for Current World Affairs. They’ve been to Toronto and Phoenix, where Julie was a Fulbright Scholar at Arizona State University. They’re trilingual in English, French and Spanish, and they are based in Montreal, where they live with their twin daughters. I’ve told you enough. It’s enough for you to see that I got somebody really cool here for you today, and they’re going to help you. Just like I want to see things through a fresh lens. Thank you, Jean-Benoit and Julie, thanks for joining me.

Jean-Benoit Nadeau: Thank you. Thank you very much for having us.

Andi Simon: Now Jean-Benoit has told me I can call him JB. Tell us about your own journey. It’s one thing to read a bio, it’s another thing to begin to think through, How did they get here? Why this book at this time? You certainly have written lots. Jean-Benoit, would you like to start about your journey?

Jean-Benoit Nadeau: Okay. I began as a writer in 1987. As a journalist. I’d done some theater before that. I’d studied engineering, decided in the end that I wanted to earn a living writing, and began as a writer. And since I was not that employable because I had no experience, I started freelancing, which was my destiny as a creator. Anyway, I realized later that a couple of things went well. I got my degree in political science, and was freelancing, meanwhile, and in 1993 things were going well and a magazine in Montreal offered me a job. I took the job and I was employed 29 days and I quit. That’s when I became self-employed by choice. My father is an engineer. He had his own consultancy, which became quite large eventually, but he was an entrepreneur, and he’s the first person who told me, because I was telling him, I have no job, What am I? Oh, he said, you’re self-employed. Oh really? He said, Yes. I know what it was.

Andi Simon: Bravo to your father.

Jean-Benoit Nadeau: And then we discussed frequently until he became sick at the beginning of the middle of the year 2005. He was a good mentor. He mentored us a lot. And we realized quite early that a lot of the problems we were going through were the same that he was going through as an engineer. Aside from writing, you know, how do you negotiate? How do you manage without losing time? How do you finance your business and all these things?

And I gave seminars first for journalists because I had a certain amount of success as a writer. So I was giving seminars to journalists. And then in 1997, I published a book which is the original version of the book in French for the Quebec market. And I started giving speeches in Chambers of Commerce and associate trade associations and realized that I was right on the advice that we had developed, because I was already partnered with Julie. So the advice that we were developing applied to everybody who wants to be creative in their work, really. And then we never had good success. We sold like 30,000 copies of the book in the tiny Quebec market and in French. And Julie said at one point, That book is absolutely translatable. So we got the rights back from my publisher and she translated it, and here we are.

Julie Barlow: So I had been thinking for years and years of translating it, but just got buried under other projects. My writing career began much like jazz. I stumbled into it, began writing music, music reviews when I was in university. And I lost my confidence. I didn’t come from a background with a father who was an entrepreneur. I didn’t come from a business background at all. I didn’t even know you could really make a living as a writer.

Andi Simon: Aha.

Julie Barlow: And that’s not unusual in our field, you know, for people to have a skill and develop it but not have any sense of how to run a business. So I finished my education, finished my master’s degree, and then just started out. And, nevertheless, even with that help that we had, there’s a number of skills you have to really develop in order to make your passion into a business. Basically, I felt very fortunate to have your dad. And of course, we developed our own, our own by trial and error.

And over the decades we developed our skills and our tips, and I was very happy to translate the book. We have two editions of it: one for the United States and one for Canada. And it’s just great to share with others, not just creative people, but people who want to live their passion. They want to do what they want to do. They want to leave a job, start out fresh, out of school or whatever. There’s just some basic things that you need to understand to make it work so that you don’t get drowned in frustrations.

Andi Simon: You know, it’s interesting while I’m listening to you. So I’m in business 22 years now, and I launched my business after being in corporate as an executive in two banks and as an executive in two hospitals. And prior to that, I was an anthropology professor. I got my tenure and I was a visiting professor teaching entrepreneurship. And I was on a journey because I knew I was an anthropologist. I like to apply it among businesses that are going through change because people hate change. And I sort of helped them see, feel and think in new ways.

But when I launched it after 911, my PR firm said to me, Oh, Andi, you’re a corporate anthropologist who helps companies change. And I went, Bingo. And so in a sense, he defined my passion, my purpose, the why. Then the question was, how? And I did what I used to do anyway, which was start to have lunch with people, you know, never eat alone. We started to network and network and network. And next thing you know, I had a half a dozen clients and I went, Oh, this is fun. This is free. And I’m having a great time being me.

And I do think that part of the passion and purpose is knowing who you are, not just what you do, but it’s sort of my story. I want to go back to yours. When you began to help people through the book, let’s talk about a process, a way of thinking. Because remember, we live the story in our mind. And so now the question is, typically the people who are going to read this book, what kind of story, what are they trying to do? Give them the wisdom and the lessons learned that you have. So the book complements it in some fashion. Who would like to start it?

Jean-Benoit Nadeau: I think that a very important moment in the process of thinking of ourselves as entrepreneurial was the realization that it’s so hard to change. And as an anthropologist, you’ll understand. Historically, people used to be all self-employed. And the people who were employed were at the bottom of the scale. They didn’t own their means of production, and they were at the bottom of the scale. And around the 19th century, that scale shifted. The people who were employed moved up socially, and it became a goal of education to have a job.

We all went to study in order to have a job. We don’t say to people, Study well, you’re going to have your own enterprise. We never say that to kids. We tell them to study well, you’ll have a job. So then I realized I will never have a job. What am I going to do? Well, I’m going to have work. Yep. So that’s what self-employed is. You don’t have a job, but you have work and you don’t have a boss. You have a client who is your equal because you are your own boss and you don’t have a salary. You have income which you build.

But you see, it took me about 4 or 5 years even to send a bill to my clients because I thought it was pretentious. I’m sorry, I was an artist. I was a writer. I came from the theater. So at one point they would look at their books and say, Oh, we haven’t paid this guy, so let’s send him a check. That’s how I was paid. So of course, that was the big moment of understanding that that’s too much work. I don’t have a job.

Andi Simon: So, you know, Julie, I’m going to let you pop in, but I want to just set the context because I’ve been coaching some young women in their 20s, some are graduating from college, some have graduated and have had a couple of jobs. But I’m not sure that they know who they are, what they’re doing, or why they’re doing it. But I will tell you that the education in college makes them seem as if they’re fully competent at something. They just don’t know what that something is or where to find a company that wants their something. And I’m disturbed at the disconnect between their job, work, passion, purpose. Julie, your turn please. I didn’t want to cut you off, but I wanted to set the stage.

Julie Barlow: One of the big places where you see this problem of flipping from feeling like somebody’s in control of what you produce and what you do, comes in negotiating, which is something we talk a lot about with writers who tend to think there’s a system that they fit into and there’s a certain amount that they will get paid. And they tend not to think that they’re in the driver’s seat. And so they get exploited. And one of the big problems is that people who, and you see this sometimes when people who leave a job to start working freelance, they just think of their clients as their bosses. And they even use that term. They say well, the boss says, the bosses, and they don’t start from a position of power, which is that they can sell or not sell, and sometimes it’s just worth walking away.

I mean, I have this discussion with fellow writers a lot. There are clients who are just not good clients, and they’re hurting you and they’re not paying you fairly and they’re wasting your time. You could be using your means and whatever it is you sell or produce to make money from somebody who appreciates it, you know? So one of the big things is avoiding bad clients and learning to say no. So we have a little section in the book of 16 Ways to Say No. It’s very popular with people. You have to learn when to say no and how to walk away from things. And sometimes saying no is what really radically, suddenly improves your condition. I mean, you need to be able to do that. It’s tough for people.

Andi Simon: Well, it’s interesting because I remember my first client who I said, “I’m really not good for you and you’re not good for me. So I think you should find somebody else for your sake.” And I remember that feeling of freeing myself, but allowing them to be free of me as well, because we were simply not going to make it. And it was for your sake. And I’m sure that because it was a perspective that it wasn’t my problem but for your benefit, it’s time to go. But I’ve learned that no is a good word.

Julie Barlow: Yes, it is a good word. And it can even bring a bigger yes at the end of the day from somebody else. I recently, last year, said no to a really, really what could have been a very lucrative writing contract with somebody that I just knew we were not a good fit. You know, you have to, and we talk about this as well in the book, you have to explore fairly carefully with your client. Make sure they understand what they’re getting, make sure they understand what you’re giving them. Yes, you’re on the same terms.

Things have to be clear from the beginning or you have problems down the line. And I just could not get through to them. We just could not see eye to eye on the thing. But, we left on good terms and I said, I’m sorry, I’m just not going to do this anymore. The word about what I had done with them traveled back to his literary agent which came back to me in the form of another book contract. So I absolutely understood what I did. But, you know, these are the lessons that you learn as a business person, clients’ expectations. And again, it’s the boss-client mentality. You have to take the time to make sure that you understand their expectations and that they understand what they’re getting or you just end up with problems with them.

Jean-Benoit Nadeau: People make a lot of fuss about the business plan. We’ve got questions about that. And I say, yeah, I know, but we say, the business plan is basically five questions. What do you want to do? Why do you want to do it? What’s the market? What price do you want to offer? What will you bring to people? That’s just the basics. If you need financing or an associate, you may need to write almost a book business plan, a book-size business plan. But a good business plan can fit on 2 or 3 pages. But there’s a sixth question, which I forgot, that I didn’t mention, which I think is the most important: What for, the purpose?

But your goal, your personal goal, where do you want to go with that? Do you want to teach social dancing? A lot of people want to turn their passion into a business, and that’s good. That’s often why people go with you. Self-Employment. Well, you’re not going to once things start running and that can come pretty quickly. You’ll go somewhere if you know where you want to go, and you will not even decide who your clients are. And if you want to start teaching for the purpose of creating a franchise of social dancing, or create a shoe for social dancing, you are not going to choose your clients in the same way. Your venues, the place where you’re going to showcase them, etcetera. And it’s the same with a writer. You are not going to do all the thousands of choices you have to do in your daily business. If you want to be a publisher or have an agency, or want to be an editor in chief, or move into book writing or film, these are all personal choices. There’s nobody who’s going to tell you which is right, but it’s very important, it orients you.

Andi Simon: But I also think, I can’t tell you how many folks come in by referral. Sometimes they find us on the internet and they are trying to do what they did in the corporate world in an independent freelance business fashion, but they don’t really understand that things are different. You know, they did this there and therefore I’m going to do this now. I said, But there you had the brand of the big company and you had a network and so forth. Why should somebody hire you now? And how are you going to actually build a revenue stream, a client base, have a business with it, as opposed to being an employed person who used to do something.

This means the story changes, but they aren’t thinking about how to do it actually and they have no idea. Very often your book is very valuable about how I think about myself now? Because when I said I’m a corporate anthropologist who helps companies change, to be honest with you, I knew people had to change, they didn’t care how I did it, and I admitted I picked that one up. I knew that the whole sales process was about, you know, where are your gaps? Where’s your pain point? How can I help? How I did it, they didn’t care. But it’s a very important piece. They really didn’t know what an anthropologist would do, but it was interesting to watch the transformation.

But many times they come and don’t know how to turn an idea, an observation, into a business innovation. So your book comes at a very timely moment. When they get going, do you help them create scalability? A word I use often because, you know, there are 13 million women-owned businesses in the US. 10 million of them don’t make solopreneurs. 5 million of those don’t make more than $10,000 a year. And they’re more like side hustles, which is fine.

But there are a whole lot of solopreneurs, and I worry about the lack of scalability. Not being able to underwrite it with the right capital. Don’t know how to use a bank to finance it. Don’t use their credit cards with family and friends. I mean, there’s a whole huge market of folks who need to make an income in a better way, but need to think differently about what they’re doing and not simply celebrate the fact that they’re not inside a company, which is often what they say. “I didn’t like being there, so I’m doing this.” I say, “But you’re not in business. You’re just trying.” So, thoughts?

Julie Barlow: So one of the ideas that we speak of is that between somebody making $25,000 a year as a solopreneur and somebody making $250,000 a year, the thing you have to understand is that you don’t have to work ten times more. You make your choices in the function of things. In our case, writing that feeds other ways of making money. So for instance, we wrote a book about the French language and we turned that into speaking gigs on the French language, articles on the French language, a film script on the French language, a radio show on the French language. I mean, the book just keeps on giving us content that we use for other things. And we’re not being paid to sit and produce new content every day. That’s what we would do if we had a job, perhaps as a script writer at a company.

But we are using our content to make money for us. The best way to be a writer is to sit and wait for the royalty checks to come to the door. You know, of course we have to write, but all of the choices that we make, we make sure that they are not dead end choices because they are choices that are going to feed that or feed other books or enable us to produce books using a gig, doing something that will feed us with content for something else. I mean, that’s how we go from thinking like an employee to thinking like a business person.

Jean-Benoit Nadeau: I recently read a biography of Charles Dickens and was fascinated that he was one of the first authors in history to do what he called “work the copyright,” which meant that earning a living was not just about writing, it was to use his intellectual property to work for him, and for a lot less work. And as writers, we have the benefit of having intellectual property created the minute we finish something. The costly part of the intellectual property is developing it into research. But if you choose your ideas very well for the purpose of reusing them, then things become a lot easier. That’s just in the production side of it.

But if you negotiate well, you can actually improve your productivity without raising your rate just because you understand better what the client wants or because you negotiate better the ownership of what you produce for them, because you keep that ownership for yourself or because you get better terms. That’s just at the negotiating level. You can keep collecting. If you bill quickly, you collect quickly, and then you have less money on your credit card. There’s all sorts of things like this at all levels of what it is to run a business that are productive.

Andi Simon: And what you’re saying though, is a mindset. And I do think that mindset isn’t the narrow: I’m a freelance writer. It’s the broad: I’m in business to take ideas and in multiple channels begin to bring them to market because my purpose is to share French and I need to do it on all the different channels. And I need to do that in multiple different ways. And the content keeps repurposing itself.

I mean, people say to me, Did you sell a lot of books? I said, I brought in a lot of clients. I mean, you can bring in good clients. I was in Mexico three times off a book that someone found in a Hudson News in an airport, and got to give programs to CEOs down there three years in a row. Before the pandemic, I just loved the multiplier of the book.

And I just had a podcast earlier today of a guy who I gave the On the Brink book to. He took it on his vacation, came back and was quoting it for me. I mean, you can’t ask for much more than that. I love how what we do is designed not to be an end, but a beginning.  And I do think it opens the door. And the idea is, how many different doors can it open and how do we get to where we’re really taking the message and helping spread it.

Julie Barlow: To do that you kind of have to be agile. I mean, the word is a little overused, but you do. You need to be watching what’s going on. You know, in the book, we encourage people who are starting out to be curious to contact their competitors, to sit down with people in their business and ask questions and figure things out. People can be very shy and a little bit locked into their own little universe. You can stay in front of your screen all the time, but it’s important to get out and understand what’s going on. And people are helpful. And they’re happy to have somebody, I’m happy for young writers to approach me and to ask for me to sit down and explain things to them.

When I don’t have time to do a contract. I’d love to be able to keep my client happy by sending them somebody else who can. And you know, that happens fairly frequently. And it’s sort of a win-win for everybody. But, you know, communication and being open to that and watching the industry change is really important.

One of our early methods was to resell articles because we write in both languages and we would resell them in different markets. And that changed when the internet came. And we started writing before the internet when that all changed. And then it was very hard to keep our copyright over certain things and resell things. But we found new ways to do that.

And one of them is translating and we don’t necessarily get paid for our copyright, but we need to translate it. So we get paid for that. We’re always looking to see where the soft spots are and how things are changing. And you always have to kind of be aware of what’s going on and not get stuck in a way of doing things. And that, again, is something very particular to being sort of an entrepreneur, entrepreneurial state of mind, as opposed to thinking like an employee and doing what you’re asked to do.

Andi Simon: You’re segueing into a topic that I always like to include, though, and you’ve been through many years of watching many different transitions and transformations, and often you pick up. I often talk about the future is here, we just haven’t quite distributed it widely. But you pick up little signs, and the little signs are the tip of the iceberg of where things are going. Are there some signs that you’re already beginning to watch happen and you’re saying, there’s something coming? I’m not quite sure what, but I’m really interested to see where and who, and I’m going to poke further, and anything you can share, because I do think the times are changing.

Jean-Benoit Nadeau: Well, in Canada we have this problem right now. The Canadian government wants to control better. Well, wants to ensure that big companies like Facebook and Google share their publicity market with traditional media, and they created a law, a Facebook Australia-style law. And Facebook reacted by blocking all Canadian content on Facebook. And Google is threatening that. So that is raising a lot of questions on the future of writing as a writer in Canada. It’s going to be a rocky year next year, I would say.

Julie Barlow: So artificial intelligence is a big one. Yeah, AI is affecting us. Again, maybe back to what Jean-Benoit said about purpose. We as sort of high-end writers are right now kind of safe from AI. It can’t really do what we’re doing. So we’re enjoying the benefits of it right now, which is transcribing automatic tools for transcribing interviews and translation tools that give us decent first drafts of translations and various different things, but all the writing community is a little on edge about what is going to do, because it’s getting better at generative artificial intelligence. We can’t afford to have our head in the sand.

Andi Simon: I fell in love with AI. I say that gently because I use it in different kinds of ways. It writes great poems for me. And if I want to give a granddaughter a poem about a situation, I give it three facts and outcomes a great poem. And I went, I can’t write that, but boy, that is a great poem, and I don’t even know who I would ask to write it.

But it is interesting to watch what we begin to use it for. I had a great big project and I said, Tell me, what are your thoughts, AI, about this project I’m working on? And it freshened up my thinking, not that I was necessarily going to use it, but as a solopreneur, it’s often difficult to find open colleagues with conversations that can make intelligent insights into things you’re thinking about. And so I’m finding all kinds of ways to make it my friend. And I say that because it’s how you feel about it as opposed to being angry at it.

Jean-Benoit Nadeau: You know, we use artificial intelligence a fair amount. We have an excellent character here called Antidote. It’s pure artificial intelligence. And all the intelligence software that is there doesn’t make a very good translation, but makes a good first draft. In fact, in Canada, where we translate a fair amount because we have two official languages, the number of people who are employed as translators has increased by 18% in the last seven years, when the labor force has increased by six. So it reduced the cost of entry to a lot of people who would not translate. And then they give it to a machine. They come out and they say, someone says, that’s not very good, but let’s hire someone who finishes the translation.

Andi Simon: What is Grammarly? I mean, this whole book, I put every one of them through it. We have 102 women and I gave everyone to Grammarly and they made the corrections and I sent it back and they approved it. And man, it was efficient. And there were limits to how much creativity was going to go into it. But it got me comfortable that they would sound professional and it was even far better than the proofreader of the publisher. And so it was fun to test. I just needed a third third party.

Jean-Benoit Nadeau: But one of the things about artificial intelligence is that it’s a misnomer. It’s an algorithm that processes a lot of information. And one of the problems for journalists, anyway, one of the issues with our AI is that, for example, ChatGPT is essentially a sociopath. It doesn’t tell you it doesn’t know what it doesn’t know. It makes up things and it doesn’t give you the source, which is contrary to any kind of ethics in journalism. And, I don’t think it threatens journalism. It will be a tool like glasses or even the word processor.

Andi Simon: You know, I’m in the schools, my daughter is a teacher. And she said back to me, I had to do a lesson plan for a student in special ed. So I went into ChatGPT and it came back and it was almost as good as I would have done. And in a minute I went, yeah, now use your time to teach the child and not write the lesson plan. You know, it’s a perfectly good way to get going. Nothing is perfect, and even our own lesson plans may not be perfect. We think they’re better than AI.

But I’m enjoying the transition to the next stage of data and insights coming from intelligent stuff in different ways. So it’ll be fun if we stay and make it happy, and then be wise and go back and check and make sure it’s correct. But even this stuff on Google, I’m never quite sure it’s correct either. You have to be knowledgeable enough to know. This has been such fun. I’m so glad that you’re on our podcast today, and if folks would like to buy the book, where could they buy it?

Julie Barlow: Amazon.com, Amazon.ca in Canada, Barnes and Noble. It should be available in any bookstore.

Jean-Benoit Nadeau: It’s widely distributed. Just make sure if you ever go, it probably won’t happen, but the Canadian edition has a little maple leaf at the top. If it doesn’t have that little maple leaf, it’s an American edition.

Andi Simon: The things that look great. Thank you so much. So it’s going solo and if you want to go solo, you’ve been with us today listening to Julie Barlow and Jean-Benoit Nadeau. I do, as we are trying to really help you see, feel and think in new ways so that you can decide, how am I going to spend the next stage of my career doing a job, or do I want really interesting work? Am I going to be a creator of a whole new market space, or am I going to copy someone else and be another? And I do think it’s a time for really rethinking who you are and where you’re going and how to do it. So I want to thank you for coming. Thank you for coming today and speaking to our audience.

As you know, our new book, Women Mean Business: Over 500 Insights from Extraordinary Leaders to Spark Your Success, just came out and it is doing gangbusters. And it too is on all the booksellers, Barnes and Noble and Amazon. It’s the stories of 102 women, and they are really interesting stories because the women have five wisdoms they want to share with you, and each of them has a different background, history, and their own journey. And it’s really quite fascinating.

The reviews are: "I wasn’t sure what I was going to find, but I went through the whole book and each of the women inspired me. So when you gave the book to me, man, this is a great book!" Who knew? And I said, I know. The whole idea is to share their wisdom with you so you can be inspired, you can aspire to greatness. You can begin to think about how other women have done it. One of my favorite quotes in there is, “Don’t believe everything you’re thinking.” And I said, I like that.

We preach, turn a page and change your life. I really think women in business are here to help you do just that. So on that note, I want to thank everyone for coming. Keep sending me your ideas on who we should have on, share the podcast and I wish you well. Bye bye now.

WOMEN MEAN BUSINESS® is a registered trademark of the National Association of Women Business Owners® (NAWBO)

Ask yourself, how open are you to hearing an alternative point of view?

As I am always saying, the times are changing, fast. From global unrest to polarizing politics to toxic company cultures, everybody is having a challenging time talking to each other. To help us have better conversations so we can move forward together, I bring to you Rose Fass, a wonderful woman who will help us think about the conversations we’re having and how to turn them into powerful growth experiences. I interviewed Rose for this podcast in June of last year and what she said applies so strongly to our world today that I wanted to share her thoughts with you again. As she says in her book, The Chocolate Conversation, conversations become who we are, what we hear, and how we build relationships. A lot to learn here. Listen in and please share.

Watch and listen to our conversation here

To connect with Rose

You can reach out to her on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or her website, or you can email her at rose@fassforward.com.

Want to communicate better and more effectively? Check out these 3 podcasts:

• Monique Russell—Why Is It So Hard To Communicate?
• Imogene Drummond—How Can A Brilliant Artist Show You How To Communicate Effectively—Online?
• Nadia Bilchik—How To Master Communication In A Virtual World

Additional resources for you

Read the transcript of our podcast here

Andi Simon: Welcome to On the Brink With Andi Simon. Hi, I’m Andi Simon. As you know, I’m a corporate anthropologist, and my job is to help you see, feel and think in new ways. And for our podcast, I go looking for people who can help you do that as well. Our job is to get you off the brink. But unless you can see things through a fresh lens, begin to understand them in a new way, you get stuck, or stalled, or you know what you know, and your brain doesn’t really want to change anyhow, thank you very much, please go away. I’m happy where I am.

But today, the times are changing. We are in a world that is full of turmoil, everywhere, of all kinds. From COVID, to the Ukraine, to what’s going on in corporations, everybody is having a challenging time talking to each other. And so I brought you today a wonderful woman who’s going to help you think about the conversations that we’re having, and how to turn them into really growth experiences. The whole world is a conversation. We’re having a global conversation right now.

So today, we have Rose Fass here. Rose and I met fortunately, serendipitously at the Westchester Business Council, where she was presenting an absolutely brilliant presentation. And she’s going to share some of those insights with you. It was really so touching. I said, Wow, can I share her with our audience as well? Now, the Westchester Business Council is a marvelous organization. You have no idea how many people I’ve met there, it’s a really cool place. But each time I meet somebody and want to share them, they add some dimension to our day today.

Let me tell you a little bit about Rose and then she’ll tell you about her own journey. Rose knows, as she says, how to use her unique gift to take a mess and quickly put it in place with effective steps to teach desired outcomes. Interesting, isn’t it. So she loves to change as I do, and like me, is a culture change expert. She’s a natural facilitator who connects with all types of people at all levels of an organization, from the C-suite to the people closest to the work. She has over 45 years of experience in technology and consumer-based industries. During her career, Rose has opened businesses in the United States, has been a general manager with full P&L responsibility and led major corporate transformations. She was a chief transformation officer at Xerox and she’s going to tell you a lot about some of her learnings and why at this point she’s ready to help others do all kinds of transformation. These times, they are a-changing as Bob Dylan told us in the 60s. Rose, thank you for being with me today.

Rose Fass: Thank you, thank you so much. And it’s interesting that whenever I hear my bio, I have to smile a little because I go back to being this little kid in a very small neighborhood with a group of young Italian girls like myself just walking around and trying to figure out what it was that we were going to do when we grew up. So the interesting part about all of this is, I run a company right now called fassforward Consulting Group. And it’s probably the culmination of everything I ever did at Xerox. Later I went to Gartner with the now CEO of ServiceNow, Bill McDermott, and then met my colleague and partner there, Gavin McMahon, and we started this about 21 years ago. And I still feel like I’m a student of the subject that I talked about. So I want to bring myself into the room as little Rose, so you know who I am. Then we can decide whether any of us are a big piece of stuff, or we all buy into this world with our brilliance and our muddy shoes.

So I used to live in East Utica, New York. That’s where I was born, on Ruptor Street, and we had a four-room cold water flat that my dad worked very hard on, kind of getting it to where we would have hot water or mom wouldn’t have to boil it on top of the stove. Believe it or not, I’m 72 years old and I can actually think back to those days very fondly. But my claim to fame was I lived down the street from Annette Funicello. All of you young women, she was on the Mouseketeers and we were just all a bunch of Italian girls who could dance and sing and we were all cute. And we just could not understand why Annette got discovered by Walt Disney and ended up in Hollywood and we were left in East Utica. So for many, many days, I walked with a group of Italian girls home, complaining, whining, saying bad things and being green with jealousy.

I remember this one day, it was unusual because it was early spring, and if you know anything about upstate New York winters, they’re horrible. But the weather was nice and I saw my dad picking dandelions out on the front lawn. I went up to him very quietly, because I just wanted to scoot by. My father was a World War II Marine, a published poet and conversant in all the Romance languages, so he was a very interesting guy. I remember walking by and him saying, “Rose,” and I halted. I turned around, this little nine-year-old looking at him, and he said, “What do you see?” And he held up the dandelion. And I thought, Oh, God, I don’t want to do this. This philosopher, I don’t want to do this. And I said, “I don’t know Dad, I see a dandelion.” And he said, “Yes, darling, but I want you to look wider. I want you to look deeper. I want you to look beyond just the dandelion.” And he looked at me, and I said, “I don’t know Dad, what do you see?”

I think at that point, I had learned how to be very good at rhetorical responses, especially when I didn’t have an idea of what to say. I was so down in the dumps that I just didn’t have the energy to get into it. I usually did, because I think for my dad I was the one that appreciated poetry and philosophy. So he looked at me and he said, “Darling, I see the end of a long winter. I see the dawning of a new season. I see lovers walking hand in hand exchanging silence. I see children picking these out of the lawns and handing them to their moms to put them in juice glasses on the sills as a means of saying I love you.” And I looked at him. And I said, “You see a lot, Dad.” And he said, “Rose, soon this dandelion, this beautiful expression of spring is going to become a weed, and we like many homeowners are going to go to the nurseries and we’re going to get the stuff that will take it out of the lawn because we want to rid ourselves of this one beautiful expression of spring that’s now an ugly reminder of cleaning up the yard.”

And I looked at him. He said, “Because soon honey, the beautiful flowers are going to come along, the irises, the tulips, and yes, even the roses. But the beauty of the dandelion is not in its first expression of spring, it’s in the root, because it’s resilient. And all of us know that no matter how much we hack at them next year, they come back double fold. We named you Rose, but roses are fragile. In your heart, you need to be a dandelion.” That is my signature story.

I remember that day of standing there on that little patch of lawn and crying in the arms of the Marine and in the arms of the poet. And for whatever reason, letting it all out and feeling like I may be enough. I didn’t think I was but maybe I’m enough. And I think we women struggle with that. And so for the rest of my journey, I have reminded myself that we get kicked around, and we get hacked at. And we just have to be resilient. And so today, I think that’s probably more true than ever. And it has held me together for many, many years. Andi, so I want you know who I really am, the little rose, the woman who became who she is today, and that I am a combination of all of those beautiful moments when you learn through pain.

Andi Simon: Now, by saying that, I guess I visualized that scene with your father was exhilarating, maybe painful. But he was imparting to you wisdom that’s really hard to come by otherwise. Who else would you trust to listen to that way? So you may have cried but I have a hunch he had a long term impact on the way you see the world. It’s all of the implications and the meaning that it has. Am I right?

Rose Fass: The Marine, unlike the philosopher, said, One rule for my two brothers and me was to be up by 0600, ready for company. Every day of my life, I am out of bed by six o’clock and I get dressed no matter where I’m going. My hair is combed. I’ve showered and am presentable and so are my brothers. And in his mind, it was the “ready for company” meant a lot of things. Were you ready to be gracious? Were you ready to be approachable? Were you ready to be aware, conscious, willing to help? All those things culminated in that one little statement: be up at 0600 and ready for company. And I’ve kind of never forgotten that. Today, with people working remotely, I noticed they get on the camera, and oftentimes, they’ll take the camera off because they’re not camera ready or they’re even in sweat pants, and they’re looking draggy. And when you don’t feel good about yourself, it’s hard to feel good about life. Yes, and we’re living in a time when I think more than ever we have to bring our best selves to whatever we’re doing. Because it’s going to get harder before it gets easier. I really believe that.

Andi Simon: You’re making the important point about our best selves. And I want you to talk a little bit about the career that you had because we could stay on your lessons learned in your youth a lot. But the best self is a very interesting concept. We are working with a lot of women as coaches, and they are successful, but not happy. They have a position or are partner in a firm. They’ve got degrees, are financially successful and they’re asking, Isn’t there more? We talk a lot about who am I? What’s my purpose? What’s my best self? So a little bit more about as you got into your career, you began to carve out an area around transformation. Sounds like your father became living in these companies a little bit further.

Rose Fass: By the way, Andi, you talk about youth. I often relate to men in the work that I do. I tell them there’s no more important person in a young woman’s life than their father. Mom plays a role but Father gives them the sense of validation and approval of who they are as women. And I think that’s critical, just as mothers help their sons become more approachable and more yin and yang.

So for me, my early career after I got out of Boston University, I started at Saks Fifth Avenue in an executive training program, and I had two mentors. I had Jan Edelstein, God rest her soul. She was very gypsy-ish, wore all these crazy skirts and crazy glasses and lots of bangles. But knew Judith Leiber, Bottega, every possible fashion brand you can think of in accessories. I was her assistant and I was also assistant to the blouse buyer, who was Miss Janet. And I’m not kidding. Little bow, little glasses like a librarian, always in the black pencil skirt, white blouse, buttoned to the teeth. They could not have been more different. Jan told me to have to learn how to be creative and every bit of data and information you need to make good sound decisions. But let that be one data point that I want you to go with your gut when you feel you know how your experience is and how something speaks to you.

Then I went up to Judith and she taught me the process. And it was so procedural. I remember taking an inventory where every single blouse had to be counted. And in those days, these departments were massive. And I walked around and I was spinning. And I was trying to take a few little shortcuts. And she said to me, “Miss Maysa?” (my maiden name) And I said, “Yes”. She said, “You are not to take shortcuts. You will one day take shortcuts but that will be after you learn the long way home, and I’m going to teach you the long way home.”

The unique part about this was that Jan and Judith were really good friends. They could not have been more different. But they understood each other in their own way. And neither of them really took shortcuts. Most of them understood what it meant to take a long way home. Years later, working with young people and trying to get them to understand that there are steps to getting to an outcome that doesn’t just happen because you wish it so, I would say to them, “You are taking shortcuts. You can’t do that either. You learn the long way home.” And here’s the long way. It’s like doing math in classes; you do the long version, and then you can get to the quick answer. So for me, my whole career has been pretty much about working in data areas that required both my gut and my ability to be disciplined.

Andi Simon: Very interesting. I grew up in the retail business. I was supposed to take over our family firm. A very big store in Manhattan, a department store in the old family model. And I was being trained to take it over. As I’m listening to you, I vividly remember trips to the market with my grandmother and my mother to go buy. I remember saying to my grandmother, “How do you know what to buy?” She said, “Well, Andrea,” (I remember her voice so well) “1/3 will sell full price, 1/3 will sell on sale, and 1/3 will walk out the door. Now if we’re good, we’ll have enough money coming out of that to pay bills and do it again.” And that’s my vivid memory, being taught that. I remember putting blouses on the hangers. You were counting the blouses. I was putting them on the hangers with Leo in the basement.

Rose Fass: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. We did it all. I remember Judy Garland coming in to buy a Rosanna sweater. Oh, no, I’m really dating myself here. But Rosanna sweaters were weaved in such a way that it was a staple in every woman’s closet. And in those days, believe it or not, women wanted to be a size 12. They wanted to be curvy, and terrific. So she came in emaciated. And she insisted on the size 12 sweater and I thought, “You need a size 6.” We didn’t have 2s and 4s and zeros. Six was the smallest size back then. So ladies, we actually did get to eat. She insisted. And then she called in my department manager and she said, “I want to talk to her boss.” And I’m like, Oh my God. And the whole thing was, you give her what she wants. She’s a size 12 and in her mind she’s that size. Well, later, I got a call from upstairs. They said, “Wrap all of Ms. Garland’s things up and we’ll send them over to the hotel.” And that was the end of the conversation.

And I learned that being technically right wasn’t necessarily socially effective. When I later put together the technical, social and political spheres, which are a big part of the book that I’ve written, called The Chocolate Conversation, and the book I’m writing now, The Leadership Conversation, making bold changes one conversation at a time. We live in this technically right space where we have the facts, we know what we’re doing, we’re going to say it the way we’re going to say it, but sometimes we have to socially adjust to what a person is capable of experiencing in that moment. And getting somebody there by connecting with them, not through facts and through your technical expertise, but through that human connection, and then ultimately positioning it in a way that they feel like they came out of this a winner.

Andi Simon: Being an anthropologist, my affection is with understanding women and people. We really intuitively watch what goes on and observe and listen. People can’t really tell you what they’re doing, to your point. And when you look at data that has no meaning out of context, I still hear my anthro 101 professor saying to me, There is no data that does not explain, does not exist out of context. Their meaning is set into the context. But the other thing that we’ve learned is that people decide with the heart, the gut, the eyes, and then the data in the brain begins to operate. And that means we have to experience each other. We’ve got to feel each other. We really don’t know what it means. The reason I love my podcast to be video or audio is people see differently. But as you’re thinking about it, the first book and the second book you’re writing now are all about conversations. They are about your passion. Same thing.

Rose Fass: I think for me, Andi, you put it perfectly. One of my dearest friends that I got to know when I first started at Xerox, then went to Palo Alto Research and then later came with her to Gartner and that my early days at fassforward, was an anthropologist, and I just loved Susan because she always said that to me. She said, Rose, there’s their side, this side and somewhere in there there’s the truth. And then there’s the person who’s observing the truth.

We had a gig with Estée Lauder where they wanted to know what was important to women around mascara. And Susan just sat on trains and watched people put it on. And I was like, Oh my God. And she goes, Well, what’s important to you? I said, Well, at night, when I want to give myself a refresh, you have to take it all off because it clumps when you put it all back on again. And later, they came out with a conditioner that you could literally put over a mascara and then put it on and we were part of that pattern. All in the conversations with women about what was important conversations.

For me, the first and the most important one is the one you have with yourself. Yes. What’s that conversation that’s going on in your head? What’s your head telling you? What have you done that maybe was right or wrong? So I’m going to take a little moment here. I have a colleague that works for me here, Liz works with me. And I adore her and she happens to live nearby. She put her car in park and realized she had forgotten two presents in the house. She left the dog in the car, her handbag, and just quickly, 30 seconds, ran to the apartment, grabbed this stuff, got back and the handbag was gone. And she beat herself up about that for three straight days in a row. “But I only left for 30 seconds.” “But I only did”…is what we do to ourselves. We beat ourselves up over the mistakes that we made. And we don’t celebrate the fact that we’ve learned something.

You’re parked by a bus stop, someone’s riding a bus, so they’re not doing as well as maybe you are in the car. They get out. They see an open door, they grab a handbag because it’s something to get them by for whatever period of time. And whatever karma was involved in what you owed that individual from some other life, maybe it got taken care of at that moment. And no mistake, let’s not worry about it. Let’s not get ourselves all worked up. Yes, it’s disturbing but at the end of the day, we are going to make mistakes. Our victories will keep us buoyant in life, but our mistakes are what are going to teach us in life. I really believe that.

Andi Simon: Oh, I agree. I agree. Yeah, I’d like to add to that, that Liz had a damaged self. One of the things that we often say is, flip it around and begin to express. I think what you’re saying is gratitude, what do we do, because it changes the whole, and we manage our minds, the mind does exactly what it thinks you want it to do. When you understand that you can be unhappy, or you can have a lesson learned, I’m grateful she showed me, I will never do that again. Right. I learned that the little time I took was really unnecessary to do it that way. I mean, all the things that turn negative lemons into lemonade, right out of that building that story. It’s a little like your dad with his dandelion, and your answer, It’s a dandelion, and he said, Push, go further. And so to your point, that self care that we need, and that self awareness comes from taking every experience and turning into something else.

Rose Fass: Because nobody’s perfect out there. I don’t trust perfect people. I learned that in my first book. I think we’re all a little messy. I kind of feel this way very strongly. I look at Golda Meir, and I think of what she went through when she became Prime Minister. And it was messy. But what an incredible character, right? Gandhi was messy. A lot of these incredible leaders that we knew about. Winston Churchill never got out of bed sober. Very messy guy. But leadership is messy. And if you are willing to take that on, you can obviously do something uniquely different in the world. I look at Steven Jobs as one of the great leaders of our time in innovation, not so much in leadership, but in innovation. And at the end of his life, he finally came to grips with the fact that I’ve lived this incredible life, but it’s coming to a much shorter halt than I had anticipated. And yet he was very messy.

What I say to people in management is, it’s something you can plan for. It’s the management of work, it’s the management of plans. It’s all about the stuff that we get to look ahead and do but leadership happens in the moment. It happens when Rosa Parks gives up her seat on the bus. It happens when, at the worst moment in your life, you are going to have to have the courage to do something that you otherwise would be terrified to do. And yet you do it. That’s leadership in the moment. We don’t get to plan for that. And if we can accept the fact, as I said earlier, that we come into this world with our brilliance and our muddy shoes, and that life is messy, that we can’t expect perfection, and we can’t hold ourselves accountable to perfection, then we can do what we need to do as all individuals and just progress, one conversation at a time.

And I do believe we’re in a conversation right now. And we have had very different backgrounds, and yet some very common ground, both started our careers in retail. You went on to become an anthropologist. I got to work with one for a long time that I thoroughly enjoyed. I’ve taken my business career to heights I never dreamed I would be at. And I have the opportunity to work with C-level executives. And when they ask me how I think I know or why it is what I’m saying, I go, It’s easy. I’m 72. I’m at least 20 years older than you and I made every damn mistake that I could possibly make up to this point. And I’m still making them. So I’m saving you the benefit of that.

And in the book, it’s a book of stories. It’s a book of stories about different leaders, different experiences, my journey as a young woman to my business career, and all the different ways in which we sabotage what we are capable of. That phrase that came out very popular a few years back: Don’t go there. I absolutely hated it, Andi. I’d be like, I’m packed and ready to go. I don’t want someone to tell me, Don’t go there. That means this conversation isn’t safe, let’s not have it. The conversation is as safe as you choose to make it if you can have a civil discourse. And so I have a chapter in the first book, “Go there. Find a way to go there.”

So many times when you bring up the fact that women are unhappy in their current roles is because they have not expressed what they’re distressed about. It’s like Cassandra, Greek tragedy, the voice is trying to come out. And it’s not. And we have to make ourselves known. And I don’t mean in an alfa, overly feministic way, but to be real, to come out and say, look, this isn’t working for me. I need other things. And today, these people in big positions within corporations, whether they’re women or men, are willing to listen. They don’t want the erosion of their diverse employees. They don’t want that. They want you to stay. So if ever there’s a time to express yourself, using the right way to speak.

Andi Simon: So let’s stay on that. This is a new book that Rose is working on for our listeners. She has a first book. Did you call it The Chocolate Conversation?

Rose Fass: Yes, The Chocolate Conversation.

Andi Simon: Yes, I do love chocolate. But The Chocolate Conversation has now led to a whole new book. What we’re talking about is conversation. All of life is conversation. Yes, Lazer, the late organizational anthropologist, wrote great stuff about conversational intelligence and the power of we. And what we’ve learned from the neurosciences is that when you say in a conversation, the neurosciences, the brain goes, Ooh, run away. The amygdala hijacks it, it flees it, the cortisol said, This is going to be painful. Don’t hang around, off you go. But when you say, We, the we brings out all kinds of good oxytocin or wonderful hormones that say, Oh, let’s bond. This is the love that we feel. You, Rose, tell us about the book you’re writing.

Rose Fass: Well, it’s a book of conversations. It’s a book of conversations with myself with others. I think what you said earlier, I really care that somebody gets heard and gets acknowledged. I remember facilitating a very large group of different cultural people from Latin America, Portugal. People that were there from France. And we had these earphones on, because they were getting translated into English. And at the same time, we were facilitating all these different languages. There was this one little Portugese guy and he stood up and he was trying to explain something to his boss. And it was completely misinterpreted.

One of the things that I call the chocolate conversation is just talking, right?, and the boss got very annoyed, and I said, Stop for a minute. And I kind of took off my earphones and I said, Can you just translate for me? Yes. And I said, this is what I think I heard you say, and he was, Si, si, si. And I said to him, And so I translated and took the whole thing, and I brought it back. And in that moment, there was such a relief. And I thought to myself, I teared up, because in my heart of hearts, the worst thing in the world is when you’re standing there trying to express yourself in another language even, and someone is just not getting what you’re saying. And completely misinterpreting, because we spend more time on our own point of view than trying to understand what it is that you’re saying.

So I think today, in business, we’ve got to start listening to people at the front of the business, the ones that are closest to the customers, it doesn’t matter what age someone is, there’s truth that is worth listening to. I feel that this is the last value added space right now because our institutions have failed us. People are looking at journalism, and they’re saying, Where is it? Where is the unbiased truth? We’re getting nothing but opinion and vitriol conversations. The public stage has become a boxing ring. Everybody is walking around that whole term of psychological safety. When I hear it, I think, Oh, my God, it sounds so clinical. What it really means is, Can I be comfortable here? Can I be in my own skin? Can I wake up in the morning and feel like it’s going to be okay? And I think we owe that to each other.

I think we need to become more human. We need to provide that peace of mind to our children, to our friends, to our family as much as we can. And we need to find a spiritual essence in all of us. And this has nothing to do with religion. It has everything to do with who are we, why are we here? It’s not just about the momentary little things that we go through. It’s really bigger than that. And so my books are about how do you have conversations that are inclusive, that shift people’s points of view from a worldview they’re stuck in, establish new standards, a lie, some concerns.

The Chocolate Conversation is about worldviews, standards and concerns. The new book is about being bold with your conversation, saying what you mean, not what you think people want to hear but doing it in a way that you can get your point across in a loving and caring and compassionate way such that people feel touched.

You saw me at the Westchester Business Council. I showed that wonderful little film of Mary Jackson, NASA engineer. And those of you who have seen Hidden Figures know what I’m talking about in the film. This was a woman who needed to go to a school to get an engineering degree so she could become a NASA engineer. She’s brilliant. But she was a woman of color. Walking in at a time when the level of bias against people of color was so serious. And if she had gone up against that judge with hatred, resentment, vitriol, about something that was totally unfair, she would have been right. But she never would have been effective. But she went to that judge with a different heart, and she found common ground. You’ve been first in a lot of places. I need to be first going to that school, we can have this in common. And I shared that at the Business Council because that to me, was the combination of one of the better conversations I’ve been exposed to.

Andi Simon: You have a passion and a purpose. You really do want to see change happen, and how we get along, how we listen to each other, how we learn from each other. And there’s something more here in your life journey that really is transformational. You see that it’s a time where we have to not simply accept the way we are but begin to change the way we go. I’m anxious to hear if you have any message in your little toolkit here to share or some ideas about how we can begin to multiply. A podcast is a podcast, but my whole purpose in life is to multiply it so that people take it and share it. And in the process, learn something they can actually do with it.

Rose Fass: So I think one of the things that’s helped me a lot, and I can’t take credit for it, was given to me by a wonderful professor at MIT that I happen to be in touch with. When you want to have a conversation, particularly one that may have a little conflict associated with it, have the meta conversation, the conversation about the conversation, get permission to have it. That was very helpful to me, because I would be, Are you open to an alternative point of view? And yes, even if it’s going to be very different from the one that you have. Yes. Do you mean it? Yes, I mean, okay, I’m going to take a risk here, and say something that really flies in the face of your experience, your lived experience, and what you’ve just shared with me, and I just want you to consider it. I don’t want you to agree with me, I just want you to consider it. And that’s helped me a lot to be able to have that kind of conversation. And I’ll do it often with a CEO. And they’re like, “Okay,” and they take a breath.

I think also, when I’m getting feedback, I don’t know about you, Andi, but I still lose, if it’s not going to be good. You know, I still have that. And what I’ve learned from my years here is to stop feeling that I’m going to feel it initially no matter what I do, but to step back from it and say, this is just a data point. Not defining my entire persona. It’s not defining my past, my future, my present. It’s a data point. Let me take it in. Let me think about it. Let me try to get myself back centered. I think staying in the present, very important, stays in the conversation you’re having, not the one you’re tying yourself to. And you know, having a conversation is not waiting for your time to speak.

Andi Simon: Well, these are important points. And as the listener is taking their notes, as I know you often do, there’s some lessons here about navigating interpersonal relationships, having a permission conversation before you have the conversation levels the playing field. It’s not adversarial, it’s communication. It’s sharing, it’s a we, in a sense, it’s that what Glaser spoke about, which opens your mind up to something I’m going to enjoy as opposed to flee in some fashion. The second thing is that as you’re going through this, I learned a long time ago to say something like, It sounds like you are upset about something. And if I put it into their zone, it becomes a conversation of listening, as opposed to having a point of view about it. And I would say to my staff, I was an EVP of a bank, and I had lots of folks, and I would learn that and practice it because I didn’t want to jump to any conclusions. It was easy to become a command and control leader, but I was very engaging. And I said, Sounds like you’re having some difficulty with your manager? No, I see. Well, it sounds like you’re unhappy with your job.

I mean, you can really watch the responses come back as long as I kept it in their zone, as opposed to trying to take charge of it. And then my third point is that I often ask people, Yur feedback point is really important. I teach a Leadership Academy. And we teach feedback. Because every conversation is feedback. It’s in the feedback loop. And I say to people, If you really want to get the right feedback, say to somebody, What’s one thing you would like me to do differently? You’d be amazed at how interesting that goes.

Rose Fass: Yes. Great question. Wonderful question. And most people are afraid to ask it. And afraid to hear, afraid to ask it and they’re afraid to because they’re afraid to hear it. Very often, and you may have found this too Andi, if you say to someone, I sense that you’re upset about something, they might feel like, Oh, are you threatening me? But it’s more along the line of just sort of stepping back from it and saying, you know, we all have concerns. Yeah, I know I have them. What might be one of your concerns? What are you feeling right now? What do you like about what you do? And what are the things that you could change if you had a magic wand? And you could just change this one thing? What might that be? Just giving people a chance to step outside of themselves and de-personalize a little. Sometimes if we can step out of ourselves.

This is another anthropological method that Susan taught me: stand outside of yourself, just observe it. And it was a hard thing to learn to do. But it’s an extraordinarily freeing. When you can sort of step outside, say what’s really bothering me. Why am I so stressed about this? And we’re going to be stressed, these are stressful times. I really felt bad about that poor tennis player, devoted to his healthy body, he’s not anti-vax. He’s come right out and said it, I’m not anti-vaccinating, I just don’t want to put any foreign things into my body. Now, whatever side of the argument you’re on, the newscasters kept trying to pin him as an anti-vax. And he’s the sweetest guy. And there’s a sweetness about him. And I said, You know, he’s probably a health nut. He believes in alternative medication. Have we tried to understand his point of view? Are we just throwing this out at him that he’s now part of the anti-vax movement now?

Andi Simon: But Rose, we have to wrap up, as much fun as we are having. It’s really an honor and a privilege. We have a brilliant woman, Rose Fass. I want her to give you one or two things she doesn’t want you to forget because we often remember the ending more than the beginning. Although her dandelion story is one that you’re gonna hold on to. Some things Rose you want to leave with us.

Rose Fass: Remember that everybody, everybody piles in with their brilliance and their muddy shoes. Take that away, nobody’s perfect. That’s something I want you to take away. The second thing is, remember the conversation you’re having with yourself. That’s the single most important conversation because that’s the one that’s going to shape the conversations you have with others. And when you do have a conversation with someone else, think about the context. You’re in the social connection you need to make, how things need to be positioned. And think about having the conversation about the conversation before you jump right in. That would be the three things that I would say. And my dandelions story is just if you’re another we’d be happy to have you in the field.

Andi Simon: This has been such fun. So we have had Rose Fass here. If they want to reach you, where can they do that?

Rose Fass: They can do it at hello@fastforward.com. And I’m on LinkedIn, Rose Fass.

Andi Simon: Yes, everybody’s on LinkedIn. Thank you LinkedIn, it’s a great place to find the world. Now, for my listeners. Thank you for coming. As always, our audience is wonderful. Rose has given you some great insights today about all kinds of things: not only growing up, but also really becoming who we are, listening to our conversations about who we are, and also finding a path to where we find purpose and passion. It comes down to conversations. All conversations are there. That’s how we survive. Then the question is, who are we having conversations with and what are we listening to, and listening has become real important.

Thank you for coming to our podcast. As you know, we’re ranked in the top 5% of global podcasts, which is truly an honor and a privilege. It’s wonderful. And I bring on guests who I think have ideas they want to share with you. My books are available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and your local bookseller. My Rethink: Smashing The Myths of Women in Business, Rose could have been in there. And I have the stories of 11 women who have smashed the myths. They didn’t listen to people who said, Oh, you shouldn’t, and you can’t and no, we don’t, because they said, Of course we can. And they are really great role models for other women. And On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights is about how a little anthropology can help your business grow. And as you know, we spend a lot of time consulting with clients and helping them see, feel and think in new ways like you.

WOMEN MEAN BUSINESS® is a registered trademark of the National Association of Women Business Owners® (NAWBO)

Learn how to get treated the way you want, at work and in life

Michele Bailey, a remarkable woman and my podcast guest in June of last year, is on a quest: to help her clients make gratitude integral to the way business is done. Little wonder that her book, The Currency of Gratitude, focuses on the power of gratitude. As Michele tells us, gratitude is also about creating a healthy culture at work so people feel connected and support each other. As a culture change expert, this is right up my alley, which is why I wanted to bring you Michele’s insights again. Listen, learn, and feel free to share via social media or forward to a friend.

Watch and listen to our conversation here

The power of gratitude can be life-changing

A true trailblazer, Michele Bailey was a driving force in bringing the first Women Presidents’ Organization (WPO) chapter to Canada and currently sits on the WPO board as its international representative. She also is committed to supporting entrepreneurs in the underrepresented diverse and inclusion fields. Want to connect with Michele? Reach out on Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook and either of her websites: My Big Idea or Blazing.

Need more gratitude in your life and your business? Start here:

• Blog: Time to Add Gratitude to Your Life—And Your Company’s Culture
• Blog: 5 Ways You Can Find Happiness And Joy In These Turbulent Times
• Podcast: Richard Sheridan—How To Lead With Joy And Purpose!

Additional resources for you

Read the transcript of our podcast here

Andi Simon: Welcome to On the Brink With Andi Simon. Thanks for joining us today. My job, as you know, is to be your host and your guide. What I want to do is get you off the brink. I want you to see, feel and think in new ways so that you can change. So I have with me today a wonderful woman, Michele Bailey from Canada. Michele and I met through the Women Business Collaborative, an organization we’re both extremely involved with and very fond of, all of which is there to help women become the best that they can be. What I’d like to do today, though, is let Michele tell you a little bit about herself after I introduce her to all of you because her bio is beautiful. And I don’t want her to shortchange you because it’s really exciting.

She’s the founder of The Blazing Crew which is a brand and culture agency born out of her strategy-first approach to business. She has a flair for sharing stories, and a desire to enhance employee wellness while pursuing business goals. This is sort of interesting because as you listen to her today, you’ll know that business isn’t about selling things or making things, it’s about people things. And the wellness and well-being of your people and their belonging is not to be underestimated. It is the differentiator that can take you and separate you from the rest. And she’s shaking her head for those who are listening. And she’s saying yes.

Her advertising agency, Blazing, is turning branding inside out. Her My Big Idea and Employee Mentoring and Wellness Program is designed to propel individuals forward in their quest for personal and professional success. My Big Idea is a really cool one so it’s delivered virtually or in person. And it’s really uniquely designed for business owners, leaders and employees to address the challenges of work and personal life. And we’ll talk today about that work-life balance, who is in the pursuit of what I’ve never understood.

I’m an anthropologist, and I look at our society, and I can’t quite figure out why life and work are different. So work life and life work. I mean, this is all kind of a blend of being a professional. Since the time my kids were three weeks old, I knew that there was a blend, it wasn’t either or, there was together. It was who we were. So the difference and the balancing is a challenge, even for the guys.

Michele is on a quest to get her clients to take one important step further, to make true gratitude integral to the way business is done. True gratitude, as you’re listening or watching, we’re going to talk a lot about it because gratitude is not inconsequential, it is essential to our well-being. So her passion for gratitude is contagious. And I think you’re going to capture that. She has a new book out, and I’m so delighted to share it with you. It’s called The Currency of Gratitude and was just published. And it offers a moving and straightforward guide to enabling business growth using gratitude as your currency, and you’re gonna say, But I think gratitude is not inconsequential.

Now Michele will tell you, she’s a biracial woman and has faced her share of challenges. Her boundless energy and vision have earned her international recognition as a champion of women in business. She’s a driving force bringing the first Women Presidents Organization chapter, the WPO, to Canada, and she sits on the WPO board as its international representative. I think you know enough about Michele to know that you want to listen carefully, and enjoy our time together. I shall thank you for joining me today.

Michele Bailey: Andi, I’m so delighted to be here.

Andi Simon: Well tell the listener who is Michele because you’ve had a journey. I can’t capture it reading your bio as much as I have enjoyed it. So give us a little bit about your background.

Michele Bailey: Thank you, Andi. First of all, I want to start by saying that I have lived in multiple states in different countries my whole life. It wasn’t until I turned 18 that I landed in Canada with going to school and I have stayed here. So I’m a dual citizen. I’m an American, as well as a Canadian. I have lived in New Hampshire, Vermont, New York City, Michigan, and the island of Haiti. So I have quite a varied background. And I’ve experienced many cultures which have allowed me to be the woman I am today.

And through this all, Andi, we’re talking about gratitude. I have to tell you, because I never stayed anywhere long, it was really hard to make friends because people knew that I’d be moving and they didn’t want to waste time on people that aren’t going to be hanging around. So at an early age, I made gratitude my core. I learned to embrace each and every relationship that was put in front of me, whether it be for a season or a lifetime, because people mean everything to me. This fast forwards us to being in Toronto today. So to take a step back, I have an agency called Blazing. You might not know who we are, but you will certainly have heard of the clients that we have done work for the last 27 years. And to be a woman in this industry for that long is really almost unheard of because it’s a dog-eat-dog world. It’s a burn-and-churn business. People usually don’t last longer than 18 or 24 months because you burn them out. However, Blazing has stood the test of time. And my average tenured employee is 11 years.

Andi Simon: Wow. In today’s world, that is amazing.

Michele Bailey: And Andi, that is actually why people kept saying to me, how do you hold on to people in an industry that is just so burn-and-churn for the length of time that you do. And I will tell you, it’s a few things. It’s about creating an awesome culture at work. So people feel connected. They want to love and they watch each other’s backs. That’s the first and most important thing.

It’s also about appreciating and recognizing the contributions they bring, both as team members and as individuals, also very important. So I didn’t know that Blazing was so special until people started saying to me, You don’t lose your people. And all the people you get are through word of mouth. You don’t have to use headhunters or you don’t have to use hiring people. I said, No, it’s all word of mouth. So that’s what I was doing at Blazing. When people were asking me what I do differently, I thought, I do something differently than most people I know. I do things like setting up my goals, both personally and professionally every year. I am very clear with what I need to do, as a business owner, as a leader, as a mother, and as a friend. So what I do is, I actually broke down my life into nine categories. And this is what led to the evolution and creation of My Big Idea.

My Big Idea helps people come up with their big idea. You can have work-life integration and blend. So Andi, I start every year by sitting down and answering 13 questions under reflection. What worked and what didn’t work this past year. And because it’s my homework for myself, I’m dead honest. Because if I’m not dead honest, I can’t change, improve, or discard things that haven’t been working for me. So I talk about things like, what was my biggest challenge? What was my biggest success? Who inspired me? And why? What do I need to let go of? Who do I need to let go of? Who do I need to allow in my life? Questions like that.

So I start with reflection, then I go into personal goals. And I again have 10 questions I’m asking myself, and then I have a section in my workbook where I have to list at least one, but not more than three, personal goals. And it has to be about me, not my kids, not my family, it’s got to be about me. I do the same for professional goals. I ask myself what I want to accomplish this year. Then I go into health and wellness goals. I go into finance and wealth goals. Then I go into relationship goals.

Andi, when I created relationship goals, I never knew how impactful this would be. I actually asked people to answer the questions on relationship goals but did not set a goal. I need you to do an exercise called creating your support network. And in this exercise, I have people with professional careers, name a mentor or mentee, friends, family, and emotional support. I have a whole little grid and I start putting people’s names in there. And then I look at that grid and I go through it. I have a little marker with two different colored markers, and I mark who gives me positive energy, who gives me negative energy and whose energy is neutral. So once I’ve identified and looked at my support network, then I go back and set my relationship goal for the year. And sometimes it gets rid of or creates strict boundaries around people who don’t always want or wish the best for me. It’s about keeping it real.

Then I go into my refueling section. What do I need to do for myself to be the best version of me for me and everyone around me? And then I always end with my gratitude goals. I have a list and I just write people’s names down. I write down the relationship to me, and what I want to thank them for. And in those relationships, aside from the gratitude goals, what I do is, I have six questions that if I answer them honestly, to the person I want to thank, I will change my relationship with them. The questions go something like this: You came into my life…, you bring me joy by…, you inspire me because…, I hope to add to our journey together…, and I want to thank you for….

I put those down, and then answer them in under five minutes. And that has impacted my relationships, both personally and professionally, like nothing else I’ve ever experienced. So Andi, this is why I now have The Currency of Gratitude, my book, by ForbesBooks. ForbesBooks came to me and they said, We hear you’ve got a different spin on gratitude. And I said, I do. And I said, please understand that I think gratitude journals are so important. And I think looking at each day, and seeing the three things you need to be most grateful for, is also very important. But I’m on a quest to teach people that if you push gratitude outside of yourself, you will have much bigger, better, stronger and sticky relationships with people in your life. So ForbesBooks said, Could you write a book about 50,000 words? I said, No, I could write in 30,000 words on how gratitude has changed my life and I hope to teach other people how gratitude can change your life.

Andi Simon: So this is a journey you’ve been on. I’m fascinated with each step along the way. And as you’re thinking about it, I’m just curious whether this has come from any kind of catalytic moment, aha moment. You know, when we were talking in advance, I said, The pressure to write a book comes from all kinds of places. Was there a particular thing that became other than ForbesBooks coming to you and saying, Would you write a book?

Michele Bailey: And I didn’t think it was time to tell the story. And I didn’t even understand that gratitude was my brand. It was my Managing Partner, Eric Marshall, who showed me that gratitude was my brand. And it started because someone came and said, We want you to open a women’s conference up in Toronto. There’ll be hundreds of women there. We want you on stage to kick it off by talking about spending five minutes talking about a passion project, something you’re passionate about. We want the audience to feel your passion.

So I went to the office and I said to Eric, I’m going to kick off this conference. And I’m going to talk about work-life blend and integration through My Big Idea and how if you focus on those nine areas of your life, you will get clearer, and you will have a blend that works for you. So he looked at me and said, You’re going to talk about My Big Idea. Yeah, that’s your five minute passion. I said, absolutely. He said, I don’t think so. I looked him and said, You don’t think so? He said, Passion is what makes you come alive. He said, Gratitude is your passion. And he walked out of the room. I’m like, Who’s he to tell me what my passion is?

So you know what? I got up there. And he and I talked about gratitude. And when you do it from a source of abundance, when you have gratitude as your guiding north star, the world presents opportunities to you that you aren’t even aware of.

Andi Simon: So, Michele, for those who sign a gratitude diary, it’s not the three things that you’re grateful for each day. It’s not sending a gratitude note. It’s something different. Talk to us before we talk about the book. What is it that you found in the word gratitude that can flush it out for us, give it a personality beyond them. The tactical practical that we hear because this sounds like a life strategy, something that gives you richness beyond anything in particular, but something bigger and richer. Am I hearing you correctly?

Michelle Bailey: Yes, and you are. For me, gratitude is about energy. Think of a ball of light. And when you give that ball of light to someone else, gratitude shows up in so many ways. You are giving energy to another person, and allowing them to receive something that you see in them. Too often, we are all so busy, we’re racing. We just need to get through the next thing. When you have gratitude as an anchor, it allows magic to appear. And I’ll give you a very short little story.

Over the last two years, as you know, a lot of people have lost their jobs or resigned from their jobs, etc. There’s a woman that I know in banking. I had lost touch with her for years, but I heard she had lost her job. And I didn’t think anything of it. We’d lost touch. I got a call from her husband. How he found my number, my name, I don’t know. And he called me up and he said, Michele, my wife is in a really bad way. Could you please reach out to her because she’s not getting off the couch. And it’s been weeks.

I’ll be honest, I hung up that phone, I thought, I have no time for this. And I thought to myself, a man looked for my number. He doesn’t know me, himself, by calling me and saying that his wife needs help. I know she hasn’t been in touch, please help her. So I reached out to her. And I didn’t tell her her husband called me. I reached out and I suggested we go for a walk. She came up; I live in the country. She came out and we walked and I let silence do the lifting and I just listened. That was my act of gratitude. I just listened to her hurt, her overwhelmingness of being let go. Not knowing, I just listened. And I invited her back two weeks later. And what I did when we went on the walk is I told her all the wonderful things I saw in her, both personally and professionally in the 10 years I had known her, even though we had lost contact, and I reminded her that she is special. And there’s someone out there, a corporation that’s going to see that. Silence, listening, observing, and just being present with to get this woman back in a good space. And she’s got a great job now. Something as simple as that, that’s an act of gratitude.

Andi Simon: I love it. I love it. Because anyone listening can do that. It’s not like you need to go take it. But you do need to pause for a moment and think about how you can help somebody. Now I’m going to pause for a moment.

So Michele has told us an amazing story that sort of has been captured now in her book. And what I’d like her to do is talk about the different chapters in the book so that this gratitude currency can come alive, even more than just the gift that she gave this lovely lady who needed a hand, but also so you can begin to hear about what gratitude can become for you, as you’re dealing with all of the transformation coming out of the pandemic. And who knows whether we’ll be coming back into another one. Michele, share with us the contents inside your book, please.

Michele Bailey: Absolutely Andi. I am pleased to share that. So I’m showing people how, Chapter One, placing gratitude at the center of your personal brand changes relationships. And again, I talk about those questions I teach people to answer. Also about creating brand ambassadors. That’s Chapter Two. Blazing has created brand ambassadors. That’s why I never have to advertise for jobs. People come to me through word of mouth because of brand ambassadors. I talk about gratitude in winning business. I do not take winning business for granted. And I’m not one to win business and start going to the next piece of business. I want to win business to make sure it stays and when I lose business, and I do, I continue keeping in touch and I go back and win more business then I’ve lost.

Chapter Four, gratitude as a means of retaining clients and customers. Almost all of Blazing business is grown through referrals. That’s about retaining clients and customers. Chapter Five is about gratitude and self care. If we can’t be grateful to ourselves..first big act of gratitude: be grateful and kind to yourself. Then I wrote about gratitude during times of crisis. I held back on the publishing of this book. Forbes was not too happy, because I saw gratitude unfolding during the pandemic. I needed to talk about how people show up in cooperation for other people in times of crisis.

And then my last chapter is about making gratitude a habit. I have a daily planner, it’s called The My Big Idea planner. And every week at a glance, I have to write about things to do personally, things to do professionally, what I need to reflect on or who I need to reflect on, and who I need to think about. As I look at my planner, right now, I see that there’s five gratitude cards that I need to put out. As far as reflection, there’s two people that I need to reach out to, because they need a little extra something from someone. And I’ve chosen that this is the week I’m going to reach out to them. So that’s how I make it a habit. And it becomes a habit. Andi, it’s every Sunday night, five minutes for me to set up my week so I know what I need to do.

Andi Simon: Now, as you’re thinking about this, think about it as if you’re the audience listening in. You greatly created a personal strategy for your life. And you created the action steps to make that come alive. And you’re telling us a story about how it’s transformed. We’d love to know a little more about the transformation, because you didn’t start doing this. This has come along in your life journey where you began to see how to build those relationships in particular ways. You know, do you have an insight in terms of who Michele is now versus where you might have been, as you were starting through all of this. Was Blazing a different kind of company before it began to have that epiphany that this was what matters?

Michele Bailey: Actually, Blazing was a different company. I was focused on culture, gratitude. That was always my focus. It was all about creating an awesome culture, and to be a company where I wanted to work, because I had two previous employers, and I dreaded Mondays. So it showed me what I wanted to create. So that’s creating a winning culture. I think it was about 10 years ago, when my dad died, who was my mentor. My dad was everything to me. He also lived with us, and he worked at Blazing. So when he died, I was so busy taking care of my immediate family, and then my brothers and their families all throughout the US, and then I went back to the office to take care of my team.

We’ve been working with Dr. Fritz for years and years. Nobody was coping well with his death. For me, for three weeks I tried to get everything and everyone settled. And then I realized that I hadn’t grieved, breathed this immense loss in my life. So I took a backpack and I went down to Costa Rica by myself for two weeks and off the grid, no electronics. I brought a pen and paper. I brought paints. I brought poems to read and I hiked in the rainforests of Costa Rica every day. It was only my last day there, when I sat down and I wrote a letter to my father that I began to heal. So on that plane ride home, I sat on the plane, and I made a list of all the people in my life that I needed to thank. And that’s what transformed to understanding that gratitude expressed to people will really show them the impact they have on your life and tell them when they’re alive. So you don’t have to write a letter like I did to my dad.

Andi Simon: But as you known, the gift of giving is as much a gift to ourselves as it is to somebody else, and that bond, just then, you need it. Unfortunately, that catalyst was to realize it. But what a blessing that it came to you at the right time to begin to grow to the next woman who you were becoming.

Michele Bailey: It was. My father gave me a great gift. And I didn’t realize how big it was. But now that I know that gift was given to me, I’m trying to teach it. others.

Andi Simon: Well, it’s so exciting. But we are just about ready to wrap up this beautiful podcast together. And I’ve so enjoyed talking with you. A couple of things you don’t want the listener to forget?

Michele Bailey: I want all the listeners to know that your personal and professional life are never going to be balanced. So make it integrated and blended together first. The second thing is, it takes five minutes, no more than five minutes, to answer those questions I put at the beginning, and change a relationship with someone who means the world to you. Know they can’t read your mind. And the third thing is, you are always teaching people how to treat you. Peggy Gras, my mentor, has always told me that you are teaching people how to treat you. So get treated the way you want.

Andi Simon: This is such an interesting, important, wonderful, I don’t know the right adjective. My words are always empty when they don’t really capture the beauty of your story and the mission that you’re on to help the world become a much better place. I think it’s a global mission at a time when we need it a lot. It’s a very, very difficult time. And one was like gratitude, the relationships, the personal presence that Michele was talking about. Carefully listen to this podcast a second time and begin to think about it and even buy her book. It’s a great book to begin to understand how giving gratitude is not about one way, it’s about two ways and as you give, you receive, but also about how you build that life that’s worth living. And you might wonder about how to blend it, or how to balance it. But at the end of the day, life and work are together. We need to live and we need to have work, so somehow we have to pull it all into place so that our families and friends and those around us all thrive. So this is a great time. Do you want to put up that book one more time? What is the name of it? And how can they buy it.

Michele Bailey: The Currency of Gratitude by Michele Bailey. You can buy it on Amazon or wherever business books are sold. ForbesBooks is the publisher.

Andi Simon: And ForbesBooks is very happy to promote that. So this is a great time. Let me say goodbye to all of you who come with such attention and send me great emails, info@andisimon.com. Send them along and I love your ideas. And I love the people you want me to interview. It’s sharing at its best. Now my book, Rethink: Smashing The Myths of Women in Business, won the bronze Best Business Book for 2022 in the Women in Business category by Axiom. And so I’m honored. And my first book, On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights, won the same award but in a different category in 2017. So writing books is a challenge. And then when it works, it’s so exciting. So Michele, thank you for coming today. And for all our listeners, thank you for coming. I’ll see you soon. Take care now. Bye bye.

WOMEN MEAN BUSINESS® is a registered trademark of the National Association of Women Business Owners® (NAWBO)

Hear how to create a workplace where people love to work

I first had the pleasure of interviewing Konstantinos (Kon) Apostolopoulos for this podcast in July 2020 as the pandemic was raging around the world. He and Dr. Elia Gourgouris had just co-authored the book, 7 Keys to Navigating a Crisis: A Practical Guide to Emotionally Dealing with Pandemics & Other Disasters. Now Kon has written another book due out next year, called Engagement Blueprint: Building a Culture of Commitment and Performance. And what is so fascinating about his new book is that it focuses on business culture change and employee engagement as the keys to business success. Kon and I are both culture change experts and so as you can imagine, I’m excited to learn what he has to tell us today, as I think you will be too. 

Watch and listen to our conversation here

People seek out environments where they feel valued and their needs are being met.

Some keypoints from today’s discussion:

• An engaged workforce looks for things that need to get done because they feel appreciated and value helping the company move forward. They’re connected and understand clearly what the goals are, and they’re looking for opportunities to support their teammates in meaningful ways and make contributions that will make a difference for the organization and for themselves.
• They look at their daily activities as opportunities to learn, to grow, to capitalize on that, to invest in themselves.
• When that happens, work becomes learning, work becomes play, work becomes exciting. That’s the kind of place where engagement really thrives.
• People want something more than just financial success. They want, and need, to be valued and appreciated in what they do. We all do.

How to reach Kon

You can connect with Kon on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and his website Fresh Biz Solutions, or email him at kon@freshbizsolutions.com. Also, take the online version of Kon’s self-assessment questionnaire to learn what your organization can do differently to really soar.

Want to learn more about 

• Podcast: Richard Sheridan—Joy in the Workplace
• Podcast: Maria Colacurcio—Stop The Revolving Door. Help Your Employees Embrace A Diverse And Equitable Workplace.
• Blog: Change Is All Around Us But It’s Terrifying. So How Do I Make Change My Friend?

Additional resources for you

Read the transcript of our podcast here

Andi Simon: Hi and welcome to On the Brink With Andi Simon. Hi I’m Andi Simon. And as you know, my job is to get you off the brink. And I love to do it by bringing you interesting people who are going to help you do something important. You’re going to see things through a fresh lens. You’re going to feel things differently. And remember, we decide with how we feel and then you’re going to think about it. Because if you can see it and feel it, then your brain says, Oh, that’s what we’re talking about. And today, this is really a great opportunity, particularly coming out of the pandemic, still not being sure or certain about work and life and hybrid and all kinds of things. It’s time for us to think about that organization we want to build.

So today, somebody whom I interviewed earlier for this podcast, in July 2020, is coming back because he’s writing a new book, a solo book: Kon Apostolopoulos, who is a really wonderful gentleman who works with organizations to help them, like I do, change. Let me read you a little bit about his background. He’s founder and CEO of Fresh Biz Solutions, Fresh Like That, and Human Capital Management Consultancy, which provides performance improvement and training solutions to help organizations develop their people, improve business results, and reap the benefits of a comprehensive talent management strategy.

During the pandemic, he and Dr. Elia Gourgouris published a book called 7 Keys to Navigating a Crisis: A Practical Guide to Emotionally Dealing with Pandemics & Other Disasters. That was terrific and very timely. He’s a regular contributor to Thrive Global and Achievers Engagement. I think what you’re going to love today is that he has had time to develop a new book on employee engagement. He calls it Engagement Blueprint: Building a Culture of Contribution and Performance. Is that the title? Did I get it almost right?

Kon Apostolopoulos: Almost right. Almost right. Commitment and Performance. Both of those are things we’re going to talk about today. And hopefully I put down a half a word and then I had a figure. The other half was on. So good thing we can laugh together.

Andi Simon: What I think for our listeners and our viewers is so important is that Kon brings both research and experience and expertise to this engagement question. And I love when he talks about it because you’re going to begin to think about that blueprint that you need, which lays out a pathway to change what’s maybe a little chaotic today into something where employees believe in the place and really want to participate and belong. Kon, thank you so much for joining us.

Kon Apostolopoulos: It’s such a pleasure to be with you again, Andi. Thank you for having me.

Andi Simon: Our problem is going to be to only stay within a half hour or so because we love to talk. There’s nothing better than getting together with people who share your passion and your purpose. I want you to talk a little bit  about your background so they understand who’s Kon. And then we’ll talk about the origin myth of this new book, which is so important. Please share with them. Who is Kon?

Kon Apostolopoulos: Thank you. It’s a pleasure. Kon is right now a 30 year veteran of the Adult Learning Performance Improvement Change Leadership space. I essentially work with people. The company I founded about a dozen years ago, Fresh Biz Solutions, is focused on helping organizations, the kind of organizations that you and I know, Andi, that spend a lot of time and money building, developing very intricate business plans. Where I come in and help is that I ensure that they have the right people in the right place, ready and willing to execute those plans because without them, the organization really has a plan that’s not worth the paper it’s written on because it needs its people at their best to be able to execute those plans.

And a lot of times that comes through workshops and development. A lot of times that comes through one-on-one or group coaching efforts to enhance the commitment that people have as well as their competence. Sometimes it comes with tailored events that need to be facilitated to bring people together and aligned with the goals that we’re striving for, and ultimately working with my clients on their systems to make sure that every dollar that they invest in their people is a dollar well spent and it aligns to something that they target that is very purposeful rather than a “nice to have.”

So I’ve been doing that for a long time now and I’ve had the pleasure of working in a number of industries across the spectrum with a number of different types of organizations: public, private, smaller and now much more of that mid- to large-space organizations that have enough people where we can make a difference and truly create the kind of workplace that people can find themselves, they can really align themselves, see themselves achieving their goals, and, oh, by the way, helping the organization be successful as well, because we all deserve that kind of a workplace.

Andi Simon: Engagement, though, is always a strange word. People talk about it wishfully. I’m not quite sure they would know it if they saw it. And then I couldn’t be sure how they would feel it if it was there. So let’s start off with, you know, you’ve moved through the 30 years into working with organizations large and small, and now you’re beginning to really find ways to make a difference. Why? Why should we even think about this thing called employee engagement? Why does it matter?

Kon Apostolopoulos: Well, let’s approach that from a number of different angles. Let’s look at our protagonists in the story. Let’s talk about, first and foremost, the employees themselves. People seek out environments where they can feel like their needs are being met. And when we talk about engagement needs, we talk about the need all of us have, first and foremost, to be valued and appreciated in what we do.

Second of all, to feel like they belong in that environment, that they’re part of a team, part of a tribe. These are basic needs, fundamental needs that we all have. In addition to that, in our workplaces, in our careers, we all seek to feel like we are making a meaningful contribution, that we are able to be productive in what we’re doing. So at the end of the day, we feel like we’ve accomplished something.

And ultimately most of us want to know that we are operating in an environment that invests in us, supports us so we can continue to learn and grow so we’re not remaining stagnant. So from that perspective, from an employee standpoint, these are basic needs that employees are looking for in their organizations. Now, the book that I’m writing is actually written from the perspective of the employer, the leader, the leader in all of us that now has to try to win the hearts and minds of their people and try to address those needs that people have.

And from that perspective, employers are looking at it and saying, “You know what, I put out a lot of things. I spend a lot of my money, my resources, my capital towards my employees. I want to know that that investment is being reciprocated and that there is value for me investing in that.” Otherwise, most employers will just settle for what they can get. They’ll settle for a situation where they’ll think, okay, I’ll just pay the basic minimum because I’m not going to get much more than that.

Whereas the companies that are truly performing at the highest levels, the brands that we have come to know and appreciate, they do things a little bit differently. They truly capture that engaged spirit of their people. They capture that discretionary effort, that commitment that people can bring to their work that want to see the organization succeed. That’s the magic that we’re trying to capture and that’s the environment that we all deserve to operate in.

Andi Simon: Assuming that one who’s listening or viewing is beginning to visualize an engaged organization with high levels of employee engagement. And I do this with my own clients, visualize. You can see it. You can become it. So what will a highly engaged workforce feel like or look like? Because while we say the words that they want value and they really want to be connected and productive, how will I see that? Will I know it? What will it feel like? And, what are the actions of the behaviors, not just the spirit that’s going to be demonstrated here for an organization to know I’m moving them into an engagement. Tell me, how do I see it? What will it feel like?

Kon Apostolopoulos: Well, first and foremost, the feeling is a different level of energy. There’s a certain heightened level of energy. There is an excitement, an urgency about the place. There is an environment where you notice that there are leaders at all levels of the organization, people taking personal accountability and ownership of activities. They’re not sitting around waiting for people to tell them what to do or not. They aren’t just taking advantage of the fact that, Well, guess what, my boss hasn’t really contacted me, I’m just going to sit here and play solitaire.

Engaged workforce looks for things that need to get done. Why? Because they feel appreciated and value moving forward. They’re connected and understand clearly what the goals are, and they’re looking for opportunities to support their teammates in meaningful ways and make contributions that they understand and know will make a difference for the organization and for themselves. And ultimately, they look at each one of their daily activities as opportunities to learn to grow, to capitalize on that, to invest in themselves. Because truly, work becomes learning, work becomes play, work becomes exciting. That’s the kind of place where engagement really thrives.

So as I work with one of my clients and we talk about how to build engagement, I’d probably say something like, Today, people wait to be told what to do. And in an engaged organization, they individually take the autonomy and accountability to try and solve a problem before they have to be told what to do rather than wait to have an idea come from someplace else. They bring the ideas elsewhere so they can see it manifesting into new ways of doing things rather than coming in and punching a clock. They want to see what else. They wake up in the morning, put their feet on the ground and say, How can I do something better today? Is that the kind of thing you’re looking at?

Andi Simon: Yes, absolutely. Because what you’re describing manifests itself with a very different attitude towards work. People are excited to be there. People are looking forward to the opportunity to engage, to see their partners out there because they truly see them as partners. There is a level of ownership, again, that thrives in this environment where people will step forward and say, How can I support you? It’s very easy to put your ego aside because you don’t feel threatened when you feel like part of the team, like you belong, like you are allowed to be there when you are valued for what you bring, small or large to this to the table.

Kon Apostolopoulos: Different people will contribute in different ways. But if you can see that connection between your job, your work, your output and how this moves the organization forward, that’s an important part. I mean, we all want to know where we belong and how we fit into this. It’s no different than I explain it to a lot of the leaders that I work with. I say, If you have a group photo, Andi, what’s the first thing you’re going to do when you get it in your hands? You’re going to look for…where am I in this picture and how do I fit in. That’s right. That’s exactly the picture that we need to paint for every single one of our people. So they know clearly in no uncertain terms what they do, where they belong and how they contribute to this and that. That contribution is truly valued and appreciated.

Andi Simon: You said something very important because there are times when that picture is of a toxic team and the need to belong overwhelms the need to do well. And consequently, we’ve all had clients where every department is toxic to the others. You know, finance won’t talk to marketing and marketing can’t talk to sales. And they all are on a different agenda. And somehow the organization’s supposed to thrive. They’re all engaged, but not in what you should be.

So is there some wisdom you can bring to us today about how you take apart that kind of silos? I’m thinking of a client I had in Mexico where everything was so siloed that nobody wanted to work there.

Kon Apostolopoulos: Right. Well, think about what drives a lot of that when we have a scarcity mentality, when the people that are incentivizing the work, that are driving the work, that are directing the work, say, Okay, there’s only so much accolades, so much reward to go around for what I’m looking for. You guys fight amongst yourselves who’s going to get it. But if I come at it from the perspective of abundance and I say, There’s enough gratitude and appreciation, there’s enough acknowledgement for all of us to be successful, that takes away the need for us to fight over scraps. And that’s a big part. That’s a fundamental, visceral reaction we have when we are in an environment where our very safety is threatened because that’s what a toxic environment does. Different levels of our physical, mental, emotional well-being are threatened by that. There is a scarcity out there. There’s not enough of that.

That’s why we strive to kind of rise to the top. But it’s the collusion of mass mediocrity. It’s the crabs in the bucket. Every time you try to rise above the rest in an environment like that, the rest of them are going to pull you down because it’s not even about them getting out there desperate enough that they will pull you down to climb all over you to get away. And that’s not a healthy environment, that kind of workplaces are condemned. It’s just a matter of time. They’re dead and they don’t even know it.

Andi Simon: It was interesting in that particular client, they were struggling to expand and become more innovative with a workforce that believed that the old ways were the way we do things, we can’t change. And I’m listening to you. They were each engaged in a different story. And we’re storytellers. And I always tell my clients, you live the story that’s in your mind. So what’s your story? And as I’m listening to it, it’s that they see the world around them in this company for their benefit, not for them serving a larger purpose. And I think that higher level purpose is what will create engaged employees, or is that not what you see also.

Kon Apostolopoulos: Well, I totally agree with you, but in order to get to that higher purpose, those fundamental needs will need to be met. There needs to be a “we need to create the kind of environment where people don’t have to worry about those things, where if you’re talking about a company that’s trying to innovate, you know it better than I do.”

Innovation demands risk. We cannot hope to innovate, to change, without risk. Well, in an environment that you’re describing that’s that toxic, where people are holding on to the norms and to the old ways, the legacy ways of doing things. Why are they doing that? Because they know it’s safe, because stepping outside of those boundaries has always perhaps been chastised, perhaps has been penalized, perhaps it’s been seen as evil. So they want one thing, but they’re rewarding or creating consequences for that thing. They’re rewarding the opposite behavior and thus creating those consequences for that. You can’t ask me to take risks if you’re not allowing me to make mistakes.

Andi Simon: Well, and it is particularly difficult. I sometimes have been working with companies, going through transitions with new leadership, and while they can say the words, I want you to be a more self-empowered entrepreneur, and the old person was directing and controlling the people who are there who don’t know what the words mean and they don’t know how to be self empowered. It’s so interesting. Let’s go back to your book, though. You’ve structured this book in a way to create a blueprint, and that becomes an interesting metaphor for what you’re trying to set up. I want to give you enough time to talk about the blueprint and how somebody might enable it or execute on it, because you clearly have a methodology here you want to share.

Kon Apostolopoulos: Thank you. And yes, indeed, what I found is that I started this project about 18 months ago. It was, as you mentioned, Dr. Elia and I had the opportunity to write a book together right at the dawn of the pandemic. And we got it out early on because we knew that people needed help. And that book was the 7 Keys to Navigating a Crisis. And it was a roadmap on how people can emotionally deal with change, drastic change in their lives.

What evolved from that, Andi, was an opportunity to take that same roadmap to my clients and to large organizations and really show them how what applies to the individual can apply, expanded out, and scaled out to large organizations as well. Well, once we got past that point now into 2022 and my clients are looking at what’s next, how do I get my people back in here and on board to work? So we started the discussion about how we win back that commitment from our people so they want to come back to the workplace, either physically or even through this hybrid or virtual model that we exist, but still truly gaining that commitment.

And that started the discussion based on that need. And I started researching. I started looking at the data that was coming out of very reputable sources, whether that be Harvard and their Business Review documents, through Gallup, through the Pew Research Center, through Deloitte, through all of them, various big names. And looking at the data and the trends that I was seeing, what I discovered are essentially that there are those four key elements, those four key drivers that we need to satisfy: the need that people have to feel valued, the need that people have to feel like they’re connected, the need that people have to be productive, and ultimately the need to feel supported to learn and grow.

And then in looking at my history, I realized, Andi, that that’s the work that I’ve been doing with my clients the last 30 years. And so the realization just hit me that the very framework that I’ve used over the years to support my clients is the same framework that answers those questions of how we create that environment. So essentially four drivers, and I have four pillars of the work that I do, that essentially each one of those pairings of my pillars addresses one of those needs.

So it’s almost like an overlap, if you will, and it fits so well in the sense of when I talk about how do we show people that we value them well beyond an equitable and honest paycheck, where people can feel like they are being rewarded equitably for the work that they do. Well, if you invest in people and you build their competence and their abilities and their commitment, they can and want to do the job. When you start connecting that commitment through coaching and the team building pieces, the elements now, people can feel like they are connected.

When I work with people on the competence and the systems that will support that, that allows them to be productive. And then when I take the systems that I built, the people systems and the team building, the teamwork part, we balanced both the output of task and the relationship pieces to now show people in a transparent way how they can build their careers and how they can achieve their goals through the organization, and grow and learn and expand their career so they no longer seek other places, other avenues outside the organization. They can reach all their goals within the organization.

And that whole packaging allowed me to really bring the data and the information, the science on one side and my 30 years of experience on the other, and put them together in such a way that now I have a very clear framework that is proven to be successful. And now I’ve got the stories behind it to show and illustrate in the book along the way, the case studies that will allow us to really illustrate each one of these points.

Andi Simon: Is there a case study or two that you can share? Because it’s always the stories that people remember. And as you and I were talking in preparation, I thought there were a couple of great ones.

Kon Apostolopoulos: Yeah. And there’s one particularly that I think illustrates the complete package that I’m describing right now. And I have that, I’ve published that as a case study for the industry itself, and it involves one of my main clients, one of my nearest and dearest clients that I’ve worked with almost from the beginning when I started my venture. They are a construction company and basically I work with one of four regions of this large billion dollar construction company.

But when I started working with them almost a decade ago, they weren’t a $1 billion company at the time. The region that I was working with was about pushing close to 200 million in revenues for this area. Over the years, as we’ve partnered, their goal for their strategic priorities for the five year plan was to double their revenue to reach 400 million in the time that we worked together and reaching up to last year. And this is basically, 2022 was their end of their fiscal year, they achieved 600 million in revenue.

So when I was sitting down with the president, the regional president and his team, he acknowledged that this would not have been possible without the work that we have done together, developing the systems and the people and creating a talent management plan that really supported their business strategy. Now, that’s not in itself the most extraordinary thing, because we can say that, you know what, we contributed. But I will bring a little bit more evidence to the story here. I mentioned to you that this is one of four regions. The other three regions are equal opportunity, equal size with this region. They in themselves only did 400 million collectively.

So not only are we showing the proof of what works for this particular region against their competitors here in this market, but we’re also showing it against the other control groups within the same organization, same structure, same hierarchy, same policies in other areas. We do things a little bit differently here. We modified some things and we’re able to really showcase that difference profitability wise, far exceeding the collective of the other three regions. Satisfaction, employee engagement numbers, retention, promoting ability, all of the key performance indicators that show that you are operating in a way that you have a healthy workplace where people can thrive and they want to stay and they can grow their careers. All of that was evident and present in this case, Andrea, so that’s the point that I point to, that is the example that I point to where everything has come together and all of this suite of offerings has been presented to them and utilized.

Andi Simon: Don’t forget to send me the link to that and we’ll include it on the blog where we put the podcast because it becomes concrete as opposed to abstract, but it’s also data demonstrated and evidence based and it says, Oh, this could really help my business turn from good to great, huh?

Kon Apostolopoulos: Correct. It’s the difference maker because at the time when all the companies were hemorrhaging and bleeding people, they couldn’t keep their people there with the Great Resignation and people were abandoning their jobs in droves and millions in the millions. This company, we not only did not lose any of our top people, we actually became a destination for people leaving their other organizations. So when you can become that employment brand that others seek out, when you become that employer of choice, how much easier is your job? How much does it save your bottom line, knowing that you can attract the best and brightest and retain them within your environment? That is a competitive advantage that will help you truly differentiate yourself from the competitors.

Andi Simon: Well, and it’s not just salary, is it? It’s all the other, I’ll call them, I don’t want to call them soft. They are the kind of human stuff that people are looking for. It’s true. They work for a paycheck, but they really do want to belong to an organization that values them and helps them get valued. It allows them to be productive and creative and really connected to others in a way that leads to better results. 

And so we’re coming back to describing that kind of an engaged environment that we’re talking about. I mean, that’s truly what we were trying to picture for our audience here. And to understand when you are confident that your top performers, even if they pick up the phone and somebody says, Come work for me, I’m going to give you X amount more, and they say, Thank you, but I’m very happy where I am. Yeah, I can see myself here. This is my home. This is my workplace. This is where I find I’m at my best.

That’s a tremendous, tremendous asset to an organization that you can’t put a price on that. No, there is no price because it is the differentiator for life, not just for a company. As for an individual’s life where it has meaning and purpose, it’s pretty cool. So let’s go back to your engagement blueprint. When you have a client map out where they are and where they’re going and how they’re going to get there, can they do it on their own? Do they need your support? Are there steps that are simple to follow?

Kon Apostolopoulos: There are. And that’s what I’m trying to capture with the book. I’m trying to show people an easy way for them to first and foremost, assess which one of these drivers are strengths for them in their current environment, which areas they need to pay special attention to. And I outline each one of these areas, certain elements that should be present and available for them to consider. But I still don’t dictate which way they want to go. I make the recommendations of these areas that they should focus on, provide some examples of my own, but also case studies, many case studies in there.

And oh, by the way, we are also interviewing industry leaders across the spectrum, people that have been there, done that, and can speak to each one of these elements from their own organizations, people like Jamie Simpson, that is the hotel director I lead for a Jumeirah property that just had their 20 year anniversary, the first one of Jumeirah property meeting on Salam in Dubai. And they won the most prestigious team award in their area from Hotelier magazine. And she and her team showed what it looks like to be able to operate.

Now, think about that. We’re talking about a wonderful, talented leader operating in what many would consider a culture that is very male dominated in an industry that is full of male executives. Yet this powerful individual, this talented woman, has brought together in her own way, using her own talents and skills, brought together and created an engaged workplace where people can thrive. And her team can vary, can succeed with proof because that is not a small thing to achieve that award.

Andi Simon: No, And it is an acknowledgement of something more than just financial success. It’s about something much bigger than this. This is really an interesting time. You know, Kon, you’re a giver and you are a person who wants to help others grow. I know as we were talking about this book, what you have a whole lot of things that you’d like to share with our listeners and viewers and maybe their organizations to help them get going before the book comes out. You want to share? Would you share some of those things?

Kon Apostolopoulos: Absolutely. And thank you, Andrea. First and foremost, we’ve developed with my team an online version of our simple questionnaire that will allow anyone to kind of answer some basic questions and get a feel for where are we strong, where do we need to focus on, which one of these drivers do we find present in our environments, which one we might want to pay some attention to, with some very simple guidelines and simple examples of what they can do differently.

So I’d like as a first gift to offer that to you or to our audience here today, Andrea. And we can add that in. We can provide a link for them. They can simply go online, complete their questionnaire and have the opportunity to get some quick answers on the spot. Beyond that, if people are interested in finding out more, I’d love to welcome them into our growing community. And in this community we talk often about tips, ideas, examples of how to really engage our workforce, how to really create that environment for our people. It’s also the place where I’ll be sharing a lot of excerpts from the book, early previews of some of the interviews that I’ve been doing. Wonderful, valuable information that people can immediately turn around and apply, and if they so choose, to be part of this community, this growing community, and have first access to the insights and the information that we’re sharing. Even before the book is published.

Andi Simon: This is so exciting. So we can start with the self-assessment, and begin to become familiar through this group of the kinds of things you’re doing. And then the book is expected to come out by when?

Kon Apostolopoulos: 2024. We’re putting the final touches on it. We’re wrapping up some of our interviews and we’ll have some what I hope people will find as wonderful little surprises and nuggets in there for them.

Andi Simon: I can’t wait. There’s my crackerjack box in my little nugget in there. This has been such fun. Now, if they want to reach you, where’s a good place to get a hold of you?

Kon Apostolopoulos: Well, the easiest place for those people that embrace the LinkedIn platform is to look me up under Koach Kon. I spelled with a K on purpose. Andrea, I don’t want to mislead people. I want to make sure that they know. So Koach Kon on LinkedIn and they can also visit my website freshbizsolutions.com where they can find additional information about perhaps how we can help them or how they can readily find resources to help themselves really create the kind of environment where people can thrive.

Andi Simon: I love it. Do you have a team of people who work with you, or is this mostly stuff you’re doing as a solopreneur?

Kon Apostolopoulos: A lot of it is myself. I do reach out to trusted partners at times. I have a team that helps me with my marketing, with some of my strategic planning, perhaps with creating and building a lot of the assets that are of high quality that I can offer to my clients and to those listeners that we have here today. But periodically it’s always a pleasure to be able to partner with people that I respect in the industry like yourself, Andrea, and people like we can work together. We offer each other our insights and our support, but for the most part, yes, there would be me.

Andi Simon: I think that’s pretty good because if you’ve just been hearing Kon talk, he knows what he’s talking about and he and I share a whole lot of the same challenges as people who work with organizations that need to change or want to. And I can’t say it often enough, but change is pain and your brain hates us. And how many times have companies said to me, Well, that’s not the way we do it. I said, Well, that’s the problem. It’s the way you do it. Yeah, but that’s the way it’s done and I say, But it doesn’t have to be. Behaviors can change and if you change the behaviors, then your mind comes along and makes it sensible as well. So it’s not simple, but it is doable and it is doable with, I think, this engagement blueprint on how to build a more inclusive company that can really, really produce at a level that you’re looking for.

So I’ve had a great time here today and this has been absolutely a wonderful conversation. I will make sure it’s up on our blog and we push it out when it’s time. And I know my listeners and my viewers are going to say, Can I learn more? And I have a hunch you want to learn more. So I’m going to say goodbye to everybody. Thank you for coming. And so it’s a pleasure to help you get off the brink. And the only way you can do that is to see things through a fresh lens and feel them in new ways like we’ve done today. And then give some thought to, Do I need a blueprint? Do I need to begin to put together a process for change? And then we can together or alone begin to help you do just that.

I will tell you that changing behavior is very doable. You just need new habits. And if you think of that that way, you need to stop doing what you’ve done and start new habits and practice and practice and practice until they become the way we do things. And it’s not hard. It just needs to be done. And so these are changing times that require new things to happen. So with great pleasure, thank you for coming. Please keep sending me your friends and people you want me to talk to and people to listen to the podcast and share it. It’s always a pleasure. Have a great day.Take care now. Bye bye.

Hear how to really live diversity, equity, and inclusion, not just talk it 

I just love women who are changing the world, and Dr. Rohini Anand is one of them. A pioneer in DEI, Rohini is a global strategic Diversity, Equity and Inclusion leader, a highly revered board member and speaker, and a published author. In her book, Leading Global Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: A Guide for Systemic Change in Multinational Organizations, she provides businesses with a blueprint for changing their culture into one where everyone is welcomed, respected, and listened to. Does your organization need to change? Listen in as Rohini tells us how to do it.

Watch and listen to our conversation here

Rohini’s 5 principles for bringing about DEI change:

• The first principle: Make it local. Global change has to be anchored in an understanding of the local context. Change has to be rooted in the local particulars informed by the history, the culture, the language, and mores of each place.
• The second: Leaders must change to lead change. Commitment from senior leadership is absolutely fundamental to ensuring that DEI is sustained.
• The third: It’s good business to institute DEI. Frustratingly, 70% of change efforts fail. That’s why a change narrative has to be congruent with the organization’s purpose and how business is done.
• The fourth: Go deep, wide, and inside out. Organizations are interconnected systems that work in concert with each other. DEI needs to be infused in the internal processes and systems, as well as externally. There must be a systems approach.
• And the fifth principle: Know what matters, and counter. Metrics clearly provide a global framework, a cohesive narrative to spotlight problem areas and solutions. To be instruments for change, leaders have to have the right metrics, and they have to hold their teams accountable.

How to connect with Rohini

You can find her on LinkedIn, Twitter, and her website www.rohinianand.com, or email her at rohinianand1121@gmail.com.

Want to know more about DEI and culture change? Start here 

Additional resources for you

Read the transcript of our podcast here

Andi Simon: Hi and welcome to On the Brink With Andi Simon. I’m Andi Simon, and as you know, I’m your host and your guide. And I’ve started to tell people on our podcast a little bit more about me, because they keep asking, Who are you? So I’m a corporate anthropologist, and I’ve specialized for most of my career helping organizations and the people inside them change. And you must recognize that people hate change, your brains would just as soon I go away. But the podcast came about after my book, On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights, was published and won an award. And my second book just won an award as well, Rethink: Smashing The Myths of Women in Business. I’m honored to be able to share with you my insights into how people can change, and particularly how corporate cultures must change.

So today’s guest is a very special woman. I can’t wait to share her with you: Rohini Anand. I met Rohini through the Women Business Collaborative, where I’m a member, and she is as well. I read her new book, Leading Global Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: A Guide for Systemic Change in Multinational Organizations. Rohini has a wonderful perspective. I’m going to tell you a little bit about her and then let her tell you about her own journey.

But remember, our job is to help you see, feel and think in some new ways so you can do something. And the questions around diversity, equity and inclusion are profound. I cannot tell you how many CEOs have said to me, it took me three months to hire some people to diversify my culture. They only lasted three months. And I said, Okay, we have a bigger question here about what is your culture? And why should people belong to it? And humans want to belong.

So here’s Rohini’s background. She is a strategic Diversity, Equity and Inclusion expert, highly sought-after board member, a published author and speaker. She is recognized as a pioneer in DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) and has been on the forefront of leading businesses through lasting change for corporations, not for nonprofit organizations and government agencies worldwide. She was previously senior vice president of corporate responsibility and Global Chief Diversity Officer for Sodexo. And under her leadership, the Sodexo brand became synonymous with leadership in diversity, corporate responsibility and wellness.

And I have a hunch she’s going to tell you a little bit about her journey. But I’m excited because both in her book and in her work, she’s actually making things happen. And for all of you who are wondering, How do you make DEI happen?, you need to listen carefully because this is what’s happening. And now the question is, how can we share it so you can do it as well? Rohini, thank you for joining me today.

Rohini Anand: Thank you. I’m delighted to be with you, Andi. And looking forward to the conversation.

Andi Simon: Let’s begin, who is Rohini? What’s been your journey? Share it with the listeners, they love the stories.

Rohini Anand: Yeah, as you know, anyone involved in diversity, equity and inclusion work, this book is very personal for them. And my story is integral to who I am. I actually grew up in Mumbai, India, and growing up in India, almost everyone sort of looked like me. It is a country with a lot of diversity, many socio-economic classes, religions, ethnicities, languages, etc. I belong to the majority religion, Hinduism, and surrounded by others like me. I had the privilege of not having to think about my identity. So I moved to the United States as a teenager, and went to graduate school. And that really was my inflection point in my both literal and metaphorical journey.

And I have to say that my identity shifted from being a person who saw herself as the center of her world to being a foreigner to being an immigrant to being a minority, and I was totally unprepared for that. So it was only when I was identified as a minority did I realize the privileges that came with being part of a majority. I was part of the majority growing up in India, but I had not recognized my privilege in that way. And honestly, I was unable to until I was perceived as a minority and I experienced things differently. So the realization that identity is situational is fluid and informs the research that I did for my PhD and still informs my work.

So I would say that this vocation is very personal to me, understanding what it means to be perceived as a minority, as an outsider, is very much at the heart of diversity, equity and inclusion work. And I am fortunate that my vocation and my avocation are perfectly aligned. So it’s a little bit about my journey to the work that I do today. I continue to do this work. You’re right, I worked for Sodexo for 18 years. And we were hired from Sodexo in 2020, just before COVID hit, was the time to write my book. And since then I’ve been doing booktalks, strategic coaching and advising, and I’m on several boards, but I continue to do this work that’s so meaningful to me. It is part of who I am.

Andi Simon: Well, being who you are, when you were at Sodexo, I have a hunch you explored and learned a great deal about the challenges of building a diverse culture, particularly a global one. Now is that a good place for us to start to talk about the learnings that went on there because it was very profound. You went from India, I’ve been to India, it’s quite a complicated place. And coming here, discovering a culture that had a different attitude, different values, everything about you being here was different. And somehow you had to find a way of belonging, and humans want to belong. Some of the insights that came from the Sodexo experience would be really helpful, I think, to our listeners.

Rohini Anand: So Andi, when I joined Sodexo, there was a fairly serious lawsuit. And I didn’t quite understand or really recognize the seriousness of that lawsuit until about six months after I was hired, when it was certified as a class action lawsuit that was settled for over $80 million. It was a discrimination lawsuit filed by African Americans in the company. And I share that because you know what I say in the book, and the journey really was from class action to best in class. So that was the sort of situation that I stepped into.

But with the support of leadership, we were able to change the culture around and became known for leadership and diversity, equity and inclusion in the United States. And then it was a question of scaling this work globally. So what I found was that doing this global DEI work is very complex. It’s very dynamic. There’s no checklist, there’s no playbook, I don’t even think any best practices are adequate. But there were these five principles that showed up each time when I did the work that are absolutely critical. And they provide a true line.

Each of the principles is simple. It’s a simple statement. It’s based on my experiences, but also experiences of my colleagues who’ve done the heavy lifting in their organizations. They’re simple, but they’re disruptive. And they don’t provide any sort of standards, the plug and play templates based on what’s worked in the US, because that’s been a foundational mistake—to replicate what works in one part of the world, in other parts of the world.

So these principles can be applied with sensitivity to any culture, and really empower global leaders to develop their own solutions, not to mimic any one experience, but really develop their own solutions. So the principles are, and this is what I think is absolutely foundational in doing this culture change work, because it is about transformation, it’s about culture change.

The first step is make it local. And global change has to be anchored in an understanding of the local context. It has to be rooted in the local particulars informed by the history, the culture, the language and mores of each place. We have to consider the power dynamics, identify those that are the subordinate and not subordinate in dominant groups, identify how identity is defined, how it’s expressed. But understanding doesn’t mean accepting the status quo. Because outside influence can be cancerous for change. They can raise issues that those within a culture may not be able to see. Like, I was not able to see my own privilege, because of power dynamics. But this works best when local change agents are empowered to partner with outside influencers. So it’s about pushing the status quo, disrupting and pushing for change, but doing it with an understanding of the local context.

The second is what I call leaders change to lead change. And we know very well that commitment from senior leadership is absolutely fundamental to ensuring that the DEI is sustained. And when leaders embrace the DEI with authentic purpose and passion, the organization goes from performative action to sustainable progress. So leaders really need to internalize the benefit of doing it to themselves personally, and to the organization, that often requires the destruction of their worldview, and the painful work of introspection. And this happens often through stories, not necessarily data. But I think it’s important as leaders do seek out these disruptive experiences as they take ownership of their own learning, and be mindful of the toll that it takes for people with those lived experiences to share the experiences again and again and again. And so it takes leaders who intentionally prioritize the DEI as they would any other business imperative. So that’s the second principle: leaders change lead change.

The third is: it’s good business to, and without a compelling reason for change. We all know 70% of change efforts fail. But there’s reasons this sort of change narrative has to be congruent with the organization’s purpose and how business is done.

The fourth principle is: go deep, wide, and inside out. And that really speaks to the fact that organizations are interconnected systems that work in concert with each other. And DEI needs to be infused in the internal processes and systems and externally, so you have to take a systems approach.

And then the last one, the fifth principle is: know what matters and counter. And metrics clearly provide a global framework, a cohesive narrative to spotlight problem areas and solutions. And to be instruments for change, they’ve got to have the right metrics, and you’ve got to hold your teams accountable. So make local leaders change to lead change. And it’s good business to go deep, wide and inside out and know what matters. These five principles I think are absolutely critical to any change.

Andi Simon: Well, I love your principles. They are very much congruent with the culture change work that we do. But there are some things I’d like to dig a little deeper into, because the leader changing the way they see diversity, and equity and inclusion are essential. They’re the leader. The question is, how do you get them to change? Remember, we live the story in our minds. If we don’t collaborate with our mind, our mind does exactly what it thinks we want it to do. And so the research on the mind is so compelling.

Now, the question is, how do we get leaders to change that story, so that it isn’t the outsider who you’re bringing in sort of gratuitously, the outsider is essential to the growth of the organization, and how we now build a culture where we value that diversity as opposed to want to eliminate it, or control it or put it into a certain box. The thing that always worries me, having been an executive in two banks, you said you tend to bring in the diversity and put them into buckets where they belong. And they were sort of a stereotype of what kind of jobs they should hold, and where those people should be. And that by itself wasn’t diversity, or equity or inclusion. It was a different way of building mosaics, which wasn’t particularly good. Share with us. And I’m particularly interested in, How do I start with the leader? Because I think that’s where we have to start.

Rohini Anand: You’re absolutely right, we do have to start there. Let me share two quick stories. So you know, one story is about a particular leader who mentored a woman who is part of the organization, and she managed high security facilities. And after mentoring her, he came to me and he said, “If you had presented me with two candidates, a male and a female, and asked me to hire the best qualified candidate for a high security facility, I would have chosen the man because you need an aggressive, assertive leadership style. So it’s a dangerous environment, I would never have chosen the woman.” But he says, after having mentored this woman, who’s extremely effective, “She has a different leadership style. And she is very effective. She gets the assignment. I will never let an unconscious bias impact my talent decisions again.”

So I think that’s the story of basically providing leaders with disruptive experiences that help to shake their worldview, provide them a different perspective, expose them to people who are not necessarily like themselves, in this case, a woman with a different leadership style, so that they can actually do this work of introspection and emerge in a way that really shifts their perspective, their thinking, their worldview. We don’t know what we don’t know. So this leader was able to internalize that experience.

The other story that I have is a leader who listened to all these stories about diversity, equity and inclusion and was not buying. I had some Sodexo specific data, but he was not necessarily convinced. He got involved in a cross-company mentoring program along with other CEOs. He wanted to network with other CEOs and this was networking on the topic of diversity and he mentored a woman from a different organization and developed a trusting relationship with her. She got laid off, and she had discussed and shared with him her lived experiences being marginalized, being discriminated against as the only woman on the executive team, and he listened with sort of this newfound interest.

And he came to me and he said, “I just cannot believe that women have these kinds of experiences in the workplace. She was the only woman on her executive team.” He said, “This is unacceptable. I want all 12 of my direct reports to mentor a woman from a different part of the organization.” So they did, and of the 12 women that were mentored/sponsored, because it wasn’t just mentoring, these were senior executives who actually sponsored these women, nine out of the 12 got senior positions, either as country heads, or heads of large pieces of business. Now, again, it took the lived experiences of this woman. It came close to home, he developed a relationship with her. He listened to her, and it was her lived experiences that helped to shift his perspective.

So I think storytelling and lived experiences can be very beneficial. But I will caution that it is very tiring for those that have experienced these lived experiences to share them again and again and again. And we have to really maximize the impact of those lived experiences. But also, leaders have to take responsibility for their own learning at the end of the day. So I think those are sort of two stories. I have one more if you have time.

Andi Simon: I’m a storyteller. And I think that what you capture in the story, that you said that the leaders have to change their leadership. And the question is, Okay, how do I do that? And experiential learning is where we learn best. You can’t learn from a book and you can’t learn from listening to me. What is it you really mean? How does that really feel? Another story?

Rohini Anand: So this story is actually the CEO, previous year, to Excel. And globally, as you know, most companies focus on gender just because race and ethnicity translates very differently in different parts of the world. It doesn’t translate in many parts of the world. And this was a Frenchman in France. The word “race” was actually struck from the French constitution in 2018, for historical reasons. So when we started talking about ethnicity and race, he said to me, “Why dilute the focus on gender by bringing in all these other strands of diversity, because race doesn’t translate in France, it doesn’t translate in many parts of Europe.” And he was right. And so I realized that I needed to expand his worldview. And to do that, I invited him to an employee resource group meeting by the African American employee resource group in the United States.

He attended that meeting, one of maybe two French men who were at that meeting, one of the only white men at the meeting. He listened to the lived experiences, particularly of the Black men, Black leaders in that meeting. And it was very moving, because now he knew these people, again, these stories came close to home. He listened to the experiences outside and within the organization, so that listening to the lived experiences, combined with his experience of being a minority, was very disruptive for him. And he went on after the murder of George Floyd to send this really heartfelt message to the organization, something he wouldn’t have done under normal circumstances, and in succession planning meetings and talent review discussions.

Yes, you cannot gather data about people’s race and ethnicity in Europe, but nothing, no one stops you from asking the questions. So when individuals say, “We have diversity, we have Belgians, and we have folks from the Netherlands and from Switzerland and Austria, and Germany,” the question would be, “That’s wonderful. And how many of them are Black people?” So he was able to ask those questions. Again, it was a very disruptive experience for him. And what’s wonderful is, many of these leaders have gone on to other organizations and have taken this secessionist connection, this learning that they’ve had, and become allies and started to bring about the culture change in the other organizations.

Andi Simon: You are alluding to something very important. Two things I want to talk about. People are copycats, and they need to see others. You can call them role models, but unless somebody who they can admire is doing something differently, they would just as soon move away from it, hijack it and not be the solo solitary leader there. So building that base is important.

Rohini Anand: If I can just add to that, you’re absolutely right, Andi. And when he talks about this notion of belonging, we often say an employee’s sense of belonging to the culture of an organization, but there’s another dimension of belonging. And that dimension of belonging is the need for a leader and organization to belong to an elite group of companies that are committed to DEI. So I want to identify with other companies that are seen as diversity elite companies and want to be part of that. There’s this desire to belong to other organizations that are seen as having credibility.

Andi Simon: Because they feed off each other. Because the contagion is a healthy one, because if I’m doing it, and they’re doing it, somehow together, the whole ship rises. But if I’m doing it alone, that’s a long road home all by myself, solitary. It’s very challenging. The other side of what you were talking about, though, I experienced as a woman, and I am not a woman of color, although I have a niece who’s biracial, and we talk all the time about the challenges of being different.

I was an executive in a bank, and I went to a board meeting, and there were 49 men, a nun and me. I didn’t say anything. And for many years, I was the sole woman on any executive team. And the challenge for a woman in that story is how to navigate what role to play. We’re role players, I often think of life as theater. And I remember changing the conversations. I learned new ways of behaving, how to dress, how to perform, particularly when you are in a room of mostly men, and you are not exactly being asked anything to contribute. I can’t tell you how many times I was the only or among the few. And I do think it’s changing. And I’m glad that I can date myself.

But the other thing is, how do you advise or counsel those who are now being brought in to diversify? The gentleman I mentioned who spent three months recruiting a woman of color to join his organization and they only stayed three months was angry at her for not belonging. And I said to him, “Why is it her problem? And a combination? It’s not your problem or her problem? You brought her into a place that wasn’t welcoming, where there was nobody who looked like her. How are you going to change this? And what is the role of the person being anointed with this diversity banner to have to come in and do something for you?” Some advice or experiences, stories to share?

Rohini Anand: In terms of being the only, and you know, I think a woman of color is the double only, which is the other piece, as a woman and as a woman of color. And I think you’re right, I think very often, when you are the only one, it’s difficult to speak up. I do think that is what helps a lot, is if you can get allies and male allies within the room. So having the conversations outside to find out who can be an ally, who can amplify your voice, who can say when you talk, “That will work.” Who can say, “We haven’t heard from Rohini yet, perhaps we should hear what she has to contribute.” Those kinds of allies I think are really important. It’s sort of a double edged sword, because in a sense, usually the allies are the ones who have the power, the ones with the dominant group are white males. So in a sense, we’re asking someone to validate us as women, aren’t we.

And the other side of it is, in some senses, you’re using their power to upend their power. So there’s two sides to this. And I think it has to be used strategically, but I think allies are one piece.

I think the other piece of advice that I would give is, just be true to who you are, you have to be authentic. I think imitating someone else’s leadership style or a male style does not work because it does us a disservice. I think being authentic is absolutely critical.

And I think the third piece is, before you can join an organization, do research, because an organization that is not welcoming of someone who looks like you doesn’t deserve you. So do your research. And if you need to, walk away. There are other options that you have, particularly today with the talent shortages. So I think that organizations will have to change in order to provide a welcoming environment. I have millennial daughters, and you know, I know numerous people who have walked away from organizations because they didn’t see someone like themselves. And they didn’t think that it was a female friendly organization.

Andi Simon: Well, as I’m listening to you, it’s not a bad time to think about wrapping up because you and I could talk for a long time about this. And I know you can with great expertise. I think that the times are changing, and I’d like our listeners to walk away from Rohini and take away two or three things that you think they should focus on. And you have your principles, I like them. I love the fact that we’re talking about how to make them actionable principles, but what do you actually do if you’re going to do it local, what would be the top two or three things that they should remember, because I want them to do something when they leave.

Rohini Anand: So I think the one piece of change really happens at the intersection of people and processes, and you have to impact both. So I would encourage, on the personal level, to see how you can be an ally for others regardless of who they are in the organization. And then I would say, look at how you can dismantle those processes that are tenacious, that have advantages for some and have created disadvantages for others. So, work both the people and the process piece.

And then I think this power of storytelling is amazing. Even in terms of bringing along allies, I think it’s really important, but I think, use those stories with discretion because of the toll it takes on those that have lived experiences. But you know, work at the intersection of people and processes would be my one big takeaway.

Andi Simon: Where can they find both you and your book, to reach you?

Rohini Anand: Thank you so much. So my website is www.rohini.com. And my book, Leading Global Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, is available on Amazon, and all of the other major outlets. Also you can order it through my website.

Andi Simon: It’s a great book. It’s great to read it. I want to add one last thought to our listeners. If you don’t know Judith Glaser’s work on conversational intelligence, go take a look at it. Judith was an observational, an organizational anthropologist who passed away a couple of years ago, but when she was doing neuroscience work, she said something very profound. If you say, “I’m the brain,” it gets full of cortisol and flies away from it, it becomes a battleground. It’s a threat. But if you say, “We, the oxytocin, the bonding hormones, really make love there.”

So as you’re thinking about this, diversity, equity, inclusion is about us. And if you start talking about what we can do together, it’s a much healthier environment for us to actually do it, the bonding that happens. It is natural for the brain. And so don’t underestimate the power of the body to respond to the way you’re talking and the conversations that we’re having today, around how do we build a better world where people are part of a larger organization that can all together rise, and do better together because they care about each other. And I can’t tell you what a pleasure it’s been to have you here today. Thank you. Rohini.

Rohini Anand: Thank you, Andi. This is wonderful.

Andi Simon: So I’ll wrap up for my listeners and my viewers. My audience is terrific. You’ve put us in the top 5% of podcasts globally. Thank you so much. And you send me great people to interview which I just enjoy tremendously. And my job is to help you see, feel and think in new ways to do something that you hate to do: embrace change. These are changing times. Please open up and try to do it with great joy. Bye bye now. Have a great day. Thank you.

Learn how to let go of worry and fear by learning new habits

Today I bring you Joanna Hardis, a beautiful woman whom you’re going to love listening to. Joanna is focused on helping people with anxiety-related issues and obsessive compulsive disorders, so this is a person you really might like to know more about if that’s something that is in your life. She can give you strategies to help you break through the barriers that are holding you back and learn to let feelings be, which is what she talks about in her new book, Just Do Nothing: A Paradoxical Guide to Getting Out of Your Way. Like me, Joanna preaches that change is hard but we can do it, we really can change and have a happier, more fulfilling life. Listen in and enjoy.

Watch and listen to our conversation here

Change your thinking, change your behavior

Joanna teaches us that when your brain wants to go to the “worry story,” that state of mind that’s causing you to be anxious, that is when you can learn specific skills to say, “Nope, I’m going to let that story be.” It’s really about doing nothing with those thoughts, letting the thoughts be, letting the feelings be there. She says that you may feel worried, but you’re not going to engage in those feelings, you’re going to let them be, instead of trying to get rid of them which actually makes the worry and the fear stronger. This really is quite fascinating and as she says, paradoxical.

How to reach Joanna

You can connect with Joanna on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and her website. Her email is joanna@joannahardis.com.

Want to learn more about how to find more joy? Try these:

• Podcast: Paula Guilfoyle—How Do You Manage Your Emotions To Build Better Conversations For Exceptional Results?
• Podcast: Meg Nocero—Can You Feel Joy As You Rethink Your Life?
• Blog: You Can Find Joy And Happiness In Turbulent Times!

Additional resources for you

Read the transcript of our podcast here

Andi Simon: Hi and welcome to On the Brink With Andi Simon. I’m Andi Simon, and as you know, I’m your host and your guide. And I love to find people to bring to you who can help you see, feel and think in new ways so that you can get off the brink. I want you to soar. But sometimes we don’t really know how to do that. We want to. We may even visualize what life could be like if it wasn’t so…and fill in that blank. But how do I do that?

So today, Sarah Wilson, who I love, brought me Joanna Hardis, who is a beautiful woman who you’re going to love listening to. Let me tell you about her and then she’ll tell you about her own journey because she has a new book. And we’ll talk a little bit about the book today. It’s called Just Do Nothing: A Paradoxical Guide to Getting Out of Your Way.

So here’s Joanna’s background. She’s a licensed independent social worker, a therapist and an executive coach in Ohio, and that’s her main business. She’s committed to helping people overcome complex challenges. And I know some people who watching this podcast are going to say, That’s me, I got it and it’s okay. So they can lead high quality lives. Her expertise lies in cognitive behavioral therapy, CBT, which you may know about, an exposure and response prevention for adults, children and adolescents. You can find her on LinkedIn and learn a lot more about her.

A couple of things I just want to highlight. She really is focused on helping people in the face of anxiety-related issues and obsessive compulsive disorders. So this is a person you really might like to know more about if that’s something that is disturbing you and she can identify what’s holding you back and give you strategies to help move you forward. And today, the things that I think we’re going to talk about as we talk about doing nothing, it’s called empower you to understand, break through the barriers that are holding you back, create your own sliding scale of distress, and learn to let feelings be instead of letting them go. We’ll come back to these, and I’m sure Joanna is going to tell you a whole lot more about them. Please, thank you for joining us.

Joanna Hardis: Thank you for that lovely introduction, Andi. Appreciate that.

Andi Simon: Well, I appreciate having you. Our audience will as well. I’m curious about both your background, your journey, the origin of this great book, and then what our listeners will learn from our podcast today about this complex world that we’re in and the anxiety that often arises. And life is too short. We have to find better ways to live it. Your story.

Joanna Hardis: Yes. So how I got here. I imagine, well, I never intended to be a therapist. I sort of just happened to get here. I went to college, pre-med, not really even wanting to be pre-med. I wanted a fellowship in high school to do independent study and had a real interest in working with people with HIV. So I was in high school in the 80s when HIV was really emerging on the scene. I don’t know how it emerged, but I had an interest in working with people with HIV and AIDS.

So a friend and I got a fellowship to do independent study and worked with physicians at a local hospital working with people with HIV and AIDS. So I went to college, went to Cornell and had this real interest in having a career in HIV and AIDS, and was told at Cornell like, Oh, then you’re pre-med. And I was not a very savvy student, despite being at Cornell. So I was in a pre-med track and realized quickly that it was not for me. And went to my advisor who said, What do you like? And I said, I really like people. And so the advisor said, Okay, well, maybe you’re a social worker and not someone who at that time was very savvy.

Again, I said, Okay, well let me give this a shot. Let me give this social work thing a shot. And I got to do an internship. So I went to Costa Rica and lived and worked. And I thought that was incredibly cool. So I kind of found my way into social work, never thinking about other career paths like psychology or counseling, but really found my way into social work by happenstance. I started my career in HIV. I spent about a decade in HIV, still hold it very near and dear to my heart, but really fell in love with working with people and have a real interest in what makes people click and the brain and helping people move forward.

So my career started in HIV and AIDS and I got trained in cognitive behavioral therapy and have really always had this interest in helping people who are in very complicated situations, working collaboratively to move them forward. And so I have been able to partner with people throughout my career, and I’m in my 27th year as a cognitive behavioral therapist. I do that and really work with people in different areas of life.

So I’ve been with people with HIV and AIDS. I’ve worked in an eating disorder treatment center, which is unbelievably challenging. I’ve worked with young entrepreneurs. I have volunteered during the pandemic with therapy aides, just giving, volunteering with frontline workers to now having my own private practice where I have really committed to working with people with anxiety disorders because it just makes so much sense to me. Anxiety disorders and obsessive compulsive disorder.

Andi Simon: And there is an abundance. There’s an epidemic of this.

Joanna Hardis: Yes.

Andi Simon: And so it’s not as if you’re looking at a needle in a haystack. It is the haystack.

Joanna Hardis: It is. It is. And, you know, we know from data that parents who struggle, it has an impact on children. So I find it incredibly rewarding. I stopped seeing kids and adolescents during Covid because I had to move virtually. And so now my practice is adult. But I do work a lot with parents to change their behavior because we know that that can help children. We need a different way in which to help people that are struggling.

Andi Simon: And before we get into the book, which I’d like to know more about as to why you wrote it and what the listener can benefit from. But give us some context here for the audience, around where does anxiety come from? And the context, because what you’re talking about is that it becomes contagious. What’s going on with the parents? It gets picked up as normal by the children, who then spread it among other children who think we should all be anxious instead of we should all be happy. But I’m making that up. You help me help you, What is it like and how can we better identify it?

Joanna Hardis: Sure. And there is a difference between an anxiety disorder and anxiety, which is just a normal state and a normal reaction, for instance, to fear. So it exists on a continuum. So let’s walk it back a little bit to the difference between fear and worry, because oftentimes we confuse fear and worry. Fear is a response to a threat. So someone cuts you off on the highway and you get that fear. You get that flood of adrenaline in your whole body, you get the whoosh, the flood of adrenaline. That’s fear. It is a response to a biological threat, an external threat. Well, what if that happens again? What if someone cuts me off again? And what if that car is too close and oh my gosh, what if I need to go really slowly? That cognitive process to fear is what we call worry.

Andi Simon: Good. Great distinction.

Joanna Hardis: Right. And if you’re still feeling the physical sensations, we would say, I am feeling anxious.

Andi Simon: Gotcha. This is perfect, I know exactly who’s listening today. And that is exactly what they have gone through. And an initial fear of something that is now turned into anticipatory worry about it. Right. And it makes them anxious and unable to make good decisions.

Joanna Hardis: Yes. Now, and we may say that anxiety, perhaps that ride, you may feel anxious. But if that worry or that anxiety persists and the person every single time they get in the car or they think about getting in the car, they are worrying and they’re feeling anxious and it is starting to impair and it could impair their life because every time they’re thinking about it, they are worrying. Then we are starting to cross the line. And we may say that it could be crossing over if it happens for long enough. Yeah, it could cross over into an anxiety disorder. Or we may say it’s excessive worrying.

Andi Simon: Yeah. Those are great words because it’s difficult to know whether the situation requires a suitable amount of fear reaction or anticipating it. You’re worrying about something that may never, ever happen again and impairs your life. You’re smiling at me, but I really understand that for some situations, people are so anxious that they can’t take a step forward, they get locked in their own fear.

Joanna Hardis: Exactly. And then you know what? You have nailed it, Andi. And what people don’t recognize, they wouldn’t because they don’t know this stuff, is that the more time someone spends worrying about it, it is training their brain that this is important and that this is dangerous and that this fear that they have is actually relevant in the absence of any data that says it’s relevant. So the brain gets trained and then the brain is going to say, oh my gosh, we need to be extra vigilant.

Andi Simon: Yep. And they can’t articulate what the crisis will be because it has nothing to do with the facts of what’s going on. It has to do with their worry factor.

Joanna Hardis: Yes. Yes, exactly. Exactly. And so learning how to stay out of the story, the worry story, because there’s nothing in their direct experience that speaks to that. This is what is happening right now.

Andi Simon: It is. But it’s also very interesting about the connection between something that might have happened as opposed to not knowing why I’m here. And I have a hunch that sort of leads to our discussion about what you do and what this book is intended to do. Because once you see that progress and the dead end and the only way you can revert people back to seeing the world in a positive way is to back it up somehow and rethink it somehow or restructure it somehow. Help me help them.

Joanna Hardis: Unfortunately, the brain can’t unlearn.

Andi Simon: Yes.

Joanna Hardis: So the brain cannot unlearn that. You had that frightening experience. But what we can do is we can create new learning.

Andi Simon: Yes.

Joanna Hardis: And so that’s what the person needs to focus on, is that in this direct moment, in this present moment when their brain wants to go to the worry story, that is when they need to learn the skills to say, Nope, whatever it is that I want to go into the worry story, I need to learn how to let that story be. It’s really doing nothing with those thoughts, letting the thoughts be, letting my feelings be there. I may feel worried, but I’m not going to engage in them, letting that stuff be. And the focus is on the action that’s important. So getting in the car and driving and not paying attention to, oh my gosh, well, what if this happens? What if I get cut off? What if someone drives too close? It’s doing what we know in the moment is in the behavior. And letting the other stuff be. 

Andi Simon: So I am curious about the book because I love this idea of when these things arrive, you’ve got to learn new thinking processes and new behaviors, so you become consciously competent about how to change what I’m thinking and feeling. So I begin to do it and practice it so I can become good at it. Right? It’s like a game. We don’t think of it as a game, but it is, to learn new habits.

Joanna Hardis: Correct. And it’s paradoxical. So the title, you know, the catchy title is Just Do Nothing. But then the subtitle, which is The Paradoxical Guide for Getting Out of Your Way. The paradox is that, and I suspect people that listen to you can relate. People are used to doing more. Yeah. And when people are feeling a lot and feeling more, they’re used to doing more to get rid of it. So they think more. They ruminate more, they worry more.

Andi Simon: And they write long, long, long, long, long things about it that you can’t figure out what it’s all about. Right? 

Joanna Hardis: Yes. Well, exactly. And so it’s doing more to try to get rid of it that makes the worry and the fear stronger. So what we want to do is to learn how to get the skills, to do less with how we’re feeling and the thoughts that are so troublesome. And so that’s what the book helps people learn: the skills to practice in very small ways that build on each other to do that. And then they do it in gradually more stressful situations.

Andi Simon: So Joanna, talk to us about where this book came from, this is your first book.

Joanna Hardis: This is my first.

Andi Simon: My first book took me four years, my second book, only two, my last one, a year. I mean, we begin to figure out how to write a book and why it’s important, but this is an important book. Where did the idea come from and how did it develop?

Joanna Hardis: It was interesting. People have always suggested I write a book and I always said I’d never had anything to write a book about. So I didn’t really have an intention. And then I had been doing workshops with a colleague that I met who also is interested in anxiety work, and we had been doing them on helping people change their relationship with distress and discomfort. So I had been working professionally in this space in addition to my practice.

And then a year ago I had a curveball in my own life. I was dating, someone got ghosted, and it was my own personal explosion of distress. And it was someone I’ve been divorced from for ten years, but it was someone that I really thought that I could go someplace and was ghosted out of nowhere. And I had to really work on what I had been talking about in a way that I hadn’t in a long time.

And so it was a confluence of professional interest and then personal experience. And from that, I and the ghosting story, is literally the first page of the book. The book came out of that intersection and I had a fire in my belly and it took me less than a year to write the book.

Andi Simon: Yes. Exciting. Well, but it was there to cleanse yourself. Writing is a great way to take the mind and what it’s thinking about and push it out. All the things that you’re talking about, to learn new ways to build a new story.

Joanna Hardis: Yes. And what’s interesting is my work is focused on anxiety in my professional life. But what I talk about is distress, because what is under the umbrella of distress is anxiety, is stress, is shame, is embarrassment, is boredom. All these feelings that people really don’t like to feel. And so it broadens the umbrella for people because what trips people up, whether it’s what gets in people’s way, whether it’s not going to the gym, overeating, not asking for a raise. It may not always be anxiety. It may be shame, it may be embarrassment, it may be boredom. And so people need a process for all of those feelings. 

Andi Simon: And you just said the word so well, because we decide with the heart and how things feel, then the brain gets engaged. And I also always preach that we live the story in our mind. And that story is an illusion of what your reality is, and you live it. And then something like your situation arises and now you have to rewrite that story to give it a positive experience for you so you can wake up every morning and say, Hey, this is a good day, as opposed to, Oh crud, do I have to get out of bed? But that’s really important. So talk to us about the book itself and then the kinds of things about the solution: just do nothing.

Joanna Hardis: Okay, so the book is structured in two parts. The first part is really frontloaded with education to help people understand why change is hard. Because I wrote the book for people, because I’m assuming that people who pick this up have tried to change their feelings. Stuck. They may have tried lots of things before and for many people, they’re coming in with a perception that there may be skepticism. They may think that their perception may be that they can’t change. So I want people to understand and this is all evidence-based work. So it is not just Joanna’s thoughts about life. It’s all evidence-based.

Why change is hard. Why? You know how we need to think about the thoughts in our head? You know, facts about feelings that are helpful for people, why we shouldn’t take them so seriously, that they only last 90 seconds. And in the first part, everything has exercises. So at the end of every chapter, there are exercises to practice. So you can read the book any number of ways. You can do each chapter and then do the exercises. You can read the whole book through and then go back through and do the exercises.

The second part of the book is Everything that Could Go Wrong. As you set about to make a change in your life, what could go wrong and how to course correct? So the first part is really to help people change their relationship with distress and discomfort. So it is really explaining why we need a new way, why things that you have may have tried don’t necessarily work. And then I lay out how we’re going to do it differently.

So instead of trying to get rid of feelings that we don’t like, we’re going to allow them and then we’re going to learn to do nothing with them and we’re going to focus on behavior that is meaningful to us and how we’re going to create a scale breakdown. What you want to change into little baby parts, and how when you start to feel the discomfort, you know how to move through it and you’ll have exercises to practice going from something with very low discomfort, with a process to move through higher discomfort. And then in the second half, as I said, it’s everything that could go wrong, including that when something gets hard and you feel like you failed, how to reframe your relationship with setbacks.

Andi Simon: Love this. You have no idea how timely this is for different people in my life who have gone through something traumatic or that they think is traumatic or are anticipating something traumatic. It’s so interesting to listen to the categories in my mind of the folks who you are describing without describing them as types.

Joanna Hardis: Yes. Interesting.

Andi Simon: It is. One is a young woman at a university that had somebody come in and shoot a professor.

Joanna Hardis: Oh, gosh, yes.

Andi Simon: And when you talk about the distress, the fear, the worry, and how do parents manage that in a way which doesn’t deny that there’s anxiety or anxiousness or concern to the point where the young woman said, I can’t even take a walk without feeling unsafe. And that is that car story where I’m not going to get in the car to drive because somebody almost hit me. And that becomes one kind of situation and another situation, that I know of where the act of doing something is going to be potentially dangerous, and so I’m not going to.

Well, but maybe you’ll miss a whole opportunity because it could be dangerous. And so there’s the disappointing one. But I think that what you’re describing is exactly what we know when we work. I mean, I have positioned myself as a corporate anthropologist who helps companies change. And for my listeners, I always preach that change is pain. Because once you got a story in your mind, that’s the way you live and you don’t realize that these other things could change that story. Or if you want to change what you’re doing, you’re going to have to change the story. There is no reality. There’s only this mythical story in your mind. And it’s not doing good things for you. Your book sets out a path to change it. Am I correct?

Joanna Hardis: Yes.

Andi Simon: Oh, my gosh. You and I have a lot in common. 

Joanna Hardis: Yes. Because in my field, we talk about what distress intolerance is, and distress intolerance is someone’s perception that they can’t handle. We call it negative internal states. So I can’t handle feeling anxious about taking a walk. So I’m going to stay home. So it’s getting locked into the story and then avoiding it.

Andi Simon: Yes. And that becomes my view of the world as if it’s real, not imagined, but everything is imagined. And so if I’m going to get past that and trust, I’m going to have to figure out how to take a step outside and begin to break the resistance to my fear and worry.

Joanna Hardis: Yes, exactly. And that’s what I’m talking about. Exactly. And we go about it because we have to get the behavior. We change thinking by changing behavior.

Andi Simon: I love it because that’s just what I preach. Because to change, you can’t do your strategy and be abstract. You have to change the behaviors, the habits so that things are actionable and then the brain comes and justifies. It doesn’t get better.

Joanna Hardis: We’re saying the same thing, but different. 

Andi Simon: But it is so exciting. It is. Now, this has come out of your work, but it isn’t your work. So in some ways, you want to reach beyond the folks in Ohio that are in therapy with you.

Joanna Hardis: So, yes.

Andi Simon: How do you do some online seminars, workshops, or things that people could come to you for?

Joanna Hardis: So my colleague and I are doing online seminars, workshops, and we’re retooling it now. We are retooling it. And we’re going to be doing a course, interestingly, for anxious parents.

Andi Simon: Oh, great.

Joanna Hardis: Yes.

Andi Simon: And do they have to be just in Ohio or could they be anywhere?

Joanna Hardis: It can be anybody. It can. When we do these, it can be for anybody. But we are focusing on parents because right now there is so much nationally about parents that are anxious and are having a really hard time tolerating not only their children’s distress.

And so that makes it really hard for parents to parent the way they know they want to be parenting or need to be parenting. And parents have a really hard time tolerating their own distress. So they give in to their kids or they’re constantly nagging or they’re doing the work for their kids and they’re not allowing their kids the independence and the autonomy that we know kids need.

Andi Simon: This is so powerful because it is going to create a different world for the generation that’s coming. And I’ll blame it on the pandemic for the moment. But it is a time of transformation without clarity about how do I, on the one hand, cope with my anxiousness or my distress, my fear, and then also make sure that the next generation grows up strong, happy and able to solve complex problems with creative thinking, all the things that kids learn by playing outside on the street together and making a game together. Right?

Joanna Hardis: Yes. Yes. So that’s in the works. We’re in the final stages of putting the course together. And, you know, who knows? I mean, I may develop a course from the book. I have to see. It’s only been out a month. So I think if there’s interest, I may put something together.

Andi Simon: I think that you have a mission that I think is transformational for our culture and society that’s far bigger than that. If I hear you right, you mean you want to take the next generation of parents and kids and make them happy because it isn’t that the world is bad, it’s that they see it that way. You know, that letting a child walk to school, it’s not going to be they’re not going to get kidnapped. They might, but they’re not.

I rode my bike to school growing up and I went outside and we played kickball or stickball or whatever, on the street. We didn’t have organized stuff to the degree they have now. And so we were free to be kids. And I and some of my neighbors, we still stay in touch when we remember the joy of pulling the sled. I mean, it was freedom. 

So now it’s become very constrained. And I’m not going to blame and complain. But I do think that if we don’t transform, the next generation is going to see the world through a very different lens and they’re not going to want to do anything.

Joanna Hardis: Yes. No, I agree with you. And I saw recently in The Wall Street Journal that parents, when kids are at summer camp, which used to be a time away from parents, parents are now obsessively looking over kids’ photos. So I guess camps are now posting photos of their kids at camp and parents are obsessively looking over the camp photos to make sure that the kids look happy, and they’re contacting the camps. And parents are really invested in the photos and taking action.

Andi Simon: And the photos have no reality. They’re just photos you’re imposing on them. Meaning…? But that photo may be at a moment where they were dealing with something or struggling with something or happily doing it. You have no idea what the meaning was at that moment. But you are certain that that photo says my son or daughter isn’t happy.

Joanna Hardis: And has no friends. Right. And then intervening in a child’s experience and parents are getting…I mean, there is so much wrong with that.

Andi Simon: So much wrong with it.

Joanna Hardis: We could do a whole podcast on what’s wrong with that, that I think that there is a need to really intervene. And I don’t blame parents. I think it’s the culture. The pendulum has swung in the other direction.

Andi Simon: You might almost team up with all those camp owners and say, You might want to educate your parents before they start their kids in camp. That’s a whole audience who, I mean, when I went off to camp, my husband and I started at young ages and it was our free time. The last thing I ever wanted my parents to do is show up. Right?

Joanna Hardis: Right.

Andi Simon: They don’t have to know anything about my sneaking out the back door of the bunk in the middle of the night to meet a guy down by the basketball. That was not what they were supposed to know.

Joanna Hardis: Right, Exactly. Can you imagine? 

Andi Simon: Right. And the camp directors have gotten caught into this because now the world is all social. And so there’s a reality there. That’s one last thought. And then we will wrap up because I’m having too much fun. But there’s been a whole lot of discussion about the merger of virtual and reality.

And I have some friends who are teachers in elementary schools, and the kids are coming in unable to separate out social real from virtual real. And they can’t have conversations with other kids. They don’t know how to socialize with them. I’ll blame the pandemic for that. But also what we’ve done is replaced people with virtual and now they think that they’re almost the same and they like being the avatar in a virtual game rather than having a game with real kids. They don’t even know how to play in the schoolyard. Your thoughts?

Joanna Hardis: Well, I mean, I can only speak to what it does when I see it, when it turns into an anxiety disorder. I work so hard with people to use real data. It is so easy for people to get lost in possibility. And the more that someone is living online, living virtually, they are living in the ‘what if’ and living in possibilities and living in this comparison mode. They are comparing and it is just so hard for them to use their real sense data and it makes it much harder to treat. 

Andi Simon: Especially real life experience vs. iimagined. Oh my goodness, welcome to the world that we’re moving into, that we haven’t even talked about.

Joanna Hardis: I was just thinking that. 

Andi Simon: Because then I don’t know what’s real. This has truly been a pleasure. I usually like to ask my speakers 2 or 3 things you want the listeners to remember and then where they can get your book. But first, what should we let them remember the most?

Joanna Hardis: A feeling only lasts 90 seconds. That is so important. From the moment it is released in the brain to when it is out of the body. So people will always say, my feelings last hours and hours. That is because we are re-triggering the circuit by our behavior. That is essential to remember. Another thing to remember is that just because we think it or feel it doesn’t mean that it’s true.

Andi Simon: Just because we think it doesn’t mean it’s true.

Joanna Hardis: It doesn’t mean it’s true. And we always want to go with behavior, behavior that moves us toward what’s important to us or what we need to be doing.

Andi Simon: This has been truly wonderful.

Joanna Hardis: It has been. I’ve enjoyed it so much.

Andi Simon: I have enjoyed it as well. And that’s why I do podcasts, because I get pleasure at meeting new people and sharing ideas in ways that are difficult otherwise.

And for my listener, it is a time of change, and change is painful, and we are trying to figure out as we are coming out of the pandemic period what is “normal or certain.” And there is no normal and there is no certain. So now you need new skills, the correct skills that Joanna’s been talking about, is to begin to think about behavioral change. And because if you begin to do it differently, then you’ll think it differently. I‘ve learned a lot about what I needed to know today, which was a perfect day for this. So I want to thank you and the name of the book and where they can get it, please.

Joanna Hardis: The book is Just Do Nothing: A Paradoxical Guide to Getting Out of Your Way. They can get it anywhere they want: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, bookshop.org or go to my website: Joannahardis.com.

Andi Simon: It is a lovely website and you’ll learn more about her. So thank you. And so for all of you who come and are my fans and you keep bringing me more fans, which I love, and more people to speak on the show. Thank you. Our new book, Women Mean Business is now available. Yesterday was our launch day, September 26th, and today is a wonderful day for you to buy it. Just like Joanna, any place that sells great books and enjoy it, it is 500+ wisdoms coming from 102 amazing women who are successful entrepreneurs and philanthropists in finance, in all kinds of ways, including in the C-suite and in senior positions in major firms. But they are leaders and thought leaders. And these women want to inspire you.

One of the things we keep saying is, As we rise, we lift others. And that’s our hope, because as you read it, you’re going to say, Oh, I can do that. Lilly Ledbetter is quoted. She says, believe it, do it, and believe in yourself and it will happen. But she has some marvelous quotes. I think that everyone in the book is there to help us do better. So thank you for coming today. And Joanna, thank you for being here.

Joanna Hardis: Thank you so much for allowing me to be here. It was so fun. Wonderful.

Andi Simon: Bye bye now. Everybody have a great day. Bye.

How can you achieve all that you are worth? Listen in and find out.

Are you a business or organization that wants to significantly accelerate your growth? Don’t miss my conversation with Jessica Yarborough. It’s one of my favorites over our six years of doing this podcast (has it really been six years??) and I wanted to re-share it with you so you too can learn from her wisdom in case you missed her the first time in 2022. We talk about the challenges people face who are not reaching their income goals and how this leads to some soul-searching. I love how Jessica says, “If you need to make a decision, go somewhere alone and be with yourself and your inner thoughts. The answer that you’re seeking will reveal itself.” Let’s all practice this.

Watch and listen to our conversation here

How build your sales, create long-term clients and hit your income goals, according to Jessica

• Research your clients
• Work with people with proven track records to bring you results
• Stay focused on the process.

You can connect with Jessica on LinkedIn, Facebook, her website, her blog or her YouTube channel.

To learn more about scaling up your own business, here are some recommendations:

• Blog: The 5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Scale Your Business
• Podcast: Bruce Eckfeldt—How Can You Really Scale Your Business to Succeed?
• Podcast: Allison Maslan—Scale or Fail: Hiring the Right Folks for the Right Fit

Additional resources for you

Read the transcript of our podcast here

Andi Simon: Welcome to On the Brink with Andi Simon. Hi, I’m Andi Simon and as you know, my job is to help you get off the brink. I do that by looking for really wonderful people to come and speak to you about new ways to see things, feel differently, think about them, and actually do them.

So today I have Jessica Yarborough with us. What’s really interesting is that we found each other on LinkedIn. And LinkedIn is one of those remarkable places to help people see, feel and think in new ways. I think you’re going to love her story because she’s going to help you think about where you’re going and how she has some great tools and ideas about how to help you get there. So let me tell you a little bit about Jessica and then she’ll tell you her story.

Jessica has quickly developed a reputation of being one of the best business strategists and marketing and sales consultants for entrepreneurs like myself, and sales consultants who want to sell high value products and services. Her background is in international businesses and she’s built multiple companies. You are going to love today’s journey with her because it’s interesting. This is a wonderful story by a brilliant woman.

Jessica is a genius at showing entrepreneurs how to build an expert platform, rapidly raise their value, and build their credibility online to attract high-paying clients. She travels the world teaching and inspiring entrepreneurs and helping them grow their influence and income so they can have the impact that they want. This is such fun. I’m anxious to hear your story, as well as to share it with my audience. So who are you? And how did you get here? Tell us about yourself. It will be fun to share it, please.

Jessica Yarborough: Andi, thanks so much. Well, as you mentioned, and to your audience, I am a business strategist. And today I’m focused on helping scale up coaching and consulting businesses, but I didn’t start here. You know, many, many, many years ago I managed multiple companies. I actually built a startup here in San Diego but the work was intense and the hours were grueling. And I remember I actually, even though I built a company, literally, we didn’t even have desk computers on day one which was so phenomenal to build.

I actually was on vacation, and I had a spiritual awakening. And I had a moment where I realized that even though I had built something that I was really proud of, it wasn’t in alignment with where I wanted to go with my life. And now in that moment, I made one of the most empowering decisions in my life, which was to make a decision all on my own, and to follow that inner guidance. So essentially, I flew back to the United States, I walked away from my company, bought a one way ticket, and I spent four years traveling the world, going deep into personal development, spirituality, and really finding out who I was at the core of myself.

I had great adventure stories around that but I did come back to the US. After about four years, I got pregnant with my daughter and became a single mom. Okay, time to build again. And I started my consulting business literally, and raised a child on my own to build it to seven figures, and have helped many, many clients reach high six and seven figures in their own businesses.

Andi Simon: In my book, Rethink: Smashing the Myths of Women in Business, there are several women who went on their own journeys. One went through Africa. One went through Europe and Israel on $5 a day. As an anthropologist, the journey isn’t inconsequential. So I don’t want to jump immediately into who you are today. Can you share a little bit about some of the discoveries during that journey that prepared you for who you became. If you can, that would be really interesting to share.

Jessica Yarborough: I mean, I will say it was probably the most magical time in my life. There’s so many insights that you can garner from looking at other cultures. One of them being how similar we really are. It doesn’t really matter how you were raised. At the core, we all have the same basic needs. Being able to learn from other cultures, their food, their spirituality. From spending time in silent meditation at retreat centers in Thailand to literally, practicing yoga in ashrams in Bali, to living in the jungles of Costa Rica. There are so many different experiences that really colored my world, about nature, about spirituality or God, connection to the earth, about human beings and our desire for love and appreciation and connection. And all of those shaped who I am today. I don’t think that I would be the business woman I am today without them. I would have been successful had I continued on my trajectory when I was younger, but I would not be who I am nor have the same depth in terms of level of fulfillment and purpose.

Andi Simon: Well, with that in mind, my hunch is you’ve brought that to your clients. So there are some things that I know you would like to share about how you approach a client and their own trajectory to begin to infuse their growth. Whether it’s a consultant or an entrepreneur, or someone inside a company trying to grow their own capabilities, how do you approach a client? And how do you bring this wisdom to them, to inspire them to maybe rethink where they’re going?

Jessica Yarborough: Absolutely, we all need someone outside of us to help us see our own greatness. You know, hold up the mirror to what we cannot see. We are typically blind to our innate gifts. Even the most successful people I know, and I work with CEOs who have built 14 companies, and it’s hard sometimes for even them to own their brilliance, their gifts. Part of the first thing I do is hold up that mirror for them and help them not only to recognize the incredible achievements that they’ve made in their life, but to actually see the pattern of really where their strengths lie because we all can do a lot of different things. And part of growing and excelling at anything is to become an expert at anything. We have to choose what are the core things that really are our greatest gifts. What is our unique genius and then we need to codify them in a way that we can teach, we can inspire, we can transfer knowledge to others. And so that’s one of the first things I do with my clients is really help them codify, What is their genius?

Andi Simon: And do you do that in a particular process? Or is it done through conversational coaching? Or do you have a methodology that you can share?

Jessica Yarborough: Yeah, it’s phase one of my methodology. So I have five systems that I teach to scale up companies. And the first one is the foundation of everything. It’s your offer, your impact system, it’s how you’re going to make an impact in the world with your gifts. And this is the WHO understanding. Who do you want to serve at the deepest level? And that may not be who you served in the past.

We might completely reposition you. That’s the HOW. How you’re going to take your clients who are in the pain of their existing reality, they’re struggling, they’re frustrated, and you are going to essentially build a bridge to their ultimate vision. You are going to save them years of time and frustration, divorce, whatever it may be, and take them to their ultimate reality.

So codifying that, HOW, and then tying it into that WHAT. What it is you actually sell, and then bringing the WHY behind why it is what you do. All of that is absolutely necessary to the foundation of a business. What you do, who you are, who you serve, and how you do it.

Andi Simon: You know, as an anthropologist, I often work with my clients on their stories. Whether it is a corporate culture story, or it’s an individual one, we help them change. Usually, we’re helping the individuals change as well as the institution. But what you just described are the elements of a good story. And the story that we usually carry around may not be the one that’s going to take us to the next stage.

If I hear you correctly, we have to take apart the current story and begin to build that new one in such a way as we can visualize, and I use that word very intentionally. Because if you can’t see it, you can’t be it. Consequently, that story and the telling of that story becomes an important part of how we begin to see where we’re going.

And then the question is, how do you get there? Because what we often find is that I get them to figure out that story, about what it is they want to be either as a person or as a company, and then how do you backward plan it. They all get stymied on the action steps, the small wins, the actual change. Sometimes I tell them it’s like theater. Life is like theater, and you know the script for Macbeth. But tomorrow, you’re gonna play Hamlet and you don’t have a script and you don’t have any time on stage. So how are we going to do this? So as you’ve developed this, is my model similar to yours? And how do you help them actually implement these things?

Jessica Yarborough: I definitely think there are similar parallels, because we do have to have the WHAT identified and there is a story behind that. One of the first things we do after we develop that is I teach them to teach their system to tell their story. And as you know, as a storyteller, you have to be able to bring in emotion. You have to be able to also back it up with logic for those that want to justify sales. And so having that beautiful story is actually the very center of everything that we do together next: which is their messaging, their positioning, literally it is the foundation, everything that we do in my program. Beyond that comes from that original story.

Andi Simon: Yes. So once you get that in your head, then we now need to tell it and the messaging becomes really critical.

Jessica Yarborough: Absolutely. So phase two of my system is marketing, which is your influence system. It’s how you’re going to generate widespread awareness, eager excitement and demand for your services. And there’s really three phases to that. One is an audience. You have to have the right people who are listening to you, who are going to lean in and ultimately take action and buy from you, or download something or whatever the action may be. And I think a lot of people get caught on having a massive audience,not about quality, it’s really about quantity. It’s about having the right people in there who are your dream people, and the name of the game is then relevancy.

We can do that with your messaging. Messaging allows you to really cut through the noise and to create a depth of trust and rapport without them even having gotten on the phone call with you. And so that, if you can get that piece right, which we help you with, it makes a huge difference in terms of your ability to grow your business.

And then the third one is positioning. So a lot of online entrepreneurs have what I call weak positioning. So they may know that they’re the expert, or feel that they’re the expert, but the world around them still sees them on a peer to peer level. So we have to shift the perception because someone is not going to pay you to solve their problem if they believe you are a peer. They are looking for someone who is elevated, who is a mentor, who is ahead of them in some way, who can fill that gap for them. So it’s very important that we address the audience, the messaging, and the positioning in order to elevate them as an expert.

Andi Simon: This is really brilliant. I am curious, is there a case study or something you can share with our listeners that illustrates this in some way? Sometimes we have to concretize the story. And the steps sound really very big and important. A case study might bring it all together.

Jessica Yarborough: So I have many case studies. One I’ll share is about my client, Michelle. She’s a business coach, and in the interior design industry, and she was stagnant at about $250 to $300,000 a year. She had a lot of different products, you know, too many offers. And we always help you hone in into just two, maybe three max. And she wanted to change her positioning in the marketplace and go after a high caliber market. So we really walked her through this process and helped her finally take all these theories that she had kind of spun off and put it into one really beautiful system. And she was able to take that system and scale her company to a million dollars in 12 months. And then we were able to repeat that and exceed that number just nine months later.

Andi Simon: That’s very exciting. It sounds like all the stuff was there. It just needed a new package.

Jessica Yarborough: So many people tell me when they come to me that they’ve tried a lot of different things. They’ve piecemealed it together, they’ve cobbled it together. It’s not totally reinventing the wheel, it’s taking what’s already inside you and pulling it together into a beautiful system that is sophisticated, that can elevate you and you can ultimately scale your business with.

Andi Simon: Now, are you working just with entrepreneurs or just with consultants? Are you working with a broad spectrum of people? As the audience that is listening, are you relevant for all of them? Because I think you are but I’m just curious whether you apply it in more context than just, perhaps, a consultant.

Jessica Yarborough: So my focus is mostly on coaches, consultants, trainers, speakers. I also have an agency for our clients as well. Typically, if you’re outside of the coaching and consulting world, you are working with me on a one to one level. So I do help companies in that regard. But in the past, I’ve certainly worked with all kinds of companies and all different levels from health care to nonprofit to spiritual conscious businesses. But my focus is really how can I apply the system and if you have a service based business, and if your goal is to sell high end because I don’t do courses or membership models, or any of that. I am a digital marketing expert, I can help you with that. But it’s not where I choose to play. But if you want to sell, like I said, bigger engagements and make a massive impact as you work with people on a more intimate level for that transformation, then that’s where my services come in.

Andi Simon: This is really exciting. As you’re thinking about this for the audience out there, are there two or three or four things that are really key to this that they should pay attention to? Because my hunch is that there’s a whole lot of coaches, consultants and speakers who are looking as we come out of the pandemic for a new positioning or beginning to understand what’s going on inside of the companies. Are there some real key things that we’re ready to really focus on?

Jessica Yarborough: Well, absolutely. I would look at the ladder of influence. A lot of people start out at the bottom with the generalist. You can think of this as a Jack or Jill of all trades, master of none. This might be someone who has way too many offers. They constantly change their messaging, or they’re constantly launching new things. It could also mean someone who has too many things that they claim to be: life coach, business coach, real estate agent, you know, and a dozen other things.

And what the main takeaway for your audience is, you cannot build expert authority if you try to be everything to everyone. If you try to be everything to everyone, you end up being nothing or no one to the one person that matters. And so the first key is to move from generalization to specialization and that is to pick a lane. This could be a niche, it could be a specific industry, but you have to go all in on what you want to be. It may not be who you are right now, it could be that next level thing that maybe you have a little bit of fear, a little bit of trepidation around. But you know it’s within you. You know there’s greatness. You know you’re not living up to your potential and you’re ready to step into specialization.

You can scale your business from $150 to $350,000, but there is a place where you become stagnant. And typically this is when the business owner becomes the bottleneck. They’re doing all the things. And so really, the scaling comes at expert level. And that’s when you put these five systems, I described two of them, in place and you start to move from being the hunter to the hunted online. Your name becomes synonymous with the very person that can help your ideal clients solve their problems. So if you can focus on that ascension, up the ladder of influence, you will be able to break the glass ceiling, self imposed glass ceiling, in your business and reach new heights very quickly.

Andi Simon: This is very interesting. I love the idea of going from hunting to being the hunted where people are searching for you. And they’re not only searching for your name, but for those keywords that might solve the problem that they’re looking for. And you come up because you’ve done great jobs on content, marketing, and keywords and other things in the digital world. But you also have a reputation that now is taking you to places where people are looking for you.

Jessica Yarborough: It’s like finding what I call your Goldilocks moment: it’s just right, it’s not too cold. That’s not passive, we’re just waiting for people to come. It’s not too hot, where you are being aggressive, and you’re hard closing or you’re trying to slide into a CEO of a $100 million company and get him to watch your webinar. Just nothing. It’s the Goldilocks moment, it’s just right. There are people flowing to you, you’re still putting out some outward energy to build that credibility, but it’s that perfect moment, that perfect balance, that perfect flow state that allows you to get to the next level.

Andi Simon: I love what you’re saying even as I’m thinking about myself, because we’ve been in business for 20 years, and very successfully with a good flow. But the pandemic, it’s been fascinating because our clients have all stayed on and new ones have come in great. We specialize in helping people change. And if the pandemic has taught us anything, it is all about change. And most people don’t like and don’t know how to do change. And the vacuum that’s coming out of this is they’re not quite sure what the new normal is and culture is what is the essence of who we are. But we’re not quite sure if the old will work in the new.

So it’s a perfectly interesting time for us to lend a hand to help people do what they know they have to but aren’t quite sure how to. And I often feel like a golf coach. They all want to play golf, but nobody knows how to swing the club. So that’s where we begin. But it’s a very interesting opportunity to focus.

And I love the idea of not always being out there searching, but letting people find you because of the reputation you’ve built, and the kinds of things that they need, and you can help them solve. So it’s an interesting mindset. I also like the idea that you’re not out there cold calling. It doesn’t sound like that. I can only say that LinkedIn, with all of its joy, has generated a ton of people who are taking that half hour on my signature and making appointments. And I’d say, what are we talking about? I want to do it so we can be partners. Partners on what? I have a hunch you have seen some of this as well.

Jessica Yarborough: Absolutely. And so what I would recommend doing is building stronger systems around that to protect your time and that is actually one of the keys to move up into expert level. It is to get those protective measures in place, a strong application process because people will take advantage of your time sometimes just to sell you something which is a very awkward situation to be in.

Andi Simon: I have a hunch we can talk more about those protective bridges and keep people from simply saying this would be nice, I’ll follow you. But I do think those are new things that have emerged in different ways and the times they are changing so it’s pretty cool times. Some last thoughts and if listeners would like to reach you or to engage with you, how could they do that and any wisdom you would like them to remember?

Jessica Yarborough: You can reach me at Jessicayarborough.com. I’m also very active on LinkedIn. I’m sure you’ll provide some links in the show notes. So feel free to send a connection message and just let me know you heard me on the show. And I’m happy to accept.

Just some parting words: if you’re someone that knows you have brilliance and a gift to give the world, whether you’re in your corporate job, or whether you’re an entrepreneur, definitely lean into that and know that it is possible for you to achieve whatever it is you dream up. You have to take action on it. You have to walk through the proverbial fire. But I promise you that the freedom that you want is waiting for you on the other side.

Andi Simon: And you don’t have to go on a journey for four years wandering around the world. I encourage you to do that, but if not, think of this as your journey. Right?

Jessica Yarborough: Absolutely. In fact, what I tell people, and I recommend this for men or women, if you need to make a decision, do not survey everyone around. Go rent a cabin in the woods, go rent wherever it may be, an apartment on the beach, take an Airbnb and take a few days to release it and be with yourself and your inner thoughts. And the answer that you’re seeking will reveal itself.

Andi Simon: I’m going to emphasize that because the brain is this wonderful critter. And if you put enough stuff into it, it begins to sort it all out. And some good nights of sleep, some good walks on the beach, just quiet time. The quiet mind is amazing at what it puts together. And all of a sudden you have that epiphany. Someone will say something, and you’ll go, that’s just what I’ve been thinking. And so I love your smile, because I think that’s exactly how you had your discovery as well, isn’t it?

Jessica Yarborough: Yes, like Ram Dass says, “the quieter you become, the more you can hear.”

Andi Simon: That’s correct. And I loved it. So I’ve had Jessica Yarborough here today. What a delightful conversation. And I hope you, our listeners and our viewers, have picked up a really important part of who you are, and how to turn yourself from being on the bottom of a ladder to hunting for good clients to off-set. Having built a reputation that clients are coming to you because you know how to position yourself, tell the right messaging, and really understand how you become the authority on the right solution for them. And they’re looking for you. Can we find you? And so it’s a really important time to do this.

I thank all of you who come. Remember, we’ve been ranked in the top 5% of global podcasts, which sort of blows my mind. But that’s because all of you out there who come and listen and watch. I think the most exciting part though, is that you send us emails, at info@ andisimon.com with all the kinds of folks you’d like to hear. And we try to find them and bring them to you.

I hope you’ve enjoyed Jessica as much as I have today. And I do think that she’s got a five step process. There’s nothing in the process that will help you duplicate what she’s saying. So it isn’t ad hoc, and it isn’t to sit in a room and make it up the process of discovery, of reimagining and of delivery. The action steps are extremely important. So I think you’re going to enjoy this new journey.

And on that note, I’m going to urge you to read my books: Rethink: Smashing the Myths of Women in Business — it’s almost a year old and it’s doing extremely well on Amazon and a best seller — and On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights is an award winning book about how a little anthropology can help your business grow. It’s not quite what Jessica’s talking about, but it has a little bit in there. And the case studies are going to show you how anything can help you see things through a fresh lens like today will help you have that aha moment and expand. So it’s time to expand your vision. So we’re gonna say goodbye. And thank you very much for coming today.

Learn how to become the trailblazing leader you were meant to be!

Shellye Archambeau is an amazing woman. I was honored to interview her back in 2020 and was so impressed with what she had to say that I wanted to share her wisdom with you again. An experienced CEO and Board Director with a formidable track record of building brands and high performance teams, Shellye has dynamically led technology-focused organizations for over 30 years. Her secret? “You just need a lot of personal belief in your own skills and a vision of yourself as a leader.” As I always say, if you can see it, you can be it! And Shellye helps us all see it. Enjoy.

Watch and listen to our conversation here

A highly accomplished leader with an unassailable belief in herself

Yes, Shellye has had an illustrious career with a lot of firsts. But as she will tell you, being the first African American woman to achieve what she has was never easy. She broke through, forged ahead, and now inspires others to do the same. Her book, Unapologetically Ambitious: Take Risks, Break Barriers, and Create Success on Your Own Terms, powerfully tackles how you too can break through your own hurdles, road blocks and glass ceilings that might be holding you back. Want to surge ahead but not sure how? Listen in as Shellye tells us!

Meet Shellye Archambeau

The former CEO of MetricStream, a GRC company based in Palo Alto, CA, Shellye Archambeau has held executive positions at numerous major companies, including a 15-year career at IBM where she became the first African American woman to gain an international assignment. As well as being a guest lecturer at her alma mater, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Shellye is an author and a regular contributor for Xconomy. She currently serves on the boards of Verizon, Nordstrom, Roper Technologies and Okta, and is also a strategic advisor to the Royal Bank of Canada, Capital Markets Group and Forbes Ignite. You can contact Shellye on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and her website. You can also email her at shellye@shellye.com.

To learn more about how to be a better, more accomplished leader, check out these 3 podcasts:

• Sara Canaday—Can You See The Gaps That Are Holding You Back From Being A Great Leader?
• Dr. Srikumar Rao—Why You Must Undergo Personal Transformation Before You Can Become An Effective Leader
• Jennifer Kluge—Meet The Leader To Build Your Business Into One Of The Best And Brightest

Additional resources for you

Read the transcript of our podcast here

Andi Simon: Welcome to On the Brink With Andi Simon. Hi, I’m Andi Simon, your host, and it’s always such a pleasure and a privilege to have you join us for our podcast. Remember, my job is to help you get off the brink. And today, it’s a very important time for us to step back and rethink who we are, where we’re going, and really to begin to plan the next phase in our own lives, our careers. It’s a time of change.

And so I have with us today a wonderful woman that I want to share with you. Shellye Archambeau is a marvelous woman. I’ll tell you about her in a moment. But she’s got a message that I think is important for us to understand and begin to figure out how to apply to our own careers and our own lives. It’s a time to rethink what matters, and it’s a good time to hear from Shellye.

So a little bit about Shellye and why I have her here. She’s a businesswoman and former CEO of Metrics Stream. She was an executive at IBM and she had a 15 year career there. She was the first African American woman at the company to be sent on assignment internationally. She’s a guest lecturer for the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, her alma mater. She’s a writer, a co-author of the book Marketing That Works, and she has been rated one of the top 25 brick and mortar executives by Internet World.

She’s received numerous awards throughout her career. In 2014, she was named one of the 46 most important African Americans in technology. The year before, she was number two on the list of the 25 most influential American African Americans in technology. This is just a long list of accolades and accomplishments, and that’s why it’s so exciting to have Shellye with us today. Shellye has a new book called Unapologetically Ambitious. And she’s going to tell you more about its title, but also about what she hopes for you to learn from her own journey. Shellye, thanks for joining me today.

Shellye Archambeau: Oh, thanks so much for having me, Andi. I’ve been so excited and looking forward to this.

Andi Simon: Can I share with everybody that it’s your birthday?

Shellye Archambeau: Sure. I’m spending it with all of you.

Andi SImon: All your best friends. You didn’t know you had so many new best friends.

Shellye Archambeau: That’s right.

Andi Simon: But it is a special day for me because I was honored to meet you and I’m so excited to share with you. Please tell the audience about your own journey, because I think it’s an important one for them to understand how we get to unapologetically ambitious. Please.

Shellye Archambeau: Well, thank you very much. I really do appreciate it. So my journey, I actually have to start pretty young to really share the foundation that represents who I ultimately became. So I grew up the oldest in a family of four. My father moved around a lot as he built his own career and job, and we found ourselves moving from Philadelphia, which was an extremely diverse place, to California, a suburb way outside of LA, where I was the only black girl in my class, but I think it was actually in the whole school. And given that it was the 60s, you know, everything was just charged. You had the civil rights movement, you had everything going on during the Vietnam War. You had feminism rising. I mean it was just a very charged-up environment.

And here I am, a little girl going into first grade. We actually moved over Christmas. So here I am going into first grade, had to walk to school every day and people treated me terribly. I don’t know any other way to describe it. I walked along a busy thoroughfare every day and people would yell awful things at me out their windows. You know, kids would physically bully me. I got beat up by classmates. Meaning it was not a good situation.

So it taught me very early in my life that the odds were just not in my favor. So it caused me, first, to actually really close in as a kid. Fortunately, I had good parents and had a couple of teachers that really made a difference. And it became incumbent for me to really become intentional about what I did, really as protecting myself. So I learned early that if I wanted to do something, I needed to actually figure out how I could make it happen because it wasn’t just going to happen for me. And that same approach I actually have taken all through my career.

So I started early. I said, All right, what do I want, what do I need to do? And I was fortunate; in high school, I had a guidance counselor who asked me, Shellye, what do you want to do? And I said, I want to go to college so I can get a good job. And she said, Okay, well, what do you want to do in your job? And I said, I’m not sure. And she said, What do you like to do? And I loved running clubs. I was president of American Field Service and National Honor Society, and I ran the French club. All these things. I love running clubs.

And she said, Well, running a business is just like running a club. Get people together, right? What did I know? I said, Okay, great. That’s what I’m going to do. So I decided, no problem. So literally, I decided. I was like a junior in high school. I decided that I’m going to go run a business.

Andi Simon: I love your story. Keep telling me.

Shellye Archambeau: So anyway. But again, back to, I know the odds are not in my favor. And so when I did the research, and back then it wasn’t easy, research. Now you just click a few keys. Back then, it was going to the library looking at magazines. Well, I didn’t see anybody who looked like me running a business anywhere. So I said, All right, fine. How do I improve my odds to get this? How do I make this happen?

So I said, All right, I need to go to the top business school. And so I picked Wharton because Wharton had an undergraduate program. And I figured if I do Wharton undergrad, then I won’t have to go to grad school. So I can save a couple of years and a couple hundred thousand dollars. This is great. So the only school I applied to, I said, please, literally at the bottom of my application, said, Please take me. I don’t want to go anywhere else. I’m not applying anywhere else.

Now I’m not completely stupid. I applied early so that if they said no, I could do a backup, but I literally didn’t apply anywhere else. That’s the only place I wanted to go. And I had good grades. But anyway, I went to Wharton and then, you know, I pay attention, I listen, I do homework. And I was told, If you join industries that are growing and companies that are growing, there are more opportunities for personal growth. Great. So I looked around at technology, which was the growing industry. Good news? It still is. Yeah. And I picked IBM. So I said, I’m going to go off and be CEO of IBM. That was it.

Andi Simon: Your humility and kindness? Your aspirations were fabulous.

Shellye Archambeau: Exactly. It was just too funny. So anyway, so I did. And I’ll be candid. I actually spent 14 years at IBM. I got to the point where there wasn’t anyone who looked like me hiring me in the company. My boss, John Joyce, reported to Lou Gerstner, the CEO,  who was running a multibillion dollar division, actually over in Asia Pacific. So I did well. But it wasn’t clear to me, due to a bunch of things that went on, that I was actually going to ultimately become CEO of IBM and that was still my goal.

So I said, You know what? Let me take what I’ve learned and let me go build something. Silicon Valley was hot. This is the late 90s. I said, All right, but I did my homework, which, by the way, doesn’t stop when you’re not in school. I did my homework because again, if you’re going to put a plan in place and you want to increase your odds, you have to figure out what you’re going up against. And a lot of people that have left big companies to go run small companies or growing companies stumble a time or two because it’s so different.

Well, as a woman of color, I don’t have that. I don’t have that luxury. I don’t know that I’ll get multiple strikes at the bat. So as a result, I said, All right, let me go get a seat at the table. Understand what’s so different and then go get my job. And in essence, that’s what I did, Andrea, and ultimately became CEO of the company that’s now Metrix Dream. I ran it for over 14 years, became a global industry leader in governance, risk and compliance. There were 1200 employees. And now I serve on corporate boards like Verizon and Nordstrom and Roper and Okta and advise companies like the Royal Bank of Canada and some small startups and poach some CEOs and try to make a difference in the world.

Andi Simon: Wow. It sounds like making a difference in the world and making a difference in your own life. They are closely connected.

Shellye Archambeau: They are. They are.

Andi Simon: My second book is called Rethink: Smashing The Myths of Women in Business. And for those of you who are listening, in it I offer 11 business women’s stories, including my own. But Shellye’s story is exactly the kind of hurdles women have to hurdle over and the way in which you can, in fact, prepare yourself for the hurdles. And this is not glass ceiling stuff. It’s not about smashing that. Forget the ceiling.This is about finding ways to really make a difference globally, locally, but in yourself at the same time.

While it’s exciting, you’ve written a couple of books, but this new one is extremely important to you, both as a way of sharing what you’ve learned with others, but also how it came together. Would you share it with our listeners, please?

Shellye Archambeau: Absolutely. So I’ve always tried to be accessible, and what that means is, I actually respond. You send me an email, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, whatever, I respond. Now it takes a lot of time, but the reason I do it is, I want people to see that I’m a real person. If you can touch me, then you can be me. And that’s why I’ve always put the time in to do it.

But what was happening was, I was moving forward in my career. I could respond, but I couldn’t meet with all the people that wanted to meet or talk one on one with all the people that wanted to talk to me. So I said, You know, one day I’m going to write this down. I’m going to share the “what made Shellye, Shellye,” the strategies, the lessons, all those things, as soon as I get into phase two.

So sure enough, when I passed the baton, I said, Now’s the time. And I wrote the book because the book is full of strategies and approaches and tools to help people achieve their aspirations, both professionally and personally. I talk about being intentional. I talk about, honestly, everything, personal and professional. There is a lot of stuff in there. What worked? What didn’t work? Because what I’ve learned is, ambition and hard work alone are not enough. And we’re not told that. What we’re told is, work hard and it’ll happen. And no. I hate to burst bubbles. It’s not how it works.

Andi Simon: Oh, well, tell us, how does it work? And I’ll tell you why in a moment, because it may not even work with what works. But, you know, let’s finish that hard work and ambition aren’t enough. What else do we need?

Shellye Archambeau: That’s right. So we need to understand the power of being intentional. So talk about really how to be intentional, how to set the goal, the objectives, whatever it is. And then first, you set it.  Some people set goals and some people put plans in place to achieve the goals. But very few people make decisions every day. Yes. Be consistent with those plans. And so every day comes along but the goal is never achieved. And they wake up and, you know, they’re in their late 30s, they’re in their 40s, and they’re like, Gosh, I’m just not where I thought I would be.

And so the book is trying to help them get back on track, or if they’re just starting out in their career, help them get on track and stay on track, versus, you know, not because so much of the everyday decisions drives what happens. So being intentional, deciding what do I want, how do I make it true? Because that’s how I’ve looked at things.You know, when I set out to be a CEO of IBM  I said, All right, I want to be CEO of IBM. So what has to be true? And then you do the work to say, Well, what did CEOs do?

So when I started out my career with IBM coming out of Wharton, I started out in sales. Now, think about this, Andrea. My peers are going off to be investment bankers and Procter & Gamble project managers and going to international finance and, because it’s Wharton and you come out and that’s what you do. And they’re looking at me like, You’re going to go be a sales person? I mean, what exactly? The reason is, every single person at IBM started out in sales. So that was the path.

You know, believe me, you go and you look for where the path is, where’s the current. Because if you can get on the current and then paddle hard while you’re on the current, you can really move forward. If you’re not on the current, you can paddle hard, but you’re not keeping up with the people who are paddling hard on the current. So look to see where the current is. And organizations have their own unique culture and currents.

Andi Simon: They absolutely do. So one size fits nowhere. You really need to know what you want to be, where and how to paddle along there. But I think that’s so important for the listener is that Shellye is onto something that we use and talk about a great deal when changing an organization, but an individual as well. In fact, I’m doing a leadership academy and we’re talking about this. You need to visualize where you want to be because when you visualize it, your brain begins to create a story, literally. It’s creating a new movie set right now.

Once you get that visualization and I don’t say this lightly, you need to almost backward plan it so that way you know that each day you’re moving towards that story as if you’re writing part of a storyboard. Don’t make it sound simple or easy. You have to live your way to that destination and I don’t even like to call it a goal. It’s a visualization of who you are and how you are going to be in life and then you can begin to live there. Does that make sense in terms of what you’re saying?

Shellye Archambeau: Absolutely. And that’s exactly what I talk about, Andrea. for instance, I had decided that ideally I painted my ideal picture of what I wanted, and my ideal picture was, Yes, I work towards becoming a CEO, but I also wanted to get married. I wanted to have kids and I wanted to have kids early. My parents were young parents and I liked that. I said, You know what, I’d like to be young when I have my kids. So, what that meant for me is, I didn’t date anybody beyond the point where I could imagine myself being married to them. I wouldn’t even go out with people that I couldn’t imagine myself being married to. So it’s crazy. I mean, when I say it was crazy. You know, I would go out once or twice and I wouldn’t again. They would say, “What’s wrong?” I’m like, “Nothing’s wrong.” “Well, I thought you had fun.” “I had a great time.” There was no way I could tell them, but I can’t marry you because they would have said “What? Did I ask you to marry me?”

But I felt if I dated people that I couldn’t imagine myself married to, that I might miss people who came along that I could imagine myself being married to. And again, other people didn’t do that with me. It was crazy. So but yes, I did get married early and I did have my kids early and I was married for almost 35 years before my husband passed. So it worked. So yes, I completely believe that.

And that’s, that’s the whole point about being intentional. Figure out the goal. What needs to be true for that goal to happen and then put plans in place to make it true. And then live consistent with that so that you open yourself up. You know, people talk about luck and I totally believe in luck. But I do believe that you can make yourself more lucky by having the right skills, the right experience, the right openness when opportunity comes along.

Andi SImon: Now, there’s something here to also emphasize, and that’s that we decide with the heart and the eyes and then the brain comes in with a logic or reasoning about it, and then we act. So I tell people in my podcast and everything else, you need to see it and feel it. And don’t underestimate the power of the gut. There are lots of nerves from the brain to the gut. How does it feel? And that’s just what you’re expressing here, because luck is a matter of seeing things fly by and feeling, How they can come together to do something that’s in the story that you’re carrying. And I don’t want to underestimate that you began to feel things that could work and disregard things that didn’t. Those guys weren’t going to work. But your husband did work really well and you felt it. And I don’t want to underestimate you. I want to emphasize: trust your feelings. They do work, don’t they?

Shellye Archambeau: They do. They do. But it’s hard. And, even for me, when I first got engaged to my husband, I don’t want to say no one was in my court. Grudgingly, people were, but very few. I had lots of lots of detractors on this. And it would have been so easy just to have caved. But I knew he was right for me. And he was about something.

Andi Simon: There’s this whole world of others helping women, helping women in particular, but men as well. Were there mentors in your career path that were important for us to know about as a way of building helpers? We, my husband and I, started something called the Simon Initiative for Entrepreneurship at Washington University in Saint Louis to help particularly women, but men and women become entrepreneurs. And they need role models and they need so much help. We wanted to do more than mentor one or two, but to begin to show them a way. I have a hunch mentors have been important in your career as well, am I right?

Shellye Archambeau: Absolutely. Absolutely. Mentors were very important to me. That’s all part of listening and learning, etcetera. And probably the biggest thing I learned was that it isn’t one mentor, it’s many mentors as far as I was concerned. The more the better because they all bring unique and different perspectives. And yes, there were absolutely mentors that played huge roles in my career.

Andi Simon: How did you find them?

Shellye Archambeau: Interesting you should ask. So what I also learned early on is that if you asked people to be your mentor, a lot of times visually, literally, you could sit and say, Shellye, would you be my mentor? And people would like, lean back, I mean literally create distance in space. Eyes would get big and wide. And so what happens? Why are they doing that? It’s not you. It’s, they’re sitting there and all they’re thinking about is time commitment. Because people that you want to be your mentor, they don’t have time. So they therefore tend to say no. They’ll do it in a polite way sometimes. Sometimes I’ll just be direct. But they say no. So I learned not to ask. I just began treating them as mentors. I call it I just adopted them. Ultimately, what I found is if I adopted people and then I did well and I was building that relationship, that ultimately they would claim me. So I tell people, don’t ask, just start treating them that way.

Andi Simon: But there’s also the sense of your value. Self-value is important here because what you’re describing is a person—yourself—who had a mirror that said, I’m of value, I just need to find my path to demonstrate it and a way of engaging others to help me along that path without imposing upon them respectfully.

Shellye Archambeau: Ah right. Because, you know, it sounds like the way you’re describing it, sounds like, Okay, here’s Shellye, nice and confident. She’s got her plan. She’s executing her plan, the whole bit. And what I have to tell you is, I had a plan. Growing up in our house, we lived in the Northeast, the temperature in our house never got above 68. Now it never got above 68, it was definitely below 68. Often it never got above 68 degrees. And whenever I talked about how cold it was in the house, you know, my parents, my mom would always say, Well, do you want to go to college? Your whole thing was trade offs, because we didn’t have a lot of excess money for anything.

And I finally said, How much money do I need to earn to keep the temperature at 72 degrees? So I was very motivated to have a career, to be successful, to be able to have a warm home, you know, the whole bit. That’s what motivated me. But frankly, I wasn’t that confident person that I sound like now.

Andi Simon: Well, that’s humbling to know.

Shellye Archambeau: I had a lot of imposter syndrome.  Remember how I grew up and the challenges. So I knew what the world was like, not in my corner here, but you can overcome those things. And I talk about that in the book because we aren’t raised like, I got this, right? I can say that now that I’m 58 years old but couldn’t say it then.

So there are things that you can do. One of my biggest pieces of advice on how to help yourself fake it til you make it, because that’s honestly what I believe. It’s like, you put on this role to have cheerleaders in your lives. You have people around you that tell you how good you are, how confident you are, that remind you when the world is telling you otherwise that you are still the person you were before. That you think it’s so important because we live in a world that is so judgmental, mean, and where nobody is perfect. Where nobody is skinny enough, healthy enough, working enough, making enough money, going on the best vacations, wearing all the right clothes, having all the right friends, being at the right parties. I mean, all these things that we see that we feel judged about. Of course, everybody feels totally inept. So you have to have people around you that say, Hey, no, no, you’re great, you’re great. And we’ll also, when you need it, give you a kick in the butt.

Andi Simon: I’m curious. My husband has been my kick in the butt, hug you tight, always the anchor and the push along. I don’t think I would have finished my PhD if he refused to allow me to be an ABD: All But Degree. And there were many nights he and I were reading that dissertation closing our eyes, but never giving up. And he doesn’t know either. And those are our moments that are important to who we are because somebody else mattered that we achieved what we were pursuing, not for their sake, but for together, our sake. I have a hunch your husband did the same.

Shellye Archambeau: He did. He was definitely my biggest cheerleader.

Andi Simon: And after that, didn’t need much more than that. Because there was always the belief that who I thought I could be, he did as well. And so we overcame a bunch of hurdles along the way. I was an executive at a bank, and I went to board meetings with 49 men and me. You didn’t say much and I learned not to say much. I was there to do, but not to say. It was interesting times.

We’re just about ready to wrap. It’s been absolutely wonderful speaking with Shellye. I think her life journey and her wisdom has been so important to our listeners, men and women, both because I think both are changing. And I do think that as I wrote my book, the women in there had partners or men in their lives. Some had none who were changing as the women were changing. It’s not a solo event. It’s a real interesting cultural transformation going on here. Shellye, a couple of things you don’t want our listeners to forget. The ending is always so important. One or two or three things that are really important for their lives.

Shellye Archambeau: Certainly. So first, be intentional. Decide what you want and then put a plan in place to go get it.

Two, have cheerleaders. We talked about it. It’s really important.

And three, I firmly believe if you don’t tell the universe what you want, the universe can’t help you. So ask for what you want and what you need and give people a chance to help. That is very important me. I’m just open about it. And, if you need a hand, ask. They can say no and then you make them help you anyhow. Those mentors didn’t even know they were being so helpful and in the end, they were ready to take it and claim it.

It’s been a pleasure. Pre-order my book on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com. You can go to your local bookstore or call them up and support them by pre-ordering it there. And let me just make a plea as a new author, pre-orders are so important. So if you felt you got a little value from our conversation, please give it a pre-order. There’s a whole lot more in the book.

Andi Simon: And then I’ll push. Once you’ve read the book, go review it. Amazon loves reviews and people don’t realize that that paragraph makes a big difference in your Amazon rankings. And everything is rankings today, so there’s something there. But I also think that Shellye said she answers all those emails. I’m not sure if she needs more emails, but I do think she needs your echos because I do think that sharing is good if it’s a two-way. The gift of giving also comes back to add more value over time. And it’s a time for her now to think of her next purpose. What comes next? And it’s a very exciting time for her. So it’s been a pleasure. Thank you for joining me.

Shellye Archambeau: Thank you very much and absolutely enjoyed it.

Andi Simon: Now, for all of you who come, I can’t thank you enough. Your emails are extremely important for me as well: info@simonassociates.net. And it’s always fun to hear from you. You bring me wonderful ideas. So Shellye came to me and I think that this is a time for us to be intentional about where we’re going and see the opportunities. I can only tell you that you decide with your heart. So if it feels right, go for it. Worst case is you’ll make a left or right turn. Think of your life as a Google map. Maybe you don’t have the destination clear, but you need some stops along the way. So small wins. We’re going and that’s what we love to do. So have a great day. Please stay safe. Stay healthy and enjoy life. Bye bye now.