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Choosing Resilience Over Worry as a Business Owner with Aaron Wenburg

Episode 140

Aaron Wenburg Voice of Influence Podcast Andrea Joy Wenburg

Today, I’m genuinely excited to introduce to Aaron Wenburg and, no, it’s not a coincidence that we have the same last name. Aaron is, in fact, my awesome husband. He also happens to be a Physical Therapist, the Co-Owner of Sandhills Physical Therapy and Sports Rehab clinics, and a loving father.

In this episode, we talk about why Aaron became a Physical Therapist, how what he does is a good mix of business and caring for people, some of the struggles he experienced along the way, how he overcame those struggles, how he knows when it’s time to have a difficult conversation with his team, the precautions his clinics are taking as they keep their doors open during the current health crisis, and more!

Aaron’s story is one of resilience and an example of what it means to show grit and keep moving forward when things are difficult. I know I may be a little biased with this one, but I really think you’re going to find this an inspiring episode.

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Transcript

People of influence know that their voice matters, and they can make it matter more.  I’m Andrea Wenburg, and this is the Voice of Influence podcast.

Well, today, I am thrilled to introduce to you to Aaron Wenburg, who happens to be my husband.  And he is also a physical therapist, co-owner of Sandhills Physical Therapy and Sports Rehab clinics, loving father, and awesome husband.

In the near future, we’ll be doing an episode where we really talk about our relationship, and how we handle each having businesses, and the kind of relationship that we’ve cultivated and grown over the past fifteen years.  But for now, today, what I really like to do is share with you Aaron.  He’s had a great amount of influence on my life and continues to in my business.  He is respected, and people look to him quite often for advice or to help them figure out to answers to problem that they have.

So, I’m really excited, genuinely excited, to introduce you to him today and to share with you this interview.  So, we talk about his own experience of why he became a physical therapist and how it really is a good mix of business and caring for people, as well as some of the things that he struggled with, how he overcomes those struggles… and his is a message of resilience, of learning to have grit, to keep going even when things get hard, to wade through the mess, even when things are messy, even if you don’t like it being messy.

I’m really genuinely excited to share with you the advice he gives and his experience because I really think that it’s going to touch you in a very special way.  I did take a little bit of liberty and we went a little long on this interview.  I mean, it’s not very often that I get to sit down with Aaron for a whole hour and have him talk the whole time.  I don’t know if that’s ever happened quite frankly, but it’s so fun.  It was so fun to be able to hear his perspective and get him to talk about himself, which is something he doesn’t ever do.

I really think that you’ll find it worth it, and in the end, you will forgive me for letting this interview go a little long.  And at the end, we do cover some questions that people from our audience or our friends asked me to ask him for this episode, so I’m excited to share those answers with you as well.

All right, enjoy this interview with Aaron Wenburg:

Andrea:  All right, Aaron Wenburg, welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast.

Aaron Wenburg:  Thank you.

Andrea:  I am so glad that you are here today.  This has got to be one of my favorites; like, I’ve got this huge grin on my face right now.  I’m excited to talk to you.

Aaron Wenburg:  Well, good.  We’ll see how it goes.  No guarantees on this one.

Andrea:  Well, thank you for agreeing to do it.  Okay, so I have for you some questions about you, and then I have some questions that other people asked.  I let Facebook know that I was going to be doing this interview with you, and we had some people chime in with a few questions that they wanted me to ask you and so I’m going to do that too.

Okay, so you are a physical therapist.  You have a doctorate of physical therapy, and you did a residency after you graduated.  It was about five years later that – right after we got married – that we moved to La Crosse, Wisconsin, and you did a sports medicine residency there for physical therapy.

And then we came back, and you had a job.  And then we ended up moving to where we are now, where you are one of the owners of Sandhills Physical Therapy and Sports Rehab in North Platte, Nebraska.  So, Aaron, what got you interested in physical therapy in the first place?  Because you knew from a long time ago that you were going to do it, so how old were you when you first decided that you were going to be a physical therapist?

Aaron Wenburg:  Hmm.  Honestly, I’m not really sure.  Probably in the latter part of high school, I guess.  I grew up in a small-town funeral home.  My dad was the local mortician in a town of 800 people.  So, living there, growing up there, my brothers and I were exposed to various health-related issues.  And I think that probably spurred some of my interest in health and general well being, I guess, at a young age from that.  And then from that point, I think I saw my dad take a lot of call time – a lot of nights and weekends where he would have to get up and work – and I knew I didn’t necessarily want that.

I appreciated a lot of what he did and how he helped people and got to work with people, but I also knew I didn’t want to be on call.  So, I kind of started looking at other healthcare-related fields from that end, and physical therapy allowed me to get to know the patient maybe a little bit more but also have some ability to make a diagnosis and affect health.  And that’s been an enjoyable part of it, I guess, from that end.

Andrea:  Yeah, it’s interesting.  So, you knew early on when you were kind of deciding to go to physical therapy route that physical therapy allowed you to both help people with their health, but at the same time, get to know the patient maybe a little better than you would if you were seeing them once every few months or that sort of thing.

Aaron Wenburg:  Mm-hmm, yeah.  I guess there’s somewhat of the relationship component that I enjoyed.  I guess I saw my parents have relationships with people, whether it was my mom teaching school or my dad in the community aspect.  And I appreciated that and felt that physical therapy maybe allowed me to have a little bit more time with people.  And, you know, unfortunately, many of the things I deal with in the rehab setting, people don’t get better quickly.  As much as I try to help them quickly, most of it is a process and it’s working through the little problems and, “Well, this comes up. How are we gonna do this differently or how are we going to affect that?”

And with that, I get to use aspects of health and aspects of stuff I was looking into anyway as a kid that kind of spoke to me that way.  And I guess I also kind of liked the aspect of it was a challenge to get into school.  It was a nice aspect of, “Well, if you work really hard and do this, this, and this, you might have the ability to get into school.”  And I enjoyed that achievement aspect of it too, I guess.  So, I’d say that’s probably the initial drive towards it.

Andrea:  And that drive and achieving entry into med school and then achieving other things has been a theme I think in your life.  What do you think drives you to want to achieve different things?  Some people are really, really motivated to achieve and others are just motivated to do other things, you know; it’s not always about achievement.

Aaron Wenburg:  I don’t know.  I think as I get older, I think that’s what one of the things I’m gradually learning more and more about myself in that I’m happier when I am working towards something.  Or… yeah, I guess working towards something, have a goal and I can make in my head of the plans that I would like to work towards.  Not that I achieve all those or anything, but it does help my mental side of things to say, “Okay, here’s the method or the workings that I’m going to go for, I guess, and then if it doesn’t work out, that’s fine.”  But at least I enjoy the process of working towards that and I don’t sit still very well.  I don’t have the ability to precisely relax.

Andrea:  We’ve talked about how hard it is for us to have fun, and that fun for us is really more that if we feel like we’re building something or if we feel like we’re working towards something; that’s more fun.

Aaron Wenburg:  Yeah.  I enjoyed that, you know, making things better that we’re restoring something or building, knowing that I can say, “Hey, this is better because of some plan or some action or some process.”  I don’t know, even when you’re playing a game or whatnot, it’s not just about winning the game, it’s about, “I’ll find more satisfaction in finding a new way to win the game and still win the game,” as opposed to just winning the game, I guess.

Andrea:  Okay, sorry, apologies for the giggles here.  Okay, tell me about the new way of winning the game piece, what do you mean?

Aaron Wenburg:  Like I said, I enjoy the process of developing new things and discovering ways to do things.  And, you know, many games I feel are a lot of chance and I like to build into as much of my own strategy that can win the game and still win the game of chance as well.  I don’t know, I think that is a little extra piece of achievement that I like to throw in there, I guess.

Andrea:  And that’s fun.  It’s not fun for those who play with you, but unless we’re on your team.

Aaron Wenburg:  Yeah.

Andrea:  All right.  So, let’s see here.  I’m going back here a little bit to my questions.   Did you always know that you wanted to be a business owner or own your own clinic?  Or at what point did you realize that that’s what you wanted?

Aaron Wenburg:  No, I did not set out to own a business, or that’s never been a grand goal of mine, for sure.  After, you know, working for several different people, all great people, it was just this sense of not knowing exactly what, or this decision was made but not knowing the process of what the decision or how the decision came about, I guess.  I don’t know, I guess I knew I wanted a piece of that.  And part of that probably I can easily become a victim, make myself a victim, and sit in that, and I’m not very happy in that mode, but I can easily go down that victimhood road, I guess.

And when I feel like I have a part in the decision process apart in that thinking-through, it makes me become more a part of it, more active, and I don’t know more driven towards a certain goal with it.  And I guess that was a part of the decision making to own a business or multiple businesses and be a part of that because like I said, I enjoy the process and enjoy, you know, that as much as the end goal, I guess.

Andrea:  I love that.  I love that you love the process because how else can you go through.  I mean, this whole idea of being a business owner is messy and difficult but you’re saying that you like that because it is a process and you can do something about it in the midst of it.  And, really, the role that you play at your clinics and, you know, you play multiple roles and everybody does, your partners do as well.  And I think that you’re playing that COO role a lot, the operations and making sure that people are doing well and not just the patients but then also the team and partners who partner with you in other clinics as well.  You are always kind of in that; you don’t mind the developmental nature of it all.

Aaron Wenburg:  Mm-hmm.  Yeah, I think the development is when you grow, and like I said the restorative, I hate to use the word process again, but the process of building, achieving getting better and better every day no matter what that is something I feel I’m happiest in.  And I’ve always said it’s going to be hard for me to retire because I need that next process or that next activity to get to.  And, yes, so whatever eventual retirement looks like or eventual whatever next twenty, fifty, seventy years looks like, I think it has to have some component of that building, you know, physically, emotionally, spiritually, health, and all of those components is when I feel I’m best and when I feel I’m making the most headway.

Andrea:  How do you kind of cope when you’re not making progress in one of those areas, because I know that’s really hard?

Aaron Wenburg:  Certain times in my life, I’ve done better at it than others.  I mean, that’s pretty you can probably cover that as well as I can and say “Oh.”  But you know, I’d say different times in my life, I’ve done different things as well.  I think a fair bit of coping is waking up the next morning and the day after that and the day after that of keeping your head down and keep grinding and know that “Hey, this is the process,” and having that sense of, “Okay, what’s lately I’ve been trying to tell myself?”  “Well, what’s the worst thing that can happen with this?”

Andrea:  “With this,” meaning?

Aaron Wenburg:  With whatever is going on.

Andrea:  Okay.

Aaron Wenburg: With this activity or this event or this business or whatever.  And, well, if that does happen, we’re going to be okay.  We’ll figure that out and we’ll adapt and adjust and keep moving forward with, I guess, the fundamentals of faith, the fundamentals of things I know are true, the things that I value in my family, the things I value in friends and relationships, I guess.  And that’s what I keep trying to tell myself that there are days better than others and I guess that’s the foundation that it goes back to.

Andrea:  Well, I mean, that is hard.  It’ hard, I think, for me too.  It’s hard for anybody to feel like we’re stuck or that we are stagnant.  And growth is such a part of, a beautiful part of life, and when we can’t, we feel like we’re not growing.  I think it can easily start to feel like we have nowhere to go.  But what you’re saying is, this is the way I would phrase what you were saying, “If I can’t be destroyed by this, then let’s just keep going.”

Aaron Wenburg:  Bingo.  Yep.

Andrea:  I can’t be destroyed by this.

Aaron Wenburg:  Mm-hmm.  Yeah.  I would very much say that’s a part of what has become more evident as we move along in life, I guess.

Andrea:  Yeah.  And like you were talking about the tendency toward feeling like a victim.  I mean, it sounds to me like what you’re saying is, “As long as I can still do something about it, what can I do something about?  As long as I’m taking action and I’m making some kind of impact, then I’m not a victim.  I can have agency.  I can make a difference.  My voice matters.”

Aaron Wenburg:  Yes, I would agree.

Andrea:  Yeah.  So, from what I know of you, Aaron, people who are close to you tend to come to you with their concerns a lot and they always have.  They feel comfortable with you even though you’re not like some big charismatic whatever.

Aaron Wenburg:  I’m not a lot of things, you’re right.

Andrea:  You’re right.  This is a stretch to be doing so much talking in one sitting, I think.

Aaron Wenburg:  You’re right.

Andrea:  Which is really fun for me.  I’ve got a captive client or not client but a captive interviewee here.  But people tend to feel comfortable coming to you with hard things or bringing their concerns to you.  I mean, that’s what I’ve seen, do you sense that as well?

Aaron Wenburg:  No.  I don’t know.  I guess I can’t speak for anybody else.  But that’s kind of been one of those things along the way that has been just a part of me and is normal, I guess.  I can’t speak to anybody else’s normal but that’s not me, I guess.

Andrea:  Yeah.  I wonder if it has to do with your desire for that developmental process, you know, to be a part of the development process.  So, you are open to that, you’re constantly working on that and moving towards goals and fixing problems, really.  So, when people have a problem and they think that you can speak to that or help them somehow they come to you.

Aaron Wenburg:  Yeah.  Yeah, I realized, I’m not perfect.  I’m not close to perfect and yet still enjoy the process and the part and people do know that they can develop more and however much I can facilitate the better, I guess.  I enjoy listening to people’s ideas.  When I make a decision, I appreciate everybody’s inputs, their opinions, and whatnot.  Not that I’m going to use any of them, but I do enjoy, “Okay, you think that’s because of what, or you think that’s because of that.”

And just as somewhat of a measuring stick to see if my ideas or activities align with the way you’re thinking or somebody else’s thinking, I guess.  So, maybe that process of listening, the process of, you know, trying to figure out the problem as well as figure out that person or figure out a solution, one I find that enjoyable and maybe that translates to the person.  And number two, hopefully, it benefits them as well.

Andrea:  Hmm.  Yeah, I like that answer.  Okay, I have some questions from other people.  So, I’m going to go ahead and start with those now.  One of the questions, Ted asks, “Where do you feel your voice is most influential?”  Would you tie it back to kind of what we were talking about just a little bit ago or do you have other thoughts on that?

Aaron Wenburg:  The most influential.  That’s a good question.

Andrea:  Ted always asks good questions, right?

Aaron Wenburg:  He does.  Doggone it, Ted.  No, I think it depends on the situation.  But I play a little part in a lot of different roles.  And I wouldn’t say it’s very influential at all, but I hope to get little nuggets in the people that I’m closest to, I guess.  And apart from that, hopefully my actions, you know, speaks louder than my speaking ability or this podcast or any of it.  But I think it’s probably most influential to those closest to me, I guess.

Andrea:  I think that you’re right.  What’s that?

Aaron Wenburg:  Would you concur?

Andrea:  I would concur, yes, because you’re not going to broadcast your voice.

Aaron Wenburg:  No, no.

Andrea:  I’m broadcasting your voice, but you wouldn’t do it on your own.  Oh, gosh, we’ll get to that in a second.  But I think it is that sort of steady presents, you care, and in fact that actually leads to a question that Rosanne asked which is, you know, physical therapy has to do with both healthcare and, you know, sort of the diagnostic kind of thing, but also with caring for people.  And her question was, “How do you balance both, carrying, like, both the business side of things?”  You know, you’ve got to get the job done and you got to keep things.  You guys have to make sure that everything is sustainable and that the team is doing well and all that sort of thing, the business side of things, or the money side of things but then also the team and the patient side of things.  So, how do you balance the two of those, which one takes precedence?

Aaron Wenburg:  Honestly, it’s tough because you always have the money side of things and you can always look at the number of this or that from year to year and it’s easy to, “Okay, we just want to do this many dollars more than last year.  We want to see this many more people.  We want to, you know, keep reaching that goal.”  But I think it goes back to you, “Okay, what is the main goal?”  The main goal is to, you know, broaden our reach and help people and try to help them make the world a better place, and largely if we do that, generally, the business side of things takes care of itself.

And with good people around, it helps so much, and I guess the ability to know that it’s part of my job too.  And I take decent satisfaction in, you know, providing jobs for good quality people that I know are helping people as well, and I feel like I can be of service and have helped that way too.  So, I think trying to keep the bigger goal, the bigger mission, and it’s all about people, and generally, the money will follow, I guess.

Andrea:  And I know that sometimes you had to make hard decisions or have hard conversations or whatever throughout life, but especially in the last ten years of, you know, really owning a business and owning a few businesses.  In those cases, how do you know when it’s time to disappoint somebody or say no to somebody?  You know what I mean?  Like, have those challenging conversations that most people really shrink away from or they handle with such, I don’t know, heavy hand and arrogance that they come off as not being helpful to everybody in the end?   How do you see a balance there for yourself?

Aaron Wenburg:  I think part of that comes and really try to get a decent understanding of where the other person, the other event is coming from, I guess.  I’m trying to put myself in their shoes… and granted, I can’t completely understand that and realize that they’re dealing with a whole bunch of other circumstances that I don’t know as well, and as well as they don’t know my circumstances from being on both sides of that and trying to take all of that into account.  And I also know that, you know, I’m not right over half the time and neither are they, but we’re going to move through it and we’re going to be okay.

And you know, just having that point of resiliency, “Here’s what I know is true and we’re gonna keep moving forward and it’s not gonna be pretty and it’s not gonna be the most elegant thing in the world.  But we’re gonna be resilient and we’re gonna muddle through this, and in the end, it’s gonna be better than it is now, I guess.”

Andrea:  Do you think…

Aaron Wenburg:  Go ahead.

Andrea:  I definitely don’t like it when I interrupt you.

Aaron Wenburg:  That’s all I got.

Andrea:  Oh guys, you have no idea.  I cannot interrupt my husband because he has a lot to say, but he doesn’t say very much.  So when he is talking, I need to keep my mouth shut, but the interviewer in me comes out right now.  So, it sounds like you’re pretty comfortable with mess, you know, that muddling through it like you said.  Would you say that you’re comfortable with the mess or you’ve just gotten used to it, know that you’ve built this resilience over time?

Aaron Wenburg:  No, I’m not comfortable with it.  I don’t know anybody is and I don’t like it.  But there’s a part of it, I guess, you can somewhat expect and nothing’s perfect.  Nothing’s, you know, truly set apart.  I mean, there were times in my career, I’d go to work thinking that, “Okay, today’s gonna easy day, great day.  I’m gonna do this, do this, do this.”  And then it never turned out that way and I’m like, “Why was I even setting my expectation up for that?”   And that, “Okay, here’s some of the things I’m gonna have to work through and get through and it’s still gonna be a good day.”  But that’s just the part of the living in our world as we see it, I guess,

Andrea:  Yeah, like it’s not, it’s not going to be easy, but I’m going to get through it and it’s going to be okay.

Aaron Wenburg:  Mm-hmm.  Yep.

Andrea:  Okay.  And Brenda asks, “How have current events affected you or your business?”  And she’s referring to, I believe, she’s referring to COVID-19 and everything that’s happened.

Aaron Wenburg:  Oh, it’s difficult.  But, yet, it’s also one of those things that, you know, however, it affects us or occurs, we are going to get through it.  And I hope with everybody around me, we’ll get through it as well.  We obviously are, you know, looking at expenses, looking at, you know, things we’re doing, absolutely.  But also knowing that we will get through this, I guess, and know that we have great people on board and we believe in our mission and do feel that if it doesn’t work out, we’ll be okay as well.

Andrea:  At the time of this recording at the end of April, you haven’t had to actually shut the doors on the clinic yet or the other clinics, what precautions do you guys have to take or have you been taking?

Aaron Wenburg:  Well, obviously, the payroll protection program has helped us maintain consistent cash flow through the clinics.  But instead of taking it as, “Whoa, this is the terrible thing,” we’ve tried to switch that storyboard to, “Okay, this is a great time to improve yourself, a great time to get continuing ed work on certain skills or maneuvers.”  We always have that list of stuff we want to read up on or study more and get better at, I guess.  And, you know, trying to promote those activities as well as promote, you know, “Okay, as healthcare providers or influential people throughout the community, what things can we put more of our energy to now to further help people?”  And one of the main things I like about physical therapy, it has a lot of great people in the profession.

Andrea:  This is true.

Aaron Wenburg: And have a heart for people and want to see people improved, and I guess I enjoy that community.  And, you know, they are always willing to help throughout the community and stuff like that too.  So, we’re really trying to promote more of that and really feel like this is a unique time to develop skills also and help out and so far so good, I guess.

Andrea:  Okay, Sarah asks, now this is a question kind of about me too, “What has been the most challenging thing for you in the transition of Andrea working, in particular, writing books, starting Voice of Influence and how have we worked through.”  Now, I’ll say this, Sarah, we will cover this more in-depth in a future interview where we’ll have more of a conversation about our relationship and our working relationship.  But, Aaron, what has been something that’s been really challenging for you in this?

Aaron Wenburg:  In this transition…

Andrea:  It’s not really a transition anymore; we’ll say that we’re full-in.

Aaron Wenburg:  Yeah.  I think initially for me, the hardest part was knowing when I could or we could have our discussions about activities, or many times I’ll come to you and ask what you think about this or that or that sort of thing.  I think prior to that, it was basically all on my schedule and I could find you at various times or when you brought me the lunch or when you did this or that, I guess.  And I guess I have to be a little bit more strategic with, “Okay, this is our time to talk.  This is when, you know, I can, in fact, save this for when we get together,” or stuff like that.  I guess that was probably the transition as much as any.  And also in that time knowing that, “Yeah, this is the time that works best for us, so I need to fully present and get this, you know, figure out if this concerns in that time,” versus, “Well, maybe I don’t quite feel up to it, or maybe we don’t need to talk about this or that,” I guess.

Andrea:  Yeah.

Aaron Wenburg:  Does that make sense?

Andrea:  It does.  I think there was something about, like, we’ve started to look at our conversations in terms of when do we talk about your business, when do we talk about my business, when do we talk about our children or our family.  And one of the things that we implemented, actually quite a while ago, was about every quarter so, every three months or so we’d go out to dinner and we’d call it our date.  And we don’t really do date night.  We go for walks or we talk, you know, we do different things.  But if we have a chance to be playing with our family, we play with our family, otherwise, we’re building and doing stuff.

But we would take this time to go out to dinner, and it would be all about, you know, where are we?  Where do we want to go?  What are the challenges that we’re going to be facing here in the next few months?  How do we want to handle that with our schedule?  You know, what are our concerns about our kids or things that we want to make sure that they have and that sort of thing.  So, that was one very practical thing that we started doing.  And I would agree with you too that one of the hardest things is knowing when we’re in problem-solving mode and when we’re just in listen mode.

Aaron Wenburg:  Yeah.

Andrea:  That’s hard for me too, like men get a bad rap.  They get that a lot like that they’re in this problem solving, “I just wanna be heard.”  Trust me that’s been flipped around in our marriage too.

Aaron Wenburg:  Mm-hmm.  Good question.

Andrea:  Okay.  I think I’ll summarize the other two questions, Sam and Audrey were kind of asking about the blessings and challenges of living with a deep thinker, somebody like me.  And Audrey used the words wonderful and talented.  Thank you, Audrey.  But I think the point is, you know, I’m stepping out there and I’m doing things or whatever and also the deep thinker thing.  What are some of the blessings and challenges or maybe even just one of each for now?

Aaron Wenburg: Mm-hmm, blessings.  I enjoy watching you do your thing and enjoy sitting back and knowing the process and seeing it just, you know, flow out there and, yeah, make a difference.  I guess I get probably more satisfaction from that than you do in all this, I guess.  So, that’s a huge blessing even though there’s, you know, tough times and challenges and it’s not easy.  But, yeah, I do feel and I’ve felt this for years that we needed to get your voice heard and out throughout the world and ability to make an impact wherever that is.

And so, it definitely makes an impact on me and is one of those things that, I get more enjoyment out of it than you probably know.  And the challenge aspect of that, I don’t know, life is a challenge.  I don’t expect it to be easy.  And, I guess, whatever that is good and noble and just is going to be hard and in those hard times, I keep trying to tell myself that.  So, I think just knowing that it is going to be hard and, you know, there has to be a process or a system or a way to work through that and get up every morning and get going with it, I guess.  So, I don’t know of a specific on that but, yeah, that’s kind of what I got.  I don’t know.

Andrea:  That’s okay.  That’s all right.  Thank you.  I’m tearing up a little bit, by the way.  But you know as to Sam’s question about living with a deep thinker, Sam, you need to know and every audience you should know this, that when we were first kind of developing our relationship, before dating and whatnot, one of the things that Aaron said to me that really piqued my interest and made me even more interested in him as a, you know, potential life partner was, he said, I don’t like fluff.

And that word fluff, I kind of parsed it out a little bit after a while and kind of figured out that he’s a deep thinker.  He thinks differently than I do.  So, we’re deep thinkers in different ways, I think.  But we both have a very strong sense of values, you know, common values about people and about process and development and moving towards a goal.

But then also that there was a little less tolerance for kind of things that are on the surface, which, for a while was hard for us to kind of figure out like when we first got married or whatever, are we supposed to look a certain way like other people and we were pretty serious.  We’ve always been pretty serious, which kind of drives at least one of our children nuts.  But we’ve also had to grow together, you know, being a little more lighthearted with our kids and being able to play and things like that too.  So, I’d say that he’s also a deep thinker; I guess is what I wanted to say.  It’s not just me, just so you know.

Aaron Wenburg:  Yes, I would agree.

Andrea:  And then finally, Sarah asks, what have you found most helpful from Andrea in supporting you in your career?

Aaron Wenburg:  I think the recurrent themes of, “Hey, we’re in this together, I care about you and we’re gonna be okay.”  And I think that reminder of, “Well, why did you say this?”  Well, ultimately, it’s for my good.  And going back to that, I guess, has been the most helpful and then from that respect and the conversation about this or that is valuable and the conversation about, “Well, I talked to this person today,” or “What do you think about this?”  Just that additional partner in life that has ultimately good in mind, even though sometimes it’s hard, it’s tough, but going back to that, I guess, has been the most helpful.  And that’s something that you’ve always done a good job of, and I appreciate that.

Andrea:  Well, I appreciate a lot of things about you too.  And I don’t know, your steadiness, especially right now in terms of what we’re all experiencing with COVID-19, just my reaction versus your reaction is very different.  And you’ve always helped me to remain a little bit more steady, and I think that we balance each other out in some ways when it comes to our, you know, passion and what we care about.  But I am grateful for you, Aaron, and your voice of influence in my life and how you have, I don’t know, all the things that you do for me as well.

Aaron Wenburg:  Thank you.

Andrea:  One last question for you, if you could go back to your thirty-year-old self and talk to yourself about being a voice of influence, like you’re going to want to have influence on people, you’re going to want to have an impact in the world or whatever, what advice would you give yourself?

Aaron Wenburg:  Hmm.  I would say, worry less and do more.  I can get into the point of paralysis by analysis, and that would be one thing I would tell myself too, and just dive in and you’ll be okay, I guess.  I feel I’m working through more and more of that as I grow older.  Yeah, that’d probably be the most beneficial thing for me.

Andrea:  Awesome!  Well, thank you for taking time to do this interview, I appreciate it.

Aaron Wenburg:  Well, you are welcome!

Andrea:  All right.

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Live Coaching: Building a Transformational Keynote with Lia Valencia Key

Episode 139

Lia Valencia Key Voice of Influence Podcast Andrea Joy Wenburg

Play here (the red triangle below), on Apple Podcast, Stitcher or TuneIn Radio (Amazon Alexa) or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Lia Valencia Key was raised in an impoverished Philadelphia neighborhood, and even lived in a homeless shelter with her mom, sister, and her brother in one room that she says is about the size of a broom closet.

When Lia was on the podcast two and a half years ago, she was just starting to share her story and just starting to really get back out there.  And in the last two and a half years, she has done some amazing things.  Her amazing jewelry has been worn on-air by Robin Roberts of Good Morning America, she’s been interviewed by Mel Robbins and her jewelry has been featured on QVC.

Lia would like to develop a keynote that she could give, and she and I have been in conversation about this. So, what’s you’re going to hear today is a little bit of strategic planning as we look at how we can bring the audience to a point where they’re really internalizing her message for themselves and where there’s an actual transformation that can take place in the people in the audience.

Take a listen to the episode!

Mentioned in this episode:

 

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Transcript

People of influence know that their voice matters and that they can make it matter more.  I’m Andrea Wenburg, and this is the Voice of Influence podcast.

Today, I’m visiting with Lia Valencia Key who has been on the podcast before in Episode 33, about two and half years ago.  Lia was raised in an impoverished Philadelphia neighborhood, and even lived in a homeless shelter with her mom, sister, and her brother in one room that she says is about the size of a broom closet.  And at one point in her life, there was a real big turning point, and she talks about this in Episode 33.

I just really encourage you to go back and listen to Episode 33, because the way that she talks about this is fantastic and it’s so important; it is her signature story.  But her mom sits her down in fifth grade, realizing that Lia has been kind of going down the path that everybody around her is, and she wants to kind of bring Lia to a point where she can make a decision.

She basically told her that her predicament didn’t determine her destiny and that she believed that there is more inside of her.  But she had to make a decision if she was going to follow everybody around her and just keep doing the thing that everybody expects, or if she was going to lead herself and determine to get out of this particular situation that she was in, and follow her dreams, and actually go and achieve the things that she wanted in life.  That was an incredible moment because at that moment in her life, she really turned everything around.

Lia started getting good grades, getting on the honor roll.  She not only graduated high school, she graduated college and became a teacher, got a master’s degree, went on and did all these other things.  Then she had a vision for having a jewelry line.  She does hair and makeup for On-Air Talent – that means people like QVC and other places – and she has done some pretty amazing things in that realm.  And then she wanted to create her own jewelry line that would be inspirational to people.

So, when she and I talked two and a half years ago, she was just starting to share her story and just starting to really get that out there, and in the last two and a half years, she has done some amazing things.  First of all, her jewelry has been worn on air by Robin Roberts of Good Morning America and many other On-Air Talent.  And she was asked by the co-founder of IT Cosmetics to come with her to the Mel Robbins Show, where she was being interviewed about being a mentor.  She asked Lia to come on the show with her.

So, Lia was interviewed by Mel Robbins, and then she auditioned for The Big Find for QVC.  They were looking for jewelry manufacturers, creators who would be able to sell their jewelry on QVC, and she was one of the people that was chosen for The Big Find and was featured on QVC with her jewelry – her dream come true – in February.

Now, Lia is really creative and really passionate, and I love creative, passionate people because they have so much to offer.  I think everybody has a lot to offer, but I understand the unique problems of the creative, passionate person.  And one of the problems that we have when we’re both creative and passionate is that it can be difficult to articulate what exactly we’re trying to say.  There’s so much we want to say.  There’s so much perhaps wisdom that you have and certainly that Lia has; so many amazing experiences, so much she wants to share.  She would love to be able to share those things to inspire both people who are… like, women who are in corporate or even kids who are in fifth grade like she was.

So, she would like to develop a talk.  She would like to develop a keynote that she could give, and she and I have been in conversation about this a little bit and then I said, “Well, would you like to come on the podcast and actually flush a little bit of this out?”  And so, what you’re going to hear today is you’re going to hear a little bit of strategic planning, listening to some of Lia’s passion and some of her story.  And we’re going to look at how we can bring the audience to a point where they’re really internalizing the message for themselves, where there’s an actual transformation that can take place in the people in the audience.

This is a short conversation.  There’s plenty more to be done, but we thought that you might enjoy hearing us kind of work through what her talk could be about – how to structure it, and how to really bring about some transformation and invite transformation in the audience.

So, here is my conversation with Lia:

Andrea:  All right, Lia Valencia Key, I am so excited to have you here again on the Voice of Influence podcast.

Lia Valencia Key:  I’m so excited to be here again.  You kicked me off!  You’re my first, first-ever podcast.  So, thank you from my heart.

Andrea:  Okay.  So, here’s what I’d like to ask.  There are some different places where you share your message – you talk about it when you’re selling your jewelry, and you also talk about it with adults.  So, in terms of speaking, you could talk to people who are in corporate or people who are just living their lives and they may be feeling stuck in these expectations that other people have for them and what they think that they should be, and you’re here to share something with them.

You also could share it with kids at school, and that was something that you’ve talked about before and being interested in doing and sharing your story with other maybe fifth graders or you know, kids that are in a situation like that.  So, there’s different ways of looking at, like, each of your audiences.  What would you say a kid who was in your position in fifth grade… what are they stuck in – what’s their before?  What are they frustrated with that gets them to the point where they would actually listen to what you have to say?

Lia Valencia Key: So, for children, I can see it vividly.  I can see it for several things.  If I could take myself back to fifth grade Lia, one is this is where it’s going to be all the time.  Meaning wherever environment I’m in, this is what it’s going to look like so why should I try, right?  Why is school important?

Andrea:  So, they can’t even see beyond where they are?

Lia Valencia Key:  Right, because when you’re younger, unless someone clicks that in for you, no one tells you you can see beyond.  It doesn’t even make sense.  I wouldn’t even get it, right?  So, I think it’s really powerful to share to youth, no matter what their environment is – it doesn’t even have to be in an impoverished environment; it’s just youth as a whole – that your now is not what your future looks like.  And the beauty is right now you are the route artist that can create the picture of your future, so what do you want to create?

And I think giving the youth the power to choose and know that you can create it so what do you want to create?  And allowing them to see that all of this is a culmination of where you can go in the future and that your mistakes don’t determine where you’re going to be in the future.  So, for example, if I was a horrible child and I was the one that’s always expelled in school, that doesn’t mean that right at this moment they can’t create a whole another future for themselves, because no one’s telling them that, you know.

And the funny part is I used to be a teacher, fun fact.  And what we always tell them is, “Oh, you’re getting expelled.”  “Oh, this is not good grades for college.”  “Oh, this is going on your record,” right?  So, we’re making this thing so permanent and when we make it permanent that means that if it’s permanent then I can’t change, so I just keep doing what I’m normally doing.

Andrea:  Yeah.

Lia Valencia Key:  But if this is not permanent and at any moment, if I can choose to go to another course, if life is a bunch of roads… if you want to visually map it out for youth – life is a bunch of roads.  Right now, you’re on this road, and if you look down that road, it’s looking real dark, lot of weeds, lot of danger.  But there’s another road that you can easily cross over to and that one looks a little like this, or then you can go to that road and that road looks like this, so which road do you want to choose?  And at any moment you can start to paint your road – I think that’s really powerful for children.

Andrea:  I totally agree.  Now, what keeps them from doing that, though?  Okay, I know I can start a new road, but what do I have to give up in order to do that?

Lia Valencia Key:  You have to change your path.  So that’s the beauty, right?  If you’re an artist, you have to paint a new picture.  Now, you can change and crumble that picture up, and start a new picture.  But when you start a new picture, you got to use new colors, right?  And so maybe you were using grays and blacks and browns and whatever those darker colors are, but you can paint a new, brighter picture and you can start using colors where, “I actually come to class today.”  “I actually listen to my teacher today.”  “Maybe I don’t understand the work.”

And another thing about giving youth the power is a lot of us don’t tell children, “It’s okay to not be perfect and to not know.”  I always used to tell my nieces, “Ask the teacher for help.”  Most of the time, people want you to ask for help.  Most of the time, people don’t ask for help.  And so giving them power that it’s okay not to know, it’s okay to be weak in certain areas; but where your power is, is standing up in that weakness, and then asking people to help you through that weakness.

And once you start getting help, you start to, of course, correct yourself because you’re like, “Oh!”  You know what I’m saying?  “Oh, someone will listen to me.”  “Oh, this isn’t a negative thing.”  “Oh, I really can read, but someone just needs to show me how I actually read.”  You know what I’m saying?  And so I think it’s giving children more of a visual picture that they can create their own power, and the power is within them.

Andrea:  Oh, yeah.  I think if you can help kids to see that they can decide what they want and that they have what it takes to get there, that’s incredibly powerful.  I think that one of the most important things that you can do when you’re speaking is to ask people, “What do you really, really want deep down?  What do you want for your life?  Not the path that you’re on right now, not the path that you’re expected to go down, but what do you want?  What do you want for your life?”  And then give them a chance to visualize it for themselves.  You know, “Who’s in your life?  Where do you live?  What kind of work are you doing in the world?  What kind of meaning do you have?”  If you give people a chance to really think about that for themselves, they might be able to say, “You know what, the picture that I’m painting really isn’t the one that I want, and it’s okay for me to think about painting a new painting.”

Lia Valencia Key:  I like that because this is what I want.  Thank you for helping me with this.  This is what I need.  Thank you because I need… like how do I get the people to the how, right?  So, this is helping me – asking the question of letting them resonate within themselves – because one person can talk to you all day, but if I get to myself, then I can hear you.

Andrea:  Yeah.  So, what you have is you have a ton of wisdom and inspiration to offer people; like, so many things, so many great stories, so many great analogies, and so much passion.  And so what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to take all those, like, dots of inspiration, passion, stories and whatever, we’re trying to figure out, “Okay, if we were to bring those dots into alignment so that we’re really giving people a chance to experience transformation, what would it take to bring people on a journey where they’re actually experiencing this change in themselves in a keynote like a talk or in a book or a curriculum?  What are the maybe five things that need to happen in my talk in order to help people along this journey of transformation that I know that I can bring them down?”

Lia Valencia Key:  Yes, this is what I want!  Okay, so we’re saying the first thing that we brought out for me to do or add is the asking of the question, “What do you want?  So, that you can see yourself first…”

Andrea:  Yes, give them a chance…

Lia Valencia Key:  I’m not actually creating the speech, but I’m saying wherever it lies.   Yes, I like it.

Andrea:  Yes, giving them a chance to picture in their own heads for themselves.  I think, though, that it probably starts with your signature story.  So, you probably start with, “This is where I come from, and this is what my mom said and it changed everything, and then I decided to lead my life.”  When you’re doing a talk, in that signature story at the very beginning, you leave an open… like there’s something that you don’t tell everybody yet, and you only tell it at the very end.

I can’t remember if we’ve actually looked at that before with you.  But you leave something, like if there was some piece of jewelry or something that your mom suggested that you wear, and then later on at the end of the story you tell about finding it years later.  Like, you bring it back to your mom again at the very end, somehow or another.

Lia Valencia Key: Oh, I love that!  That totally is perfect for me because I don’t have to share the part where even through all that my mother would say, “You sparkle like earrings.  Always wear your earrings because it represents the light inside you.”  So, we can bring that at the end, right?

Andrea:  Maybe, yeah, it could be that.

Lia Valencia Key:  It brings you from here where your journey lies all the way to… it’s back to the beginning and it’s full circle.

Andrea:  Yes, exactly.  That’s right.  You make it full circle so that everybody feels really satisfied when you’re done with the story, when you’re done with your whole talk.  So, you’ve opened the loop.  You’ve, like, gotten people really interested with your story and the fact that you’re in a different place now, and then you get them thinking about themselves, “So what do you want?”

So, sort of like little Lia turning on her heel and going, “Okay, here I am with my mom.  She just asked me what the heck I want.  You know, what do I really want to do?  Do I want lead my life or not?”  And then I turn on my heel, and now I’m looking at you and saying the same thing, “So what do you want?  What is it that you really want?  What do you don’t like about where you’re at right now, about what’s in your life right now?  What don’t you like?”  That sometimes easier for people to identify – most of the time, it’s easier for people to see that – and then give them a chance to imagine what they do want.

And then once they can imagine that, then you’ve kind of helped allow them to open themselves to, “Okay, so I’m curious about the next step.  What do I do about this?”  A lot of times, people are afraid of opening up the truth of what they really feel, because if they’re honest about it, they have to deal with these negative emotions and like, “Well, I don’t want to think about the fact that I don’t have what I want in some area of my life because that makes me feel bad.”  And so what you’re doing then is… it’s emotional, I guess, is what I’m saying, and you want to do it very carefully.  But giving them the opportunity to say, you know, “Okay, now that you’re open to thinking about what you do want, here’s what you need to do to get there or at least to start on that path.”

Lia Valencia Key:  I love this because I really want to create a keynote, and this is opening me up because I have all these things within me, like two and a half years ago.  But I don’t know how to unlock it in others, so this is really helping me because I don’t want to just talk at people.  I want to have it be impactful to their life, for them, not for me.  And so I really love when you say, talking about like, “What is not serving you in your life right now?  What are the things in your life that aren’t the right thing, you feel, and then what do you want?”  Because that’s what I do all the time, I’m a daydreamer.  My past time – one would call it “wasting time.”  Others and myself will call it daydreamer, and I am the most biggest daydreamer, and I daydream about what do I want.  And when you were saying those words, I’m like, “Oh, she’s actually saying what I do.  I daydream about the things that I want.”

Andrea:  I love the word daydream.  I love that.  I love all of your words, and how they’re different from mine, but they mean the same thing.  I think that’s fantastic, daydream.  I love it.

Lia Valencia Key:  It’s so visual, and you say it so I can hear it and people can see it.  But in those daydreams, I start to manifest my heart’s desires.  And when I am able to manifest my heart’s desires of what I want, then I can organize what’s of importance of what I want and then I can start acting on, “Okay, so then how do I get to that?”

Andrea:  Okay, so, what you just did then… what you’re saying what you do is you daydream or you realize what you want, and then you prioritize what you want and figure out what you’re going to do to get there.

Lia Valencia Key:  Yes.  And I don’t kill my dream.  And when I say daydream, it’s not thinking about what I want.  I’m literally daydreaming; like, it’s a whole different concept.

Andrea:  I like it.

Lia Valencia Key:  Like, thinking about what you want is like, “Oh, I want a pair of yellow shoes,” right?  That’s thinking about kind of what you want.  When I say daydream, I literally go into an awake zone of creating a picture or movie because it’s actually live, it’s actually happening.  I’m seeing everything as if it’s there.  Like, literally creating this movie or this picture of what’s happening, of what’s possible, of what’s in my heart, and I see it.  I see it live, and then I go from that to, “Whoosh, okay.  So then now what’s important or what’s closer to me?  So, certain things are really far out, but what part of that is closer to me?”  And then I take what’s closer to me, and then I start to make moves or concepts on, “How could that happen?”

Andrea:  Okay, “what’s closer to me” means what exactly?  What does that mean?

Lia Valencia Key:  Meaning, “What’s in my reach of do right now?”

Andrea:  Okay, so the easy win.

Lia Valencia Key:  Right.  The easy win, the easy win.  So, let’s go for my jewelry line, for example, because that’s right there, right?  So, I visualize the jewelry line, like I see people wearing my jewelry.  I see them walking down the streets.  I have two favorites – I saw myself literally on QVC sharing my heart and my message to the world.  And my other one is I see people in an airport – one of my favorite places is an airport – I see people walk in an airport.  I see one woman that looks super corporate, and she’s wearing Valencia Key jewelry.

And then I see another woman that’s working at the cash checkout thing at one of the little kiosks in the airport, and I see her looking at the Valencia Key jewelry, smiling because she knows that this lady has inspired her that, “Whatever you see me looking like, it’s possible for you.”  Like, I see that vision, right?  So then I say, “Huh, okay!”  Then I got to make the jewelry, right?  I’m a sketcher.  I love sketching.  So, the first thing I can do is sketch.  So, I start sketching these pieces that I see people wearing, right?  That’s the closest thing that I can do.

And then I go in order.  The next thing, “Okay, so then when you sketch the piece, what do you want it made of?”  Then I do research on materials of jewelry.  “Okay, so you decided you want to try three different types of jewelry then how do you make the jewelry?”  I would research how.  So then I go into these small processes.  It’s a super long process, but if you don’t get weary because you saw the dream so vividly, this is how you start to move into your picture of what your life should look like.

Andrea:  That’s great.  I love that.  Okay, so going back to the keynote, you know, and how you’d bring people through this journey, I think that you then start with your signature story with your mom and then share with people your steps; like, daydream, and then decide what’s closest to you, and then start taking steps or plan or whatever… however you want to label those three steps.  And then you talk about how you did that with Valencia Key jewelry.  Yeah, and you show the example.  Maybe it’s flipped around – maybe you show the example, and then you then you explain the steps.

But regardless, I mean, that’s what’s kind of the middle, like, “This is the plan – this is how you do this,” and then that sort of thing.  And then you sort of give people the opportunity – after you tell them about Valencia Key jewelry and your success – then you can give people the chance to say, “What don’t you like about your life?”  “What do you want?”  Give them a chance to daydream, and then to think about to make a choice about, “What’s the next thing?  What’s the closest thing to you?  What’s the easiest win that you could come up with?”  And then have them think about what’s the next action they’re going to take to do that.

Lia Valencia Key: I like that.

Andrea:  You’re giving them that opportunity in the moment to create their plan, to start painting a picture.

Lia Valencia Key:  Oh, I like it.  And I like calling it “repainting our picture”.  Yeah, I love that.

Andrea:  Yeah, it’s exactly what you said.  I think what would be even really cool would be they need to somehow post about it on social media and tag you.  I don’t know, something where there’s some sort of like feedback where they can email you.  I’m not exactly sure what that piece is.  But there’s some sort of like, “Today, right now, get out your phones and do this thing. What is the next thing for you, whether you just want to share it with me personally, or you want to share it with the world and tag me in it.”  It could be something like that, I don’t know, or it could be do it later, but it’s more impactful if they do something in the moment.

Lia Valencia Key:  Yes.

Andrea:  Because you’re building momentum.  You’re helping them, like, get out the starting gates.

Lia Valencia Key:  Right there.  And I love to…because this doesn’t just have to be about starting a business.  It can be about your personal want.

Andrea:  Totally.

Lia Valencia Key:  Like, maybe you daydream and you see yourself climbing Mount Everest, right?  If that’s a joy to you, that’s been in your heart, “Okay, what’s the closest thing?”  Like, just to put joy in your heart and start to bring your heart’s desires alive…  Oh, I love it.

Andrea:  And just naming it is so big for people, for them to admit it.  I mean, putting that on social media or telling you or writing it up on a board.  Let’s say you have this really big piece of paper up, or like a bunch of sticky note, big sticky pads, or something like that where people can come up to the wall… or write it on a sticky note, and then stick the sticky note on the wall.  And then you’ve got everybody kind of coming up with their thing.  They’re staking their claim on, “This is the thing that I want.”  And then they, you know, visually you can see everybody’s…  It depends on the audience.  It really does.

Lia Valencia Key:  No, I love it!  I just got chills!  And I also just got chills about, “This is the thing that I want.”  Something about that resonates to me because I’m trying to figure out what is this titled?  Like, I want it to be kind of universal where…  Yeah, if I’m in a corporate environment and we’re talking about business people, we can only go corporate, but I would love just everyone.  So, I love it because we all have wants, and I feel we don’t go after all of our wants.  I feel that, like I feel we suppress a lot of our wants and when we unlock going after our wants, there’s so much joy in it.

There’s a lot of challenges in it, but the joy supersedes.  Like, when you really can just manifest and stand into what you’ve daydreamed or what you said you wanted to do, and you can be standing physically there [in] like two and a half years – like we did – and really be standing in it, it’s magical.

 So I like that, “What do I want?”  Something about it…I’m thinking about the title or something, but I’ll figure that out.  That gave me chills, and I love having them physically do.  I was in a conference where – their was totally different – but they had people write stuff on a paper and pass it all to the front, and it was kind of standing for others so it was totally opposite.  But it was some power, and people together writing out their feelings and collectively bringing it together.

Andrea:  Mhmm.

Lia Valencia Key: I have to do that.  So this is the next step for me.  I think we started off, like, “Where do you want to go?”  This is the next step of when we talk about, “What do I want?”  This is what I want the next part of my journey to be – I want it to be me vocally helping people unlock living in their wants and living in their joy, and pairing that with – instead of me having a book – if you want to bring a piece of that home with you so as you’re on your quest of taking those reachable moments and accomplishing in them and sometime you get kind of stuck, looking at your bracelet or looking at your necklace or your ring and saying, “Okay, it’s possible. I could take a break, but then I can get back to it.”

 Andrea:  Motivation… reminding people about what they really want and that they can get it.

Lia Valencia Key:  Yes, exactly!  You get me!

 Andrea:  It’s exciting.  You’ve been through a lot, and you’ve accomplished a lot.  You have a lot ahead of you, and it’s just an honor to be able to partner with you on this journey in some way.

Lia Valencia Key:  And I want to thank you directly for seeing my heart and seeing my light…  I guess it was three years ago because it was before the podcast, and we met in person through a beautiful, amazing Toi Sweeney, and you saw my light.  I was able to work with you and you heard my message, you heard my heart.  And you knew you could give of me; you could pour life into me, and you took that on at the very beginning when all this was in the daydream works, right?  And you poured into my dream, and you were… you’re part of cultivating this.  And I’m so grateful to have you just believing in me and making me stronger to be able to touch more lives, because that’s what we’re doing.

Andrea:  I feel… when I see somebody like you, Lia, and your story – and I know that it’s powerful, I know it can change people’s lives – all I want is to do what I can to throw my gifts at it, and see if it’ll help and see if there’s something that might come of it for you.  And so, anyway, this has been a real joy, and I’m excited to see what the next two and a half years holds for you.

Lia Valencia Key:  Oh my gosh, I’m so excited.  I need to do these podcasts every two and a half years so we can see what’s happening there.  Well, thank you so much.  Anyone who’s listening, thank you for sharing your time with me, and thank you for always lifting me up.  This was a joy and an honor.

Andrea:  And where can they find you?

Lia Valencia Key:  You can find… valenciakeydesign is my Instagram where you can find all things jewelry, inspirational words, and quotes, and also how to wear a good layer piece.  I love to inspire through showing how to wear a good piece because I love a good fashion.  And then Lia Valencia Key is where you learn about me and you follow my life journey.  So, it’s all of me pouring out to all of you.  And QVC.com is where you can find my QVC jewelry and just type in Valencia Key when you go to QVC.com, or you can go to valenciakey.com and find other jewelry that’s not on QVC.

And it’s my prayer – not just about you getting the jewelry – but it’s about you living the message, living your purpose, walking into your joy, living a life of love, and me being honored to be along with you throughout your life’s journey.  It would just be an honor to me

Andrea:  Lia, you are not just a Voice of Influence.  You are helping others be a Voice of Influence too.  Thank you so much.

Lia Valencia Key:  Thank you!

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How Freshly’s Focus on Infrastructure & Empathy Supports Fast Growth with Colin Crowley

Episode 138

Colin Crowley Voice of Influence Podcast Andrea Joy Wenburg

Play here (the red triangle below), on Apple Podcast, Stitcher or TuneIn Radio (Amazon Alexa) or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Colin Crowley is the VP of Customer Experience at Freshly, where he directs a two-hundred-person department across five locations in the United States and beyond. He specializes in building customer service departments from the ground up with a focus on scalability, infrastructure agility, technological innovation, and gold-standard quality and efficiency.

In this conversation, Colin shares the five key pillars of customer support that Freshly adopted, their cross-functional communication and how they involve customer service agents into their strategic process, how a voice of influence needs to have a good sense of the on the ground reality as well the strategic big picture, and more.

Take a listen to the episode!

Mentioned in this episode:

 

Free Training to Improve the Efficiency of Your Voice

People generally don’t enjoy giving or receiving feedback, which leads to poor results as well as confusion, frustration, and resentment. Feedback conversations don’t have to feel confrontational or be unproductive. This training will help you be clear, calm, and get great results for you and the person on the other side of the table. [Click here] to transform your feedback method in less than 30 minutes!

Transcript

People of influence know that their voice matters and that they can make it matter more.  I’m Andrea Wenburg, and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast.

Today, I’m speaking with Colin Crowley, the VP of Customer Experience at Freshly, where he directs a two-hundred-person department across five locations in the United States and beyond.  He specializes in building customer service departments from the ground up with a focus on scalability, infrastructure agility, technological innovation, and gold-standard quality and efficiency.

In this conversation, Colin is going to tell us a few things.  You’re going to hear the five key pillars of customer support that Freshly adopted, and let me tell you right now that they are very applicable across customer experience.  So, I really encourage you to listen and think about how you could apply some of these to your own company.

He talks about their cross-functional communication and how they involved customer service agents into their strategic process.  And I ask a few direct questions about just how that plays out for them, and the benefit to both the customer service agent and to the organization and customer.

And then finally, he shares about how a voice of influence needs to have a good sense of the on the ground reality as well the strategic big picture.

Here’s my conversation with Colin about how Freshley’s focus on infrastructure allows them to grow fast.

Andrea:  Colin, welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast.

Colin Crowley:  Thank you.  It’s great to be here.

Andrea:  Can you tell us a little bit about Freshly and your role there?

Colin Crowley:  Sure.  Freshly is a ready-made meal service that’s very active in what’s called the food tech space alongside companies like Blue Apron and HelloFresh.  We’re very different from those companies, though, because rather than shipping ingredients to customers that you can use to cook meals and have the experience of enjoying your kitchen, we ship ready-made meals that are already prepared.

So, essentially, you get the meals delivered in an insulated box, and you can pop them in the microwave for about three minutes.  Or if you so desire, you could pop them in the oven instead if you don’t like the microwave, and then you’re all set and you’re ready to go.  We really sit at the nexus of health and convenience, and we’re there to provide healthy meal options for consumers who otherwise are too busy in their lives or don’t have the time to get up and cook as much as they would like to or not like to as the case may be.

We know that there’s definitely the need for this sort of service in a very modern world like this that’s so very, very busy.  We’re also healthy food, which I would define as all-natural and gluten-free.  We’re actually the largest certified gluten-free meal producer in the country right now.

I’m the VP of Customer Experience at Freshly, which is to say I’m in charge of our customer support function.  We have approximately two hundred customer support agents, with some in the United States in New York and Arizona.  And we also have two offices abroad that we use to supplement our customer support as well.  We’re active on phone lines, webchat, email, text messaging, and even Apple Business Chats.  So, we’re pretty active in all contact channels, and we’re available 24/7.

Andrea:  I love the idea of your product.  And it’s amazing to me how quickly you were able to scale and bring people on board in your customer experience function.  How many people did you say are involved with that now?

Colin Crowley:  We have approximately two hundred people.

Andrea:  How do you help all of those people to not only… of course, they’re going to need to know about their product, your product and the answers that they need to provide, but to almost even be able to really represent you well as a brand?

Colin Crowley:  Yeah.  That’s actually a great question.  A lot of what we did is we focused very early in growing customer support on infrastructure building.  And I should also provide the caveat that when I joined Freshly, which was about four and a half years ago, we had just moved our headquarters to New York City.  So, back then, we only had one other person in customer support, only a single person who’s answering all the phone calls and emails from Arizona.

So, I built up the team from the bottom up from there.  So, we went from that one person in 2016 to about 12 people by the end of 2016, to about forty people by the end of 2017, and it’s just grown exponentially from there.  We spent a lot of time investing very, very early in quality assurance at Freshly, knowing that if you really want to set standards for how you want your customers to be treated, it’s important to do so very early in the growth of a customer support organization.

Because once you grow an organization and you reach a certain size of even like fifty agents plus, it’s much harder to go back and then try to impose standards on those people almost as a second thought, because by then you have agents who have, you know, learned certain bad practices, let us say, and it’s just harder to get buy-in from agents on the ground.  So, you really have to be proactive.

Very early on when we only had about six agents and this is at the end of 2015, I worked with the seniormost of those agents to establish a pretty intensive quality assurance program, which we’ve grown overtime to make it even more specific.  But we really sat down to ask ourselves, “What do we value in the relationship with our customers, and what do our customers need from us as a customer support organization?”

And we define five key pillars of customer support.  And then we ask questions like, “How do you realize those pillars in actuality as opposed to them being theoretical concepts?”  So, one idea being that we focused on empathy as a key component, and of course, empathy is important in all aspects of customer service.  But it’s especially important for us because we deal with the product, namely food, which is very personal and which directly impacts people’s health.

So, the ability to have a free-flowing, meaningful, friendly conversation with a customer support agent is important for our customers in particular, because they’re inviting us as a company into their lives in more intimate ways than perhaps if they were buying shoes.  And we wanted to make sure that the customers felt comforted by that interaction, that we did the best we could to assist them.

Another example is that we are very conscious of the fact that as an organization, we were – and still are – in a very unique space where there really isn’t another company that’s doing what we’re doing – namely shipping fresh meals – not frozen on a national scale across all forty-eight states.  Again, we have a lot of companies that are meal kit services, but we don’t really see companies that are actually in charge of such a vast operation in producing the meals themselves as opposed to outsourcing that to local vendors.

We are very conscious that customers may come into the relationship with us not quite knowing what service we provide and thinking we are a meal kit service.  So, we put a lot of emphasis in our quality assurance program on what we call being outgoing or basically being proactive, and defining certain pieces of information that should be delivered to customers, even if it’s not directly relevant to the customer’s question or concern.  That’s just making sure that customers fully understand the nature of our service, and that we’re trying to get ahead of future problems or future questions they may have rather than be reactive.

Andrea:  I like that.  So, what would one example be of an outgoing or proactive statement that you feel your customers would need to hear, even if that’s not what they’re necessarily calling about?

Colin Crowley:  Sure.  A perfect example is the fact that we’re a subscription service.  So, you sign up with us, and you order a box of four, six, nine, or twelve meals that will actually be delivered every week.  And of course, you choose the day of delivery that makes the most sense for you, and you can change that after the fact, and you can change your meals from week to week, etcetera.  But we’re really designed to fit into someone’s lifestyle as opposed to being a one-time thing.

And of course, retention and loyalty is very important for us among our customers.  It doesn’t mean that you get us every single week of your life because maybe you want to go and you do want to cook some weeks, etcetera, but we really aim to be a longer-term health solution for customers.  But again, we have a lot of customers coming in not necessarily understanding the nature of our service.

And one thing that we identified early on is that we found customers were confused by the nature of the subscription process.  One thing we do is we are a weekly subscription as opposed to a monthly, so when you order through us, we don’t kind of staple you into receiving meals for an entire month, but rather give you flexibility to skip week over week, which is meant to be more flexible for the customer.  But it also can create more confusion because you have a quicker turnaround if you want to skip receiving meals one week and so forth.

So, we put as a standard in customer support that when you identify a customer as being a new customer – and we have definitions of what a new customer is; so you know, typically someone who’s on their first or their second order – and you have an interaction with those customers, you should proactively make sure that they are aware that we are a subscription service.  And you should proactively assist them by mentioning the deadline that we have for every customer to either skip your next week or change your meals for your next week, knowing that that is a pain point for a lot of early customers who either don’t know we’re a subscription service or if they do, they may not be cognizant of how quickly they have to make decisions about what meals they want for the next week.

So, we’ve enforced that pretty regularly over the past four years.  And it’s definitely helped us to get in front of problems and make sure customers have a better experience, because those customers that we’re informing about our subscription service are now less likely to be confused and suddenly they find that they’re charged.

Andrea:  And were you able to kind of anticipate that ahead of time?  You said it’s been going on for four years that you’ve been saying this particular thing, or is it something that you responded to once you realized there was a problem?

Colin Crowley:  It’s something that we responded to when we realized it was a problem.  It didn’t take long.  I think that’s probably a truism, generally speaking, in customer support.  I mean, in a lot of cases, data is important and the ability to collect data is obviously very important.  But I think most companies probably find that the information about what your customers care about is pretty much there under your nose if you’re willing to spend just a little bit of time to find it.

So, it was very easy for us early on to identify, “Wow, these are some of the pain points that our customers have.”  And it’s a logical pain point too because customer service challenges tend to go along with logic.  So, we identified it reactively, so to speak, but it’s something that we acted to handle and address very quickly as well.

Andrea:  Mm-hmm.  So, would you mind sharing briefly the other three pillars?

Colin Crowley:  Sure.  So, aside from empathy and what we call outgoing, we also focus on interactions being clear, which we define as the agent making sure that they are fully understanding what the customer’s needs are.  Because sometimes there could be ambiguity there, and if you don’t appropriately ask questions or appropriately understand what the customer needs, you can’t really address their concerns well.

So, making sure that the agent understands the customer’s concerns and also making sure in their response that they’re very clear; so removing unnecessary clutter from the communication, and not overwhelming the customer with information they may not need.  And also, just making sure that – digitally speaking – if you’re writing an email to someone that it’s presented in such a way where it isn’t just this huge paragraph, but rather information is broken down where it’s more digestible.

Another pillar we have is a professional pillar, as we call it, which encompasses more of the standard QA type of stuff that a lot of companies engage in where we’re looking at spelling, and grammar, and syntax, and things of that nature.  And we have certain standards as to what we expect from agents there and very typical phone etiquette.  For example, also included under that last pillar we have is rational, which is to say we always want our agents to talk up and not down to customers, and explain to customers the reason that they may be limited in being able to assist so that we’re not just sitting there quoting policy at people, but we’re making sure that we’re explaining what we can and cannot do.  And being honest and upfront in what we can and cannot do for them.

Andrea:  Those are great.  When you were first creating these pillars, was there…  Do you have any tips for people who are looking at creating their own or refining their own?  Do you have any specific things that you would suggest people look at?

Colin Crowley:  Well, I think it’s definitely true that to some extent those pillars are relatively universal, where I think most organizations would discover that being clear, and being empathetic, and being professional and proactive, etcetera are all important characteristics of good customer support.  But where I think it really may change from company to company is the weighting on where your emphasis is.

So, for instance, for us, empathy is important, to be outgoing and being proactive is very important, which is why they exist in separate pillars.  And the fact that they exist as separate pillars is relevant because in our scoring system the pillars are all given equal weight, but you may have other companies that, you know, being outgoing is important.  But there are other aspects of the service that are more important, especially if you’re in a very highly regulated, very sensitive field like a medical field or finance or what have you.

So, I can envision that in those particular cases, you may have other things that you want to weight appropriately, which are better justified as a pillar.  So, I think it’s less that the principles are different and it’s more how you weight where your concerns are, because how you weight the concerns not only impacts how you handle scoring, but it also impacts what agents see because agents know what pillars we rate them on.  And so, what we choose as pillars also is what is essentially a branded into the minds of agents as to what we overarchingly care about as an organization.  So, it also helps to direct the people handling customer inquiries as to what you care most about as an organization.

Andrea:  Okay.  So, I know that Freshly is particularly good at cross-functional communication.  Maybe in particular with your marketing department and customer experience departments; I’m curious, how do you guys pull together and do this cross-function communication well?

Colin Crowley:  We adopt an approach that encourages what I would basically call a liaison with other departments and teams.  So, as an example, one area which is relevant for a lot of companies now, because even companies that are brick and mortar stores now have an e-commerce component – so more and more companies, and more and more customer service departments are dealing with people in the product world and people in engineering to get anything done.

So, we have someone in the department who is our kind of niftily titled Associate Director of Infrastructural Efficiency.  And his job is to serve as a conduit between the customer support world, and the engineering and the product world, where typically in a lot of companies, it’s very easy to have a wall that exists between customer support and engineering and product – and of course, customer support, really, and anyone; but, especially, when it comes to engineering and product.

So, this gentleman, who served as a supervisor for many years with us, has a great understanding of customer support operations.  So, he brings that with him, and then he went through project management training.  So, he also understands the nature of project management and he’s able to bring the customer support knowledge with him to serve as our voice in product and engineering discussions when it comes to our backlog, and items to prioritize, and various innovations to our backend order management system.  And he, in turn, also works to coordinate more granular feedback.

So, we have this thing called pod, where customer support agents in all our locations can raise their hand and volunteer to be a member of this pod where they are given like sneak peak access, so to speak, at some of the technological developments coming down the pipe, be these changes to our website or changes to our backend order management system or anything of that nature.  And they have the ability to test run those and to provide comments on them from a customer support perspective.  So, maybe they notice that, you know, this feature could be confusing to customers based on our knowledge of what customers need.

So, they’re able to provide ground-level feedback to product people and engineers who otherwise would not have such an easy way to get that feedback, and at the same time, these agents – because they have a sneak-peek into these different innovations – they’re also able to be used as trainers when these changes go live.  So, they can be there to assist other agents on the ground in understanding the nature of any new features that are premiered and make the learning curve a little less steep.  So that model has been very successful with us in terms of bridging the gap.

Andrea:  How do you choose the people… or you said that they volunteered themselves to be in the pod?

Colin Crowley:  Yes.  In the case of the agents, they volunteer.  So, it’s on a quarterly basis.  So, every quarter, we send out an invitation for agents to raise their hands.  And they have to go through, like, not a too onerous application process, but they do have to spend some time explaining why they would be a good candidate to be in this pod.  And, you know, we’re looking for people who had opinions, and we’re looking for people who are good at expressing opinions.  And we’re looking for people who have some degree of tenure; if not with us, just with customer service generally, so they’d be a good advocate or voice for the customer.

And of course, we’re looking for people across our different offices, because we know that different people in different locations can bring different observations to the field.  So, it’s literally a form that agents fill out, and they volunteer themselves, and there’s an internal discussion as to who would be best suited.  And when you’re chosen, you’re in the position of being in this pod for a quarter.  And you can reapply at the end of the quarter if you so desire, but at least it gives the opportunity for new people to join the fray and to have their voice heard.

Andrea:  Have you had any feedback from the people that have participated in pods in the past and their sense of loyalty or importance of how they feel about Freshly?

Colin Crowley:  Oh yeah, definitely.  I would say that it’s a huge benefit in a lot of ways aside from the informational benefit I mentioned where people in product and engineering get more on the ground feedback from people who actually deal with customers.  But yeah, it is definitely a morale booster for agents because it’s very typical at a lot of organizations where customer support people are kind of isolated in the corner someplace and aren’t particularly consulted on much.  And it’s not particularly unusual for customer support people to feel less valued than other people in an organization.

So, having something like this is really important because it helps these agents not to feel isolated and really to feel that they’re part of a larger organization with a larger purpose and a common objective.  And it also helps, of course, because it enables people to feel that rather than just being reactive… which customer support people often feel is their lot in life because they’re dealing with issues from customers that are the result of changes made by someone in product or someone in marketing, or someone someplace else.

So, you kind of get this overwhelming feeling that you’re at the bottom of the hill, and everything’s flowing down to you, and there’s not much you can do to change that.  This really puts them… not really in the driver’s seat, but it put them in the passenger seat at least, where you have the ability to impact what the company is doing and some of the decisions its making.

Andrea:  Yeah, I really love that.  I love that it also sounds like [it] kind of gives them the sense that their voice really does matter in not just with a particular customer, but within the context of the whole organization.

Colin Crowley:  Definitely, definitely.  And especially as, you know, like I said, our customer support organization is laid out all over the place.  So, it’s not like even within Freshly we have one location where our customer support people live and breathe, but rather we have New York, we have Arizona and then we have two locations abroad.  And even within the US, we have many people who work remotely, and I think that’s true in more and more companies.  I mean, especially now, unfortunately, as a result of COVID-19, we have so many people working remotely.

But that’s just a truism for a lot of companies, and that just creates more challenges for anyone in an organization, but especially customer support people to feel that they’re a part of something larger.  So we’ve found getting more customer support involvement through this pod process and through having designated liaison to the different areas of the business has been very successful.

Andrea:  Yeah, it sounds great.  Okay, so then another practical question.  How do they receive this information and share back their ideas?  Is this through a virtual medium?  Is that through a group, or how do you do that?

Colin Crowley:  Right.  It’s usually through scheduled meetings weekly or bi-weekly.  And of course, we make a lot of use of instant messaging.  So, some of the feedback that agents provide when they’re testing a new product is through instant messaging; or if one of our product managers has an open question, then he’ll ask it broadly in a special instant messaging channel we have, specifically for this pod, and he’ll be able to get responses from the agents.  So, it’s usually either through meetings for more official types of communications – like the premiering a new product or what have you – and then in between, there’s a lot of messaging back and forth.

Andrea:  So, if giving people the opportunity to share their ideas and share their ideas with other people in other areas of the company is an important thing for you, how does that work when you’re training managers or directors?  What are the kinds of characteristics do you look for in somebody when you’re hiring?  And then also, do you have any particular things that you do to encourage them in these in this area?

Colin Crowley:  Well, I would say one thing, which has definitely been consistently true…  And this is true even of our hiring practices for agents, I would say as well is that we traditionally haven’t looked for people who are solely backgrounded in like call centers or contact centers.  We found that the ideal candidate – and again, this is true for managers too – is generally someone who has some sort of mix between the two, where they have a background in contact centers so they can appreciate some of the nuances and context in our policy.

Like attendance policy, as an example, which – if you’re not coming from the industry – can appear too strict and too stringent, but makes sense if you understand the industry.  So, that’s important, to get that ground-level understanding, but it’s also important to get someone who spent time outside the contact center because it’s true that a lot of contact centers may not be the best environments.

So, people can become very jaded being in the contact center environment too much in a company that didn’t particularly invest a lot in their customer service people.  So, we also want to make sure that we get people with experience that’s a little bit broader from that.  So, as a result, we try to have a balance between those two characteristics.

The gentleman who is the Associate Director for Infrastructural Efficiency, he’s someone who has a background in customer service, but it wasn’t initially in the commerce space but rather more in the face to face customer service space.  So, he had great knowledge and great understanding of customer support, even though it wasn’t in an e-commerce context.  And he also had a background in sports management, so a different field outside of customer support.  So, it’s kind of a good example of someone who has a good balance.

I think another thing, broadly speaking is – especially when it comes to managers – looking for people who are just good at relating to other people generally.  Because a lot of the goals we’ve set for our leaders to remove organizational silos really depends on people being good team players, and good team players meaning that they have the ability to build relationships and communicate their point of view, but also understand the point of view of others.  And that, of course, is a quality you can’t really train someone, per se, or at least it’s very difficult to train them.  So, there’s been a big emphasis on choosing leaders who are at heart very collaborational and who show a history of being collaborational in their past, I would say.

Andrea:  Well, this has been really good.  I feel like there are many other questions I could keep asking you, Colin.  Let me kind of close with this particular question.  When you think about yourself, you think about the people that you look to as a voice of influence in your own life, do you have any particular advice for somebody who really does want to have a voice of influence?

Colin Crowley:  Yes, I think a few things that I would say are pretty key… the first is, broadly speaking, you have to know what you’re talking about.  And I would define that specifically as having some sort of balance between being a manager, so you’re not in the weeds, but at the same time making sure that you connect yourself to on the ground realities because you really need a balance of both to be able to go and advocate for your organization when it matters.  Because if you’re too far above the weeds and too much in strategy, then you’ll miss the operational nuances that are essential for your organization to smooth functionally and not appropriately represent those when it matters.  And of course, if you’re too much in the weeds, then you can’t see the big picture and you won’t be taken seriously when it comes to the larger strategic meetings.

So, you really need someone who strategically maintains certain anchors in on the ground realities.  I would say a second thing is you really have to focus a good deal on data if you want to have a voice of influence; because the great thing about data is if it’s done correctly, data is like a universal language.  So, it’s a bit like music to some extent where you can have English, and French, and Spanish, etcetera; and you can get a bunch of people in a room and they can’t communicate together, but music is universal.  And data is universal – where if you start talking about values and principles and theories with someone who’s in marketing or product and engineering, then you’ll get all sorts of different opinions in certain areas that are crucial.

But when you talk data, data is like a common language where as long as you’re tracking the right data points and you can make a case with data, you can get across to someone your position much better than if you argue theory.  So that also is another important thing.  I would say the last thing that strikes me as being pretty key is really to be a good listener.  I think a lot of people [who] lose their ability to have a voice of influence, that they spend too much time talking.

And I would say this not only with colleagues in different departments… which, of course, is important to listen so you understand where they’re coming from, because sometimes a lot of communication challenges are created because there’s just a lack of understanding of someone else’s position and the relevance of that position.  But also being a good listener within your organization so that people under you are able to surface the issues that matter and then have a substantive impact in on the ground reality.

So, if you have a good understanding of that and you’re willing to listen, it puts you in a much better position to be able to speak and makes other people more likely to listen to you in turn because they register that you’re taking their concerns seriously.

Andrea:  Love it.  Okay, Colin, is there any place that you would like to direct the listener to either find Freshly or even follow you?

Colin Crowley:  Definitely.  Firstly, it’s nice and easy, freshly.com.  We’re up and running and doing very, very well during this period of time.  And we know especially now with the COVID-19 that the interest in getting healthy meals delivered to your door is more frequent than ever.  So, you can visit us right there, and we’d be honored to have people sign up.  I’m freely available on LinkedIn, so people are more than happy to message me and connect, and I’d be happy to start some great conversations.

Andrea:  Great!  And we will link to that all those things in the show notes as well.  Thank you so much for being a voice of influence for our listeners today, Colin.

Colin Crowley:  Thank you.  I appreciate it.

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Persuasion, Influence, and Negotiation for Leaders with Nashater Deu Solheim

Episode 137

Nashater Deu Solheim Voice of Influence Andrea Joy Wenburg

Play here (the red triangle below), on Apple Podcast, Stitcher or TuneIn Radio (Amazon Alexa) or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Dr. Nashater Deu Solheim is the author of the new book, The Leadership PIN Code.

As a former forensic psychologist with clinical research in the neuropsychology of criminal minds, she developed a deep interest in effective learning strategies for lasting success. Now, as an expert negotiator who studied at the Program On Negotiations at Harvard Law School, Dr. Solheim has combined her experience as an executive leader in international private companies and government ministries to present The Leadership PIN Code – the definitive guide for helping business leaders secure influence and impactful results.

In this conversation, you’ll hear more about Dr. Solheim’s interesting experience as a clinical psychologist working with incarcerated offenders and then later with people who were exhibiting PTSD symptoms in warzones, the outline and explanation of her framework for The Leadership PIN Code, what it’s like to lead through this difficult time, and how you can use and understand the typical response to sudden change framework to help you understand your own personal response as well as the people who are on your team.

Take a listen to the episode!

Mentioned in this episode:

 

Free Training to Improve the Efficiency of Your Voice

People generally don’t enjoy giving or receiving feedback, which leads to poor results as well as confusion, frustration, and resentment. Feedback conversations don’t have to feel confrontational or be unproductive. This training will help you be clear, calm, and get great results for you and the person on the other side of the table. [Click here] to transform your feedback method in less than 30 minutes!

Transcript

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How to Build the Tenacity to Lead as an Innovative Organization with Debbie Dekleva

Episode 136

Debbie Dekleva Voice of Influence Andrea Joy Wenburg

Play here (the red triangle below), on Apple Podcast, Stitcher or TuneIn Radio (Amazon Alexa) or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Debbie Dekleva is a recent recipient of the Innovator of the Year award from the Nebraska Business Development Council and the Wild Idea Cultivator at Monarch Flyway; a company that makes products out of milkweed. She also founded Sustainable Monarch in which she heads up Monarch Flyway’s habitat conservation and non-profit efforts.

In this episode, Debbie and I discuss how Monarch Flyway got started using milkweed of all things, how I’ve used milkweed balm to help sooth my own children’s pain over the years, how feedback from a cancer patient helped them create their milkweed balm, why they started Sustainable Monarch, how being part of my Voice of Influence Academy “turned on some light bulbs” for her and helped her develop her own voice of influences, how she has handled the many setbacks in her business over the years, and more.

Take a listen to the episode!

Mentioned in this episode:

 

Free Training to Improve the Efficiency of Your Voice

People generally don’t enjoy giving or receiving feedback, which leads to poor results as well as confusion, frustration, and resentment. Feedback conversations don’t have to feel confrontational or be unproductive. This training will help you be clear, calm, and get great results for you and the person on the other side of the table. [Click here] to transform your feedback method in less than 30 minutes!

Transcript

Andrea:  Debbie, it is great to have you here on the Voice of Influence podcast.

Debbie Dekleva:  Thank you so much for having me, Andrea.

Andrea:  All right, so why don’t you tell us a little bit about your role in your organizations?  I know that you’ve kind of get a couple and maybe you can tell us a little bit how they work together too.

Debbie Dekleva: Sure.  So, I am the Wild Idea Cultivator at Monarch Flyway, and what that means is we make products out of milkweed.  And so, since it’s a pretty abstract thing to be doing, you need to have a lot of ideas and try a lot of different things out.  So, we’re entrepreneurial; we create products and we conserve habitat while we do it.  So, after about thirty years in business, we decided… We do a lot of nonprofit activities.  And so, I founded Sustainable Monarch, and that took over the nonprofit activities that we did of research and education and conservation.

Andrea:  All right, so you’re using milkweed, which around here has never had a great reputation for being a really important kind of a plant.  And how did this get started?  How did you guys get started with milkweed, of all things?

Debbie Dekleva:  Well, I am second-generation of the business and my dad was a patent attorney for Standard Oil of Ohio in Cleveland, Ohio.  And they were trying to develop new usage for all kinds of different things.  And one thing they worked on was creating a bio-fuel out of milkweed, and they learned that was not very economical.  And so my dad took over the vice-presidentship of new ventures, and the milkweed project was one of those ventures.  And so they did all kinds of different inventions with milkweed and thankfully did a lot of the expensive research at Standard Oil of Ohio, but British Petroleum took over the company.  And if it didn’t have to do with petroleum, the project was eliminated.  And, obviously, milkweed is one of those things that did not make the cut for British Petroleum.  So, we decided to move the company out to where milkweed grows really well.  So, going from Ohio, we moved to Nebraska.

Andrea:  And what kinds of products do you make with milkweed?  What’s the possibilities?

Debbie Dekleva:  Well, the possibilities are vast, but when we started with just my dad’s savings account, we did high value, low volume products, which went into down comforters and pillows.  So, the milkweed fiber is hollow and it wicks moisture away from your body so it’s very breathable.  And we mixed the 30% milkweed fiber – which is, like, a soft fluff – in with goose down and that is also soft fluff.  But one obviously is a vegetable and plant material, and then the other one’s an animal byproduct.  And so that increased the natural properties of goose down, and it made it more breathable, and also made it hypoallergenic.  So, milkweed fiber is hypoallergenic by itself and it suppressed the dust and dander that people are allergic to in down.  So, people who normally couldn’t sleep with down products could use the hypo-down product, which is what that is.

So, that was our first value-added business.  And then we knew that the oil had a lot of interesting properties to it as well from the milkweed seed.  And we… actually, my dad, the inventor that he is – a chemist, patent attorney – is always experimenting, and he was scheduled for a hip replacement surgery based on osteoarthritis.  He put some milkweed oil on his hip that was really painful, and it felt better, and it helped him move it better.  And so, he was like, “Oh my gosh, I think this is working.”  And nobody believed him, but we did start asking other people to try to it, and they were, like, “Oh my gosh, this stuff is great.”  So, we learned that oil from the milkweed is a pain reliever.

We don’t really know how that happened or what the active ingredient is that makes that happen, but it is something that we’re going to be taking years and years to study.  But we do have a skin moisturizing milkweed balm that we create in Ogallala, Nebraska.  And we saw that and since we learned that we couldn’t really say it’s a pain reliever, we added some essential oils to it and have our original cream, which is the AnyTime cream; it’s the ClockWork Collection.  And then we’ve got DownTime, which has lavender in it; GameTime, which has a winter green kind of, Bengayish kind of smell to it.  And then we have GoTime, which is a grapefruit and mint scent.  So that is our new items that we have going on the market.

Andrea:  Oh man, I love it.  And I have taken a look at your website since you’ve done some work in the recent months, and I love the new rebrand.  And I’m so excited to try the new way that you’ve packaged this because even the way that you used it in the past with the milkweed balm by itself, you know, we would use it with our kids.  So, if our kids have an ache or pain – or sometimes they have growing pains, that sort of thing – it’s not something you always want to give your kid ibuprofen for.  And so, I’ve had them try the milkweed balm, and they’re like, “Oh, this is really helpful.”  It really is.  It’s very interesting how… I don’t know exactly how it works, like you said, but it seems to work.  It really does help.

Debbie Dekleva:  Right.  Well, thank you so much.  It’s always great to hear stories from people on how they use it.

Andrea:  And I know that you’ve had a lot of people who have other kinds of aches and pains that use milkweed balm, and it felt like it really has made a difference for them.  Can you tell us a little bit about what other kinds of uses there are for it?

Debbie Dekleva:  Yeah.  So, when we first started, we were mixing the milkweed oil with a couple other carrier oils.  And we put out a rollerball, so it’s like a liquid and you had to roll it on – I don’t know if you can envision like a deodorant, but they were smaller – and we had a cancer patient contact us and say, “Okay, I love your products, but it actually hurts to apply the roller ball.  So, can you please put together a cream for me that I can apply easier?”  And, you know, first off, it was shocking that it would be painful to apply.  But cancer patients end up with a lot of bone, muscle, and joint pain from chemotherapy as well as like neuropathy issues.  And so, of course, we’re like, “Oh, it’s gotta be difficult.”  So, we worked with this patient and put together a cream and she was like, “This is it – this is perfect!”

And so, you know, what we wanted to do is have it be effective, but also in a creamy mixture and that’s where the new milkweed balm cream that we have came from.  The genesis was from actually a cancer patient’s request.

Andrea:  All right, and then you have Sustainable Monarch, which is a nonprofit.  How did you get started with that nonprofit and how did they work together?

Debbie Dekleva:  So, we were doing a lot of non-profit activities with Monarch Flyway, which is our business.  And we decided that in order to propel our mission further – which is to conserve monarch butterfly habitat while helping rural communities – we really needed a non-profit arm and take the non-profit activities that we were already doing of habitat, conservation, education and social justice of rural economic development and underserved communities to an actual nonprofit.

And so, that is what we have been working on now in conjunction with the for-profit business.  But our goal is really to help rural communities, and the vision is to have twenty unique milkweed businesses along the migration path of the monarch butterfly, which runs from Mexico to Canada.  So, across North America and have these little cottage industries or even very big businesses that the pipeline is fed by wild harvested milkweed.

Andrea:  Okay, how does that happen?  So, wild harvest with milkweed.  I already kind of know and I feel like that is really interesting piece of what you guys do.

Debbie Dekleva:  Yes.  So, milkweed is a slow-growing perennial, and you just plant it thinking you’re gonna get a harvest like most farmers would; it really doesn’t operate that way.  The best milkweed standards are at least a decade old for production.  So, we find milkweed, and we create value from the milkweed that’s already in place.  We’ve identified a lot more milkweed than we can actually sell, and so what we’re working toward is creating more businesses that will utilize more milkweeds so we can protect more habitats.

So, we would really love to take some of these communities that we’ve been working with, say, in Michigan, and create a business that not only can they go out and collect milkweed as families, it’s actually hand-harvested – just like they did in World War II, where they collected milkweed pods for the war effort, and they used to milkweed fiber in life jackets and flight jackets.

So, it was warm and it also kept servicemen afloat for over a week if their boat sunk or their plane was shot down.  So, it’s really important, almost like the war hero… one of the war heroes from World War II.

Andrea:  Hmm.  That’s so cool.  Okay, so you have recently won an award.  Can you tell us about the Nebraska Business Development Council and the Innovator of the Year award that you just won?

Debbie Dekleva:  So, we were really excited about this.  This is a project that actually started at Standard Oil of Ohio, had its beginnings there.  We knew that you could turn the milkweed fiber into a non-woven.  So, instead of going… like the down that we have is 70% goose down, 30% milkweed, and the non-woven product that we’ve created, it’s actually 80% milkweed fiber and 20% a binder.  And so it’s very thin insulation material. Look for it in a clothing; and it’s probably the first place that it will be.  It’s really thin so maybe sleek clothing, but it would also keep you warm.

So, it’s been tested up against Thinsulate and Primaloft, which are two leading insulators that are 100% synthetic, made out of petroleum-based materials.  And this is obviously 80% natural material that also conserves butterfly habitat and helps people in rural communities.  So, we’re excited to get this launched and have it be readily accepted within the outdoor retailer industry as well as – eventually, when we can get into wider widths – the bedding industry.

Andrea:  Hmm.  Awesome!  Well, congratulations on this award.  That’s fantastic!

Debbie Dekleva:  Thank you so much.  It was a process, and it’s one of those things that we’ve been dreaming about for over thirty years and have finally gotten to the point that we could act on it.  And that was partially true in Nebraska about Business Development Center, where they encourage us to apply for a prototype grant from Department of Economic Development so that we could get this launched – because the more we can use, the more good that we can do in the world.  So, we’re really excited about it.

Andrea:  Cool.  So, this is a podcast about influence, and we bring on people like you, Debbie, to talk about their voice – the things that they really care about.  But sometimes we get to dive a little bit deeper into the person themselves.  And I would love to do that with you because I think that you have gone through a pretty big transformation.  Even though you’ve always had this very strong voice, you know, I know that there have been some shifts in you in the last few years.  Could you share a little bit about how you have seen yourself develop in your own voice of influence?

Debbie Dekleva:  Sure.  So, I really have enjoyed being able to do what I want to do and giving other people credit for a lot of the different ideas and things that I have done.  And actually, I went through the Voice of Influence Academy, and I joined the first master class of Voice of Influence, and that was something that really turned on some light bulbs for me; not only like where I am uniquely capable of doing the different things that I do, but also where I could stand for some major improvement.  And I did the Fascinate Assessment with you.  And what that brought out was my archetype is actually the mastermind.

And first off, I was pretty shocked that my number one was power.  And then my second point was mystique.  So, I do a lot of thinking and background, but I’m trying to develop these really elaborate, complex plans, but I’m more than happy to give other people credit for it, which is really good.  I think sharing credit is really important.

But being second-generation of our family business, I just kind of hit the wingman position so that I was more in the background, but I was working at it all so that it worked out.  And going through that class really gave me the wherewithal to say, “Okay, I’m at a transition point in our business because I’m second-generation.  I’m the one who’s coming up next.  And instead of being the wingman, I actually need to take a leap forward and be the face of the business.”

And so that has been a huge point of growth.  And one of the other things that we did in that was to really focus our message, our core message.  And so, it keeps evolving because I went through it maybe three years ago, and where I am on that now, I always think of the arrow.  Like, “What point am I trying to get people to?”

And what I have come up with is I’m working on profitable prairies that help communities and create value out of biodiversity.  And one of the things that I’m really excited about right now is having that competence to go forward and saying, “Yes, I am actually applying for a Changemakers Act for Biodiversity contest.”  And yet in the past, I’d ever put someone else’s name in it or I try to divert the attention from me and what I do to something else.

And this time, I’m really owning it and I’m going for it, and it’s a global contest.  So, I’m really excited about that.  If anyone wants to go to Changemakers Act for Biodiversity contest, I’d love your vote.

Andrea:  That sounds good.  Yeah, we’ll link to that in the show notes, Debbie, so that people can do that.  I really love that you have been able to kind of recognize the qualities of your voice, and who you really are, and step forward into that even more fully in the last few years.  Of course, you’re in a position where your dad has done so many amazing things with his company and with his ideas, and yet you also have your ideas, and you’ve been able to utilize those and utilized your gifts to really help the company move forward from here.  And that is so exciting because when we step behind and diminish our voice and diminish our gifts and what we’re doing, then it makes it really hard for us to move forward.

Debbie Dekleva:   Right.  And I think learning about yourself and what makes you tick and seeing maybe some of your blind spots – or really, let’s call it what it is, insecurities – it’s like, “Okay, I need to fail more.  I need to go out there and not be so afraid of rejection, and not be so afraid of putting myself out there.”  And one thing that I always hear you say that I love is what do you have to offer to the world and you need to present.  And people can either take it or run with it or they can refuse it; but having it offered gives you the opportunity, and then the opportunity to grow and do better and make more things happen.

Andrea:  Yeah, because if we don’t offer it, most of the time, people don’t know that it’s there.  I know that that’s something that I have seen over and over again is that people want other people to pick them.  They want to feel like they’ve been discovered, but the truth is that we can’t be discovered if we don’t put ourselves out there, which therefore means that we’re going to get rejected at some point or at a lot of points.

I loved your statement that you want to get out there and fail more at more stuff.  You said that to me earlier, and I was like, “Yes, get out there and fail at more stuff.”  Not because you’re trying to go fail, but because it’s inevitable that you’re going to be rejected a bunch of times in order to get to the win a few times.  It’s just the way it goes.

Debbie Dekleva:  Exactly.  And that is a fear of failure, fear of rejection.  It has been just a mainstay of my life, really.  And the more I go out there and the more I say, “Hey, if this is what I have to offer,” I’m actually getting accepted more, right – probably because I’m trying.  It makes it like you said.  If no one knows what you have to offer, they can’t accept it or they’re not going to discover you because, you know, I’m hiding behind the rock of protection.  You know, what am I protecting myself from?

And in some ways, you know, I’ve been struggling at this for thirty years.  And it’s almost like, “Oh, my gosh, what am I gonna do when this hits and it’s successful?”  And we are at a tipping point right now that I have to make myself keep going out there and keep going out there.  And partially, it’s because what really inspires me are the communities that we work with and the meaningful impact that we have in the lives of underserved communities.  Like I said, the more that we can use milkweed and commerce, the more habitat we can protect, the more people we can help, the better the environment’s going to be.

Andrea:  Hmm.  You know, you just brought up a really important point, and that is what’s the point of putting yourself out there and offering who you are and everything if it’s just about you?  If it’s about the bigger picture, if there’s a deeper sense of purpose behind what you do, then you’re going to be more willing to put yourself out there.  If you remember that – if you keep that in front of you – and so that’s what you keep doing.  Every time we talk about this, you have those people in mind, those people that are going to harvest the milkweed, the people that are going to be helped by the products and the habitat and the monarch butterflies that are going to be able be sustained – their habitat that will be sustained because of what you’re doing.  And when there is that deeper purpose, man, it just makes it a lot more meaningful, doesn’t it?

Debbie Dekleva:  It does, it does.  I would do what I do for free because I feel so strongly and so convicted about how we can make the world a better place through market-based solutions, which is just using the natural resources around us; not in an extractive way, but in a regenerative way.  So, we can regenerate these communities that, you know, most of the businesses in those communities are boarded up because the people are leaving the area.

And that’s just so many, so many different ways that we can help in a very holistic way.  And we always have talked from the beginning, “How many wins can we create?”  You know, like, we want the win for the customer, the win for the people picking the pods, the win for our company, the win for the environment.  How many ways can we touch people that makes them better for being part of what we’re doing?

Andrea:  Yeah, that’s very inspiring.  Debbie, I know that there have been some setbacks over the years.  Can you tell us about how you handle setbacks?  I mean, you just keep going.  You’re the energizer bunny.  You keep going.  You know, you have an idea, you put it into play; maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t.  If it doesn’t, you just keep finding the new thing.  You find something else and keep going.  How do you keep going?

Debbie Dekleva:  Well, one thing that helps me is I’m an idea person.  So, I’ve never had a lack of things that I feel like could happen.  The world is full of possibilities.  If you don’t like that idea, I’ve got ten more right behind it.

Andrea:  So, the “world is full of possibilities” kind of thing.

Debbie Dekleva:  So, setbacks are really, really tough when I’ve gone after an idea and after an idea and after an idea, and I’m – like you said – very persistent with that and then realizing, “This is not going to work.”  And so you have to go, I call it drop back fifteen and punt. Like, “What’s gonna come next?”  But you’re right, it’s more about an attitude of, “Okay, we’re gonna get up and we’re gonna do our best and move forward.”  We’re the longest-standing milkweed company – where, like, that’s our purpose, it’s milkweed – in the history of the world.  And one of the things that we have found are a whole lot of things not to do.  And I think that failure is just part of the process.  So, when you’re doing something that no one’s ever really successfully done before, tenacity is probably the biggest contributor to success.

Andrea:  Hmm, love it.  So, Debbie, if you could offer some extra last word for the listener who wants to have a voice of influence, what would you say to them?

Debbie Dekleva:  Well, I think that, first, knowing who you are and what makes you tick, which a lot of people take for granted.  I think that a lot of people don’t do the deep dive in themselves.  And really, until I did the Fascinate Assessment and we delved into the Myers-Briggs kinds of things and learning what makes me tick, I’m like, “Okay, this is why I gravitate toward this.”  I really feel like if you want to make a difference and you want to use your talents to the best of your ability, self-discovery is critical because you can see so many more blind spots or so many ways that you might be able to improve upon what you’re doing that you wouldn’t have seen if you didn’t have the knowledge of yourself.

Andrea:  Hmm, love it.  Well, thank you, Debbie.  Thank you so much for your voice of influence in my life, and for your nudges along the way, and for just demonstrating for us what it looks like to be tenacious and go for it.

Debbie Dekleva:  Thank you so much, Andrea.  It’s been my pleasure.

Posted on

How I Got Started with a Brand Online

Episode 135

Play here (the red triangle below), on Apple Podcast, Stitcher or TuneIn Radio (Amazon Alexa) or wherever you listen to podcasts.

In the past couple of months, probably because of some articles that have come out and some of the opportunities that I’ve had to speak to this, I’ve gotten more questions again about, “How did you get started? What do I need to know if I would like to start a brand online, if I would like to write a book, and if I would like to get going in this thought leadership kind of space?”

So, today, as we’re near the three-year anniversary of Voice of Influence, Rosanne and I thought it would be fun to sit down and have a chat about the journey I’ve been on.  Because going back and looking at that more clearly and with more detail could be helpful to somebody who is really interested in knowing how they can go on this journey for themselves.

In this episode, we discuss the timeline of my personal journey, the mindset it took to get over the hump so that I could get started, the mindset it has taken to continue plodding down this path, the immense value of bringing other expert perspectives in on your process, what you need to know to get started, what I would tell myself if I could go back six years, and more!

Take a listen to the episode!

Mentioned in this episode:

 

Free Training to Improve the Efficiency of Your Voice

People generally don’t enjoy giving or receiving feedback, which leads to poor results as well as confusion, frustration, and resentment. Feedback conversations don’t have to feel confrontational or be unproductive. This training will help you be clear, calm, and get great results for you and the person on the other side of the table. [Click here] to transform your feedback method in less than 30 minutes!

Transcript

People of influence know that their voice matters, and they work to make it matter more.  I’m Andrea Wenburg, and this is the Voice of Influence podcast.

In the past couple of months, probably because of some articles that have come out and some of the opportunities that I’ve had to speak to this, I’ve gotten more questions again about, “How did you get started?  What do I need to know if I would like to start a brand online, if I would like to write a book, and if I would like to get going in this thought leadership kind of space?”

So, today, because we’re kind of at that three-year anniversary mark of Voice of Influence, Rosanne and I thought it would be fun to sit down and just kind of have a discussion about the journey that I’ve been on.  Because going back and looking at that more clearly and with more detail could be helpful to somebody who is really interested in knowing how they can go on this journey for themselves.

So, today, we are going to talk about the timeline of my personal journey, and then we’re going to dive into mindset – the mindset that it took to kind of get over the hump so that I could get started, and then the mindset that it has taken to continue to plod down this path.  And plodding is sometimes how it has felt.  It’s not a quick and easy journey; it is something that it’s so worth it if you feel like you really have a mission, but it is hard.

So, I applaud anybody who is feeling that call, that urge to do something and you’re ready to take that next step, so that is part of what we’ll talk about.  We’ll talk about what kind of mindset and heartset, I guess, it would take to continue down a journey like that.

We also talked about the immense value of bringing other expert perspectives in on your process.  There are a lot of ways that I did this – including listening to courses, and books, and podcasts, and taking courses – but one, in particular, was actually bringing Rosanne on.  And I’ll share with you a little bit more about our relationship – how she and I worked together, and how helpful it has been to our process.

We’ll talk about what you need to know to get started.  And then finally, if I could go back six years, what would I tell myself back then?  I hope you enjoy this little journey to the past and that it might be helpful for your journey.

Here’s my conversation with Rosanne:

Rosanne: Hi, this is Rosanne Moore at Voice of Influence.  I’m the Communication Specialist here, and today we’re going to be doing something a little different.  I’m going to be interviewing Andrea as we’ve had a lot of questions from listeners for Andrea regarding how should someone who has a voice that they want to expand upon, a mission or vision that they want to share more widely, how does someone like that get started. And what did that journey look like for Andrea?  We’re coming up on our third year anniversary of the podcast, and so that’s what we’re going to be talking about today.

Andrea:  That’s right.  I really can resonate with these folks.  I understand where you’re coming from.  If you’re somebody who is in that position where you’re like, “I feel like I’ve got something else to share.”  Or “I have this message and I need to get it out into the world.”  I know exactly what you’re feeling because I remember about… Rosanne, this is interesting because about I’d say almost nine years ago, I was at a gathering for young moms and a speaker came, and she spoke to us and shared about her book.  And I was just like, “Ohh, I feel like I should be up there doing the same thing.”  I just had the sense of like, “I need to be doing that.”  And I remember going up to her afterwards and be like “How did you get started?”  So, I totally understand where you’re coming if you’re somebody that’s thinking this, and that’s the reason why we really want to dive into this today.

Rosanne:  So, Andrea, for you, what was the timeline of developing your vision and your company?

Andrea:  That’s an interesting question, because, I mean, if it really developed over the course of the last six years or so.  I’d say that I kind of knew that I wanted to speak and write and things like that all growing up.  And anytime I had the opportunity to speak or to lead a small group or to provide a retreat or something like that, I would jump at that opportunity.  And then I kind of got into that place where I was, you know, a stay-at-home mom.  My kids were just getting to the point where I felt like I could breathe again.  My daughter was in school and my son was going to preschool, and my husband and I decided, “Okay, let’s take preschool time, at least feel free to take that time to actually do some writing – to work on developing some things.”

So, I started developing things back in 2013; I was developing a curriculum called Intentional Friendship.  And that’s when I went to the movie Frozen, and it just sort of catapulted me into a different level of, “Oh my gosh, I can’t just try to stay behind the scenes and offer some sort of writings without putting myself out there.  I’m gonna have to really put myself out there in order to have a bigger influence.”  That was 2013.

A year later, I wrote my first blog post because it took me that long to figure out what in the world I wanted to say and how I was going to say it.  Right around that same time, I had a friend that said, “You really need to write a book about this – people need to hear what you have to say.”  So, at that point, I kind of got the vision for writing a book, but I knew I needed to blog first.  Basically, asked the question, “How I do even know what to do next?  How do I do this if I’m going to write a book?”

So, I started doing a research and I found out I needed to blog first, so I started blogging.  I tried to start an email list that sort of thing in 2014.  By 2016… you know well because you edited my book and guided me along that journey.  In August of 2016, we released Unfrozen.  And then in spring of 2017 is when we started the podcast.  And that was really when the vision for doing something more than an online business but also really starting to put myself out there in a bigger way, in corporate, was kind of when that was born.

Rosanne:  Okay, so as someone’s hearing all of that, they may be thinking, “Wow, that feels overwhelming,” but you didn’t do that all at once.  You did it in pieces.  What kind of mindset and what kind of skill sets are needed for someone who’s wanting to develop a vision, who has an idea, who wants to expand their voice of influence?  What do they need?  What are the pieces do they need?

Andrea:  Okay, I think that’s a really good designation, mindset and skill set.  The first thing that someone needs to do is look at their mindset in terms of, “Do they really believe that they are called?”  Do you feel called – that this is a big enough deal that you’re willing to put yourself on the line for this mission, whatever the mission might be?  I would say that I didn’t know what my mission was.  I felt like I was supposed to have a voice of influence; I didn’t call it that at the time.  I felt like I was supposed to have that, but I didn’t know what the mission actually was.

So, whether you actually defined that yet for yourself or you just feel called, if you will, “into the unknown” as Elsa would experience in Frozen 2, you don’t even know what’s out there.  You just hear the calling.  If you’re feeling that way, then you need to decide now that you’re willing to do what it takes to get to the end.  Because if you start there with a determination that you’re not going to let just every little, I guess, like speed bump and blockade in the road keep you from getting to that end goal, if you decide that now then that is going to benefit you throughout the whole long road ahead.

Because it is a long road, and you kind of have to say to yourself, “I am willing to play the long game.  This is a big enough deal.  I feel called.  I’m willing to play the long game whatever gets in my path, I will navigate it.  We will figure it out.”  And so, I think mindset for sure when you get started.  That’s a very important one.

Rosanne:  The difference between a dream and a goal is intentionality – it sounds like you’re saying – and perseverance because dreams don’t just come true.  They are created through hard work.

Andrea:  Yeah.  I think it’s a really good distinction because a dream is sort of something that would fulfill you – and that’s not bad to be fulfilled – but a goal and being intentional about a goal that is mission-oriented is way different than having a dream.  There’s a whole another level of intentionality and purpose and drive that comes with that than it is to just simply have a dream thinking that, you know, “It would be fun or it would be nice if…”  No, no, that’s sort of setting yourself up for a failure.

Rosanne:  Yeah, and I’ve heard people coming to the end of their life often look back with regret, not over with the things that they did as much as what they didn’t do.  And that’s what kind of what you’re talking about.  They can’t just assume that it will come to pass because they wished it.  There needs to be an actual movement.

Andrea:  Rosanne, I’m really glad that you brought that up because that was actually a really big piece of my story.  My mom – when she was in her late fifties, I started really noticing that she was having memory issues.  And I knew that she was headed down a path that was going to be very difficult.  And eventually, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and when that happened, I was in my mid-thirties.  And I thought to myself, “Oh my goodness, what if…”  I’m not determining that I’m going to get Alzheimer’s or anything, but I think we can take moments like that and say to ourselves, “What if that were me?  If that were me in twenty years, I’ve only got twenty years.  If I’m here for something, if I’m supposed to have some sort of impact in the world, I got to get on it because…”

Rosanne:  You were no longer just assuming that you’d have time.

Andrea:  Yeah, yeah, exactly.  Now, all of a sudden, my mortality – you know, because of my mom’s situation – my own mortality was sort of in my face.  And I realized that, “Oh my gosh, I don’t have time to worry about what other people think anymore.”  And that was really significant.  I think that if we could each do that… you know, maybe you’ve had somebody that you’ve lost.  And I’m talking to you, listener, right now.  Maybe you had somebody that you’ve lost.  Maybe you have seen somebody else go through tragedy – you don’t have to personally go to tragedy to let that impact you.

You can look at that and say, “Oh my gosh, what if that were me,” and allow yourself to imagine it.  I know that Gary Vaynerchuk is somebody that I have paid pretty close attention to over the years.  He’s an entrepreneur.  He’s had a lot of success, like really a lot of success.  If you haven’t heard of him, go look him up.  You will quickly find out.  But what he often does is he pictures tragedy happening in his life so that he can sort of be grounded in why he’s still doing what he’s doing and how blessed he is that he has the opportunity today.

And I think that that is exactly what happened to me.  I was like “Oh my gosh the opportunity is now.  I just can’t keep putting it out there in terms of, ‘Well, someday maybe somebody will pick me to write this book or to speak at this thing.’”  I mean, all of a sudden, I was like, “No, if you feel called, you have to go do the work.  You have to put yourself out there to do the work.”

Rosanne:  That’s a good point; that things don’t just come to us, that we have to be a part of actively moving toward what we’re called to.  So, if a person has that mindset, if they’re recognizing that they’re ready and they’re willing to engage, what skills are they going to need?

Andrea:  Well, I think it just depends on where you’re at in the moment.  So, if you are feeling like you really want to write a book, then you need to start researching how to write a book.  And I think that the tendency that I’ve seen in people who think that they want to do something, but then they don’t end up doing it…  The tendency for them is to invest only so far and to sort of dabble on it for a little while and never really truly commit.

Something that my husband and I decided early on was that we were going put our, like, actual finances on the line to invest in things like coaching or invest in a course that would help me to know how to put a book on Amazon, how to sell a book.  So, those were different things that kind of came up for me at the time.  What’s the next thing that I need to know?  I remember the very first course I bought was an online course from Michael Hyatt, and it was about getting your book published.

So, I listened to that full course and I realized, “Oh my gosh, I need a build an email list because publishers aren’t going to be interested in my book unless I have a really big email list, like tens of thousands of people.”  And then to me, that made it sound like, “Okay, I’m not gonna be able to do that right away.”  That seemed daunting to me.  So, I decided immediately to write a book and self-publish it because I knew I wouldn’t be able to build an email list that quickly, as quickly as I wanted to for this particular book that I wanted to write.  So then I said to myself, “Okay, what’s the next thing I wanted to learn?”

Rosanne:  So, you were saying that for a traditional publisher that was what you would need was the big email list, the platform already built.  Is that why you chose to self-publish?

Andrea:  Right, and there were other options.  Now, there are increasing amount of options.  So, big publishers also have a division in their company where it’s essentially self-publishing with a name or an arm of their division kind of tied to it.  Sometimes you pay a fee in order to get the coaching that you need or in order to have the book published so it can actually go into stores and that sort of thing, but you don’t have all of the support of a publisher to do that.  So, there are a lot of different options for how you can get a book published or publish it yourself.  And what I knew at that time was that I was going to go the self-publishing route.

Rosanne:  So then what’s next?

Andrea:  So, the next thing I decided to do was to look up, “Okay, how do I self-publish the book?”  And I found Self Publishing School with Chandler Bolt and invested in that.  We invested in that.  And when I started that, I had one vision in mind for where I wanted to go with this book, and then I brought you on board.  I think I want to talk briefly about how you got involved with Unfrozen, because I asked you to edit.  I said, “Here’s about 30,000 words,” or I don’t know what I had and I was like, “Would you edit this for me?”  Do you remember what it was like when I asked you that question?

Rosanne:  I do.  I do.  Yes, because basically, you had gotten your first draft done.  And it was such a relief, it was an accomplishment, but it was a first draft.  So it was kind of your first brain dump on paper, and when you asked me to get involved, I thought ,“How do I both encourage you but also kind of set your sights on what we’re going to need to do – what the process is going to need to look like?”  Because you were just like, “Huh, first draft done; let’s publish a book.”  And I was like, “Um, actually the work has just begun.”  But I couldn’t say that.  Do you remember the analogy I used?  What I said was, “This is kind of like you just peed on the stick and found out you’re pregnant, and you’ve got a baby, and it’s awesome, and it’s wonderful, and it is so precious and valuable; but we’ve got to give it some time to grow.”

Andrea:  Yes, develop it.  Yeah, yeah, before it can be birthed into the world.  One thing that I want you, the listener, to know is that by bringing Rosanne on board, I really leveled up my game.  It went from being something that I was just going to throw out there to being something that would be significant and have significance, both for my voice and my brand and all of that as well as for the reader.

And the reason why I asked Rosanne to help with it was because I knew that she was a good editor.  She and I had taken a course together, so we had a lot of the same teachings in our minds, and I knew that she would understand my perspective.  So, I trusted her, but then I also knew that she was good at what she did.  And I’d given her an article previously to edit for me because I was submitting it to an online publication, and she had done that.  And working with her went really well, and I was really pleased with the outcome.

And so, I knew that she both had the skills but then also had the heart and the same perspective in order to help me really level this up and that’s exactly what happened.  So, I think that the big lesson, I hope that you as a listener hear from this, is whether it’s a book or whatever it might be that you’re interested in putting out there, bring people alongside you who believe in you but are also really good at what they do to help you level up your game.

Rosanne:  And I think one of the things I offered you was you had so many good ideas.  You had so much to say and you have so many good ideas.  But for the purpose of the book, we needed to figure out, “Where do we narrow things and put our energy so that the reader can actually digest the core message of what this project needs to look like?”  And I think so often with creative people – this is true for all of us, because you do the same thing for me, you know, I’ll have ideas and you act as my editor or my sounding board or whatever and you help focus – what is the core message for this project so that it’s useful to the reader or to the listener, instead of just kind of being like a scattershot that doesn’t really have the impact that we want it to have.

Andrea:  Absolutely.  I think, Rosanne, that’s what we do for companies too, you know.

Rosanne:  It is.

Andrea:  Like, when we come in and work with an executive, they have a change initiative that they’re trying to accomplish, or they’re wanting their teams to be more effective with customers or clients and developing those relationships.  Oh, my goodness, it’s not that they don’t know what to do ever; it’s that there are so much on their plates that they are having hard time being able to narrow down, make decisions, think strategically, all that kind of thing.  And that’s why we need other people involved in our projects, involved in our lives.

Rosanne:  Right.  And we lived with ideas in our own heads so much that we don’t always see the holes in how we’re communicating them.  And so it takes somebody else going, “I’m not really sure what you mean there,” for us to realize, “Oh, that totally makes sense to me because I’ve been living with it for six months in my head, but I need to find a way to articulate that so that somebody who hasn’t been living with it for six months in their head can understand and get on board and see the value of it.”

And we do that.  Andrea does a great job with that with companies that we work with all the time.

Andrea:  Yeah, a couple of analogies that I’ve heard over the years are, “It’s pretty hard to read the label when you are inside of the bottle.”  So that would be Donald Miller.  And then, of course, you’ve probably heard this one before, which is, “Even the sharpest knife can’t sharpen its own blade.”  I don’t know.  Anyway, you actually have to have another knife there to sharpen the blade is the point.  I think the other thing that really shifted for me and the trajectory of my path in bringing you on board was that I sort of submitted it to this bigger vision.  Instead of saying I need to be right and I need to do what I wanted to do and utilize my own perspective to get me there, I said “Rosanne, this is the vision.”

And then we connected there.  I have my hands on the air together up at the top, and that’s what I’m physically doing with my body right now – you know, hands on either side of me and then going up and then meeting in the middle.  That’s where we could meet was at the level of vision.  Then you’re saying to me, “Andrea, in order to get that vision, the path that you’re trying to take is not gonna get you there.”  And so you could see something greater.  You could see how that vision could actually come to play if we really created something beautiful and significant with that book, and that’s what we did.

And so, I think that that again for you, the listener, who is saying to yourself, “I want to create something.”  You can go with your own vision and you can create your own path, but I would suggest that you actually submit to that bigger picture, that bigger vision, and that bigger mission.  Because if you do that on a regular basis and you give other people the opportunity to give you input and to actually have an impact on the trajectory of where you’re headed then it changes everything and it allows you to realize that that’s not about you.  It’s about your mission.

And the more that you do that and put yourself in that position to be able to take in advice, to take in perspectives… I hesitate to say that because I shouldn’t say the more that you do that, but if you do that in a way that allows you to sort of submit to that bigger vision, it’s going to make a huge difference in your trajectory.

Rosanne:  I think that’s true.  And for you, one of the interesting parts of your journey – and I think this probably true for a lot of people – you were initially going to bring insight.  You were going to share insight.  And when I read your manuscript, I realized, “This is not just insight; like you can’t produce it in a vacuum.”  Like you, what your journey has been, how you gained this insight has so much more weight than if you just tossed the ideas out there.

Andrea:  That’s right.

Rosanne:  And so another thing that can happen when you have another person’s perspective is you may be selling yourself cheap; like you may have your idea that you want to share and you’re kind of timid about it.  Our listeners may be feeling like, “I don’t know if other people will see the value in this.  I’m really excited.  I can’t really seem to get traction.”  Part of that may be because, like, there’s a substance to you that you have to put out there – you have to be willing to be open and not protect yourself from bringing that part of you to the front to carry the weight of that idea forward.

And so having somebody else who can see the substance that’s in you and say, “Don’t sell yourself short, you have something to say.  It’s important – people need to hear it.  There something of value here for the world,” can really take things to a different level.

Andrea:  And you know, Rosanne, I think even just fast-forwarding to when you came on board with Voice of Influence on a more regular basis… a lot of people who are entrepreneurs, they hire assistance to be able to take care of the little things.  And my very first hire with Voice of Influence was you.  I mean, there were some things like obviously getting this podcast out there.  I work with somebody as a contractor to Britany Felix who does the editing, and then have somebody who works on the transcript – Cecilia – and then your daughter helps us out as well.  You know, there are things that I did get help with immediately that I knew if I could give those to somebody else, they would be taken care of well, and then I could focus my time someplace else.

But the reason why I wanted you to come on board very quickly and early on is because I knew that you would bring that other perspective that would really further our vision or our mission in a way that would be significant.  So that’s the reason why I wanted you to be that first person to bring on board as an employee essentially or a teammate in this journey because I see you as a strategic value to our company, and to me personally.

Rosanne:  I have certainly enjoyed the process and working with you has been a unique experience for me because you really do – I’ve said this before, but it’s not flattery, it’s the truth and it’s something I really appreciate – you practice the culture that you teach.  You do value the voices of others, and so that makes a really fun, fulfilling experience to work with you and for you.  So, I appreciate that as well.  Are there other skill sets that a person… that you want to bring out?   We can chat forever.

Andrea:  I know, I know we could.  Yeah.  So, if we were to go back, then…  So, I think that we really covered a lot of the mindset stuff.  That’s really important, and there’s always mindset stuff as you go.  I think it’s important to take in those voices that are positive that are going to help you and encourage you along your path.  So, that might be through podcasts.  If you’re listening to this one, my guess is you like listening to podcasts; and there a lot of them out there that would be very helpful and that could give both mindset help as an encouragement as well as, you know, help with the actual skills that you need to get you where you want to go.

So, take in as much as you can.  If you’re really a reader, then go for the blog post and for the transcripts.  If you love listening to things… and for the books, the actual physical books where you get to read.  I’m more of a listener and so I’d prefer to listen to podcasts.  We listen to audio books all the time, and that’s how I do my reading, and that’s how I take in my information or I watch videos.  So, take in all those voices and all the advice that you can to help you continue down that path of having a positive mindset and understanding how to embrace this journey that you’re on.

Then when we look at the skill set, every step of the way, there’s a next thing that I needed to learn.  It was a little overwhelming at first.  When people ask me now, “What should I do?  What’s the easiest way to put up a website?”  That just feels so overwhelming to folks.  The thing that I had been told and that we still do… I don’t really know the best advice is on this currently.  You would want to talk to or listen to somebody else that deals with this all the time, but what I did is I created a WordPress.org blog.

So, WordPress.org allows you to own your own website, which is super important.  If you want WordPress.com, it’s free.  That’s fine, but you don’t own your own site.  And to own your own real estate online is super important.  So, to have a WordPress.org website or something similar that would allow you to blog or to share videos or podcast episodes.

And then after you kind of got a website kind of figured out, you’ve got to decide which social media channels you’re going to focus on.  I suggest choosing one or two just to start out with and start posting your thoughts – putting yourself out there little by little or maybe you’re somebody who likes to jump in headfirst; that’s great.  I used canva.com to create images.  They have lots of pictures that you can use, and they have tutorials on how to create images or video sometimes that sort of thing.

But anyway, they’re free unless you need to go deeper into their services, but Canva is a great place to learn how to do those images and to create those.  And then put them on your website or put them on social media, and start putting yourself out there.  You can do it on your personal page or you can create, like for Facebook, you can create a public page that is for your new brand.

And so that’s what I did.  I started Andrea Joy Wenburg public page.  And at the time, Facebook was at a perfect time to be able to share post and get a following and that sort of thing.  It’s a little more complicated now.  You should probably just follow somebody or talk to somebody who knows a lot more about the landscape of social media right now.

One the people that I would recommend following would be April Beach.  She has the SweetLife podcast.  And so if you’re interested in doing an online business, she is the perfect person to listen to for that.  And she is kind of a little bit of a rebel, and she’ll push you out of your comfort zone in a good way.  But I’ve had her here on this podcast before.  So, she can give you a lot more of that kind of technical details.

But essentially, you want to find out what the next thing is that you need.  You need to figure out what it is that you need, and then go find it and figure out how to do it.

Rosanne:  That’s one of the nice things about the internet, isn’t it?  It can be overwhelming at times to sort through all of the options, but there is a lot of information available now and even videos that will walk you through a process of how to set things up or things like that.

Andrea:  That’s right.  And you know, I’m a big advocate for also asking for help.  That might mean that you need to pay for help.  And one of the things that I learned early on was that if I pay for a little bit, I’m going to get a really cheap product.  I’m going to get not a lot of help.  And if I invest more into something, it’s more likely that I’m going to get a lot of out it.  And so, you have to kind of decide what can you do, what are you willing to do.  A lot of people want a nickel and dime starting a business.

If you thought about starting a business in your local community, you would need a building.  You would need a way to payroll.  You’d need an accountant.  You’d need all these things you need.  You’d need so many things.  If you have a viable business idea, you’d go and you’d get a bank loan and you would start a business based with that.  It’s not that you need to go get a bank loan to have a message out into the world, but just take that perspective a little bit.  Like, if you’re running to build something significant, you might have to invest significantly.  So that’s something to keep in mind.

Rosanne:  How important is a business plan in this?  Was that a part of what you did?

Andrea:  Eventually, yes and initially, no.  Initially, it was just about getting the message out.  But then I started to realize that it was going to take a lot to get the message out, that I was going to need to learn a lot, and I was going to need strategy and things that didn’t come easily or quickly or cheaply.  And so then it became, “Oh, I need to actually…this has to be sustainable.  Somehow or another, this has to be self-sustaining.  I can’t just dump a bunch of money in here and not be able to, you know, it’s not like our family charity.”  I think it could be if you decide for it to be.

But for us, we wanted it to grow.  We wanted it to be much, much bigger than what we could, you know, do as a family charity.  So, we had to decide that we were going to invest so that we could also make money, so that it could become a self-sustaining situation.  And then eventually, we decided, “You know what, we actually don’t want to just be self-sustaining.  This needs to be a viable business because we want to actually hire people to be a part of it and we want to be able to give back out of the business.  We want to be that big.  We want to be significant and that kind of way too.”

So, what was your initial question that you just asked me, Rosanne?  I feel like I got off onto a tangent.

Rosanne:  No, you did fine.  You did fine.  I’m trying to remember what I asked.  Business plan – that was what I asked.

Andrea:  Oh yeah, yeah.  So, if you’re looking at starting something, instead of focusing on a business plan, I think you need to start with brand strategy.  And that we’ve talked a lot about a lot on this podcast already.  And that has to do with knowing what your mission is, your purpose, your message; and then how you’re going to go about getting it out into the world.  And that kind of work – we’ve done a lot of work with folks on that, and we can help you with that too.

Rosanne:  That’s one question that we get a fair amount, isn’t it?  How to choose whether or not to have a personal brand, or a more mission or company-oriented brand.  Do you want to address that, just briefly?

Andrea: Sure.  So, basically, I suggest to everybody that they have a personal brand anyway, because whatever you create as your personal brand is always yours.  And it will be yours forever.  So, it’s super important to build something that is true to who you are so that it can stick with you, and it doesn’t have to shift greatly.  And what am I doing has changed a lot over the past six years but my personal brand – I’ve felt a little bit of an identity crisis with that over the years too.  But I’m kind of coming back to a point where I’m like, “This is actually really consistent throughout the whole time since I started intentionally creating this personal brand.”  And though Voice of Influence is its own brand, I’m sort of the face of that brand.

And so when you’re thinking about that – if you’re wanting to have like a company where there are more people involved or you’re wanting it bigger than yourself – then it’s great to have a brand name like Voice of Influence that is bigger than yourself.  But somebody is going to have to be the face of that brand for it to really resonate online.  That’s my personal opinion about that.  I’m sure that you can find examples where that’s not the case, but they’re rare.  And it’s just way easier for people to connect with a brand when there’s a personality, when there’s a person involved unless you’re really, really big company and you can create Baby Nut.  Those of you who don’t know that’s the new Planters peanut icon, and Baby Nut has its own Twitter feed.  It’s really fascinating.  You should go check that out.  You can do that.  You could try that, but it’s really hard.  It’s really hard, and it’s expensive to try to compete with the big brands in that way.

Rosanne:  So, as we kind of pull all this together, I think you’ve given some great information and a great response to the questions that we’ve gotten.  I’m just curious, as you look back on your own journey – the process, the things that you’ve learned along the way – is there anything you wish you had known at the outset or anything you wished you’ve done differently?  What changes might you have made?

Andrea:  I think that if there were something that I would go back and tell myself, it would be that, “You know way more than you think.”  There’s so many times that people would ask me questions about what I thought about things or what I wanted to do, and I don’t know.  I don’t know and I would say, “I don’t know,” all the time.  And when I would get into a situation where I wanted help with something and I did maybe hire somebody to help me with strategy or, you know, something along those lines…

Other than you so, I’m not talking about you in this case, Rosanne.  If you go in front of a guru kind of a person, they love to be able to have answers for people right off the top of their head.  They love to be able to share their really great ideas with you, and then assume that you’re going to and apply them and assume that they’re going to work for you.

But what I found is that that’s not always the case.  And I personally get really frustrated when I’m not heard – when I feel like the person that I’ve hired to help me with something has not taken the time, and I guess, humility to sit back, and listen enough and long enough to understand where I’m really coming from, and in order to be able to offer an idea or offer advice that would be super helpful and would apply to me.

Rosanne:  That’s so important on so many levels, isn’t it?  When we feel like someone’s trying to fix something that’s not what’s broken or tweak something that that’s not what we came for.  That importance of hearing and understanding what’s really needed is so valuable.

Andrea:  Yeah.  And I think that one of the things I’ve seen in other people is they spend a lot of money to go work with a guru or to go work with a really good strategist, but they don’t already know what they want.  They go into it not knowing what they really want.  And so they haven’t communicated clearly what they’re trying to get to.  And so the person who’s trying to help them gives them the answer to the question that they’ve asked or they give them the strategy that’s going to get them to the place where they said they want to go, but that’s not actually where they wanted to go in the first place.

So, I think that if you’re starting out, that is what you want to get clear on from the get-go is what you actually want – what do you actually want to accomplish because there are plenty of people out there who can tell you how to start a podcast.  Do you want to start a podcast?  You know, there are plenty of people out there who could tell you how to build a business based on coaching.  Do you really want to be a coach?  There are plenty of people who could tell you how to build a business where you can end up with maybe fifteen people on your team – a really big business, but is that a kind of business that you actually want?  Or do you want to just have a personal brand kind of business?

So, I think getting to the core of what you actually want is incredibly important and to keep checking in with that, keep going back and asking yourself, “What do I really want here?”  And before you work with somebody, before you spend money on working with somebody, ask that question, you know, “What do I actually want to accomplish?”  And if you’re not sure of that answer, you should hire somebody to help you figure that out or even just keep asking.  Have somebody else there that you know that you can trust who can keep asking you the question, “Okay, is that what you really want?”

And if you can have that voice that’s going to help you discern that as you go, it’s going to help you to make decisions more quickly and to gather the advice that you actually need to get you where you want to go.

Rosanne:  So you need clarity on your vision or your mission before you can get clarity on the path to take to get there.

Andrea:  Absolutely, yes.  Which is why we have spent a lot of time here talking about – on the podcast – talking about personal brand strategy because that is such a big piece of knowing how to get to where you want to go.

Rosanne:  Thank you, Andrea.  That is so good.  As we wrap this up, is there anything else you want to tell our listeners?  Anything else that comes to mind that you want to leave them with?

Andrea:  If your message is that important, then it’s worth batting out to figure out what it is.  It’s worth wading through the chaos and just trying to figure out what the next thing is.  It’s worth the effort.  And if it’s not worth the effort to you, then it’s probably… you know, if you look at that long road ahead and you’re like, “I don’t know if it’s worth all that,” then I would question whether it’s worth trying in the first place.  There might be a different way for you to have purpose in this world then to feel like you need to, you know, have a podcast and a book or speak or whatever it might be.  Get clear on what it is that you actually want and what’s actually worth paying the price for and then go do it

Rosanne:  Thank you so much, Andrea.  And if today’s discussion has sparked interest in getting Andrea’s help with brand strategy or building a team that has clarity of vision and mission, get in touch with us at voiceofinfluence.net.  We would love to be able to work with you.

Andrea:  Thank you so much, Rosanne.

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3 Team Needs In a Time of Traumatic Crisis

Episode 134

Voice of Influence Podcast Andrea Joy Wenburg

Play here (the red triangle below), on Apple Podcast, Stitcher or TuneIn Radio (Amazon Alexa) or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Everything happening right now has just thrown our world into the state of wondering what in the world is going on.  What’s going to happen with the stock market?  What’s going to happen with our businesses or our organization?  Are we going to be able to maintain where we are?  What’s going to happen with the health of the people around us?  There’s so much that is uncertain.  And we know that you want to take care of your team.

But at the same time, they still need to be productive in order to keep your organization moving forward so you don’t end up stalling out in this time of uncertainty.  That’s why, in this episode, we’re talking about three things that your team really needs in a time of crisis.

Take a listen to the episode!

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Transcript

People of influence know that their voice matters and they can make it matter more.  This is Andrea Wenburg, and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast.  Today, Rosanne and I are tackling the question of what does your team need at a time of crisis?

You know, everything with COVID-19 has just thrown our world into the state of wondering what in the world is going on.  What’s going to happen with the stock market?  What’s going to happen with our businesses or our organization?  Are we going to be able to maintain where we are?  What’s going to happen with the health of the people around us?  There’s so much that is uncertain.  And we know that you want to take care of your team – you want to care for them well,

But at the same time, they really still need to be productive in order to, you know, keep your organization moving forward and you don’t end up stalling out in this time of uncertainty.  So, today, we’re going to talk about three things that your team really needs in a time of crisis.

So, Rosanne, thank you for being with me, again, today on the Voice of Influence podcast.

Rosanne:  I’m looking forward to this conversation, and you and I have had a lot of discussion behind the scenes on our own about our own company.  So, I’m looking forward to having the opportunity for us to share some ideas with our listeners.

Andrea:   So, when we’ve been talking about this, I think one of the things that’s interesting to me, and that has really shown up for me personally, is this desire to grasp for control in the midst of uncertainty.  What are your thoughts on why we do this?  Why do we grasp for control?

Rosanne:  Well, fear always ignites in us either a fight or flight or a freeze or fawn response, right? These are the trauma responses.  And all of it comes down to trying to stop something that we don’t want to happen or that we’re afraid is going to happen, from happening.  Nobody wants to feel vulnerable.  And so, of course, fear makes us grasp for control, but how we respond to fear is going to make a big difference in outcomes.  So, that’s what we’re talking about today.

Andrea:  Right.  I think one of the most important things for us to tackle here at the beginning is “Well, what happens, in a negative way, if we are grasping for control?”  “What are the bad things that happen?”  I mean, it certainly makes things harder for everyone when the leader is grasping for it or any other person, really.

Rosanne:  Right.  Yeah, so I think one thing that we have to remember is that fear in the face of uncertainty is normal.  That’s a normal – especially if the uncertainty is dangerous – that’s a normal and a healthy response.  Grasping for control, however, is not going to be a helpful response.  The danger is, fear could very quickly cause us to make everything about ourselves.

You know, I have four children, and all of them are responding differently to the crisis, and I’m dealing with it on my own.  And it’s very easy for us all to bounce off of one another at home because, when we feel afraid, we can make everything about ourselves very quickly and then everything degrades.

Andrea:  Yeah, because we are trying to protect ourselves.

Rosanne:  Right.

Andrea:  So, it does sort of become: “How do I keep myself from being destroyed in this situation?”  And when I say destroyed, it could mean a lot of different things.  But that’s one of the things that people are struggling with.

Rosanne:  Yeah.  And the most obvious part of that, of course, is the external – trying to not have our business destroyed or our life destroyed or whatever.  But what also tends to come out in situations like this is the unhealed parts of us, the unresolved parts of this that we would kind of manage in better circumstances tend to really come to the fore.  So, any insecurities that we have in other areas about whether or not people respect us, or whether or not we’re going to be safe, things that have actually nothing to do with the crisis at hand, tend to bubble to the surface any time we feel this vulnerable.

Andrea:  Is it possible that somebody might take advantage of me or my business?

Rosanne:  Right, right.  And, so, that’s another way where we can make everything about ourselves, and that’s just going to make everything harder for everybody around us.  It’s not going to be solution-oriented.

Andrea:  Right.  And the other thing that – I’ve certainly seen this with myself is that – when I am grasping for control, it’s sort of like, you know, you picture your hands trying to grasp and you just can’t quite ever get a hold of it.  Your energy and all of your resources and focus are being spent on this grasp that you’re trying to achieve, which is really impossible to achieve, at this point.  So, we’re grasping, grasping, grasping, and then I realized that, “Oh my gosh, I actually cannot…I cannot actually control the situation.”  And very little of the response of other people, or even, you know, there’s so much that I can’t control that I’m totally wasting my energy and my resources right now.

I think that was something that after a couple of days, maybe the initial kind of, “OK, this is what we have to do.  This is what we’ve got to get done.”  And then I started to notice this in myself, and I started to realize that I was really wasting a lot of time and energy on something that I really couldn’t do anything about.

Rosanne:  Right.  And especially when it comes to other people, like, are we calling things out of them or we’re trying to manage them?  Because managing just ignites their fear, it increases their sense of lack of control, and they’re going to fight us.  And then we’re just all spinning off of each other.  We’re like a bunch of bumper cars, bumping off with one another.

Andrea:   Yeah.  And I think I think even just to take that and explain it a little bit, Rosanne, the idea of managing people is really the idea of controlling people, trying to manage their response, trying to get them to do something or get them to respond in a certain way is that idea of managing.  So, it is, versus, what was the other thing that you said about that either managing or…

Rosanne:  Calling out the best in them, giving them real leadership, which is believing in them.  And believing that they have the capability of rising to the situation, and therefore calling that out, which is leadership.

Andrea:  And we’ll get to that more as this conversation moves on for sure.  When we’re to grasp for control, there is a level of trust that just starts to diminish with other people and how they feel about us.  What do you think that is?

Rosanne:  Well, nobody likes to have their choices taken away, right?  We don’t like that.  We don’t like feeling trapped.  And so if we behave in ways that make other people feel even more trapped than they already feel in the situation, that’s not going to end well.

Andrea:  Right.  So, we know that it’s not wise, it’s not going to get you where you want to go, to grasp for control.  And yet, there is this sort of…I don’t know, you do come to this point where you start to realize that “Oh my gosh, I really can’t do anything about this at all.”  So, the hope is, though, that we don’t go into this sense of feeling like we don’t have any kind of agency in this situation.  We still matter, your voice still matters.  So, how can we get it to matter more in this situation?  You know, we’re all in this together.  We all know that this is a really difficult time.

Rosanne:  Yeah.  I think there are things that we cannot control, and we have to make peace with that.  But then we’re left with the things that we can control and can be proactive about and recognizing, first of all, like you said, “We are all in this together, so we need to address it together.”  We need to be together.  We need to be other-focused in the middle of this and realize everybody’s having a hard time.

Andrea:  You know, one of the reasons why we wanted to tackle this particular question about what people need from you or what your team really needs from you, is because we are a trauma-informed business.  This is something that we know quite a bit about.  So, Rosanne, you mentioned something really interesting to me earlier about the people who are used to trauma and live with PTSD; they have an interesting perspective on this.  Can you share with our audience about that?

Rosanne:  Yes.  For one thing, resilience is learned.  And so, people who have been in very nurturing environments for the most part, like everybody runs into situations that are difficult.  Everybody has to overcome obstacles – that’s just a part of life, right?  But there are some people for whom life has worked fairly well.  They’ve worked hard.  They’ve seen the benefit of their effort.  They’ve had opportunities for education or for expansion of using their gifts, and life has worked pretty well for them.  But then there are other people who, on a very basic level, spend a lot of time -sometimes because of the choices they’ve made, often because of things that they’ve been through that were completely out of their control, either in childhood or because of health reasons or whatever, there can be a lot of different reasons – that a person has to spend a lot of energy just managing life.

And I say, this as somebody who spent a period of time early in my life battling an autoimmune disease.  And so, just basic living – the things that everybody else around me took for granted were very, very difficult for me because I wasn’t at the same starting place.  And so, even though the situation resolved eventually, my health resolved eventually – I learned something from that time.  That if you don’t have very basic things that other people have – we could look at Maslow’s pyramid of needs – if you are used to having to struggle for your basic physical needs, there are not the same opportunities for creativity that a person who does not have to struggle in those areas is going to be able to exhibit in good times.

However, in a crisis like this, when people who are used to being able to put all of their energy into creativity and innovation and self-fulfillment and that kind of thing, when they’re used to being able to live meeting those higher-end needs, when that gets taken away from them – it’s people who are used to having to struggle to survive who have a lot to teach you because they’ve had to do this a long time.  And, so, if you can take the burden off of them in terms of making sure that they know that they have a paycheck coming, and that they’re going to be OK with their basic physical needs – those actually may be people who can offer you insight and innovation and help in ways that maybe you’ve never seen the full value that they can offer to your organization.

Those will be people who can think strategically in a crisis, because they’ve had to do that over and over and over again for whatever reason in their lives.  People who have survived abusive childhoods are often very strategic thinkers because they had to be in order to survive.  That’s just one other way that I’ve seen that work.  And, so, people who are used to living, they’ve had at some point in their life, they had to live long-term in very traumatic circumstances.  There’s a resilience that they’ve built that in ordinary times, they can look more fragile.  But in a time like this, man, they have the skills, they know what to do, and they can actually be a real benefit to you at a time like this, as a leader.

Andrea:  Which I think is really, really cool.  It’s fascinating.  And I hope that if you are somebody who has struggled with traumatic events in your life and you’ve learned how to navigate things, maybe you’re feeling a little more calm than the people around you.  Then this is a really important time for you to step up and to step into that position of offering your calmness, offering your strategic thinking, and not being afraid to do that because other people might be falling apart in ways that you’re not.  So, we really want to encourage you, if you’re that person.

Rosanne:  Yeah.  And the other thing that’s important to realize at a time like this is resilience is learned.  Just like any other skill, some people might be more naturally bent in that direction than others.  But I told my kids as we were sitting down, we were talking about this whole situation.  Resilience is something that’s learned, and it’s learned in difficult times.  And, so, the fact that you feel afraid or you feel like you’re falling apart or whatever, acknowledge the reality of that.  Don’t pretend that you’re doing better than you are. Acknowledge where you are, but then recognize that: “This is where I am at the moment; but I can begin to take this apart, piece-by-piece, and I can start making positive choices. I can learn not to view this as the end.”

That’s a big part of resilience is no matter how overwhelming the situation feels in the moment, how out of control it feels in the moment – to realize seasons change. Seasons change – that’s something I say over and over to my children.  Sometimes they last a very long time, but seasons change eventually.  So, when you are acknowledging the depths of the grief or the fear or whatever, keep in mind also, “This is not the end. This is not the final word on this.”  Seasons change – this will change.

Other generations in the past faced great trouble; every generation does to some point. I think what we’re facing right now, is going to be a very defining one in history for our generation.  But we can meet it.  We have the blood of those people who have survived pulsing through our veins.  So, we can meet this challenge.  It’s not beyond what we are made for.  And so that’s something we really have to keep in mind.  For leaders, that’s an important thing leaders need to call forth in themselves and in their teams.

Andrea:  Mm-hmm.  Absolutely, because the kind of the opposite of grasping for control is when you take a step back and you say, “You know what, I can’t be destroyed by this, ultimately.  Me, as a spiritual human being, it may take my body, but it cannot destroy me.”  I mean, if you’re able to have that kind of perspective that you cannot be destroyed, then you’re not going to grasp for control quite like you when you were thinking “I have to be able to manage all the details and figure all this out.”  And, yes, we want to bring the best of who we are to the situation, problem-solve, and all those things.  But there’s a difference between grasping for that control and allowing that sort of spirit of “I cannot be destroyed by this, but I will meet it head-on with all that I am.”  There’s a difference between those two.

Rosanne:  Absolutely.  I mean, the reality is, all of us are going to die at some point.  So we want to make wise choices, of course, we want to live as long as we can for ourselves and our families and all of that.  But the reality is there is something greater beyond just the years that we have.  We have the opportunity, by the time that we spend here, to leave a legacy that outlives us.  And so, the person who lives this life in fear of being destroyed will not leave a positive legacy.  They’ll leave a very selfish, self-oriented legacy.  They will not be known for what they did for others, for the impact that they have that outlives them.  They’ll have wasted their time.

And, so, it is important to use the time we have.  And, obviously, we want to be responsible. We want to do healthy things; we want to make the most of extending as much of this time that we have so that we can use it well.  But if we live it in fear of destruction, we’re not going to live it well.   And, so, we have to think larger than that.  We have to think with vision about what kind of legacy is our life creating right now, as we live.

Andrea:  Mm-hmm so true.  All right, so, we’re going to move into now the three things that we’ve identified as things that your team needs in this time of crisis.  There are certainly other things but we want to highlight these three things as a trauma-informed company who works with leaders, who help teams to work most effectively and be the best that they can be.  So, the first thing that we’ve already kind of touched on is this need to create space for people to be able to process, especially at the beginning.

Now, Roseanne, you really are our trauma specialist in this area.  So, can you tell us a little bit more about why people need that space, particularly, at the very beginning?  Space being permission to kind of step back and do what you need to do to process.   Can you share with us why that’s a big deal?

Rosanne:  Trauma overwhelms the systems.  I mean, it’s a physiological reality.  And, so, one of the things that you have to be willing to do when you are dealing with a traumatic situation, and, collectively as a nation and worldwide, really, because this is an unknown, there’s so much that we don’t know about how this COVID-19 is going to play out, we’re all dealing with a traumatic situation.  And so, one of the things you do when you’re dealing with trauma, you get very basic.  You make sure you get enough sleep.  You make sure you take care of your body because what tends to happen is you’re so overwhelmed and disoriented that you kind of move from thing to thing, and you don’t do anything decisive. Your emotions are all raw, and so you have to re-ground, kind of, in your own body.

With trauma, there’s a sense of almost like your mind separating from what’s happening with you physically because what’s happening is so overwhelming that you can’t take it in.  And that can play out as denial.  That’s one way it can play out.  It can go into depression, and you can try to kind of separate from that feeling of out of control by feeling sad.  It can do a lot of different things with different people.  But the way to respond to trauma, the first thing you need to do, is to give your body a chance to recover from the emotional assault.  Your brain actually processes trauma as if it were a physical blow, OK?

So, you need to really take care of sleep.  You need to be sure you’re staying hydrated.  You need to be very gentle with yourself, not expect a lot of productivity initially.  You need to get your basic systems for living in place, where are you going to be for shelter.  What plan are you going to have for taking care of your family – those things are going to need to be the priority.  If someone is having to switch from working at the office to working at home, they’re going to need some time to get that set up and kind of wrap their minds around it.

A lot of parents right now are not only having to juggle the difference from working at another location to moving home for work, but they’re also having to deal with the fact that their children are all of a sudden doing school at home.  And I’m a homeschool mom; I can tell you what’s happening right now is not homeschooling.

I have homeschooled my children their entire – from the time my oldest son was in kindergarten – he is a senior in high school this year.  What is happening right now is not typical homeschooling.  If those of us who are homeschooling and used to homeschooling – who have chosen our own curriculum and have done all the things and are used to it – are struggling with this new norm of not being able to go out, of the kids not being able to do classes with other friends, co-ops activities, all of those things.  We’re struggling with that.  Believe me – I have great empathy for those of you who are thrown into this with curriculum that you did not choose and trying to set up technology so that teachers can teach you online.  God bless them, my heart goes out to them.  That is such a big challenge to have to make that kind of a switchover from a classroom setting to an online setting, just like that.

So, give yourself space right now.  It’s going to be disoriented.  It is not going to be highly productive.  Don’t expect of yourselves or your team the same standards of productivity that you would normally expect during this time.

Andrea:  Because actually processing and doing this work of giving yourself the space to sort of internally process this – and externally too perhaps – that actually is productive.  It’s productive toward the end of getting to the point where you can do more for work.

Rosanne Moore:  Absolutely.  And I would say during this early time, if you are used to meeting with a counselor and you can do that online with your counselor, do that.  If you have not previously felt the need of a counselor, you might need one now.  And, so, that can be really helpful.  Journaling can be extremely helpful.  Just the act of putting things on paper to sort out your thoughts can be extremely helpful.  But you’ve got to give yourself the mental space for your brain to come down off of that fight or flight, fawn or freeze response of trauma and to be able to settle back into logical thinking again

When you are in a trauma-based response, your body does not respond with logical thinking, it can’t.  It’s a different part of the brain.  So, the emotional part is turned on.  The logical part is turned off.  Know that with your kids too.  If you’re seeing big emotions from your kids, you can’t reason them out of them right now.  You have to calm the emotions before you can address logic.  And so, you have to do that with yourself first.

Andrea:  I wrote a lot about in my book because I had this tendency after a traumatic birth with my son, I was responding to things with anger a lot, instead of tears.  And what I realized through the process of like, kind of processing all of it, and going through it and getting to the point where I found some significant healing – is that I have to allow myself to feel the sad things that come along so that they can kind of pass by.  It’s sort of like waves of emotion.  If I keep trying to contain these waves of emotion, it really becomes a storm inside of me.

And, so, through this whole process, I have been crying quite a bit.  Not everybody is a crier, but I do cry.  I cry a lot more now than I used to because I realized how beneficial it is to me.  And, so, when a song comes on that reminds me of something, you know, I feel sentimental, I feel like the world is not as it should be.  My son is missing out on something; my daughter’s missing out on something else. This is not the way I pictured their childhood; this is not the direction that I wanted to go with the business right now, and I had other things, as I am being confronted with those thoughts – if the emotion is coming up inside of me, I allow it to come out.  And I don’t do it in front of other people for the most part, but I do find a space where I can allow that emotion to come out so that it is out.  So that it has “exited the building,” if you will.

Rosanne:   And it’s exiting your body as well because in tears, stress chemicals are released, and if you don’t release those, they stay in your body, and they produce a toxic load in your body that damages your health.

Andrea:  Absolutely.

Rosanne:  So, it’s very important that if you feel that urge to cry, find a place where you can do it.  Find a place where you can do it; it’s really important.

Andrea:  And then after you allow it to go, you don’t keep feeding that emotion.  So, you don’t go back say, “OK, now, that felt kind of good.  What else do I really feel bad about right now?”  You know, you don’t want to continue to feed it, you just want to allow it to be what it is and allow it to come out and then move on.  Go find something else to think about at that point.  That doesn’t mean you’re in denial, it means that you have processed a moment of grief, and you’re moving on, and you’re going to get something done until you need to process the next moment of grief.  So, this is another way in which we need to give space for ourselves and for our teens to be able to process especially right at the beginning.

So, Rosanne, we talked about the need for space, but teams also need truth.  They need to be able to be honest about what they’re actually confronting and what we’re going to do to meet that challenge.  Can you talk to us a little bit more about that?

Rosanne:  Absolutely.  A mark of good leadership is that you trust your team enough to be honest with them about what’s being faced, and you call them to action based on the reality of the situation.  You don’t make promises that you’re not going to be able to keep, that you know can’t keep.  Honestly, it’s kind of belittling when you try to hide from your team what’s happening because the message you’re sending is “I don’t believe you’re up to this.”  And the reality is, if you’ve done a good job of building your team, this is an opportunity for them.

I had to apply this with my son.  My oldest son, like I said, is a senior in high school this year.  So, we began talking about moving – he has been part of a high school co-op, where he would go for classes two days a week, and then the rest of the time he did his assignments at home – they had to move to classes online and I fully supported that decision.  And as more and more restrictions have come down in our state, one of the things that I had to say to him was: “Honey, you’re not going to be going back to co-op.  You’re not going to have that for the end of your senior year.  I’m sorry.”

That’s a big loss for him, but it would have hurt him worse if I had made it sound like: “Well, maybe it’s going to work out, you know.”  If I had strung him along or minimized it or said, “No, we’re not going to do that.  It doesn’t matter anyway because you’re getting to do stuff online.”  If I’d minimized the loss, or minimized the reality of the situation, both of those things would have been unfair to him.  But because I was just honest with him, and I had to say: “Look, what I can tell you is you’re not going to be going back to co-op for the rest of this year. However, this thing, we don’t know yet how long it’s going to last, how long these restrictions are going to last. But we know at some point, everybody’s going to come out again.  And at that point, I promise, we will celebrate your graduation. We will find a way to celebrate your accomplishments, even though it’s not going to look like what we originally thought it was going to.”

So, it’s going to be really important for leaders right now to be honest about the situation, to be honest about what you’re confronting because of the situation.  And then to be honest about what you’re doing to meet that challenge.  They also need to hear that – not simply like, “Yeah, it’s really bad,”  – but also, “This is what we’re doing proactively to meet this challenge, and this is what we’re asking from you in response to this challenge.”

Andrea:   People need a plan.  They need to know what that plan is.  I mean, that’s something that my husband and his business did this week was, they took a step back and they said, “OK, what are we gonna do?”  We all kind of conferred:  “This is how we’re gonna handle this crisis.  And at least for the time being, we know that this is the structure that we’re going to move under.”  Then that was communicated to the rest of the team, and though there might be differing opinions on what should happen, at least there is clarity for people in knowing, “OK, so this is what they’ve told me that I can count on for my benefits. This is what they’ve told me I can count on for my time off if I happen to get this disease. They are doing everything they can to, you know, maintain our business and keep things moving forward.”

So, they have the need for space to process, the need for the truth so that they can confront the truth and meet it head-on.  But there’s also a need to be released.  Your people have a need to be released.  I think one of the things that we immediately kind of do is we tend to operate in our zone of, you know, sort of our box.  This is what I have been told I should do.  This is my role.  This is where I fit.  That can be confining anytime, but especially in a time when we need to be able to think beyond where we were before.  We need innovation.  We need vision.  So, being released to bring the best of who you are and who your team is to this situation could be a game-changer.

Rosanne, you can talk a little bit about that, and then I’ll throw in my example.

Rosanne:  Yeah.  So, I think it’s really important at a time like this to say, “We know what we’ve been used to. This is the situation we now have – we’re open to suggestions if you have ideas.”  So, in some industries, the leadership may already have a plan, and it may be a matter of communicating, “This is how we’re asking you to pivot.”  And it may be that all that you need to do releasing them from doing things the way they’re used to, you’re asking them to pivot.  In some situations, a leader may need strategic ideas and it would be important to open things up and say, “You’re used to doing this.  What else do you see yourself as being able to bring to the table in this situation?  What other ideas do we have here?”

And I realized it depends on the role the person is playing in the company, as far as how open you’re going to be to letting them bring change ideas.  But I think it’s really important to realize in times where what has been working no longer works, for whatever reason – and right now it’s external reasons – that the greatest innovation takes place.  This is an opportunity.  We can either see it as an absolute disaster, setback, whatever, or we can see it as an opportunity.

The other thing, I think, we have to be able to recognize is part of releasing people to bring the best, most selfless part of who they are to this challenge, is realizing there are going to be people who are grieving in the weeks ahead. They may not be sick themselves; they may have lost someone, and they’re going to be grieving.  And so as a team, being released to stand beside somebody in a compassionate way and not just being frustrated by the stress of the situation, but bringing the best, most selfless part of who they are to this challenge in a very human capacity, as well as a work capacity, is going to be long-term team-building,  long-term good for your company.

Andrea:  Absolutely.  So, when it comes to releasing people to be who they are, that is one of the bedrock themes of our business.  And what we do with teams and what we do with leaders, one simple example would be when our kids came home from school, and now we’re going to be at home for a quarter of the year, longer than what we would have been.  And the question became, “How are we going to do this?  All of a sudden, lots of ideas popped up on the internet, on Facebook, on Pinterest, whatever about how to handle this with our kids, and there are a couple things that I took into consideration.  And I think that this applies to teams as well, first of all, the stage or the situation of your team now.

So, when my kids were little, I would block out time, and I would sort of make a schedule for the whole day, or I’d make a list of things that we were going to get done every day, that sort of thing.  And as they’ve grown, that has become less of an important thing for us to do, not just important, but it’s almost important that we don’t do that too much.  We don’t want to over-schedule because my kids, in particular, one of them likes the schedule, one of them likes routine.  One of them needs more freedom to be able to do things.  So, she might need a list of things to do for the day, or we can discuss, “OK, so what are the things that would be most beneficial for your mind, body, and soul today?”  But she wants the freedom to be able to accomplish those things within a broader range of time.

And she will get them done, and she will do them with joy.  And she will do them with more precision and more efficiency.  She’ll just do better job if she’s given the space to be able to do that.  But our son, on the other hand, would prefer to know exactly what he’s expected to have the same jobs every day, to know what he’s going to be able to expect for a fun activity that day that sort of thing.

So, what I’m saying here is that we need to kind of know our teams, know the people, individuals, especially if they’re working from home now and ask them, “What do you need to be able to accomplish the things that you need to get done?”  “How can I help with that?  Instead of coming up with, you know, a very strict set of rules or how they’re going to be at home, instead being able to say, “What is it that you do need in order to accomplish what you’re trying to accomplish?”

And people will fight for you.  They will fight for your organization.  They will do the best that they can when you believe in them and when you are fighting for them.  They know that.  They believe that.  They want the best for the organization because you want the best for them too.  And when they’re given the freedom to be able to do that, they’re going to rise to the occasion.

Rosanne:  Absolutely.  Yeah, I have four children that I homeschool.  And I have three different plans for how we do that.  Two of my children basically, follow one plan.  One goes to a co-op.  The other has a completely different plan because we have to do what’s going to bring out the most productivity. You have to ask yourself, I think: “What is the ultimate goal that I’m trying to accomplish?”  And then from there, what’s the best way to get people to achieve that?

Andrea:  That’s right, because if the goal is for you to have control, then they’re not going to be able to achieve that for you.

Rosanne:  Right.

Andrea:  If the goal is you grasping for control, then you’re not going to get what you want.  You’re just not going to get it.  So, we’re saying, “Look, take a step back.”  So much of this is about releasing control.  It is about putting yourself in a position and a heart position in a position with your team where yes, you will bring the best of who you are.   You’re going to bring your own strategy and clarity about what the new normal will be for your team and that sort of thing.  But if you have that energy of grasping for control, people will feel it.  And they will resist it, and they will resent it.  And it is very likely that, again, it will feel like things are harder for everyone if you’re grasping for control.  It will end up being energy and resources spent on things that won’t help and the level of trust in your organization with both your team and your customers, that’s going to diminish.

So what does it look like when you actually do give people the space to process and meet their need for the truth and meet their need for being released to be able to bring the best of who they are to this situation?  Well, there’s a lot of really good that can come from that.

Rosanne:  Absolutely. Releasing control is not abdicating leadership.  We’re not suggesting that you should be passive.  You want to be assertive – you just don’t want to be aggressive.   Aggression is not going to help your team function well.

Andrea:  Yeah.   So, what do you get when you do that?  Look, your team is going to be healthier and they are going to eventually be happier, perhaps even in this moment.  They’re going to trust you more.  They’re going to use resources more efficiently.  If they’re given that space, even though you’ve given them extra space, and maybe it feels inefficient for now, eventually that’s going to come back around and really show up as efficient.  People are going to bring that innovative problem-solving energy to the things that they’re doing.  And ultimately, you’re going to have more goodwill with your team and with your customers.  Instead of grasping for control, you release and you give people the things that they really need.

Well, we want to close off today just by saying we care about you.  We are so sorry that you’re having to confront this.  We’re sorry for the world.  We don’t know what’s coming in the future.  But we do know that we are here to do whatever we can to help you.  So, if you would like to have a conversation about yourself and processing these things for yourself, or if you would like to have a conversation about how to help your team, please reach out.  Go to voiceofinfluence.net, hit the contact button and send us a message.  We would love to visit with you and do what we can to help you in this time of traumatic crisis.

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How to Assemble and Engage a Global Team with Dmitriy Peregudov

Episode 133

Dmitriy Peregudov Voice of Influence Podcast Andrea Joy Wenburg

Play here (the red triangle below), on Apple Podcast, Stitcher or TuneIn Radio (Amazon Alexa) or wherever you listen to podcasts.

You know, pulling together a team and helping them all feel like they really are a part of your organization is a difficult job as it is.  But it’s even more difficult when you’re trying to do it on a global scale.

Our guest today, Dmitriy Peregudov is doing that with giftbasketsoverseas.com.  He has a team where they are servicing over 200 countries worldwide with the goal to build international personal and corporate relationships through gifting.

And today’s conversation – he’s going to share with us how he has really handled that challenge of assembling a global team.  He’s also going to share with us their core values and what giftbasketsoverseas.com really delivers to customers – how they use offsite meetings to develop relational connections.  And let me just give you a little tip on that on the front end, they go to a different country every single time they do an offsite meeting.  It’s very interesting.

And then finally, he shares two things that you really need to focus on as a business leader to have success.  We will link to giftbasketsoverseas.com on our show notes but you can also find them by just typing it in your search engine.  We are really, really thrilled to have Dmitriy Peregudov today on the podcast.

Take a listen to the episode!

Mentioned in this episode:

 

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Transcript

People of influence know that their voice matters, and they work to make it matter more.  I’m Andrea Wenburg, and this is the Voice of Influence podcast.

You know, pulling together a team and helping them all feel like they really are a part of your organization is a difficult job as it is, but it’s even more difficult when you’re trying to do it on a global scale.

Our guest today, Dmitriy Peregudov, is doing that with giftbasketsoverseas.com.  He has a team where they are servicing over 200 countries worldwide with the goal to build international personal and corporate relationships through gifting.

In today’s conversation, he’s going to share with us how he has really handled that challenge of assembling a global team.  He’s also going to share with us their core values and what giftbasketsoverseas.com really delivers to customers, how they use offsite meetings to develop relational connections – and let me just give you a little tip on that on the front end, they go to a different country every single time they do an offsite meeting.  It’s very interesting.

And then finally, he shares two things that you really need to focus on as a business leader to have success.  We will link to giftbasketsoverseas.com in our show notes, but you can also find them by just typing it in your search engine.  We are really, really thrilled to have Dmitriy Peregudov today on the podcast.

Here is our interview:

Andrea:  All right, Dmitriy, it is great to have you here on the Voice of Influence podcast.

Dmitriy Peregudov:  Thanks for having me.  This is Dmitriy Peregudov, CEO of giftbasketsoverseas.com.

Andrea:  Awesome!  And Dmitriy, I’m curious; first of all, what is giftbasketoverseas.com?

Dmitriy Peregudov:  Sure.  So, giftbasketsoverseas.com is the company that delivers baskets worldwide.  That’s just how the name calls it. The service area we have is around 200 countries worldwide and we work with both personal and corporate gifts for our customers in the US and overseas.

Andrea:  And as I was doing my research to learn more about your company, Dmitriy, I saw that one of the key things that’s important for people to know about Gift Baskets Overseas is that your gift baskets don’t have to go through customs.  You’re actually providing gifts from the country that they’re sending it to.

Dmitriy Peregudov:  Absolutely.  That’s one of the important parts of our business model.  We do focus on local gift delivery so that it sends quickly and reliably without crossing the border, and so that recipient would never have to pay taxes or duties fees.

Andrea:  So, where did this all start for you?  How did you get going with Gift Baskets Overseas?  Were you already in the tech space or where were you when you first started this business and why did you start?

Dmitriy Peregudov:  Yeah.  Well, actually, personally, you know, a software engineer at the time and had a lot of opportunities to send gifts to other countries.  And I, myself, an immigrant from Russia, and I’ve got a chance to connect with my folks there as well as friends in other countries. So, I’ve got a lot of cases where I need to send gifts, and I found that to be quite difficult and cumbersome.  And so, you know, one of those experiences led me to say, “Well, I’m gonna try that, you know, in several countries and see what happens.” So, my tech experience allowed me to, you know, come up with the first website, and you know, we’ve started doing it in a few countries at first and that kinda led us to the expansion.

Andrea:  And you’ve been going for how long?

Dmitry Peregudov:  Well, the first website was started back in 2002.  That’s been more of like a flower business and flower delivery space, and the gift basket itself, that space was sort of, you know, we’ve entered into that in 2007.

Andrea:  What amazes me is how you were able to build a team in 200 countries.  What was that like, you know, just sort of reaching out to people, finding people, bringing them on board?  Tell us a little bit about that.

Dmitriy Peregudov:  Sure.  So, you know, we’ve got an internal team that we call A team – the people who work for the company directly and represent the company with customers.  That’s customer service team as well as order processing teams, marketing, and so on. That’s internal team. We have around seventy people today, and that group has been found through personal connections as well as some external reaching out to the right people.  But, yeah, building a global team does come with challenges.

I think you asked about also, you know, deliveries network that we have, and that’s where 200 countries come into play.  So, yeah, that is sort of an external team where we have, you know, other companies or other individual entrepreneurs who are looking to serve a certain area for gift baskets and flowers.  And so, those are certainly also found through online connection. Today, we have a lot of choices so we need to just make sure we choose the right ones. So it’s mostly true, you know, do just some checking, and trying the particular provider ourselves that we end up selecting the best ones and working with them.

Andrea:  Okay, so your internal team, are they all in Massachusetts?  Is that where you’re located?

Dmitriy Peregudov:   Yeah, the headquarters is in Massachusetts, but the team is actually all over the world.  Internal basically means that they work for the company itself representing the brand. You know, a lot of them are initially freelancers who enjoy the work environment of remote employment and wanted to get a position to something more purposeful where they have a specific client or specific company they are working for.  So that’s where it kind of began, where we started hiring freelancers to help. And then they ended up, you know, staying or focusing on us as being the main place to work or the only place to work, I would say.

And some of them are from the US, others are from Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East, and so and so.  We have a team globally now sort of residing in almost all the continents of the world and in many countries.

Andrea:  Hmm.  So, I read that your company was on the Inc. 5000 list of Fastest-Growing Companies here in the first few years of starting your company.  What were some of the really hard things that you encountered when you were first starting? What was, like, personally difficult for you?

Dmitriy Peregudov:  Sure.  So, I think working with people, in general, is not easy when you have people that are from different cultures and backgrounds.  And those who value different things in their culture – that creates certain challenges, you know. And I, myself, being from Russia and from Europe originally and sort of growing up and professionally in the US, I got to have that mix where I could understand, you know, Western values combined with some of the Eastern European and European values.  So, that helped me a bit, but you know, a lot of other people who were from neither of these two areas were different.

And also, you know, even values aside, just people are all unique, and we all have to have our own stories to tell.  So that presented some challenges, especially working remotely when you haven’t personally met someone. We had a number of people who worked with us, and we never actually met them in person.  So that presented its own challenges, where you have no opportunity to have a coffee break with someone or you don’t just go for a little chat so that in itself had some challenges in the beginning.

Andrea:  Yeah.  You mentioned the challenges of having to work with people – and getting to work – but the challenges of working with people on that global scale and from different cultures.  What were some of the things that you did – tricks or principles that you lived by and still do, maybe – to help you bridge that gap and to understand different cultures and help them to acclimate to the culture of your company?

Dmitriy Peregudov:  Sure.  That’s a great question.  Well, one of the things we’ve done is getting to know the person on a personal level and trying to learn over time what it is that drives them.  And I think that helps a lot to understand whether they’d be a fit to the team. In the beginning, we didn’t really have any formal process to bring someone on board.  We just kind of looked at the skill sets, and if they worked out, we just said, “All right, you know, we’re going to give you a try.” And we’ve got some limited experience with that, limited success with that where we had, you know, maybe two out of three people ended up being alright and a fit, I would say.  And one out of three was really not a good thing and disastrous, I would say.

So, we were spending a lot of time in training these people and bringing them onboard and wasting about 35% of the effort, and that was a lot.  Also, it took a toll on some of the trainers where you had people really coming in to train the newcomers, and they were wasting lot of their time, and that was demotivational for the next time.

So, we ended up being much more rigorous and figuring out what it is that makes a right person for the team, you know, besides the skills.  And today – and for a number of years now – we’ve hired on our core values as opposed to on the skills. So that helped. While them being… flexibility that the person, you know, values.  They value flexibility. We value flexibility. We want them to be flexible with us in many ways, you know. In exchange, we offer them flexibility for working from home, working from any location.  If they were to be… you know, they want to go spend vacation or spend some time working elsewhere, they can.

So, a lot of those things we offer, you know, in exchange, we request that they are flexible with us.  And we have number of things we want from the person; such as some hours that we want covered in addition to the normal times.  And maybe sometimes when there is a hot season, we want them to stay, you know, and doing a double shift or things like that. There are a lot of things that we require that also would call for flexibility.

And the other one that the business, big one, is ownership, and I think ownership is a huge thing with us.  And a lot of companies realized that over time that ownership of having someone drive themselves to achieve certain results is super important.  With us, we don’t have a boss, you know, standing behind someone’s chair and tapping their shoulder to say, “Hey, how’s it going,” you know. So, we don’t have that, just kind of typical office environment isn’t there.  So, we rely on these people to be self-starters and to be at least carrying their weight or more. So that’s super important for us as well.

Andrea:  How do you know if somebody is a self-starter if they’re going to take ownership when you’re first interviewing them and you’re talking to them about the possibility of working for you?

Dmitriy Peregudov:  That’s a great question.  We don’t really know, and no one ever knows.  But I think having an understanding in general if this format of work works out and if the person has done something in their personal life that shows an ownership or a certain degree of independency in their own lives – that someone, for example, who immigrated to another country and had done things on their own there, so starting up from the ground – that kind of one slice of a person that might work for us.

It works out in our favor because skillsets sometimes where you have multilingual people who have, you know, two or more languages under their belt, that sort of shows.  And some of them would be immigrants, you know, naturally because they have known their own mother tongue and then they’ve immigrated to another country and they’ve learned – let’s say, someone came to Mexico and learned Spanish there and they might have picked up English on the way as well.  So that would a trilingual person, you know, working in Mexico who actually originally lived in Belgium or Russia. So that may be a good candidate for us.

And other things like, you know, what other ownership criteria, you know, are the people who are not afraid for opportunities.  You know, someone who’s talking to us, a company that doesn’t have an office; like, really doesn’t have a central location where people go to work, you know – and a lot of people today would find that… even today in the world where a lot of companies operate under that model – they would think, “Well, that’s kind of fishy.  That’s not…” So, we want the person to be opportunistic and taking a leap of faith, and you know, trusting someone. So, we want that opportunism as well in a person, and opportunism sometimes comes hand in hand with ownership as well. 

Andrea:  So, what are your other core values?  You mentioned flexibility and ownership. Do you mind sharing others with us?

Dmitriy Peregudov:  Sure.  So, customer focus is another big one for us.  From the very beginning, we realized how much customer experience matters.  Our customers, why they do business with us, in many ways, we are not the cheapest in service and yet, we’re often chosen against many other companies in the space because we do what we do very well.  And even when some issues may happen in the field, we always cover our customers and we make sure at the end that they are satisfied.

So, we realized that after, you know… my personal experiences were quite negative when I was starting the company with the experience of using some other companies was negative and also understanding how much the deficiency exists in the space of, you know, flower and gift delivery today.  If that was true back in 2002 and 2007, and it’s still true today, where a lot of companies out there exist and being created every day, but those who really can deliver on the customer promise – there’s only handful of those, and that I’m proud to say we’re one of those who are able to deliver on that.

Andrea:  Well, you don’t stick around as long as you have and service as many countries as you do without good customer service because that’s pretty much all it is.  Your product, of course, is important as well, but I mean, my goodness, yeah. I would think that you would hear if something didn’t turn out like somebody expected.

Dmitriy Peregudov:  Absolutely.  In fact, we realized that we’re not in service of delivering, you know, gift baskets or flowers – we’re actually in service of delivering emotions and connections.  So that really bring us to sort of the importance of a customer interaction and that’s far above just survivability. I mean, surviving in space, that is important and that’s where some people say, “Well, I’m gonna focus on the customer so that I’m better than others.”  But once you realize that, you know, you’re not really selling gifts, you’re selling relationships; you’re selling an opportunity for someone to build a relationship or to improve it. So, once you realize that that’s what you’re selling then, you know, the only thing that really matters is the customer experience with that.

Andrea:  Hmm, well, that’s such a deeper purpose than being here to make money.  And I’m sure that that’s the case for the people that work for the company as well.  I’m guessing that you communicate that with them; that you’re here to help facilitate or help build connections and help with relationships.  And that probably means something to them.

Dmitriy Peregudov:  Yes.  Indeed, it does.  And you know, one of the slices there is that when we do bring someone over, another important part is, “What is compensation like,” and then people do ask that question.  Obviously, that’s important for someone working to be compensated fairly. In the beginning, especially early on, we didn’t have a lot of funds available for compensating newcomers.  And we generally hired from, you know, very fresh out of school or someone who had related experience in what we do. And so, the offering salaries were generally on the lower side.

So, oftentimes, people would join us, not because they want a high pay or not because they want to have a high personal achievement record.  Sort of like, we deterred individually. So, we deter those who want to make career out of it necessarily. So, people who came in, they really sort of care about what we do and wanted to be part of it.  So that really sort of took away that… those hunters who came for the money. So that helped us as well, I think.

Andrea:  I can see how immigrants would be able to relate to this problem of wanting to connect overseas and being able to maintain those relationships in meaningful ways even with gifts and things like that.  I love that there are so much continuity in the values. You mentioned flexibility, ownership, and customer focus. Are there others?

Dmitriy Peregudov:  Sure.  So, besides those, we worked on finding other values, searching the keys for what they are because we really didn’t want to make any of those up.  You know, a lot of companies say, “Well, we have those values, and we’ll just put them on a poster.”

Andrea:  Yeah.

Dmitriy Peregudov:  For a number of years, we haven’t had any values formally decided on.  But lately, you know, about four years ago, our management team got together in one of the offsite meetings.  We do those every year, which I should tell you more about later. But that [was] really the time where we kind of reflected on who we are, and what is it we do, and we’ve understood that we value diversity.

And diversity is a big thing, right?  Diversity of customer base – we have all kinds of customers.  We have corporate and personal. We have, you know, those who prefer to order all out of the form, and those who prefer to talk to the Chatbot.  We have those who just want to order by email and those who just go to the website. So, we have, like, all kinds of different customers. So, flexibility is important for us to offer to our customers, and they’ll come from different countries, so different languages, different cultures, you know, religions, sexual orientations.

So, we try to go for gifts to all those groups and being as more flexible for all the different niche groups.  So, niche customer base is, you know, what comes with that flexibility. And internally, we’re also very flexible and diverse within the team.  So, we have people from all over the world working for us, and also, they have different religions and all that comes with it. So when it all comes together with the trips we take, you know, people from all over the place come together once a year to one new country.

So, every year, we pick a country, and we take our team there.  And that’s where we brainstorm. We learn about each other. We put little green dots in Google to faces.  You know, how _____.  So, we tried to kind of go away from that and say, “Well, now this green dot becomes a real person, a real face.”  And we learned about each other in those corporate outings. They are sort of semiformal, semi-fun, so we really educate each other in an informal environment and that’s really the focus of those meetings.

This year, we’re planning to go to Portugal and to Columbia as well because that kind of seems the places we haven’t been to yet.  We’ve got 200 countries on the map, so I’m not sure if we’re going to make it, but…

Andrea:  You’re going to need quarterly meetings instead of…

Dmitriy Peregudov:  Yeah.  This year, we have _____, so we’re making two meetings.  Usually, we do one. But this year, we’ve got exceptionally a good Christmas where we’ve got a lot of _____ during the season.  So, we decided that we can afford two meetings this year, and we’re going to send people to two countries this time.

Andrea:  Hmm.  So, who all do you have attend that meeting?

Dmitriy Peregudov:  Well, generally, it’s the management team is a core of that.  And in addition to it, you know, every year we have newcomers who join the team, and they don’t know about the company enough to really fully drink our Kool-Aid.  So, we need to kind of get them accustomed, sort of get them to learn about the company and about people more. So, those newcomers are first in line to be invited.  Of course, once we believe that they are a good fit. Usually after two or three months, you kinda know that’s a right fit. But generally, when we hire for the holiday then after the holiday, we’ve get to keep some of the people who were hired seasonally.  So that’s the time in spring when we get to keep people for good.

And if they feel like that’s a right fit for them, you know, a lot of them also realize that they may have enjoyed Christmas season, but they also have, you know, really burned out.  And those who were burned out after one season, they’re not really a fit because that means it’s probably not their type of work. It’s not their cup of tea to continue. So, we end up inviting newcomers, you know, most of the management team and also some of the people who also are sort of core team.

So, generally each trip is between seventeen and twenty-two people or so.  It’s a small group. We usually rent, like, a big villa or we rent a small hotel all for us.  And we do stuff like educational topics – everyone brings a topic to present. And also, we have sometimes some professionals who join to present certain topics.  And we meet our partners in each country. That’s a big thing as well. So, we have those who delivers for us in that country, they join us for the trip. We learn about them.  They learn about us. That kind of builds those relationships as well.

Andrea:  Hmm.  I love this.  I’m just kind of jotting notes as you’re talking about it and I’m thinking about how powerful that is for really building the team for them to be able to feel like they’re really a part of it.

Dmitriy Peregudov:  It’s very important.

Andrea:  Yeah.  You said educational topics – do you ever do strategic planning in these meetings or is that saved for a different time?

Dmitriy Peregudov:  We do.  To some degree, we would have strategic meetings during the year as well.  Those [are] kind of done usually after the season when we kind of look back and see what worked, what didn’t – and we continue on.  Now, strategy is certainly becoming more and more important, so those meetings are quite important. Each meeting has a theme of its own.  Like last year, we had a theme of Never Lose A Customer Again, and that’s a book by Joey Coleman.  It’s kind of a book that we decided that we will make our bible for a year or two.

The idea of that book is, you know, several strategies of how do you centralize all the processes you have around the customer – how do you make customer focus your core competency, and what do you do to never lose a customer again.

And so there’s a process in the book that defines a hundred-day process on how not to lose a customer.  So, we’ve started making changes in the company that would make us less likely to lose a customer. Of course, in reality, people do get lost is an issue for a lot of companies.  But we are not an exception in saying that, you know, it’s so much more expensive to attract a new customer, and it’s so much easier to keep an existing one happy.  So, once you start shifting your marketing dollars and your effort of the team to saving a customer, then you start realizing that you were wasting all these money to attract new-coming customers and you were really missing out on the golden opportunity of keeping your existing ones happy.

Andrea:  Yes.  It’s so much more expensive to acquire new customers, so it makes a lot of sense to spend a lot more time and effort focusing on the customers that you already have.

Dmitriy Peregudov:  Exactly.  And in fact, it’s actually part of the business that we have.  Especially with corporate customers where a lot of our corporate clients have realized that for them to keep a relationship with their own customers up and keep loyalty of their customers and grow their relationships with their customer base is through gifting.  So, what we do for them is, in a lot of ways, what we do for ourselves. So, you know, also realizing customer loyalty and keeping customers happy and also building the relationships by sending gifts, that’s what a lot of our customers understand.

You know, Christmas and year-round, they create birthday programs for their clients, for their customers and for their employees as well, so building loyalty with both employees and customers is in a lot of ways part of the strategy for other customers we service.

Andrea:  Yes, of course.  That makes complete sense.  Dmitriy, this has been a really interesting conversation.  I’m curious; when you think about the listener who’s out there wanting to lead a purposeful team, wanting to have a voice of influence, do you have any parting words for them?  Any last piece of advice that you’d want to offer?

Dmitriy Peregudov:  Sure.  The technical and financial parts of any business owner or a CEO is oftentimes calls us to look at the numbers.  And I think numbers are important, no matter what other things we have to look at. But I think the numbers will come together well and profitability will be realized if you start focusing on the right things.  I think that’s what I would suggest, you know, focusing on the customer and looking at how to make it right for the customer or how to design the business around your customer – making that work will make your numbers work.  And shifting more of your focus to the existing customers who have chosen you once and who have much higher chance of choosing you again really is a key to our success.

And as for the team, explain out to the team and letting them have a piece of ownership of particular area, no matter how small having someone to be heard.(26:54)  In our case, it’s very important that everyone who is part of the team has a chance to voice their concerns.  And we listen to our team very closely, and management team does not ignore those words. So that really makes everyone feel like they actually own part of that company and part of the process.  So, I think on the team side, I recommend letting people be heard. And on the customer side focus on that and make sure that you take care of those existing customers.

Andrea:  Great words of wisdom from Dmitriy.  Thank you so much for taking time to be a voice of influence for our listeners today.

Dmitriy Peregudov:  Thank you, Andrea.  Thanks for having me.

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How To Get Unstuck On a Project

Episode 132

Play here (the red triangle below), on Apple Podcast, Stitcher or TuneIn Radio (Amazon Alexa) or wherever you listen to podcasts.

What do you do when you’re stuck on a project?

My Communications Specialist, Rosanne Moore, is on the show to help me explain the steps that are needed to make a project a reality; especially when you’re feeling stuck.

In this episode, we discuss the common reason we get stuck on projects, the importance of understanding why your voice matter before trying to break through the barrier of being stuck when trying to share your voice, an example of how I recently felt stuck while creating a free gift for you and the method I used to help me break through that feeling of being stuck, and more!

Ten Questions to Ask Yourself to Help You Get Unstuck:

  1. What is the name of the project you want to complete?
  2. What is on the to-do list for the project?
  3. What am I afraid of right now?
  4. Why does this project matter for me and for other people?
  5. What do I need to learn or get better at doing in order to complete the project?
  6. If I complete this project and it fails, what will happen?
  7. If I complete this project and it succeeds, what will happen?
  8. What am I doing to distract myself?
  9. What am I running from?
  10. What is the next step I need to take?

Take a listen to the episode!

Mentioned in this episode:

 

Free Training to Improve the Efficiency of Your Voice

People generally don’t enjoy giving or receiving feedback, which leads to poor results as well as confusion, frustration, and resentment. Feedback conversations don’t have to feel confrontational or be unproductive. This training will help you be clear, calm, and get great results for you and the person on the other side of the table. [Click here] to transform your feedback method in less than 30 minutes!

Transcript

People of influence know that their voice matters, and they work to make it matter more.  I’m Andrea Wenburg, and this is the Voice of Influence podcast.

Last week, we had Chad Allen on the podcast, and he talked about what it’s like to write a book and create a book proposal.  He’s particularly good at helping people create a book proposal that gets them published.  And I’ve been having this conversation with some friends, recently, and colleagues, who are interested in writing a book but they feel just completely overwhelmed.  They feel stuck where they are.  Maybe they have some idea in their head about what a book would be.  They know what the title would be, but they get stuck when it comes to actually writing the book.  Maybe they work for a while and then they go back and edit and then they edit again and then they edit again.

And instead of actually getting out their first draft, which is kind of what you have to do when you’re going to write a book, and then you take that draft and you start to rework it.  Instead, they get so caught up in the process of how messy it is that they’re trying to clean it up as they go.  And really you can’t, you can’t clean up all projects right as you go.

But truth is that whether it’s writing a book or any other kind of creative project or even analytical projects, something that you feel stuck on, you know, if you’re at a point where you feel stuck up, most likely you’ve gone to the process where you start at the beginning and you are so excited.  You’ve got some clarity – maybe you know the title of the book.  You have a sense of what you want to say and you’re like “OK, this is what I wanna do.”  “I’m gonna do this.”  “I’m gonna write this book.”  And then you start and it just comes out really messy and you go back and you edit.

And then you go back and you edit some more and pretty soon, you realize that its’ been three weeks and you’re only on paragraph six.  It is so frustrating to have something that you know you want to contribute in life.  You want to contribute to others but you’re not able to get it out because you feel stuck.

Well, today, Rosanne and I are going to have a little conversation about how I have learned to get past that moment of resistance, that feeling of complete overwhelm where you’re just get paralyzed and you don’t know how to move forward.  So that you can actually get a project complete, get it into the world, get it to somebody else’s hand, get it complete for your house, for your home, for your life and the difference that that can make for you.  Just think about the difference that would make for you if you actually got your projects complete.  Getting past that overwhelm requires in emphasis on mindset, on strategy, on your skills, and then execution – just getting it done.

Today, with my conversation with Rosanne, I want to share an example of when this has happened to me recently and how I kind of got past it.  Thankfully, I’m done with the project now.  But it was really, really hard for a while and probably a good two weeks; I was stuck on my projects.  And then finally, I took the time to do some reflection and I’m going to share with you what questions I actually ask myself and how I did this reflection so that I can move forward.  You can find this reflection questions in our show notes at voiceofinfluence.net.

Now, here’s my conversation with Rosanne Moore:

What do you do when you get stuck on a project?  Hi, this is Rosanne Moore, Communication Specialist at Voice of Influence.  And today, Andrea and I are going to talk about the steps that are needed to make a project to reality, especially when you’re feeling stuck.

So, Andrea, what is the problem that we ran into that has this feeling stuck?

Andrea:  Well, I don’t know about you, Rosanne, but for me, I get overwhelmed when I come up to a project and I’m feeling stuck.  I know that that is what I’m feeling.  I’m feeling overwhelmed, because sometimes I don’t really know if, you know, do I have what it takes?  Do I even know what to do or how to get to the end of this project?  Does that resonate with you?

Rosanne:  Absolutely.  And a lot of times if I’m not able to figure out quickly then I just get pressured and I pushed it aside because I feel like I’m not going to do it well anyway.

Andrea:  Yeah, because we wanted to be really good.  I mean, if we’re going to put a contribution of some kind, make some sort of contribution to the world, whether that’d be a book or it may be like, you know, I’m working on this free mini-course for our listeners.  I have been working on that.  Even just for a kid maybe it’s homework or, you know, if you’re still in school, maybe it’s homework.  Sometimes, those things just feel so big that they’re overwhelming and we’re not sure exactly what to do with it.

Rosanne:  Yes.  I can think of a conversation I had with my children this week with a weren’t something done.  And when we got to the bottom of why, it was “Because I don’t I’m gonna get an A.”  And my point was, “Just get started.”  I’m like, “Forget the A; just get started.”

Andrea:  Yes.  Yeah, I think that that’s one of the biggest things that some of us struggle with is we really want what we’re doing to be good, or we want it to be successful.  But we get too stuck on that that we think that we can’t make it so and we give up like you said before.  Yeah, it’s a real problem because, you know, if you’re listening to this as a voice of influence, you know that what you have to share makes a difference and it could mean something really important for somebody else.

Even if your project is to Marie Kondo your home, you don’t Marie Kondo your home all in one time.  And that’s a reference too just this idea of pulling out all the things that don’t carry meaning and you don’t want to carry with you until the next phase of your life and things like these.  I mean, it could be a really big project.  You go through, not just room by room, to do that, you go through drawer by drawer; otherwise, it just feels completely overwhelming.  So, whatever the project is, I think that it’s easy to feel overwhelmed.

Rosanne:  Yeah, I think, whether, it’s something that’s household or work or school or anything that matters to us, we’re juggling so much that it is easy just to feel like life is overwhelming if we don’t immediately know what to do.

Andrea:  And, you know, especially with creative projects, like writing a book.

Rosanne:  Yes, yes.

Andrea:  Even starting a blog or if you’re an entrepreneur, trying to figure out how to get everything off the ground, launch something.

Rosanne:  Right.  Or relationally, if you’re doing a project with a team and you’re not sure how to approach it in a way that’s going to be smooth, peaceful or whatever, it’s easy to get stuck there as well.

Andrea:  Sure, and a lot of times we’ve seen leaders want to give up and not even bother going there with their teams when that’s just project because there’s so much that you have to offer.  Your experience, your wisdom is so valuable and important to other people.  And the urge that you have inside to want to complete some sort of project – there’s a reason for that.  And a lot of times, it’s this resistance that we feel on the front end of things that keeps us, you know, a feeling overwhelmed and stuck.  But if we can breakthrough that overwhelm and sense of resistance then we can move to the place where we’re actually getting our wisdom into the world. We’re getting that project completed so that our life will be better in some way.

Rosanne:  Well, you’ve written a book and you have your own business and you work constantly with leaders who are trying to build better teams.  Can you give me an example of how this has played out for you at that time when you felt overwhelmed or you didn’t know where to begin on a project?

Andrea:  Yes, absolutely.  And I have an actual example I want to share, but I want to also let you know that when I first, oh gosh I would say, it’s probably six or seven years ago, I was super frustrated in life because I felt like I had all of these like really good things in my head.  Experiences and expertise and examples and things that I could use that I knew could turn into a message and could make a difference for others, but it all felt stuck in my head.  And so it took me a lot to get over that at the very beginning and to breakthrough and be able to get to the point where I was actually putting things out into the world.

So, I want to start with that that if you are somebody who you feel like it is so overwhelming and maybe it’s a big piece of your existence right now, we’re going to talk today about breaking things down into smaller stuff to help you get past this initial kind of “Oh my goodness, this is too much, I still really want to do it though.”  But I would say too, Rosanne, that, yes, I have an example of how this has played out in my life just like recently.

Rosanne:  One of the things when we were talking about this as we were prepping for this episode that you said that I thought was really important was thinking in terms of how you would be different if you tap into the things that is swirling within you basically but it’s not being released right now.  You talked about recognizing that you have something to offer and not letting go of that even though you feel overwhelmed about how to put it out there right now.

Andrea:  Hmm.  I think that’s one of the most important things to hold on to at the very beginning when you have decided that “Yes, I feel overwhelmed but I want to break through this.”  It’s to start with why does this matter.  You know, why does this matter that I put this out to the world?  Why does this matter that I complete this project?  How does this going to impact others?  How does this going to impact myself and my business or my relationships?  Being really clear about, essentially, your why is incredibly important at the very outset, because if you don’t have a clear reason why then you’re not going to have the courage and determination that it takes to breakthrough.

Rosanne:  So, give me an example.  You said, you have something recently that you had to deal with and have a breakthrough on, what was it?

Andrea:  Yes.  OK, so, we have been trying to put this Feedback Method course together.  And what I’m talking about right now is this mini-course that is about 15-20 minutes long, just a few like three videos and we thought, “You know, this would be great things for the audience.”  “Anybody in our audience could use it whether it’s because you know somebody saw me speak at a conference or hearing this on the podcast or coming to our website, they would really be able to get a lot of value out of how to give feedback.”

Rosanne:  And part of the reason this is important is this is your contribution, right?  A lot of people struggle with this.  But this is something that you don’t struggle with.  This is something that you’re not afraid of facing or going into.  And so, you have something to say about this that can really be a value.

Andrea:  Exactly, exactly.  So, we decided like, “Let’s do this.  Let this be our free gift to our audience.”  And so, I was really excited about getting going on this and it was really easy for me.  That was an easy part.  The very beginning was really easy.  I can get out the outline.  I can figure out what the basic concepts are that I’m wanting to share with everybody else.  But what became overwhelming is when I had to actually put it into words and I had to put it into pictures and I had to think all the logistics.  And all of a sudden, I just felt like “How am I gonna get out _____with this?”  “This is really, really tough.”

Rosanne:  So, you really had to move from the creative vision to actually putting feet on it.

Andrea:  Exactly.

Rosanne:  How did you get through that process?

Andrea:  So I have this little method that I use to help me breakthrough when I feel overwhelmed like this and I’d love to just share it.  I think I’ll just take you through the process.  Does that sound OK?

Rosanne:  That sounds great.

Andrea:  All right.

Rosanne:  Because you got it done.  Let’s just say that.

Andrea:  That’s right.  We got it done.

Rosanne:  She knows what she’s talking about.

Andrea:  That’s right.  You definitely helped to do this.  So, this is what I’d like to share with you and you can find this information actually on our website on the show notes.  We’re just going to give you the list of questions that you can ask yourself.  But what I’d like to encourage you to do is to use your journal.  When you’re feeling overwhelmed like this, you know that you’re stuck, you feel that you can’t really, or even the progress that you’re trying to make isn’t getting you anywhere and you’re speeding your wheels that sort of thing.

So, the very first question on your sort of list is your project.  What is the project?  Just identify the project, use words.  Rosanne, can you explain why it’s so important that we actually use words to describe what we’re experiencing?

Rosanne:  Well, I think naming things is an important step in knowing what the creative idea means and how it matters.  A lot of times, creative people can get very locked in their own minds.  I think we all do that, right?  And I think you’re right, I think putting words to things, naming them, and putting them on paper is an important part of unraveling the idea and making it something that’s actually viable.

Andrea:  Hmm, yes.  And even if you’re more analytical person than creative – I think people who tend to really analyze things can get stuck in a cycle of analysis and then the whole analysis or paralysis by analysis or whatever that’s called, they can do the same thing.  So, what we’re laying out for you is just writing it down and actually setting these things for yourself will be helpful.

So, number one would be the project – just name the project.  OK, so my project was the Feedback Method course.  It’s this course that’s going to help people to demystify the process of how to get feedback.  So, I had to think through this.  I’ll make it easier for them and that sort of thing.  So, the project is “What is on the to-do list?”  What are the actual tasks that I need to do?  So, for me, I had written down here I needed to write a script.  I already made an outline.  I already knew kind of what I was trying to say, but I was at this point now where I needed to write an actual script.  That’s hard to do – to make slides, to record it, to create a worksheet, to upload it to the learning center and that sort of thing.

So, I had this then to-do list.  It’s really important to be clear about – these are the actual steps that are coming that I’m going to need to take.

Rosanne:  That’s great.  So, once you got that clarity about that, what’s next?

Andrea:  Well, I’ve noticed that for me a lot of times the reason why I’m resisting and feeling overwhelmed is the sense of fear.  So, my question is what am I afraid of right now?  And the things that I listed, I was worried that it wouldn’t be good enough.  That it wouldn’t be high quality.  That was one of my fears.  Another fear was that I would be disappointed with the results.  Then another fear that I had was that I wouldn’t complete the project, that I wouldn’t actually meet the deadline, like I was afraid of not getting it done – which was keeping me from keeping it done.

Rosanne:  Yeah.  And it so often like that, isn’t it?  We tend to approach things like this logically.  It’s as if we think if we tell ourselves what’s actually true that would change behavior, but not necessarily because what you’re putting out there is people are passionate.  Were not just motivated by what is actually accurate.  There are other things that are going on beneath the surface in our own hearts that can actually be holding as back and we’re not even necessarily aware of it.  So, what your suggesting is that we need to get in touch with that.

Andrea:  Yeah.  And that what’s we kind of, you know, have dubbed the term “human dynamics.”  I mean, that’s one of the pieces of the human dynamics that we help people with is to kind of understand what is going on – what is going underneath the surface.  So, that fear then is really important to identify.  And then the next piece of it was to ask myself “Why does this project matter?”  Like you and I talked about before, Rosanne, we have to know why something matters and our why, you know, in order to get through it.

Rosanne:  Yeah, because if you don’t have a vision then with every obstacle you face, you become less motivated to go back to it.

Andrea:  Sure.  So, I will ask myself, you know, why does this matter to other people and why does this matter to me?  Why does this matter to our company?  So, for others, I knew that it would matter for them because it would make the process of giving really good feedback, less intimidating.  It would demystify that process.  It would help people get over the overwhelm of giving feedback because a lot of time we’re afraid of having to have a confrontational conversation, either because we’re worried about the tension and the relationship or maybe we’re worried about how the other person will respond – what might happen afterwards.  And there are all these things that kind of overwhelm us.  And I knew that if I can just let this out, people will be able to handle those things that will alleviate their fears.  And that could make a difference for a lot of things.

Rosanne:  Sure.  Absolutely!  Yeah, because if there’s one thing we constantly have to do is deal with other people in a way that’s going to be productive – and healthy and avoiding hard conversations is not going to help with that.

Andrea:  Right.  Right, so we’re talking about decreasing stress and maybe help retaining employees and clients.  Perhaps helping employees be happier, improving their jobs, move up.  Sometimes, we have to give feedback to people who, you know, maybe it’s giving feedback to your superiors, somebody that’s, you know, your manager or something like that.  And it’s important that we’re not afraid of those conversations because we need to help make each other better.  We need to make our environment better so that we can do better work.

Rosanne:  And if people don’t have a good plan for doing that then they tend not to do it and then growth opportunity _____.

Andrea:  Right.  Yep, and it’s the same thing with what we’re talking about right now with this, you know, being overwhelmed about a project.  If you can go through this process, I really think that you’re going to be able to actually complete the project.  So, it’s so important.

Rosanne:  So, then what’s next?

Andrea:  Yeah.  I mean, the other piece of that is why does it matter to our company?  Why does it matter to Voice of Influence that we put this out there?  We know we want to do good for the world but why does it matter for us too?  And for us, it has to do with growing our platform and finding out who’s really interested in what we have to share and validating our message in what we’re doing.  It helps us to know that we’re on the right track.

Rosanne:  Right.  Right, because great ideas in isolation are not helping anybody.  So, if it’s not making a difference for people then we want to know why so we can hone that message better.

Andrea:  Yeah.  So, here we are, we’re about halfway through this whole thing.  We’re looking at – we need to know the projects.  What’s on the to-do list?  What are we afraid of?  Why does this project matter for me?  Why does it matter for other people?  And then what do I really need to learn or get better at doing in order to accomplish this?  Is there something, you know, we go back to that to-do list?  Or is there anything on that to-do list that might be a skill that you need to grow in and learn about – research that you need to do or something like that.  That’s also important to tackle – so our mindset and our strategy and/or skills.

Rosanne:  And some of these skills are things, like you said, we need to learn how to grow in.  But others might be things that we might need to hire out instead.  I know a lot of the teams that you work with, part of the reason they have you come on board is because you offer another set of eyes and another perspective that they can’t just manufacture themselves.  And so, when you work with a team and the _____ taking place, you’re bringing another skill set that they don’t have themselves and that’s OK because you’re able to offer that.

Andrea:  Right.  And it’s really hard to take your own messaging and clarify it more.  It’s hard to take your relationships and identify what’s really going on.  It’s hard to do those things for yourself when you’re kind of in the middle of it.

Rosanne:  Sure.

Andrea:  And so to have somebody else come in and be able to take a different perspective is important.  You know, if you’re in the book writing, like last week we had Chad Allen on the podcast and he was talking about doing a book proposal.  Well, I can tell you that I’m definitely going to Chad when I need help with the book proposal because he knows so much more about it than I do.  And, you know, when I was writing my book, I called on you because I needed help being able to see what of my message that I’m trying to share is resonating and what makes sense and what doesn’t.

So, having that other perspective is important.  But then sometimes just having somebody else to do something that you’re not good at doing, whether that’d be social media or somebody else to do, you know, the financial books or…

Rosanne:  Technical skills.

Andrea:  Technical skills.  Sure, and stuff like that.

Rosanne:  OK, so then that brings us to the final phase, right?  Getting it done.

Andrea:  Nope.  OK, if the project fails – that’s the next question on my list.  If the project fails, what’s going to happen, because a lot of times, you know, like I said, one of the big fears with my particular project was that if it fails – that’s one of my actual fears is that I would fail and so I can’t even move forward.  But the real question is if I get it done and it fails then what will happen?  And I needed to be very clear about this so that I understood that it wouldn’t be the end of the world if my project fails.

So, for me, the answer was, “Well, you know, I’m gonna be disappointed and I’m gonna have to try something else.”  “I’m gonna have to come back to it.”  And then the question is if it succeeds, what will happen?  What is that vision, again, not just why does it matter but what will actually happen if it succeeds?  And for me that answer had to do with being successful as a company, someday selling books and getting a book contract and things like that.  So, understanding how when it fails or succeed, what that will look like.  That’s super important.

Rosanne:  And that’s valuable, isn’t, it to realize, to be connected what success means that it matters, that I take the steps that I take.  And also to not make failure kind of sum zero, but then it’s part of the process of growth.  So, if something doesn’t work out the way that we hope, it’s still material for later success – we can learn from it.

Andrea:  Hmm, totally.  OK, so then after that I really started to look at “Well, you know what I’m distracted.”  “What am I doing to distract myself right now?”  And I thought about that, “What am I doing to distract myself right now?”  And I thought about that I was like “You know, sometimes I’m getting involved in the news.”  “I’m overindulging in watching news programs or trying to understand different things that maybe in isn’t going to be that very helpful for me.”

Another thing that I was snoozing is playing a game on my phone to distract myself.  I’m like “Why am doing this?” But I think it’s really important that we recognize that there’s a difference between just sort of relaxing and doing your normal life and then using something as a distraction.

Rosanne:  And you have to ask yourself when you catch yourself doing that why – maybe that goes back to the fears again.  You might want to reassess what am I afraid of that I’m avoiding.

Andrea:  Totally, it could be that.  And you know the next thing on the list is actually, what am I running from?  What emotions am I running from?  What situation am I running from?  Yes, of course, there’s always the project that you’re working on.  But for me, it was deeper than that.  It went out further than that.  For example, my daughter is turning 13 soon and I thought “Oh my goodness, I am kind of getting freak out by this milestone in her life.”  Like, how will she change?  How will I change?  How will our relationship change?  We’ll we have time with her in the next few years?  All those things started flooding me, and I realize that that’s one of the issues that I’m dealing with though there isn’t direct correlation to my project – it’s impacting my project.

Rosanne:  That’s a good point.

Andrea:  So, then issue become “OK, now, I’m kind of thought through all these things, I have an idea of what’s going on inside of me.  I have an idea of the things that I need to do.  The question is – what is the actual next step that I need to take?  What am I going to commit to doing next?

Rosanne:  And how did you answer that?

Andrea:  Well, I answered that, number one, by actually going through this process of reflecting.  So, I thought “OK, there we go, that’s one checkmark on my list.”  I went through the process of reflecting through this overwhelm and that’s one checkmark on my list.  And then what’s next?  I had to buckle down and just say, “I need more time to write that script than I thought I would and give myself the permission to do that.”  So, that was my next step.

Rosanne:  OK, so you’re making progress on your checklist and then what else is a part of that?

 Andrea:  Well, I think that the checklist itself is so important because, you know, used to tell me when I get overwhelmed.  She would tell me, “Andrea, you need to write all of the things down that you need to do.  Make your task list and then start actually making those physical check marks next to your list.”  At first, I thought that was kind of like sillier beneath me for some reason because it just seems trivial.  But then when I started to do it, when I actually got really overwhelmed with things and I actually started using a checklist and started to see those checks go, I started to realize what I’ve learned about the brain which is that the brain is that that affirmation – the actual physical visual that you have succeeded.

So, the checkmark is a nice reminder that you’ve succeeded, but so is a reward.  So, if you can give yourself a reward for taking that next step, go for it – whether it’d be ice cream or, you know, a new pair of socks, or whatever it might _____ be for you.

Rosanne:  A walk in the park.

Andrea:  A walk in the park.

Rosanne:  Yeah, so the checklist isn’t simply keeping you organized; it’s also a method of celebrating your success, isn’t it?

Andrea:  Absolutely, absolutely!

Rosanne:  I will admit to being one of these people who adds things to my list.  If I have to do something extra that wasn’t on the list, I’ll put it on the list just so I can check it off and reward myself for getting it done.

Andrea:  Boom!

Rosanne:  _____

Andrea:  Yeah, exactly.  And the great news is that this project is complete.  So, I’m thrilled because now I can say that we have something to offer the world and it can do all the things that it was designed to do.

Rosanne:  So, if you’re wanting to avoid failure in terms of having ideas locked up and having this wisdom that can’t be accessed for the world and feeling chaotic and paralyzed – maybe having other people frustrated with you because you’re shut down and you’re not getting done what you need to get done.  Or your company, you’re personally experiencing financial loss because you’re not accomplishing what needs to be done.  If you want to avoid that and want instead to have more clarity and to make a difference, to have less stress and more motivation for the things that you know are important then go to voiceofinfluence.net and look at the course that Andrea has just finished putting together, specifically the Voice of Influence Feedback Method.  It’s a free course there.  And look at the show notes – we’ve got the questions that she talked about working through because they’re all right there for you.

Andrea:  Absolutely!  So, yeah, if you’re just looking at “I need to finish a project,” just go to the show notes.  Go through this little method that will help you to break through your moment of paralysis.  You can do this.  But if you’re thinking to yourself, you know, that feedback is really an issue for me, we would love to have you partake in the course.  It is free, so we really encourage you to participate in that and we’d love to hear about it too if you do.

I mean, really life – it doesn’t have to feel like life is happening to you.  It doesn’t have to feel like your gifts, like your expertise, your wisdom is going to waste.  You can show grit.  You can get your contribution into the world.  You can get your wisdom into the hearts of the people who work with you or who you have relationships with.  It really has to do with getting over this sense of overwhelm on a project and moving forward and doing it all in love too.  So, we’re really glad that you’re with us today.

Rosanne:  Thanks so much, Andrea, for sharing these thoughts.

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17 Strategic Things A Business Can Do During a Slow-Down or Shut-Down Due to COVID-19

Bonus Episode

 

Free Training to Improve the Efficiency of Your Voice

People generally don’t enjoy giving or receiving feedback, which leads to poor results as well as confusion, frustration, and resentment. Feedback conversations don’t have to feel confrontational or be unproductive. This training will help you be clear, calm, and get great results for you and the person on the other side of the table. [Click here] to transform your feedback method in less than 30 minutes!

 

 

 

 

Some work can be done from home, but some cannot. Whether your industry is currently taking a hit or you are taking “social distancing” seriously as a business, it’s time to start looking for any opportunity this disruption might offer. Here are 17 things that could move the needle for service-based, hands-on businesses that shut down or slow down during the COVID-19 outbreak.

1. Catch up on paperwork.

2. Take a close look around your building and make a list of things that you need to or would like to change. What is broken? What doesn’t fit your brand? What small changes could be made to make a difference in how your employees, patients, or customers experience your brand?

3. Hold a strategic planning meeting via teleconference. Be sure to include a clear action plan at the end!

4. Review and revamp processes and systems such as: client intake and outtake, business development, communications, paperwork, customer experience, customer service talking points, etc.

5. Analyze a typical day for wasted time and energy, then make a plan for implementing changes.

6. Organize your online cloud storage.

7. Write an article you could use for content marketing now or in the future.

8. Create and hold an educational webinar for current clients, customers, or patients.

9. Listen to business and leadership podcasts or books. Take notes and make a list of actions you will take based on what you learn.

10. Survey your team with a Google Form. What’s working? What’s not working? What ideas do they have to improve the business? What ideas do they have for work they could create for themselves in this time of social distance?

11. Have 1:1 conversations with people on your team. How are things going for them personally? Where are they now and where do they want to go?

12. Provide an online workshop connected to a personality/strengths assessment to help your team work better with each other.

13. Create and provide online leadership training in small increments (short videos/audio).

14. Have small groups or individuals review research and report back to the group via teleconference.

15. Give each person a stipend for an online course or book, then ask them to report back to the group with slides in Google docs.

16. Have everyone read a book or listen to a podcast and then create a discussion around it that would propel the group forward.

17. Find a way your team can work together to help your community.

Keep a running list of ideas for what you and your team could do but you haven’t had time to do. Ask your team for their input, then decide: “What things can others do and which of these things do I need to do?”