Define Your Own Success with Jesse Biondi and Melissa LeEllen

Melissa & Jesse

[00:00:00] Miriam: Hey guys, today it is super fun because it is my first time interviewing two people at once. I have Melissa and Jessie here today, and they are the owners and creators of Creative Global Entertainment. And there’s so much more beyond that. They also have a podcast reimagine success. We’re gonna get into the weeds with all of this, but Melissa, you’re an actress, you’re a marketing director, a producer, a comic book creator, writer, motivational speaker, podcast host.

[00:00:33] That’s a lot of hats to wear. And then Jessie, you’re a musician of all instruments, but cello guitar. . Also a podcast host, producer, teacher, motivational speakers. You guys like are the whole package . So I’m really happy to have you here. I can’t wait to see where our conversation goes.

[00:00:53] Melissa: Thank you so

[00:00:54] Jessie & Melissa: much

[00:00:54] Jesse: for that.

[00:00:54] We’re so happy to be here.

[00:00:56] Melissa: This is so much fun. We love we love what you’re doing by the way. We love everything about your podcast and we are so excited to be a part of it. Yeah.

[00:01:05] Jesse: Our goal in life is just to make the world a better place and what better place to do that than the Leave Better podcast.

[00:01:11] So thank you for having us.

[00:01:13] Defining Success

[00:01:13] Miriam: Awesome. All right. Well, I think where I’m gonna start is your podcast is called Reimagine Success, and something in some of the materials I was reading that I really appreciated is that you said success comes in many forms. Everyone wants to keep up with the Joneses, but it isn’t always what you think it is.

[00:01:33] Yeah. So if we can start there and talk about maybe some of the things you’ve seen and heard. Where people got to success, whatever that means, and it wasn’t what they thought it was gonna be. Mm-hmm. .

[00:01:45] Jesse: Yeah, absolutely. So we live our lives with that as our mentality. You know, everybody wants more money, everybody wants the bigger house, the cars and all that stuff, but honestly, that’s not how we’ve ever defined success.

[00:01:59] We. You know, both of us have strived our whole lives to live a full life. One that we are fulfilled every single day at the end of the day.

[00:02:07] And on our podcast, we’ve got the privilege of just interviewing so many people that have just outstanding stories.

[00:02:14] And what’s cool about every one of these people, Is that all of their stories are so vastly different and you never know where life is taking these people. Like it’s, it’s the chances and the risks that people take. That pay off. And when they say, You know what? I’ve had enough with this mediocre, mundane life that I’m living and I’m ready to live life fully and just with my whole heart. And that’s when we start seeing people just finding actual success.

[00:02:43] Freedom of Choice

[00:02:43] Miriam: Yeah, that makes sense to me. I think I’ve, I have had this challenge of defining success. What is a successful day? Because you’re right, so many people initially think it’s about money. And to be honest, I think it’s about something different. And one of the ideas or concepts I’m playing with is this notion of freedom that you have.

[00:03:03] You have the freedom to make decisions that are. In the best interests of your mental health or your children’s health or like for, I was working on kind of some fi like regular goals and I was thinking, well, what would it mean success to be successful financially? And I thought, Really, it comes down to never having to make a financial decision because I have too little money.

[00:03:30] It comes down to what is the right financial decision. Yes. Like for example, with a pet, you know, I’m a big animal lover and we have a bunch of rescues. I never wanna put down an animal because I don’t have the resources to take care of them. Mm-hmm. , I wanna do that decision because that’s the right decision for them.

[00:03:50] Right. So that kind of freedom. Anyway, What kind of things, as you have interviewed people or you’ve been in the variety of I mean wearing the variety of hats that you wear, what kind of things have you seen of people who they thought this road was gonna take them to success?

Drop Your Ego

[00:04:12] Melissa: We actually had someone on the podcast that was growing their business and he ended up stepping down as CEO and hiring a CEO in his place. So he dropped his ego because it’s really hard for people to do that to, to come on and let someone else take charge of your business. He ended up doing that and.

[00:04:34] A matter of, of just like a year, I believe. Yeah. It was a real short, short amount of time. It was very short. He grew his business 30 million. Wow. And that’s just taking away the ego, stripping away what you feel like you should be doing and, and letting your, your company go where it needs to go. And sometimes it’s, it’s out of the box and, and you think that, that you shouldn’t be doing it that way, but, When you, when you look at the big picture of where you want and where you want your goals to go, then that’s when you can really be clear and you can see what you need as a company and as a whole and as a community.

[00:05:13] We’re an entire community that is lifting each other up, and that is always building and building each other up to be a community.

[00:05:20] To lift each other up. And that’s at the end of the day, you know what a lot of our clients are doing, They’re lifting each other up in ways that’s very unexpected.

[00:05:30] And that’s, that’s all that we’re doing here at Creative Global Entertainment is where a brand elevation marketing company.

[00:05:37] So anything to elevate your brand. That’s, that’s where, that’s where we.

[00:05:42] Elevate Your Brand

[00:05:42] Jesse: And what’s cool too is not only have we seen this in our guest lives, but we’ve seen it in our own lives. Yeah. For me, my whole life before, I’ll say BM before Melissa because we’ve, we’ve been married for a little over a year now and we dated for exactly one year before we got married.

[00:06:01] We were doing some odds and end things, but then I ended up getting another corporate job where I was making more money than I had ever made in my entire life. And I was like, I. This is great. I’m making all this money and everything’s good, except for my soul was dying.

[00:06:15] Yeah. And we are actually both working for this company at the same time. This was right before we really, really launched the new rebranding of Creative Global.

[00:06:24] And by a stroke of luck, as you would have it the company ended up downsizing and cut our entire department. And I say, luck, because most people would look at that and be like, Wow, that’s horrible.

[00:06:39] You both lost your jobs in one fail swoop. And mind you, I was making more money than I’d ever made in my life. She was making more money than me. Melissa was like, All right, we’re gonna the lake, you know, cuz this was last summer.

[00:06:52] Yeah,

Take a Breath

[00:06:52] Melissa: well, I, I had the idea, we need to stop what we’re doing. We need to take a breath, we need to take a pause, and we need to go out and do something that we enjoy, which was the lake. And we got out there and we’re on a raft and we see the mountains in the backdrop. And just the lake is just beautiful and calm.

[00:07:11] Just a calming day. The sun is shining, you know, it’s shining through the trees and it’s just a beautiful day. And we’re relaxed and we’re in a happy place and we just let it go. And then we come back into the office and then that’s when we get busy. You know, you have to take that breath. And that’s what a lot of people forget.

[00:07:31] Jesse: And it’s, it’s crazy though because you know my family. They thought, Oh, you finally got this great job. Everything’s wonderful, You’re on the right path. But that wasn’t the right path for me, the right path for me involved having freedom, having, you know, a life that I’m excited about living and not doing some corporate job that just was literally killing us both and.

Pursue Dreams

[00:07:56] So now we are happier than we’ve ever been. We’re pursuing our dreams, our goals, helping other people in real tangible ways, and it’s just been so fulfilling. And we get to do these little dances all the time because we’re, we’re doing the things that are goals, and we’re reaching those goals and we celebrate all of our victories, big or small.

[00:08:16] Miriam: Wow, so much, first of all, I, I, I just wanna say you guys are clearly newly married, . You guys are super smiley and very happy, which is just fun. It’s fun to see. Secondly unless you come from entrepreneurial parents, they all freak out when you leave the corporate job with the insurance.

[00:08:38] And I mean, parents wanna see their kids do okay, and that feels really safe to them. And entrepreneurism feels not safe at all. Yeah.

[00:08:47] Freedom For Your Soul

[00:08:47] Miriam: What were the clues that th this corporate space was killing your soul?

[00:08:54] Like, h how did it show up and how did you know even before the job disappeared that you needed to like do something? I.

[00:09:04] Melissa: I looked at my life in corporate, and you can take that into any corporate. You know, company that you would like to look at, and the owner is the one who makes the decisions. So, you know, when I was doing my marketing plan, when I was doing my campaigns, you know, I always had to get this approval from the owner and.

[00:09:26] And everything was, was approved. I opened up four businesses from rebranding phase on while I was with them, and it was an amazing learning experience. But what I realized from my soul and what my soul needs is freedom. I need the freedom to express my creativity and the ways that I need to express it.

[00:09:48] So I started my business in 2009 and I said, You know what? I’m gonna do this the way that I wanna do it. And I’ve had a lot of success. Of course, as entrepreneurs, as business owners, there’s rebranding, there’s the economy changes, there’s fluctuations.

[00:10:04] Jesse: You know, for me, I didn’t know about being an entrepreneur. I didn’t know that you could have a life with freedom. And so I took this job and, you know, beyond.

Attitude of Success

[00:10:15] That was really painful to work in that environment. Just the daily nonsense of what we were doing, just. Chipped away a little bit at a time.

[00:10:26] And you know, at first I was like, Oh, well my job’s pretty easy and I can get it done in a short amount of time, and, and that, that ma means that like, I’m getting paid a lot more. But that money didn’t. Make it better that I was doing this garbage work.

[00:10:43] Melissa: Like it doesn’t fulfill you.

[00:10:44] Jesse: Yeah. When, when you’re doing something that you truly, Yeah, just don’t enjoy you, you wake up every day with a sense of dread, like, Oh, I just don’t want to turn on my computer today.

[00:10:55] I don’t wanna put on my dress shirt today. I don’t want to sit behind that desk all day and, and talk to these people all day. And. Wake up with that feeling well the rest of your day is shot. You know, cuz you’re automatically going into something with a bad attitude and a bad mindset. And mindset is the most crucial thing ever.

[00:11:14] If you can’t walk into something with a clear mind and heart and knowing that like you’re doing something that you love, then you’re setting yourself up for failure to begin with.

[00:11:23] It takes a lot of energy and effort to be in a creative space and for us it’s more of a deep rooted passion. Mm-hmm. Without that, our lives are empty and we feel depressed.

Enjoy Your Work

[00:11:37] And so working outside of what it is that you are passionate about is the fastest way to kill yourself, honestly. Mm-hmm. .

[00:11:46] Miriam: Yeah. I forget who said this, but they said, If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life.

[00:11:52] Jesse: That quote rings true with us every single day because since we left that job and are doing creative global, seriously, it never feels like work.

[00:12:01] Melissa: It’s.

[00:12:02] An amazing feeling to know that you are helping a small business, like really get their voice heard and mm-hmm and to elevate their brand. And not, not only that, but it in turn, it helps us. It, it fulfills our soul and we’re able to be creative every single day by doing it.

[00:12:21] Miriam: It’s a win. It sounds like a win.

[00:12:22] You’re in your sweet spot. Okay, so I’m gonna move away from business for a second.

[00:12:27] Since you are newlyweds- a lot of business, it’s super hard on marriages. A lot of marriages go away. And that isn’t just for business owners, it’s for anybody. Yeah. What have you learned in this process about relating to one another?

[00:12:45] Like what gives some good marriage tips? Yeah.

[00:12:49] Communication in Relationships

[00:12:49] Melissa: First of all, communication. It’s so important. So important, and you have to find. Not everyone is gonna like everything that everybody does. Like, you know, someone could love the ballet. The other person doesn’t necessarily love the ballet, but it’s all about balance in a relationship, and it’s about caring and supporting and honestly being each other’s number one fan, Number one cheerleader.

[00:13:16] Number one supporter. Like Jesse. I go to his concert and I know every word to his songs. I, you know, dance I, I support and I don’t care if no one else is dancing in the room. I am dancing because not only this is my husband, but this is, this is my favorite artist in the entire world. And when you think about that, With your partner.

[00:13:41] This is my favorite person in the world. This is my favorite writer in the world. This is my favorite business coach in the world. This is my favorite. You know, whatever you do in life, this is my favorite. And if you go that that day, every single day, and you just really support each other,

[00:13:59] We’ll always be in the honeymoon phase because we’re each other’s number one supporters and each other’s number one cheerleaders.

[00:14:05] And we always communicate with each other every single day.

[00:14:08] Jesse: Yeah. The communication thing, I don’t want to under stress that, Yeah, we spend. Hours and hours just talking to each other every day. Every day. Mm-hmm. and most relationships, you know, somebody goes or both go to work, they come home, they see each other.

Be Honest

[00:14:26] How was work? It was fine. How was your job? Fine. All right. Let’s have dinner. Oh, should we watch tv? Okay, let’s watch TV and then let’s go to sleep. And we don’t talk to people. Mm-hmm. .

[00:14:37] One of the first things I ever said to Melissa. I’m gonna be 100% honest with you about everything all the time, and she said, I will too.

[00:14:46] And we’ve, we’ve. Focused on that. And that helps us with business, that helps us with our personal relationship, that helps us with our friends relationships. Everything we do, we just approach it from a place of honesty. It’s heart driven and we talk, like I said, about everything. Even if it’s ridiculous, we talk about it.

Regular Communication

[00:15:05] And. We, we find that we hardly ever fight because we’re always communicating. Yeah. We, when it comes to business things, we generally get on the same page really quickly because we’re both discussing the, the steps in real time. You know, we’re not waiting until the end of the day and saying, Okay, so now I need to bring this to you.

[00:15:25] I have a song on my album that just came out that says, I spend every hour of every day with you, and I’d still want more.

[00:15:32] Miriam: Sorry guys. You only get 24 hours a day. I know. Yeah. Okay. So I mean, I appreciate, I’m, I’m also a therapist as well as a coach, and so I appreciate many of the things that you’re talking about.

[00:15:46] What happens when you do disagree when you can’t get on the same page, or if you’re committed to honesty, sometimes you’re gonna say something that hurts the other person’s feelings or, You are two individuals who have different opinions about certain things, even if you’re really similar, tell us how you handle some of those

[00:16:05] Melissa: spaces.

[00:16:06] Understanding Disagreements

[00:16:06] Melissa: There’s, there’s been times where we’re, we agree to disagree. It is the best phrase, you know, but we talk, talk about it. Why do you feel, why do you feel that way about this? Well, Of this way or maybe a some past trauma that you’ve gone through. And we just talk about it, like what is the “why” behind it?

[00:16:26] Jesse: Sorry to interrupt, but, or is it our ego that’s making us disagree or something in us that, that is our pride and we, we want to disagree with this because it’s, it’s a personal issue that we need to deal with, so we’re constantly challenging each other to explore those areas as

[00:16:43] Melissa: well.

[00:16:43] When we talk about something and we’re open and honest and we come from a loving place, we both know that we’re coming from a loving place. Anytime that we talk about any, it could be anything absolutely anything. A graphic Jesse design.

[00:16:56] And I’m like, Well, that’s not so great. Let’s, you know, know, Restart over with that. Okay, no worries. Let’s, let’s do it together. You know, there’s, there’s always places as, as long as you come. And, and love, and you come in love with whatever you do. You can, you can overcome your challenges that you have.

[00:17:16] Jesse: It also helps that we both have thick skin as creatives. You can look at me and I could write a song or something or make a graphic or whatever it is I’m working on. You can look at me like, Yeah, I really hate that. And I’ll be like, Oh. Okay.

It’s Your Vision

[00:17:30] What do you hate

[00:17:30] Melissa: about it? Yeah. Or, or what do you hate about it? What can I change? What can I improve on?

[00:17:35] Jesse: Whereas the majority of people would say, you hate my work. You hate what I created . I spent so much time making this and you hate it.

[00:17:44] creative processes, one of those things where like, If you, if you can’t just throw away something that you worked hours and hours and hours on, then you’re in the wrong field because there’s gonna be times like our, our motto for our company is, it’s your vision. We just bring it to life. There’s, there’s times where we miss the vision, and that’s okay because it’s not our vision.

[00:18:05] We’re working for somebody else’s vision and we have an idea. And sometimes that idea is, Sometimes that idea is trash, and if that idea is trash, throw it away as quickly as possible. Yeah. I’ve got a stack of songs like that huge that I will never see the light of day ever, but I wrote them and they helped me to grow and they made me better.

[00:18:26] Mm-hmm. and Melissa has stories and all this stuff that she’s like themes for deadly cramps in her comic book series that she’s created that will never see the light of day, and that’s ok. And people just need to know that it’s okay to, to put your heart and soul into something. And at the end of the day that it wasn’t right.

[00:18:43] Not that it wasn’t good, but it wasn’t right for what was needed. And if you can approach things with that mentality, then that alone solves a lot of issues.

[00:18:52] Small Things

[00:18:52] Miriam: Sure. So I heard you say so many things. I wanna just recap some of ’em and then you correct me if I misheard you. Mm-hmm. , I heard you say Melissa, that you guys deal with stuff while they’re little. And so if you’re, you know, I don’t know. If you’re driving somewhere and you, you’ve got your MAPS program and it’s telling you to turn right and you turn left, if you reroute within a block, it’s just not that big of a deal.

[00:19:17] Mm-hmm. , if you reroute after 25 miles, It’s a much bigger deal. Yeah. Yes. So I’m hearing you say, deal with things while they’re small. And you didn’t say this, but I’m guessing that if you’re speaking at something from a place of love, that you have some forms of respect within your communication style.

[00:19:38] Like you’re not attacking the person, you’re talking about the idea, and the other person has made a choice to not defensive. The truth or the perspective that’s coming out. Those were some of the things that I heard you say.

[00:19:53] And then Jesse, you, this is something that I think very, very many people do not have is this.

[00:20:01] It’s, I, I don’t know why, but it seems like so many people have this feeling of I should be able to do it right or perfect the first time, and if I can’t do it right or perfect the first time, I’m throwing it out and I’m quitting and I’m not have to be terrible at it. Yeah. And I, I just think that we do.

[00:20:21] Keep Trying

[00:20:21] Miriam: Somehow in our brains, and I don’t know if this has been the culture of giving everybody a little prize at the end of the exercise or recital or soccer game or whatever somewhere along the line we have not been taught. You know, if at first you don’t succeed, try try again. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:20:44] Jesse: And we, unfortunately, we see that with our children too.

[00:20:48] So quick example of that, our daughter wanted to play violin. Mm-hmm. I was a strings teacher, so I was starting to teach her some of the basics. And at first she liked it a lot. She was really interested and then she realized that, Oh, you know, I have to spend time practicing this.

[00:21:02] Yeah. And it, it, it is hard and it’s not just gonna be something that I can just pick up once a month. Than do well. And ultimately she decided she didn’t want to play violin anymore cuz it was for whatever reason, she, in my opinion, it was too much work.

[00:21:18] It was too much work. And for, for that mindset, it’s sad because she could have had something in her life that brought her this unbelievable joy, but instead she chose the easier route of just giving it up.

[00:21:33] And as a parent, you don’t wanna. Push kids too hard into doing things, but at the same time you’re like, Come on, just give it a chance.

[00:21:40] And that’s, that’s what we see with a lot of people in business. It’s like so many people have these dreams and they’re like, I’m gonna go for this dream. And the first second, it doesn’t work out exactly the way they thought.

Try Again

[00:21:50] They just quit. It’s like, but the world needs your dream. The world needs that thing that you were going to do, but because you had a little bit of kickback, you’re just gonna throw your hands up and quit. Like that’s really sad because now the world, the entire world is missing out on what you had to offer.

[00:22:07] And we’re just all about telling people, Don’t quit on your dreams. Don’t, don’t stop because it gets hard. Take a breath and try again.

[00:22:16] Miriam: Yeah. I love that. I love that. Who or where did you learn that it’s okay to fail, that you have to try again, that it’s okay to try again or to iterate, or any of those things somewhere along the line?

[00:22:32] That was to both of you.

[00:22:35] Melissa: Hmm. I’ll give a really good example. With Deadly Crimson, I have been working on Deadly Crimson for many years. And this is your comic book, right? This is my comic book, yes. Okay. So Deadly Crimson started out and it’s gone through so many different. Phases, but I never gave up.

[00:22:55] And I, the very first kind of book that I came out is not out for the public and it’s on my computer and that’s where it’s gonna stay . And but if I would’ve said, I’m not gonna do this. I’m not, because you know, it. It’s not good enough. It’s, it’s not good. It’s, it’s then it would never be at the place where it is now.

Try Something Different

[00:23:17] And now it’s a full comic book. So now, Oh, look at that. I have a full comic book. And it’s, that’s beautiful. Completely finished.

[00:23:26] And we’re doing a 23. City, city tour next year, a comic contour, you know, so it’s, it’s growing and it’s getting bigger, but if I would’ve said, This isn’t good enough, I’m not good enough, and I would’ve gotten to that mindset of, I’m not worthy, I’m not good enough, and I would’ve backed down and not done it, then it would never be at the place that it is now and growing exponentially every single day.

[00:23:55] Yeah.

[00:23:56] Jesse: For me, it. Learning this mindset probably had a lot to do with being a musician. You know, I’ve been in professional bands since I was 16 years old, And you’re working with other people, they tell you real quick when you’re doing something that they don’t like and you, you have a choice to make you,

[00:24:13] you can curl into your little ball and feel bad for yourself that you didn’t do it right, or you can try to do something different.

[00:24:22] I guess I grew up in a house where we just didn’t take things as personally. My dad was kind of critical. At times of a lot of the things I did, and he would just tell me exactly the way it was and whether that hurt my feelings or didn’t.

Deal With Your Difficulties

[00:24:38] And I, I just learned to kind of brush it off, take the, the positive out of it that I could take and then get like not dwell on the negative.

[00:24:49] I found myself in certain areas of my life when I wasn’t as mentally strong, I wasn’t. Strong with my, my self-confidence where I let people say negative things to me and I took it really personally.

[00:25:03] And then I would go and evaluate myself later and be like, Why did I take that so hard? What is it about that person and what they said that made me take it as hard as I did?

[00:25:13] And I would have to like deal with those things. And that’s the other problem is most people don’t deal with the things inside of them.

[00:25:20] They. Oh, I’m sad. Let’s brush this under the rug real quick and forget all about it, and then we’ll come back and hope that it never happens again. You can’t do that. You have to deal with your stuff, or else you’ll go into a cycle of just a downward spiral in your life and you’ll, you’ll never get past it.

[00:25:39] Taking Constructive Criticism

[00:25:39] Miriam: Yeah, I hear what you’re saying. For sure. There was a time years ago where I took a creative writing class and I was one of those like teachers, pet kind of kids who got a’s all the time and this was in college, took this class, loved the class, wrote this. Essay. That was huge. Got it. Back First draft c plus.

[00:26:00] And I was like, What, What? And he said, No, this was a, this is really good writing. Keep, keep at it. It’s gonna be an a paper. But, and I, I was like, you gave me a c plus. I mean, I could not get over the stupid grade. Mm-hmm. . And as I worked on it and. Pointed out all sorts of stuff that could be better. It ended up being so much better.

[00:26:27] Yeah. Yeah. And in the end, I was grateful for the feedback he gave me because it took, if he had said, Hey, this is an a, a good job, first draft, you know, here are a couple little things you can tweak. I would’ve been all like, Oh, look at. I’m a writer. Yeah, .

[00:26:43] Jesse: And you would’ve given mediocre

[00:26:45] Melissa: writing and you wouldn’t know what to improve on and what, And those tips go into the next writing or the next story, and the next newsletter and the next, everything that you’re doing.

Make it Yours

[00:26:56] Miriam: Absolutely. It became something I was totally proud of. And I also am a painter, Did this painting not that long ago, Showed it to someone who is close to me and they said, Eh, it’s kind of meh. I don’t know. It needs something here. And I was, and again, I, I was gonna actually put this painting up in my office and have it be for sale.

[00:27:18] I was like, What? Just put it. But I kept thinking about it and thinking about it, and in the end, I made some changes. I like it so much better that I, this other person was like, well, are you gonna sell it? And I was like, No, I like it too much. .

[00:27:36] Melissa: That’s amazing. I love that.

[00:27:38] Jesse: I had a similar experience recently.

[00:27:40] Now I just released my record and the record’s called Power to Change while I was writing the title track for that song. And I had a chorus that I thought was pretty good and I played it for Melissa and she. Yeah, it’s not your best work. And I was. Oh, okay. Okay. So what could be better about it?

The Hard Truth

[00:27:57] She’s like, Well, that course is kind of repetitive. You, it’d be better if you like, came up with some different words for it. And I was like, Oh, cool. So now I changed the words, and again, it’s the title track of the album and I love the song and it’s got this like really cool feel and everything works now, but it would not have worked had I stuck with my original plan and not listened to the voice of reason that I invited into my life.

[00:28:20] And there’s the other thing, you have to. Bring people around you that you can trust. Mm-hmm. , especially if you’re cre a creator, bring people that you can trust that are gonna tell you the hard things and not just be yes men and mm-hmm , just pat you on the head and tell you how good of a job you always do.

[00:28:36] But bring people that will be honest and give you real feedback and that you know that they have your back. And so that way when they do give you a hard thing that you have to swallow. You know that they’re doing it because they actually mean it and they appreciate you and they want to see you do your best.

[00:28:54] Miriam: This is, you know, tremendous information for creatives, but it actually applies to anybody. It applies to a relationship, it applies to parenting, it applies to anything where you are putting out effort. And if you cannot receive feedback and hear, and adjust, then you end up in a silo of yourself, and that’s just never a good space to be.

[00:29:17] How to Find Melissa and Jesse

[00:29:17] Miriam: So Melissa and Jessie, this has been so much fun. I would love to have you guys come back at some point. Definitely. Why don’t we have you tell our audiences how they can find you and of course we’ll put all the information in the show notes.

[00:29:31] Melissa: Of course. So you can find our podcast Reimagine Success at Reimagine Success Pod on any social media platform.

[00:29:40] Jesse: And reimaginesuccesspod.com. Yeah.

[00:29:43] We have a website for our business, Creative Global. If you need any kind of brand elevation or podcast production or any number of things just head over to CreativeGlobalDot.Rocks, and we’ll get you taken care of and see what we can do for you.

[00:29:59] Miriam: Awesome. That’s so great. And as we had mentioned before we started the podcast, my listeners know that we do a donation in your name and you guys chose, chose the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust.

[00:30:10] Yes. They rescue baby elephants from moms who have been poached. So we’ll get that sent to you right away and we’ll put that in your daughter’s name so she’ll get the updates about the baby elephants. Thank you again. Yeah, she’s gonna love.

[00:30:24] Jesse: Thank you. Thanks so much you, this has been great Miriam, and I really appreciate you having us on.

[00:30:28] Yeah, and for those of you that don’t know, Miriam’s actually gonna be on our podcast in the near future, so be looking out for that as well cuz she’s a great host and we wanna just say how much we appreciate her and everything she’s doing on this podcast to make this world a little bit better of a place.

[00:30:43] Aw, thank you.

End Credits

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts, or wherever podcasts are found.

Full audio episode found here. 

Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

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Music by Tom Sherlock.

If you are curious to know more, please contact me!

As someone who has been a therapist for over a decade and has been coaching people for over three decades, I am uniquely qualified to address your concerns.

 

Building Trust with Will Basta

Will Basta

[00:00:00] Miriam: I am excited to have with me Will Basta and we are gonna be hitting all sorts of conversations. You’re the first person I know who is doing this passive income kind of revenue stream. And it sounds like from reading some of your bios and things that you have just a diverse background.

[00:00:17] So why don’t we start with just a little bit of how did you get where you are today? I mean, you mentioned you’re in Denmark, right?

[00:00:25] Different Paths

[00:00:25] Will: Yeah. , I mean, how I, how I got here is, is, might be a little bit different to the story , but, ok. We , but I can, I can give some cliff notes on all that. First of all, thanks for having me.

[00:00:38] Yeah, I grew up in a small town in upstate New York. So I’m, I’m from the Catskills, from Woodstock. I went to school in Arizona. I actually wanted to be initially clinical in healthcare. Then I realized quickly in college that it’s not what I wanted to do, and then I just went down the path.

[00:00:56] I’ve been traveling my whole life and big on traveling. It’s just sort of in my blood. I went down the path of just learning about, you know, international governments and international studies through college, and then when I got out I wanted to marry what I was good at and then still go back into healthcare, which was communication.

[00:01:13] Working with people knew, you know, you can be in healthcare and not be a doctor. So my goal was to get into that actual industry in general. And so I got a position with DaVita, very large dialysis company. I worked on a, a startup within them, sort of a technology startup that was doing sort of innovative stuff for DaVita as a company.

[00:01:34] And I got to learn about the broken healthcare system that we have, that most people are well aware of, and a lot of things about what we’re lacking. Not just in the arena of nephrology and dialysis, but it opened my eyes to a lot of different things.

Healthcare Industry

[00:01:49] And then from there, I wanted to, you know, I liked the idea of working for startups.

[00:01:52] So for me it was very intriguing to work for companies that were doing innovative things in healthcare, that were at an early stage that I could be an integral part of their growth and make an impact somewhere in our, in our healthcare system. So. Worked for a few different companies, built out their, their, you know, you wear a lot of hats in startups.

[00:02:10] So what was intriguing about that is, which I draw a lot of lines to sort of entrepreneurialism, is you don’t know what’s around the corner. And so I think that sort of led me into to being an entrepreneur, but working in startups now, what’s coming from left field this time? What’s happening today? Your role might be this, but you’re, you’re doing a thousand things and that kept a job exciting.

[00:02:28] And the work exciting. And so, you know, I worked for some companies in mental health, et cetera, and that was actually the last company I worked for was in, in mental health mental health tech. And while I was working for them I was involving myself in different investments when I, where I had the extra money, you know, involving myself in e-commerce, trying to start different brands, having, having a lot of failures here and there, and just really trying to get out, out of the scope of just, oh, this is my one position.

Working Remote

[00:02:55] It was remote, which was great. So I always could travel still. I’ve worked remotely my entire life wasn’t just a pandemic thing. So I’ve had that freedom, which I’m very fortunate of. But during that period of time, I was able to get involved. Sort of the back end of Amazon and, and really just learn a little bit more about the digital space and how to make money online a little bit.

[00:03:16] Started a marketing agency that did okay and that kind of stuff. Digital marketing. And point is, I was just having my hand putting my hands on a lot of different random investments here and there. And that actually led to my business partner and I we actually met, cuz we were invested in a, I guess you can call them the competitor of.

[00:03:37] I wouldn’t really say that. Now, given, I’ll talk more about who we are as a company later, and we’re very different than this company, but on the surface, they run what you call an automation service for clients in e-commerce. So automation as in. Building and operating an Amazon business for people who want to get involved in Amazon and doing it all for them, and then doing a profit split.

[00:03:57] So it sounds beautiful, right? You know, they’re, that company’s incentivized to grow a business for you and you can sit back and just bring in your capital and they can grow an Amazon business for you. We got involved in that and we realized that all of these companies out there, it was really booming at the time.

Business Infrastructure

[00:04:15] Honestly, every single company we came across had so many different inefficiencies. Inefficiencies, and we’re just really not executing properly. A great business model, just poorly. And that really, you know, we just realized, hey, we can do this ourselves better. We can bring ethics into this industry, which we don’t see anywhere.

[00:04:33] We can bring a real infrastructure, which we don’t see anywhere, . Yeah. And we can bring serious experience and a real company. We can build out of this with this business model and improve upon it, refine it, Legitimize the term automation. And try to flip the switch on what people think about it in terms of, you know, what you read online.

[00:04:53] because there’s a lot of horror stories out there from companies just not doing what they say they’re gonna do for clients and just poorly executing a lot of things. I can go on and on about that, but that’s where ascend com sort of spawned, and that was about two and a half years ago. At a small scale.

[00:05:10] Let’s prove out our model first before we go big with this. And we realized we had something special. We had a lot of organic growth. We were, people resonated with the fact that we were transparent in our business practices because we were at a digital age.

E-Commerce

[00:05:23] We were bringing a digital product doesn’t mean you need to hide behind a screen the whole time. So there’s always, we’ve always had an open door policy can always come visit us. Still to this day at our warehouse, at our office in Los Angeles. So cut two, you know, I’d say two years and, and eight months later, you know, we’ve got almost 500 clients, two warehouse facilities in Dallas.

[00:05:43] An office in Venice Beach, California and you know, millions of revenue for our clients and a business that is growing pretty rapidly. But we still have head on straight and we have not all lost our mor We have not lost our moral compass, and that’s why we have became a leader in the industry, I believe.

[00:06:04] I’m pretty sure that’s, that’s why not only just the operational aspect and how we produce the business and, and how we do business operations, but really leading with a good, strong, ethical approach. In how we, we do things. And, and that’s where we are today. We build Amazon businesses for investors Walmart businesses as well.

[00:06:20] And we, we turn those into passive income opportunities and appreciate digital assets for people who wanna get involved in the industry.

[00:06:26] And right now I’m in, I’m in Denmark ,

Entrepreneur Lessons

[00:06:29] Miriam: and right now you’re in Denmark. Okay, so let me interrupt for a minute and let’s, let’s take a couple rabbit trails off to the side.

[00:06:35] I mean, you’ve given Yeah, in, in those few minutes, enough fodder that we could talk about this for a couple hours. Yeah. Oh my word. I’m trying to decide where I wanna go with this. , I wanna talk about the ethics piece, but I also wanna talk about the, the piece where you were trying so many different things and maybe they were just barely working or sort of working.

[00:06:58] It doesn’t matter if you’re an entrepreneur or not. Everybody deals with this space of, Oh, I tried it. It didn’t go anywhere. And I think the entrepreneur folks do a lot better at saying, Okay, well I, I failed early. Moving on, iterating. I think a lot of the regular folks out there are like, Well, that didn’t work.

[00:07:18] Learning From Failures

[00:07:18] Miriam: I guess I’m a failure. And they, they just stop. So I think my question is how did you work? Space in you that was able to say, Hey, it’s okay. It didn’t work. I’m trying again.

[00:07:31] Will: Yeah. I’d say it’s really looking at it as I, I looked at my failures as education. you know, this is educational. Yeah. I might have invested in this like training program or something here to learn about.

[00:07:43] How to do this here and how to build this here, et cetera. And maybe it wasn’t successful, because maybe I’m not meant to do that. But now I know that system and I can put the pieces together down the line and eventually it turned into me being knowledgeable about the industry as a whole. I’m not the person who actually does the research on our client’s stores, right?

[00:08:02] We have teams that do that, but I still, I learned about it. I wouldn’t say I’d be the best person to build an Amazon store person. , personally but I cuz but I learned, I went through courses on how to do it I didn’t do well myself, but I learned the actual what’s under the hood, which is important, right? You have to look at failures as education.

Learning Moment

[00:08:24] Everything is a learning moment. You gotta take that and use that as building blocks and, and I don’t know if I’d be giving the same why advice four years ago, . It’s easier to say once I’ve gotten to where I am. Right? For sure. There was plenty of times. That mindset cuz I, I never looked at myself as an entrepreneur, ever.

[00:08:41] You know, I, I, now I know I’ve always had it sort of in me, when I look back on my history of doing things, I realized it was actually sort of always there in a little bit and I was showing signs of it throughout the last, you know, couple decades.

[00:08:54] Miriam: Yeah. During that tell tell us what some of the signs were.

[00:08:57] Don’t Give Up

[00:08:57] Miriam: What were some of the signs?

[00:08:59] Will: I think, you know, just, just that in general, you know, not, not giving up on certain things. When I was failing on certain things and also knowing that like, I don’t know, I think I had a lot of positivity in, I always knew that I was getting to a point where I was gonna be working for myself to some extent.

[00:09:18] At some point I was positive about, this is gonna work out, this is gonna work out. It’s not always easy to do it because you go, you get knocked down a bunch of times and, and I think the traveling, I think there’s a lot of parallels. And again, you can run parallels with a lot of different things, but for me, the parallels of entrepreneurial.

[00:09:34] Also run into the travel aspect of my life. Like I ever since the first dollar I made my first job in Woodstock was, I think I was working on the golf course, like raking sand traps, and then I was selling shoes at the local shoe store. All that money I always saved up and I put that towards going away on a trip.

Uncomfortable Situations

[00:09:55] First trip, honestly was 15 years old. And I don’t know how my parents, our parents let us go alone somewhere, but we went to Puerto Rico alone, 15 and 16 year olds. And then I skipped prom when I was in high school, which is a huge thing in the us right? I skipped that and backpacked Central America. Those experiences while I was away.

[00:10:13] Putting myself in extremely uncomfortable situations, whether it’s not knowing the language, whether it’s sleeping in the jungle when I’m 16, with crazy sounds that are so loud you can’t even sleep. Whether it’s just literally going through just, I’m not talking, staying at resorts, I’m talking like really going deep in Guatemala and stuff like that.

[00:10:29] And even if you are going somewhere, it could be domestic too, and it could just be a regular travel, it could be anywhere. Putting yourself in a culture in a situation you’re not used to is uncomfortable. But I always use that uncomfortable like that, that feeling of being uncomfortable as a learning experience.

[00:10:44] Be a Good Listener

[00:10:44] Will: And it became sort of addicting and it, it helped me in my business life to interact with people in a different way. To be able to be a, a listener and not only just projecting what they wanna say while the other person’s talking, just most of the time people are waiting, Okay, when am I gonna be able to say what I, what I’d say?

[00:11:03] I became a really good listener. And I attribute that to, to traveling, because when you’re traveling, you really do have to listen to people because most people aren’t speaking the same language and you don’t know where the hell you are or what you’re doing, and it, it, it trains you to be a good listener.

[00:11:16] And all of these things sort of attribute to, to, I think being in not just business, but also. Running a company, . Yeah. You know, with hundreds of employees and doing it the right way.

[00:11:28] Miriam: Talk a little bit about the uncomfortable space. Most people back away from discomfort and somewhere along the lines you had a choice to push into your discomfort or to back away, and you made the choice to push into it and you learned something about yourself from that.

[00:11:46] Talk a little bit about that.

[00:11:48] Lean into Discomfort

[00:11:48] Will: Yeah. I mean, . There’s, there’s, there’s been a long road to get where I am right now, and there’s a long road ahead still. Right? And so in terms of me putting myself in situations that are uncomfortable in the business sense, you know, there, that’s, that’s a tough question to answer.

[00:12:05] I, I think, I think I’ve evolved, like I said before, I said this five minutes ago in terms of where I, how I would answer these questions five years ago or even a year ago, are so, Right. I’ve matured so much by running a company and not knowing what I’m doing. in the beginning, in hyper growth mode, you know, and trying to figure things out of that go, but also make sure that.

[00:12:26] Don’t Be Blinded by Success

[00:12:26] Will: You know, things are, are, you know, you’re still, you have to make sure that you’re not blinded by the success. Right, right, right. And, and I know I’m sort of going off topic slightly on that question, but it just brings up my thoughts of, of a lot of things that happen to when people are, are an entrepreneur and why I believe that some people do fail or they, they, they go off track.

[00:12:48] They may not fail necessarily, but when you become very successful, when you’re an entrepreneur, When I’m saying an entrepreneur, in terms of having employees below you and, and a lot of clients and all this kinda stuff, people can be blinded by the money that’s coming in. They can be blinded by everything that’s happening.

[00:13:02] And they also could be blinded by thinking that, Oh, it’s their baby. They have to do every single thing.

[00:13:06] Mm-hmm. , and I think both Jeremy and myself have learned a lot in being in, in terms of trusting your employees and hiring people. You’re hiring them for the, for a reason to put ’em in a position cuz you trust them in that position.

[00:13:21] So you should trust. Right, Right. You should micromanage them. You should try to do everyone’s position. I think that’s a huge issue with entrepreneurs is you try to do every single thing at once, right? And then you start busting outta the seams and then the quality control goes down and then that has a negative effect on your, on your employees.

Trust Others

[00:13:41] That trickles down to the clients. And I think overall it starts to stay in the company in general. And we’ve done a very good job at trusting the people that we hire. And when they come across issues, we’re there to support and help, but we don’t step in and take and do the job for them. Yeah. And as difficult as that might be sometimes, but I think that’s a skill that we acquired early as being people who just started a company and it’s a first time running an organization I think pretty prematurely.

[00:14:09] We realized that early on, and I think that’s helped us.

[00:14:13] Miriam: Sure. I appreciate that you say you acquired the skill because a lot of people say, Oh, I have trust issues, I have issues with trust. And it’s like, well, A, it’s a skill. And B, you don’t go into it blind.

[00:14:25] I’m gonna circle back and ask the question again because I think there’s some gold here with Yeah.

Trust Your Gut

[00:14:32] The uncomfortableness, whether it’s in traveling or whether it’s in business, there is a kind of uncomfortable that makes you grow and there’s a kind of uncomfortable that is actually foolish and puts you in harm’s way, and I think part of figuring that. Space out is having a couple trial and errors where you try Oh yeah.

[00:14:51] And you there like people always say trust your gut. And I believe, I mean I have a therapist background, so there is something to that. However, there is garbage in your background that makes your gut ping and the correct action is to move forward. Then there is like the hair on the back of your neck that is telling you you’re in danger.

[00:15:15] And the correct action is to move backwards.

[00:15:18] Wisdom

[00:15:18] Miriam: Yeah. And so where I wanna go with this question is the failure space and the learning space. How did you differentiate between wisdom means going back or wisdom means going forward?

[00:15:32] Will: Yeah, I think if I answer that question in, in terms of our organization in the last couple years, I, I.

[00:15:42] Having Jeremy and I, I think he can say the same for me, given our personalities are very similar but also very, very different. I think we’ve been able to bounce off each other in terms of energy on when, when certain things are a certain way and when to not overstep. Cuz sometimes one of us wants to do something like just like you just mentioned.

[00:16:03] And knowing that balance in between of when is the right time to step back, when is the right time to push forward.

[00:16:08] Sometimes him and I are on completely different push forward and step back. But when we have a conversation about it, I’m not saying there’s a right or wrong, but technically like there sort of is in a way, and the person who who, who sort of is in the wrong sort of realizes it and we have that conversation and then learns from that.

[00:16:26] And then when there’s a similar thing that comes up, I’m not saying it might still be the same result but my point is if I come into a situation. And I’m the one who’s saying push forward and he’s saying step back and we have a conversation about it. I understand why it’s stepped back at that point.

Understand Different Perspectives

[00:16:44] And then I, I take that in, like I said before. I use that for the next time a similar situation comes up and I approach it with that knowledge that I gain from that. And I might still step forward. I’m not saying I’m gonna be perfect moving forward from then, but it adds to my knowledge base based on the experience.

[00:17:03] And I only would’ve done that with. I think there’s a lot of yin yang with him and I, and I think he can say the same on his side. And there are times, and I think, I think that comes up again and, and we both agree on push on, on holding back on the next time around. Sure. Because we’ve learned from how he thinks about the situation because everyone thinks about something a little bit differently.

[00:17:23] They have a different approach and perspective. Yeah.

[00:17:25] But understanding diverse perspectives really widens you. And helps you really have a good balance on when to push forward, when to step back and when, when it’s the right time to do something, when it’s not. And of course, you’re never gonna be perfect in that sense no matter what, but you know, there’s only, I mean, that’s why, that’s why we’re here.

[00:17:42] It’s always to improve upon yourself and what you do and, and, and, and, you know, do a little bit better the next time around. And I think that’s, that attributes a lot to.

[00:17:51] Communication is Integral

[00:17:51] Miriam: Yeah, so I heard you say a whole bunch of stuff in that I heard you say communication is fundamental. Well, even before communication, humility to say, Hey, I don’t know everything.

[00:18:04] I might not have this entirely right. This is the way I wanna go and this is why. Communication is integral. Then even just having someone to communicate to having a business partner or a mentor or a travel partner, or having other people to get you outside of your head and to be able to process the problem and say, Okay, how do we wanna move forward?

[00:18:26] Or how do I wanna move forward with this information?

[00:18:29] I mean, all of that feels huge.

Step Out of the Box

[00:18:32] Will: Stepping out of the box, right? Yes. It’s huge. I think it’s a huge thing in, in all forms of everything. It’s just everything’s going by so fast. Right, right. You know, life day, daily routine, whatever, whatever it is. Just to be able to, whether it’s some, some people who are meditating in a, at a certain point or could just be, just have a mindset.

[00:18:51] Be like, Hey, once a while, just have a a, an aha moment. Not the day. I’m like, All right, take a deep breath, , and hold onto that for a moment. You know what I mean? You’re going a thousand miles an hour right now. It’s not doing anyone any good. Yeah. So realize what you’re doing.

[00:19:09] Just like my mom was, mother was used to telling me like, Realize you’re eating will.

[00:19:13] Stop eating so fast. Chew your food, , chew your food. Understood. Enjoy. Enjoy your meal. I know you’re really hungry, but enjoy. Realize your, be grateful. That plate in front of you, you know? Yeah. I think that’s Apple do a lot of things. Yeah. Yeah. So what a good mom.

[00:19:33] Ethical Framework

[00:19:33] Miriam: So this is a perfect segue into the ethics space.

[00:19:37] Talk a little bit about maybe your ethical framework, how it was tested in business some of the spaces you struggled, like gimme, gimme some words on ethics.

[00:19:51] Will: Yeah, I mean, I, this is gonna be going on and on about this. I’m gonna start with healthcare. Yeah. The people that I worked with were great and I, I don’t need to name out the specifics of, of, of everything that I saw and, and the inefficiencies that I saw, but as a whole, when I got to learn the healthcare system and the industry in general and.

[00:20:16] Tying that into the food industry and then dialysis and all the stuff that’s sort of happening and, and, and how some physicians not painting a brush to all physicians at all, but how some physicians do their job was very, very difficult for me. When I first started working for DaVita, some of the doctors that I met were so transactional.

[00:20:36] It was just hard. Very, very difficult to like experience and have my hands be sort of tied in the situation. Yeah. Cause they were also getting, I mean, it’s also how our system’s set up- it’s like the pay per stitch model. It’s like the more you see a patient, the more you’re getting paid kind of thing. No quality incentive programs.

Ethics in Healthcare

[00:20:53] And then the doctor just has a mindset of like, that patient has a dollar sign, you know, and if you have kidney disease, there’s no cure. And then there’s the, the end of the road, you have five stages and then it’s E S R D and then unfortunately, like there’s no light at the end tunnel with that. So it’s a very.

[00:21:08] Dark disease, having kidney disease and, and, and having, you know, that that kind of part of healthcare is very tough. And then there’s also the lack of, of mental health support. You know, they have social workers in some of the centers, but they had no real emphasis on having true talk therapy for these, these, you know, these patients who are coming in four days a week.

[00:21:28] You know, three days a week, four hours a day, all that kinda stuff was very difficult to just watch. I’m just watching it happen. You know what I mean? Like it is like no one will listen to me. This is just like the rat race in healthcare and there’s not really healthcare.

[00:21:40] You know what I mean? So that, that was tough and that’s why I like to, that’s why I enjoy going into working for smaller companies. I worked for a company called Blueprint where we, we pretty much took. You know, you know, measuring based care, which has been around for a while, you’re probably familiar with, with your background.

Being Efficient

[00:21:57] You know, those like a p you know, those, essentially those assessments that you give clients when you see them, you know, GAD seven or whatever it may be. And we just digitized it so you can also, a client can do it outside of their session too. It was a very simple technology. put something that really wasn’t leveraged that much.

[00:22:17] But we worked, I worked for a small company, got to really speak to therapists about. What’s inefficient in their office and how we can improve things. And that, that was awesome to see. So the, the, that was tough being, being tied up with DaVita on that. But I found my path in healthcare where I felt like I could make a difference with smaller companies and having a larger impact on that.

[00:22:40] Cuz DaVita’s pretty corporate. So I realized I had to get out of the corporate scene to feel like I was really doing something on that side. Going into where we are in our industry, our company. Our industry is filled with a lot of organizations where people just care about the money aspect on the top.

[00:23:00] They lie, they , they say they’re gonna do this and they don’t do it. The fire happens, you know, and they don’t, they don’t, they run away from it. When it comes down to an issue with a client’s store, and that’s why these companies are falling apart, they’re not lasting.

Transparency

[00:23:15] Because they don’t, there’s not real partnerships. People invest money and they leave out the truth of what’s allowed on Amazon or not. Whether it’s like a model that is against Amazon terms of service and then their business gets shut down for the client and then they just don’t do anything about it kind of thing.

[00:23:31] Like that kind of stuff is still happening to this day. So the way that we approach, we’re not perfect. Right. When we have issues with clients, we are ex and they’re all start hiding. Like I mentioned before, they’re not transparent, can’t shake anyone’s hand. You don’t know where their office is. It’s almost like everyone’s hiding behind a screen.

[00:23:47] Mm-hmm. and they’re doing shady stuff. And so that really drove us to start our company as well and do it with a full, transparent, open door, ethically sound approach, which is highly respected by all of our. And they can accept where we are, where we do have issues because we’re honest about them. And when we do run into problems with clients’ businesses, which happens here and there, we will, We’ll, you know, we’ll face it head on and we will come to, we’ll rectify the situation, we’ll find a solution.

[00:24:20] And it’s as simple as that. It should be that difficult. Yeah. But , that’s how you should run a business. You shouldn’t beat around the bush and mess with people’s money. Right. And. We’ve ran our company like that since day one. We treat our employees really well, and that also has a trickle down effect of how they interact with their clients.

Positive Energy

[00:24:38] And I think there’s just a positive energy in our company in general. And so my point is, is, is, is we wanted to make sure that, that the stain in this industry know we can, we can do our best to, you know, at least prove that there are good organizations out there that not just are gonna bring success financially to.

[00:24:58] But you’re gonna wanna work with them in a true partnership because you actually trust them. And that’s a huge part of who we are. And that’s, I think that’s why we’ve gotten gotten to where we are too. That’s a huge part of it. Yeah.

[00:25:09] Miriam: How did you come about your ideas about trust? In terms of what, what, What do you mean?

[00:25:15] Like Idea. It’s obviously important to you. You know, it’s a deeply held value that you should be trustworthy, and it sounds like you wanna hang out with people who are also trustworthy. I think so many times, yeah. In business there’s this sense that it’s pretty slimy or that it’s all about the money.

Motivated to Make a Difference

[00:25:35] And I think for a huge percentage of people, that’s true. For some people it’s about the game. For other people, they really are motivat. To help. They wanna make a difference. You’ve used that phrase quite a few times to make a difference. Yeah. And you know, this idea of having impact. Yeah. But this notion of trust, you’ve mentioned quite a few times, so it seems to me that it’s very integral to you.

[00:26:01] And I was curious. How that came about. You know? Was there a space where you were just burned so badly and you’re like, Well, this is not okay? Or were you raised in such a way that, Your word is your word or I, Where did you come by? The ideas about trust.

[00:26:19] Relying on Trust

[00:26:19] Will: I just think it’s so important. I think without trust, whether it’s a relationship, friendship, business, transaction.

[00:26:29] Like even the person who’s bringing you up to, to go bungee jumping and, and, and just tie you in, Like what, whatever it may, may be, it could be anything. It’s, it is such, it’s the foundation of, of, of true human interaction, I think. And so I think it’s extremely important and. It needs to be, you know, put to the top of

[00:26:51] You know, in terms of what people think about when, you know, I, I, it’s something that naturally, I think, I don’t wanna say everyone should just naturally trust everyone. I don’t wanna be too much of like an optimist like that. I just sort of think it’s, I think humans are inherently good and we should trust each other, Right?

[00:27:06] And when you, But the second there’s a hint of no trust, that’s very hard to get back. The second something happens where you don’t trust something or someone. Gaining that trust again, I think is such an uphill battle. And so that’s why I think it’s such an important thing is, is trusting. It’s not just trusting people with your money, but it’s like, yeah, business.

[00:27:28] You’re right. There’s people like obviously we, we all want to make a little like money. It’s good to have money, right? But all that money means nothing if you do it in a distrustful manner. And I, you’re not bringing value to, to people, the world, the people around you. It’s just paper, right?

Putting Trust in Others

[00:27:47] I just think that it’s, it’s worthless. I mean, you think there’s history so much history of rich millionaires who’ve just done slimy things. I just think, yeah, to me it just grosses me out and it’s just not how we do things.

[00:28:00] and, yeah, I don’t even know where it comes from. I, you know, I, my, my mom is a very, very, very good person. She was always like, your word is your bond. Or anything like that. Like that’s never really been the thing that’s just inherently just sort of been part of my familial upbringing. The people that I, I was friends with when I grew up with people I surround myself with.

[00:28:21] And yeah, people, you know, you could be a very trustworthy person. Everyone makes mistakes. I’m not saying that anyone’s perfect, but it’s also a huge thing when it comes down to why people, I’ve heard this so many times, why they invest with us when they’ve been shopping. We trust you guys. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:28:40] Miriam: So I mean, you have the luxury of having been exposed to quite a few different kinds of corporations and quite a few different kinds of people in your travels, all sorts of cultures. What are things, give our listeners like some ideas of hints of that person or that organization shouldn’t be trustworthy beyond, you know, Of course on the internet, you know, can you, is there a real address?

[00:29:09] Looking for Red Flags

[00:29:09] Miriam: Is there a real person or whatever, But like in interactions? Yeah. What is something that tells you, Mm. Take pause. Hang on.

[00:29:19] Will: Yeah. I think, and this is something that probably is pretty obvious for a lot of people when, when companies talk about how much money you can, It’s the biggest red flag ever. And they’re selling, they’re pushing.

[00:29:33] You can make this and you can do that, da, da, da. Like, all this too good to be true. Kind of talk, all this flashy talk. It’s like the simple kind of, I use car salesman, stay away kind of thing. We never talk about unless client asks, we never talk about true. It’s like we’re talking about the partnership and what, what, being involved in e-commerce.

[00:29:55] And why it’s an important asset to add to your portfolio or to start your portfolio with, or the importance of being involved in something that’s a massive growth at it in general and why you wanna partner with a certain company that has this, this, and this. Right. We don’t talk about, Hey, by month three you’re gonna make this da da.

Business Vision

[00:30:13] Like all of that is just fluff . Yeah. Cause everyone knows you can make money online. Right? Right. Now it’s the same thing with healthcare too. Honestly. Like we, when I was working for David, We had a program that we were giving to, to physicians that could help them consolidate, taking digital notes with clients both in the dialysis center and at their private practice in the one, And that was the one benefit we had cuz we were devita, but our program was subpar in general to nephrologists, which are kidney doctors.

[00:30:44] There’s a lot better programs out there. But when I, when I was working for the sales part of that organization, I was never talking about the features of what it was. I was talking. As healthcare revolves down the line, and as your practice grows and as technology advances and as things change, who do you really want to be partnered with?

[00:31:06] Do you wanna be partnered with a company that works with cardiologists and you know, all different kinds of specialties and really doesn’t just focus on kidney care and, and or do you wanna be partnered with a company that is strictly focusing on advancing technology and kidney care down the line?

[00:31:24] Because that’s your specialty. And we work in the niche aspect of that. And I sold the vision. Really it was the vision and who you wanna partner with, not the product. Product they knew was subpar, but that gets outweighed. Down the line if you really think about the future of things and, and who you wanna be working with.

[00:31:42] Inherent Sense of Trust

[00:31:42] Miriam: Yeah. Okay. So talk about the same thing, trust or untrustworthiness, just in relationships in like when you were traveling, just in people in general. What set off your spy sense like, maybe not .

[00:31:59] Will: Oh, I think that’s sort of a tough one because a lot, I’m a good judge of character when I meet someone specifically and, and I see them mm-hmm.

[00:32:06] and so it’s hard to put into words like, Oh, I don’t trust that person. Cause I just feel something. It’s more an inherent feeling that I get when I think some someone’s a little off or something’s a little off about a situation. I think that’s more of a street sense in general. And you’re not always right.

[00:32:26] Right. There’s people I’ve judged early and they end up being like, really great trustworthy people down the line. You know what I mean? And so I don’t know necessarily how to answer that because I think a lot of it for me is just, it’s the energy that I get when I meet someone or when I’m in a certain room or what it is.

Sensing Trust

[00:32:41] It’s more of an energy feeling than like certain of like that sense to me, you know? Then they did this kinda thing. Yeah.

[00:32:47] Miriam: No, that makes sense to me because our. Deep centers in our brain are really programmed to pick up on, am I safe? Am I not safe? Yeah. And it’s a lot of subliminal stuff. It’s behavioral stuff, and most of the time people don’t know why they don’t trust someone.

[00:33:05] They just know that they don’t. Yeah. You know, so that’s, That rings true to me, .

[00:33:11] Will: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. You get those feelings, you’re like, Ah, something. This doesn’t feel. That’s simple. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

[00:33:17] Miriam: Well we’re coming to the end of our time together. This has been great and I would love to pursue you maybe for a second interview down the road.

[00:33:25] Donations

[00:33:25] Miriam: Lots of good, good topics. I had mentioned before we started that we like to gift you with a donation in your name and the, the charity you chose was Best Friend’s Animal Sanctuary. Because you said you yourself rescued a dog from the shelter. Tell me about your dog just a little bit.

[00:33:43] Will: Oh, Buster Buster’s the man I, I’ve, I was, there’s a company called Angel City Pit Bulls in Los Angeles.

[00:33:52] Mm-hmm. I was fostering for them. So I had two different foster dogs two weeks at a time. And I went, I go to Europe every summer and I spent, four years ago I went to, had two dogs and then they were great and amazing and then they got adopted and then I went to Europe and I came back and the next dog they gave me was Buster.

Buster

[00:34:10] And I was super sad cause after two weeks the volunteer picked them up to bring me to an event. And I called him right after they picked him up. I was like, I made a mistake. They’re like, We. Bring him back. Now, if he’s not adopted by three, we can bring him back, but you’ll have to adopt him. And that’s all she wrote right there.

[00:34:24] So Buster’s a bulldog pit mix and he’s the biggest sweetheart ever. Doesn’t bark. He’s about seven years old. Loves being on the beach. He was found on the streets in like east la biggest sweetheart ever. He is friends with everyone except for squirrels. Yeah. And I miss him. I haven’t seen him in like two and a half months, so I see him Saturday.

[00:34:44] Miriam: I love that. It’s a, he’s a foster fail. Good on you. Yeah, thanks. Thanks for adopting him. I’ve done a lot of fostering too, and it’s always hard when they go away.

[00:34:54] How to Find Will

[00:34:54] Miriam: So why don’t you tell our listeners how they can find you?

[00:34:58] Will: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So our website for our company is www.ascendecom.Com.

[00:35:05] On that you can find about what we do, how we do our businesses, and e-commerce. You can book a call with us, et cetera. And then we have my personal Instagram, which is at wsta Wba S t a and our business Instagram which is at ascent underscore e-com, A S C E N. Underscore E C Om, and we obviously have our YouTube channel and stuff like that, but we, we post regularly about educational stuff, about the industry in general.

[00:35:29] Probably clips of this podcast will be on, on those Instagrams as well. And.

[00:35:34] Miriam: Very good and we’ll, we’ll put, we’ll put all this information in your show notes or in my show notes and this has been really fun. Thank you. Just for your time. Absolutely. Good.

[00:35:45] It’s been awesome. I, I look forward to, to hopefully jumping on with you again in the future.

[00:35:48] We can catch up, but yeah, I appreciate you having me. I’d love to.

End Credits

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Non-Profit Leadership with Kendra Penry

[00:00:00] Miriam: Great. Today. I am so happy to have Kendra Penry with me, and I’m gonna let you introduce yourself. You have a really cool job description.

[00:00:11] Stokes Nature Center

[00:00:11] Kendra: Sure. So I, as Miriam said, my name’s Kendra Penry and I am the executive director at. Stokes Nature Center in Logan, Utah.

[00:00:21] Stokes Nature Center exists to make nature education an outdoor exploration possible for all people.

[00:00:27] Because we believe that through education we can all become better stewards of the natural world. My job takes on. Any number of facets depending on the day.

[00:00:39] But for instance, today I’m talking about open access to research with professors at Utah State University. But I also do our finances and our IT department and our benefits and our human resources and everything to keep the organization going.

[00:00:57] We know that nature is essential to our physical and our mental health, and we don’t care for that, which we don’t know. So we’re working to make sure everyone can know nature and therefore care for it better.

[00:01:10] Miriam: Oh, well spoken. So anybody who lives in northern Utah in the Logan area has been to the Stokes Nature Center, I would think.

[00:01:18] And I mean, my kids grew up going there. I loved that it was there. I love what you’re doing. What you were describing, you just described a whole bunch of skill sets and anybody, half of my audience are entrepreneurs and solopreneurs and any of those solopreneurs know exactly what you’re talking about.

[00:01:39] Non-Profits

[00:01:39] Miriam: They wear a bunch of hats. They do a ton of different things. Can you describe for me just a little bit of your history of how you got involved working with non-profits? And we’ll start there and then we’ll go from there.

[00:01:53] Kendra: I started with non-profits when I was a teenager. I have always felt that I wanted my job to be more about.

[00:02:01] Service than about profit. And I, that’s not the same for everyone. I completely understand that. But for me, that’s just where I fit. I attempted to work for the government for a while because I do have a masters in international affairs and that was not a good fit. And I’ve worked in international business for a large corporation and I also did not enjoy it.

[00:02:24] And nonprofits is just where I feel at home where I feel like I can. A difference in my community and that I have value in what I’m doing beyond just bringing home a paycheck. I got there by just piecemealing it together. I’ve slowly in my head, been working backwards, essentially in finding what I’m passionate about.

[00:02:48] I’ve done everything from managing volunteers at a nonprofit to creating programming to prevent human trafficking to fighting for food security. But in reality, I as an individual feel most fulfilled when I am creating solutions, not raising awareness. I get the value in that and I very much respect the people that do it.

[00:03:15] But for me, I need to know that what I’m doing is actually solving the issue.

Putting Skills to Work

[00:03:19] And everything right now in our world on, in our planet is coming back to this issue of climate change. It is driving food insecurity, it is driving immigration, It is driving all sorts of issues. And so if we want to address the bigger ones, we’ve gotta start at the beginning.

[00:03:35] And so that’s how I landed. Stokes Nature Center was that I had these skill sets where I had worked every facet of a non-profit from the ground up. And what they needed was an administrator, executive director. Sounds cool. But I don’t do the programming side, which is the fun side. I do the administrative work, and that is what I know and I’ve done it from every angle.

[00:03:59] And so it was a perfect fit to not only take these skills that I have, but to put it to work at an organization. Works to address the issue that is most at the heart of what I feel is important right now. And it was also a perfect timing fit in that I needed a job and it was available, but I have loved it.

[00:04:20] But it is one of those things where it’s, I know this may not be my final landing place either. It’s. And that’s a beautiful thing in the nonprofit world. You can slowly evolve as you find what you’re good at and what you’re passionate about.

[00:04:33] Values

[00:04:33] Miriam: Sure. So, because you did some work with some governmental agencies and some corporate agencies, and now this sort of space, can you compare and contrast some of the differences?

[00:04:44] Kendra: Sure. So your values are very different at each of them. In corporations, the value is profit, it is your shareholders, and that is the design of them. They are supposed to be doing that. They also tend to focus more on the, a managerial style that is top down, whereas non-profits have to be more collaborative and mainly because everybody’s doing multiple jobs.

[00:05:09] So we all kind of have to work together. And some people fit into one of those better than another. There’s no one right answer there. It’s just a different model of doing business.

[00:05:22] Government on the other hand, In similar ways to nonprofit built around service, it is intended to serve people. But of course there are constraints there that nonprofits don’t necessarily have in terms of your, your political climate changes depending on who’s in charge.

[00:05:39] Whereas a nonprofit has a dedicated mission that this is what we’re always doing no matter what’s happening around us. But for me, I feel like the non-profit is where. Kinda, it’s the boots on the ground of making all of that happen because we we’re still a business. Absolutely. We’re called a nonprofit, but I have to run it the same as any other business.

Finances in Non-Profits

[00:06:02] We still have to have staff and we have to prevent turnover, and we have to deal with. Filing 9 41 s. It’s the same as any other business. It’s just in the end, the money that I make is intended to go back into serving my community as opposed to purchasing stock or paying shareholders. So it’s that end goal is what shifts.

[00:06:24] But in reality we are very similar. But we just do the same thing with a lot less money .

[00:06:31] Miriam: Sure, sure. No, that makes sense. I remember the first time. I understood a little bit about how a nonprofit worked, and I was really surprised because they were making a profit. Yeah. And as you said, the profit is intended to go back into the workings of the organization and furthering the mission.

[00:06:49] It is an interesting perspective and it draws a little bit of a different kind of person. The kind of people who like to work for non-profits are a little bit different in their perspective than the kind of people who like to work for “for profit” type of organizations. Neither right or wrong, both just, you know, utilizing people’s unique gift giftings and skill sets.

[00:07:13] What is something that as you kind of watched yourself progressing from this to that, You had to hit some spaces, whether they, they might have been like something negative happened or something positive happened that sort of shuttled you into the next version of yourself. Can you tell a couple stories about those kind of transitions?

[00:07:37] Leadership Transition

[00:07:37] Kendra: Sure. So one of the primary transitions that stands out for me in the end was very positive, but at the time felt very negative.

[00:07:46] I had a situation at a nonprofit where, Did not have good leadership. And it framed who I am as a leader.

[00:07:55] I think a lot of us look at needing a mentor to shape us positively, but we also lose sight of the fact that negative experiences are equally valuable.

[00:08:03] And this one definitely was because I felt like the person leading the organization was making it more about themselves than about the. And a lot of us doing the actual work, were not getting credit for what we did. And we also didn’t understand things. There was not that sense of transparency within the organization that we needed to know.

[00:08:24] Even just, you know, are our finances okay? We don’t know. Like should I be finding more donors? I don’t know. There was too much of siloing and too much of one person.

[00:08:35] And it shaped me wanting to be a leader so that I could be the opposite. So that I could really help empower staff to do what they do well by making sure they don’t have to worry about things, that they know them, but they don’t have to worry about them.

Serve the Staff

[00:08:51] And also to know that I, as a leader, my first job is to serve my staff. Not the community. My staff’s job is to serve the community, but by supporting my staff, they are better able to do their job. And that is a hard lesson for a lot of leaders to learn, especially in the non-profit world, because we get into it because we’re passionate about it and we want to keep doing that.

[00:09:17] And when you transition into the leadership role, it shifts everything, because your goal is not to create a dynamic program. Your goal is to keep your staff happy, so they create a dynamic program. And that’s what I wanted. That’s what I learned was that there were so many people being lost. There was so much turnover in the nonprofit world, more so than in most other industries.

[00:09:40] And I wanted to do what I could to reduce that. So we stopped losing so much talent and so much passion for our work.

[00:09:49] But I only knew that once I saw the opposite and I actually left that job because of the leadership there. And I didn’t want someone else to, to feel that same way.

[00:10:00] And then at the same time, I’ve had a great experience with the very next job I went to.

Leadership for Staff

[00:10:06] I had so much freedom to do my job. They trusted me that I knew what to do, and I, as long as I did it well, they weren’t gonna micromanage me. And it just, it was a whole new world for me. Being an adult, essentially, but also being in charge of what happened within my territory and feeling like I could create things and be proud of them and help transform the community around me and that the leadership behind me.

[00:10:40] Supported me and they liked what I was doing and trusted me. And that I hope also translates to my staff now. And that I have tried to turn that into a piece of my leadership as well. That I trust them, that I let them know that as long as you’re doing your job and you’re doing it very well, that I trust you and you, if you are not hearing from me, then you are doing a great job

[00:11:06] Internal Motivation

[00:11:06] Miriam: It seems like, and you would have to correct me if I’m wrong Nonprofits need people who are internally motivated and kind of self-directed.

[00:11:17] Is that, is that what you would say?

[00:11:20] Kendra: Absolutely. You have to be internally motivated because nonprofits can’t necessarily give you the external motive motivation that other companies have and. It’s unfortunate that that’s what’s happened in the world, that a lot of people take for granted non-profit work and believe that we shouldn’t be paid well because we love what we do, , and, and it is part of my crusade to make sure that people understand that that is not in fact true, that we do deserve to be paid well.

[00:11:51] We have to run our organization the same as any other business. And to attract talent, I need to be able to pay well and to provide benefits. And we love what we do. It’s not an OR. And hopefully we can start shifting that. But for now, until that does shift, it requires internal motivation to be able to keep going when you see someone with your same degree ma making five times as much money because they win a different route.

[00:12:18] And it seems like their life is easier. Whether or not it really is would be. Story, but it seems that way and it can draw you into a different way of working. If you don’t have that internal motivation to be doing it. It does definitely require a passion for your community and for, for what you do.

Keep the Passion

[00:12:39] Because it’s, it’s hard. It’s really easy to get pessimistic in the nonprofit world because our, what is what we’re doing really making a difference. I, it’s hard to know. And it’s even harder to prove a negative if you’re in a nonprofit world that’s working to prevent something. You can’t prove whether you’re doing it or not, if you’re doing it well,

[00:13:01] Yeah. So you can really easily lose the passion for what you’re doing unless you are, you are internally motivated and also, Keeping yourself mentally and, and physically healthy along the way.

[00:13:14] Miriam: Yeah, I can see how there would be some spaces that were pretty unique to what you do that maybe the rest of the world doesn’t deal with.

[00:13:24] I was talking with someone the other day and we were talking about I, I think we were talking about some charities that are listed on Charity Navigator. We always check out charities just to make sure that, you know, the vast majority of the donation is going to serve the thing, not just going into, you know, whatever, fundraising or whatnot.

Other Salaries

[00:13:44] And in this particular one, this. CEO was making six figures and it started an interesting question of, is that okay or not okay? And the person I was talking with said, Well, I don’t think that’s good stewardship. I don’t think that’s okay. And the, And I was saying, Well, you know, if you look at this person’s salary in reference to anyone else at this level in business, they’re taking a pretty low salary.

[00:14:09] But I understand how the public. I understand where the confusion comes from because when people donate their a hundred dollars or their $200 and then they see someone getting a six figure salary, then they’re like, Ah, is this good use of my money or resources? Anyway? It is until you have walked in those shoes and understood.

[00:14:34] I think it’s easy to judge people for sure.

[00:14:37] Non-Profit Finances

[00:14:37] Kendra: Mm-hmm. , it’s a balance. Mm-hmm. and it is a, a very delicate balance. But we, if we want the programs that we’re offering to be high quality, then we have to have high quality staff and we have to be able to attract them away from so much other competition that pays well.

[00:14:55] And yes, we will always pay. Than a large corporation would. Absolutely. And there is some expectation there to that because we depend on donations and we want the money to go into programs too. Absolutely. But we need to pay our bills . Sure. In order to do the programs, we have to be able to have a place to live.

[00:15:17] So as there is this very fine line there. But I think there is a space for conversation to be sure that people providing services are paid fairly, not exorbitantly, but fairly for the work that they’re doing so that they can keep doing it.

[00:15:34] Miriam: Sure, absolutely. So you mentioned earlier in this list, Of nonprofits that you had spent time in.

[00:15:41] One of them was dealing with human trafficking. Do you mind if I ask a couple questions about that? Sure. Like what what was your role in that organization? What did you find rewarding? What caused you to switch to something else?

[00:15:58] Preventing Human Trafficking

[00:15:58] Kendra: Sure. So the organization works to raise awareness about human trafficking, and my job was as a program manager, and I developed programming that focused on preventing human trafficking among juveniles domestically.

[00:16:13] I also did research on trafficking in the area where I lived and I did a lot of our outreach to Faith Communi. And to schools to make sure people felt equipped to recognize the signs.

[00:16:27] I developed a training for the police department where I lived that was launched within their cadet Academy so that all up and coming police officers would be able to recognize it better and the differences between trafficking.

[00:16:41] Smuggling or trafficking and prostitution and various different things. And I loved the job because it is an issue that I feel we absolutely need to address. But the reason I left is because the driving motiva motivation for human trafficking is primarily poverty. If we are not addressing poverty, what I was doing was never gonna solve the problem.

Non-Profits Addressing Poverty

[00:17:07] I can raise awareness every single day for the next million years, and it doesn’t stop trafficking from happening. It still happens until we take a step back and focus on preventing victims and preventing perpetrators from happening in the first place. And that’s why I left is I wanted to get more onto the primary issue motivating the problem.

[00:17:28] And so I transitioned into an organization that works on addressing hunger and poverty because if we can solve those, we reduce the risk factors for people becoming victims of trafficking. So in many ways, I felt like I was just continuing the work. I was just going a step back to hopefully prevent the trauma from ever having to take place.

[00:17:49] Miriam: Sure makes so much sense. And boy, if you go down some of these rabbit holes, it gets pretty deep because poverty at some level can be caused by climate change and some of these other, I mean, you know, and so then you end up switching into that space. It’s all connected. We’re all part of one world and they, everything touches everything for sure.

[00:18:13] Recognizing Human Trafficking

[00:18:13] Miriam: Do you mind sharing a couple thoughts about How to recognize trafficking. I, I just think as long as we’ve got people listening, we might as well share, right? Yeah, sure.

[00:18:25] Kendra: So first of all, I will say that I will never forget, but the hotline to call if you recognize trafficking, is 8 8 8 37 37 8 8 8 , very easy number.

[00:18:34] But there are two primary types of trafficking. Sex trafficking and labor trafficking and sex trafficking tends to get a lot of attention, but labor trafficking is actually four times more common. And it appears in various ways between domestic servitude to Even magazine salespeople. Door to door was an interesting ar area of research that was happening while I was in the field.

[00:18:58] But then of course, sex trafficking. The primary definition is force fraud or coercion used to make someone work against their will. And signs that you look out for One of the trainings lately has been for flight attendants looking out for people not in possession of their own identification documents.

[00:19:17] That can be a very big sign or signal. The age of the person is very important. When we’re looking at sex trafficking, you’re looking at people under the age of 18. It does not matter what put them there. It doesn’t matter if they say they chose it. If they are under 18, then they are a victim of, of trafficking if they are being used for the purposes of sex or exploitation.

Review Your Purchases

[00:19:41] We also see within businesses here in the US there have been more than one case of large hotel or motel chains. Their cleaning crews are victims of human trafficking because they’re not being paid, and it is very common within our food systems. So migrant labor is very easily exploited in ways that.

[00:20:04] Pretty astounding giving that this is the year 2022.

[00:20:07] But what I like to tell people is what you can do is look at how you purchase things if it is an issue that is really important to you. Knowing how, to, knowing the company that you’re purchasing from and their ethical standards and treating their workers all the way down their supply chain, not just in their office.

[00:20:27] But including that they know who is picking your tomatoes and who is making your shirt, That is what you want to see. The Fair Trade Label, for instance, is certified trafficking and slave labor free. So that’s an easy, well, I won’t say easy, a simple way. To be able to fight trafficking is changing how you purchase, and that’s actually the number one impact that we as Americans can really have is changing how we purchase.

Keep Your Eyes Open

[00:20:54] Because that changes how companies do business. But you can just keep your eyes out when you’re traveling when you are in your own community, when you staying in a hotel, having conversations is one of the biggest things that you can do. Get to know the people that are cleaning your room or are serving you food or just knowing that it can be there, but also not seeing it everywhere.

[00:21:21] But if you do see the signs, then calling the number and reporting it it takes you to Polaris Project, which is a great nonprofit out of DC that runs the National Hotline for trafficking and they can report it to the local authorities to investigate it.

[00:21:35] Miriam: Thank you. I appreciate you talking about that.

[00:21:38] I think that these things go in waves as far as people’s awareness. and a lot of times people are saying, What can I do? This is such a big problem, whether it’s the trafficking thing or climate change, or whatever. The people are always saying, What can I do? So I appreciate that you gave some specific things.

[00:22:00] Effective Management

[00:22:00] Miriam: A couple other quick questions and then we’ll wrap it up. When, when you look at your development within the nonprofit sphere, what are some things you had to grow in, in terms of perspective?

[00:22:17] Kendra: So, well, one that I’ve already talked about is managing people, growing my perspective on what that means, like mm-hmm.

[00:22:24] how you manage people effectively. And in different ways cuz every person is very unique. And that required experiencing it. To be able to become the leader that I wanted to be, but also being li willing to listen when someone tells me something’s not working and not taking it personally. Being willing to change as necessary and really get to know the people I’m leading.

[00:22:54] But the other area I really had to grow in is the absolute basics, the things that I feel like we don’t learn enough of really in school such. QuickBooks, like, how do I manage my accounting books? How do I, you know, set up my webpage? Things that are very simple that I don’t have the money to call someone to come do for me.

[00:23:19] Mm-hmm. , sometimes that’s trial and error. , That is true, but it’s also a matter of my personal motivation to seek out the training and the education that I need to be better at it. Recognizing those things and not pretending like I know them, but being willing to admit that I don’t, and then take the steps to learn them.

Master Naturalist

[00:23:37] For instance, this year I’ve worked diligently to become what’s known as a master naturalist. Because while I don’t develop our programs, just my title in and of itself invites people to ask me questions, and I do not have a background in nature or the environment. And too many times my answer had to be, I don’t know, but I’ll figure it out.

[00:23:58] And so that was a piece that I felt was missing, and so I took it upon myself to find the classes that I need to be able to better serve my community. And that it’s a continuous process. Absolutely. I know there’s more that I need to learn and it will both be on the job, but also be a matter of recognizing where I feel inadequate and taking the steps to, to be better at it, and also ask for help as needed.

[00:24:27] Right. Something a lot of leaders don’t like to do, but being willing to do it and it doesn’t show weakness. It actually, in my opinion, is very much a strength to just say, I don’t know how to do this, but someone can teach me.

[00:24:40] Miriam: Yes. I would say right there, that is the basis of the high performing mindset.

[00:24:46] I don’t know, but I can figure it out. I don’t know, but I’m gonna ask someone. So good on you for like internalizing that space and saying, I don’t have to know everything I confident in my ability to learn. That’s what I heard you. Well done.

[00:25:03] Be More Respectful

[00:25:03] Miriam: Yes. What would you say, like if you could change anything about the public so far that from what you know, what , I wish I was the magic genie that could give you the wand, but what would you change?

[00:25:16] Yeah, what would you ask from people? Please do more of this or less of this.

[00:25:23] Kendra: I think I would ask people to please, please be more respectful in general. be, more respectful of, of each other, but also of the environment around us. And not because it’s pretty or we want it, but because it’s absolutely essential to us as human beings.

[00:25:44] Yeah. We need the planet, We need our environment. We are. As reliant on it as any other species on this planet, and respect is where it all comes from, and that also goes for each other and recognizing that. You know when I go off trail because I want a pretty picture, is that really beneficial to anyone or is it potentially causing harm so that the person coming after me doesn’t have the experience that I just had?

[00:26:15] Things like that, that are so simple, but I think we lose track of it because we’ve gotten into a mindset. of Just so much self focus and that is both, It’s a pendulum that has happened that we needed to be taking better care of ourselves. But now we’ve gone a bit too far and seen too much of focus on myself and not enough on other people.

Success for All

[00:26:38] So I think just asking for a bit more respect around us would, and, you know, for non-profits a bit more. Respect for each other that we are all working in this space. It’s not a zero sum game. I can succeed and so can someone else. And the same goes for the business world in respecting the choices that we make and other people around us to make sure that.

[00:27:03] You know, our, our supply chains are clean of, of slave labor. That’s a matter of respect too, of respecting all human beings wherever they find themselves in the world. Yeah, that’s what I would love to see more of. .

[00:27:16] What I would pro probably love to see less, less of is the pessimism that we’re seeing lately.

[00:27:23] A lot of us have gotten to this point. It feels like what I do is so small, so why bother doing it? And that is a really dangerous place to be. And yes, maybe my not watering my yard isn’t gonna save the great Salt Lake, but it doesn’t mean I stop doing it. It does mean that I do it and I do more. I advocate for the larger companies to start making the changes they need to make because that’s where real change happens.

[00:27:52] But it also doesn’t mean that I stop doing what I can.

[00:27:56] We Each Have an Influence

[00:27:56] Miriam: That feels like a mic drop moment. I don’t know that I can add too much more to that other than. Everybody has their pet thing that they feel good about. Like I know certain people are super good at picking up trash every time that they walk, but they have no problem flipping someone off who cuts ’em off at the, at the road, you know?

[00:28:18] Yes. And then you have other persons who would just bend over backwards to just help someone out, and they have no problem. Buying a hundred thousand bottles of bottled water. Like yes, we are these interesting mixes of I’m gonna make a positive difference in my world and I’m woefully unaware of the damage I’m causing in other areas.

[00:28:43] And so I love your focus on could we be a little less negative and also do what you can. And then take it one step further. So yes, go ahead and pick up the trash, and also please write this company and say, Thank you for putting your yogurt and glass jars because they can be recycled. And yes, stop watering your lawn in the middle of the day, in the middle of the summer, and also contact so and so and ask them to, you know, use fair trade with their clothing.

[00:29:15] Like there is more that we as individuals can do, but it takes a little bit of effort. It’s not Herculean, but it does take a little bit of effort

Vote

[00:29:25] There was a a time, I don’t know, it was probably in the spring where I was trying to write a company, at least one company each week, either thanking them for something they were doing or asking them to do something different.

[00:29:38] I have no idea if it makes any difference or not. But you get enough people doing that. Yeah, and it does. And somehow or other, we have to hold onto that space in US that says, Our individual effort does matter whether we can see it or not. Yes. That’s hard. I think that’s hard for people at times.

[00:29:59] It’s very hard, but I will also throw out there that one of the biggest things we can do is to vote.

[00:30:04] So it’s the right season right now, but it’s pretty much every year there’s an opportunity to vote on something and we have to keep letting our voice be heard, whether it is writing a letter. Voting for an elected official that believes the way you believe or calling up, you know, a company or, or a nonprofit and finding out how you can get involved.

[00:30:27] There is always something, and I know we all have different levels of time and, and energy to be able to do things but we can all find something that that makes a difference.

[00:30:37] Absolutely. What a great place to end. Kendra, thank you so much for your time today. And you know, I always end my podcast by saying, Now go be intentional.

[00:30:48] And I’m gonna just say it twice. You know, they’ll, it’ll come in the outro, but right now I’m gonna say to our audience, do something to make your world a better place today, intentionally.

End Credits

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Music by Tom Sherlock.

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As someone who has been a therapist for over a decade and has been coaching people for over three decades, I am uniquely qualified to address your concerns.

 

Building Success From the Bottom with Kevin Mansouri

[00:00:00] Miriam: All right. I’m so happy to have Kevin Mansouri here. He’s the owner of Mortgage Solutions and I’m gonna let him tell a little bit more about what he does, and then we’re gonna get into this conversation about serving people and how to make a difference as a business owner.

[00:00:19] Kevin: Great. I’m happy to be here. Thank you for having me. success success success success

[00:00:23] Mortgage Solutions

[00:00:23] Miriam: So why don’t you talk a little bit about you know, what your company does, and then we’ll get into the finer details

[00:00:31] Kevin: of it. Sounds great. So I’m the owner and operator of Mortgage Solutions llc, and I started in 1998, believe it or not. I’ve got some gray hairs from it and I’ve just been serving the Utah community ever since.

[00:00:47] Miriam: Right. So what does Mortgage Broker do?

Three Environments of Mortgage Lending

[00:00:50] Kevin: Okay, so there’s really three environments of mortgage lending. There is a bank like Wells Fargo or Chase. There’s something called a mortgage banker. Which I can get into in a bit. And then there’s a mortgage broker. I have worked in all three capacities over my career and I’ve found a mortgage broker can service its clients the best.

[00:01:12] Really it’s like an insurance broker. If you’ve ever heard of Bear River or Auto Owners or some of those carriers, you work with one agent, but then they have several different sources. Of places to get your insurance. In the mortgage world, it’s the same thing. We have several different sources to get the funding.

[00:01:31] So for that reason, I feel that it gives our clients the best rates, the best opportunities, the most access to programs, but with one local person that they can trust.

[00:01:40] Miriam: Yeah, like a live human. They can, they can talk to a live human. Yes. Which is what, what we all want to do these days at least I do, I get really excited if I get a live human and I don’t have to go through one of those like phone menus before I can get there.

[00:01:57] Yes. So I, there my brain went two different directions as you were talking and we’ll hit both of ’em. But I think where I wanna go first is you mentioned you’ve been doing this for 21 years in your bio. That’s a long time to be in a service agency. You see it grow and develop and also you grow and develop.

[00:02:18] Working For Yourself

[00:02:18] Miriam: So I think I want you to talk about the genesis of this, how did you even get started with it? And as our listeners are thinking about, Oh, I might be able to do this, or I’m sick of working for someone else, how did you make the leap from working for someone else to working for yourself?

[00:02:38] Kevin: Well, that’s a really good question.

[00:02:40] So I’ve always been somewhat entrepreneurial. I can remember as a kid, You know, having a car wash business and doing it and failing miserably and then doing something else. So I’ve always had an entrepreneurial spirit. But the way this actually came to be, I was a copier technician and I would service and sell copy machines and.

[00:03:04] Just wasn’t happy I was doing it. My heart wasn’t in it. And I went to a mortgage company where I ran into some high school friends. I’ve always been a big believer that your social life and your social interaction is every bit as important as your education. But we can talk about that later. But, so I ran into some people I knew that were, we had worked at a previous job, It was a pizza, pizza place, Little Caesar’s Pizza.

[00:03:30] And they’re like, Pizza, Pizza. They said, they literally said, You gotta get out of that business and get into this business. Wow. And I said, Okay. And I started researching it. I got every book I ca could on the topic. And I didn’t believe it would work. I it, deep down inside, I was so concerned that I was gonna go broke doing this.

Save for Expenses

[00:03:53] And I at the time had, you know, part of being entrepreneurial, I had bought a house with my two brothers together and I had real expenses in my early twenties and I’m like, Well, this doesn’t work. How am I gonna make my house payment? How am I gonna make my car payment? So I actually got a second job and that job was going solely towards saving up enough money so that I had six months worth of expenses just in case it didn’t work. And I remember having I would get the cashiers check and I would have it written in the amount, and I stuck it in an envelope. It went to the mortgage company or to the car company, or to utilities. So I had literally six months of expenses.

[00:04:34] I took the leap and boy did the, did the trouble start when I took the leap .

[00:04:39] Miriam: Okay. Talk a little bit about that. And, and by the way, can I just say good on you for doing it that way? I knew, I know way too many entrepreneurial people who they get sick of their job and then a huff, they quit and they’re like, I’m gonna do X and then, stuff starts going on credit cards and they start digging a hole that they never get out of.

[00:05:02] Somebody told me entrepreneurs incredibly optimistic and that sometimes they need people to help, like tether them to earth because they just think life is magic. I love that you took into account life isn’t magic, expenses are real, and you set yourself up to success, so for success.

[00:05:22] So keep going.

[00:05:24] Kevin: Okay,

[00:05:24] Learn From Your Mistakes

[00:05:24] Kevin: what happened next? So I started a mortgage company and don’t know anything about it. I had a book and we have both No experience versus written education or two different things. Yeah. And my manager said, There’s a list. Start calling them. That’s literally how it started. And I learned b every time I learned.

[00:05:46] It cost me money every time I made a mistake. And every single time I learned one of the mistake. You really learn it when you are missing out on money because you did something wrong. No fault of anyone’s but your own. You really learn it. So I remember and, and the mortgage business, you, you, even if you work for a company, you’re really self-employed and that goes for all, almost all sales.

[00:06:11] I mean, if you don’t produce, you don’t make money. And, and that’s actually why you will never be laid off either because. You’re producing. Right. So I remember just being there. There was another guy there. I remember showing up in a tie when you, you didn’t have to in our business, at least at that level.

[00:06:30] But I just had this pride in, I’m like, I’m gonna make this work. I don’t, nothing is gonna stop me. If someone else can do it, I can do it. And it’s a matter of time. And I remember there was another guy that was there with me, his name was Dominic. And we would just sit there and call late at night and.

Being OK with Rejection

[00:06:45] Tons of rejection, just tons of we were the annoying guys on the other end of the phone, but then you’d get a small success and you were high fiving, and you could see there were, there were three or four other people, but a, a lot of people would just spend their time on low productive activities, like making sure everything was perfect, like their business card or their, whatever it was at the time, instead of just doing the high productive activity, which was.

[00:07:15] Blitzing the phones, getting the calls made, talking to everyone you knew and believing in your product. And believing what in what you were doing, so, Wow. Yeah.

[00:07:25] Miriam: Oh, there’s a ton to unpack there. I wanna focus for a second on the non-productive activities because so many people, and my audience is split between business owners or entrepreneurs.

Have Priorities

[00:07:39] And high performers and or people who wanna be high performers who are headed in that self development space. And what you’re talking about, this business of their, not all activities are equal. I mean, yeah, you get to cross it off the list, but the phone call to what? I don’t know. The phone call to schedule your lawn maintenance is not the same as the phone call calling up a client.

[00:08:07] Yeah, they’re both phone calls and yeah, you can mark one off, but one is gonna bring you revenue or greater success in whatever avenue you’re choosing and one isn’t. So I’m curious to know how you knew this. How did you understand it? It’s about action and Yeah. Where did you come by this?

[00:08:30] Kevin: Well, I had a clicking, I had a clicking time schedule.

[00:08:34] I had a certain amount of checks left before. If I didn’t make any money, what was I gonna do? I had, I had to make it, I think it was from a position of it had to work. Now, if we, if we go back in time, I didn’t have a wife, I didn’t have children. I had my own expenses, which were manageable. So it wasn’t from a position of desperation.

[00:08:57] I wanna make that clear.

[00:08:58] Take Logical Steps

[00:08:58] Kevin: I think that that is a mistake people will do leaping in when they don’t have any financial footing. I think you have to approach it from some position of, of strength. But to answer your question, the thing that that made me do, it was just starting at zero. I had nothing. So what was logically the most important thing to do?

[00:09:19] To, to work on a business card or to get a client? Getting a client was, was the more important thing to do. Yeah, I think it just made sense.

[00:09:29] Common Sense

[00:09:29] Miriam: Yeah. Well, it absolutely makes sense, but you would be shocked at how many people don’t do it. There’s a influencer I like who says, common sense is not always. Common practice, and I’ve almost taken that on as my own mantra because I’ve just seen so many people, you know, a certain part of their brain knows it’s the right thing to do and a different part of their brain is too anxious and is like, Here.

[00:09:52] Why don’t we rearrange the pencils in the little holder, whatever. You know, those self-defeating behaviors.

[00:10:00] I wanna bounce back to your friend Dominic. It seems to me like that was really important to have someone there to do it, to share your losses, to share your wins. I mean, what would it have been like if he hadn’t been there?

[00:10:16] Kevin: I hadn’t really ever thought of it before now, but you know, it was great having someone in the trenches with. And you know, it was just neat sharing those wins with them. And I think if he hadn’t been there, I don’t wanna say I wouldn’t have made it. I don’t think anything would’ve stopped me, but it certainly wouldn’t have been as sweet.

[00:10:36] And we leaned on each other and it was almost kinda like shared knowledge, you know, if I learned something that was advantageous. I shared it with him and if he learned something that was working, he shared it with me and we kind of leaned on each other, which was, was a really nice thing. Yeah.

[00:10:53] Miriam: Yeah.

It Takes Time

[00:10:54] Well, I could tell your voice changed when you talked about that and it, it felt like you know, iron sharpened iron, you guys spurred one another on in Definitely in so many positive ways. When did you know this is gonna work?

[00:11:08] Every entrepreneur has this moment where they go, I cannot believe I’m being paid to do this.

[00:11:18] Kevin: So It was a good Miriam, it was a good six months before I made a dime. I mean, I literally made no money. It was, I had people that were saying, Yes, let’s do this. It was a, it was a refinance. Crazy. At the time, rates had just gone from seven to 6%. So, So rates right now are about where they were when I started.

[00:11:40] So all of you people out there, we’ve been drunk off of good interest rates for about 10 years. So so. I remember turning loans into processing. I didn’t know what that meant. Got what I was asked to get, didn’t know why I was getting it. And they would sit and sit and sit and sit. And the company I was working for had.

[00:12:03] Growth issues because of the, the rate changes. They didn’t have quality control issues. And I remember my manager came to me one day and he said, Hey I’d like to go to a different company and I want you to go with me. Whoa. And it was because of this processing problem. Mm-hmm. and, you know, I didn’t realize that loans didn’t take four or five months to close.

Failures

[00:12:24] I just realized I was just doing my part and getting the success part, and I had faith the rest of it would work out. And actually this was the precursor to me starting my own company. But it didn’t, it didn’t work out initially. The processor just wasn’t there. There was a lot of time wasted on You know, just being in line and leads get cold.

[00:12:51] Borrowers would go somewhere else. You know, it just wasn’t working. And so I eventually left with him to another company where we experienced the same kind of problems. And then and then, and, and these were both mortgage bankers. They were one of the three types of environments. And that’s when I went to a mortgage brokerage after that.

[00:13:13] Right. And, and then I could actually get stuff.

[00:13:15] Miriam: Sure. Let me pause you for a second. What I heard you say. At the front end, you don’t know what you don’t know, right? And you think maybe this is the way things are and it sort of takes either someone else from the outside or time you know, something to interject itself into the system that helps you realize, you know what, there could actually be a better way here.

[00:13:38] Right? And an awful lot of businesses are born out of that, where people get just fed up with. Beating their head against the wall with something that should work but doesn’t.

[00:13:50] Kevin: Yep. Absolutely. Absolutely.

[00:13:54] Miriam: Yeah. So my original question was, when did you know it would work?

Believe

[00:14:01] Kevin: I, I think at the beginning, but, but I didn’t know what, I didn’t know, like you said. So I thought it would work and I believed it would work, and I, and I say I believed because I acted as if it would. Without any kind of wavering. I, I, I look back at it now and I’m like, Oh my gosh. But I would say three months in I knew it would work and it was a matter of time.

[00:14:25] Mm. So after I had yeses from clients, after I got positive feedback from my clients, cause I was meeting with them in their homes mm-hmm. after just getting lots of good feedback, it wa it became the getting, it isn’t the. Part that I’m gonna struggle with right now. It’s the process of actually delivering on the product that I was selling.

[00:14:48] Miriam: I see. So you realized at some point, I actually have some sales skills here and now it’s the delivering space that’s getting in the way.

[00:14:59] Believe in Your Product

[00:14:59] Kevin: I would, Is that what you said? Yeah. And can I, can I just interject something? Yeah. I actually don’t consider myself a sales, like a really strong sales person. But I know my product and I believe in my product and I and my clients look at me from a technical standpoint of solving their problem.

[00:15:17] And I’m really good at transferring trust. So the sales, there’s no pressure. My style there, it’s a very low pressure. It’s a, here’s the product I’ve got, here’s why you should do it. Here’s why I believe it’s right for you. And you make the decision and it’s served me really well. Yeah,

[00:15:34] Miriam: that makes sense.

[00:15:36] That kind of respect, I think, serves anybody really well. People do not like to feel pressured. Right. People. And the younger they get though, I mean, they’re just absolutely f. Phobic about it. It’s like, don’t true. Don’t put me in a bind. Don’t make me feel uncomfortable. And, you know, Yeah. So I, I think that that has probably served you well.

Get Out of Your Way

[00:15:58] You had a quote I believe it was on your website or somewhere that said, Stop getting in your own way. Ready, fire, aim. Right? Yeah. Which I love. Talk about that a little

[00:16:10] Kevin: bit. Well that goes back to the stop preparing and do it. You know, it’s never gonna be perfect. You’re never gonna have all of the answers and you need to just go out there and make your own way.

[00:16:22] So ready. Be as prepared as you can, but don’t spend the bulk of your time on that fire. Go do the thing and then refine later. That would be the aim part.

[00:16:33] Miriam: Sure. Jim Collins in Good to Great, I think said fire bullets, not cannon balls. And he was all. Ready, fire, and then fire the little things. Uhhuh, . And once you know you’re hitting your target, now you load up and make it a cannon ball.

[00:16:48] Kevin: That makes great sense.

[00:16:50] Buying a House

[00:16:50] Miriam: Okay, so a question that I wanna ask you has to deal with both millennials and Gen Z folks who I quite love, but I, I know quite a few people in that age category and one of the things that they are, Bemoaning much of the time is, oh my gosh, the way the world is, the way the economy is, the way prices are, I’ll never be able to own a home.

[00:17:13] And I thought you would be the perfect person to sort of ask that question and just hear what you have to say.

[00:17:20] Kevin: Yeah, I think they have a great point. I mean, we’ve seen in the last five years just prices double and that’s never happened in the history of housing in that shorter period of time.

[00:17:31] So you got a valid concern millennials and Gen Z. However, you are bigger than this problem. And here’s there’s a couple of things you can do. The first thing is look for opportunities to either buy a multi-unit property and live in half and rent the other half out.

[00:17:54] Or another one is look at your home as a stepping stone.

[00:17:58] You’re never gonna get to be in the area you wanna be with the first house. So buy a house in the area you don’t wanna be and then leapfrog that into another house. So you’ll sell it hopefully over time. It’s appreciated. And then you can eventually get the house in the area that you wanna be, but it’s never gonna happen the first, the first go round.

[00:18:19] Debt

[00:18:19] Kevin: Debt will kill you. Get rid of your debt. Don’t ever, in fact, better yet, don’t get into debt. Work another job, work hard, do what you have to do to get those expenses under control. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, these are government agencies that that set the rules for housing just allowed income from an accessory dwelling unit.

[00:18:44] Well, what does that mean? That means you can buy a house right now that might be outta your price range, and if it has a basement apartment, you can now use that income from that basement apartment to supplement your income. So now you can qualify for the house. This is something new.

[00:19:02] I just closed my first loan on it the other day. The guy never would’ve qualified for the house. Now he’s got it easy. He’s got rental income from the base. He, he, it, it really solved his problem. So there are programs out there for you guys but you gotta help yourself.

Talk on the Phone

[00:19:17] So, one other thing I want to just stress to this community is don’t be afraid to talk to someone on the phone.

[00:19:25] There’s only so much you can learn from an internet web search. And honestly, the, the hardest thing. I struggle with is actually getting you guys on the phone. Once you’re on the phone and we’ve, we’ve had a conversation. I’m talking 10 minutes. I hear the relief in your voice. I’m telling you I hear it.

[00:19:42] And that is because you have an understanding or a control over this situation that you didn’t before. So, Texting’s, great internet search are great.

[00:19:49] Pick up the phone and call someone

[00:19:54] Miriam: Oh, I love that. I love it. I was telling my kids that when they were little all the time, pick up the phone and call someone. It’s good for you, .

[00:20:04] It is. It is. Oh,

[00:20:05] well spoken.

[00:20:06] Yeah. Yeah. Something else that you had mentioned – you said you like to talk about owning assets. I think that is a great conversation because regardless of if our listeners, our business owners or high performers, everybody needs to hear this conversation about owning assets.

[00:20:27] So let’s go there. Yeah,

[00:20:28] Owning Assets

[00:20:28] Kevin: Yeah. Okay. So your bus, your regular business, or what your regular source of income is, is how you get by in the day to day. World. But if you just do that, you’re only going to be able to, you know, that that is how you make your living. You need to be able to create some space, and by that I mean.

[00:20:54] You need to be able to, Well, this is going above and beyond my mortgage company, and this is just part of who I am is I’m always looking for an opportunity to own an asset. So for example, it could be a piece of real estate or it could be a vending machine. Just something that is you can do in addition to your regular thing.

[00:21:17] That can later pay off big time for you. So, Right. So

[00:21:20] Miriam: let me interrupt for a second because I think people get confused as to what an asset is. Yeah. People say, Well, I own a boat, or I own a truck, or I own a second house, and blah, blah. Get, define the difference between an asset and a non-asset.

[00:21:36] Kevin: Okay. Well, I’ll give you my definition without looking it up.

[00:21:41] When I think of an asset, it’s something that will grow in value over time, in instead of losing value over time. So that’s it in its simplest form.

[00:21:51] Miriam: Yeah. I’ve always heard an asset is something that makes you money and the other thing is something that takes money.

Rentals

[00:21:57] Kevin: That’s right. So that’s right. And, and things can be both.

[00:21:59] That boat could be an asset if you rented it out when you’re not using it. Mm-hmm. , you know, it, it doesn’t have to just. You know, the, the traditional sense of the word asset. But someone told me a long time ago when I, Earl was just early into the business, they’re like, Hey, some opportunities you can present themselves to you and you need to take advantage of those when they come.

[00:22:21] And specifically, I, so I’ve got some rentals. That’s another thing that I do in addition to my, my mortgage company. And I’ll just, I just will never forget it was 2004, a client was gonna buy a house and they decided not to buy the house because of something That was, to them, a big deal. But to me, I’m like, Oh, I can overcome this.

[00:22:42] And you know, I bought that house for $123,000 in 2004. It’s on a half an acre in South Salt Lake, and I still have it. And it, and it’s this asset that’s appreciated over the years. Yes, it’s been a pain. N there, there’s no such thing as, as a rental that’s not, but it’s here and there. It’s totally manageable.

[00:23:02] I never go to it. Always have someone else go to it when it needs something and I’m getting really good at never leaving my office and still getting things done.

[00:23:14] I’m actually proud of it in a weird way. Yeah.

Client-Friendly Office

[00:23:17] Miriam: Well, you’ve designed the life that you want. I mean, your office is in your home, right? Yes. So, yes, I think that that makes it really fun when you can just walk up the stairs or outside or whatever, and the people you love are right there. Definitely.

[00:23:31] Kevin: Yeah. And, and just for the record, my, my office wasn’t in my home all the time.

[00:23:35] I had an office, I had a big staff. Clients don’t wanna meet in person anymore, so it’s just a business decision. Let’s get rid of the office and let’s, let’s make it work and cut some, Cut some of the financial

[00:23:47] costs.

[00:23:48] Miriam: So absolutely. That totally makes sense. I also have an office that I am never in because my clients, you know, I work with entrepreneurs and they are busy and they don’t want the commute time into the office and whatever.

[00:24:01] And so we do phone and zoom and I. To their schedule, and it works really well. So I hear mm-hmm. exactly what you’re saying. And I have other people utilizing my office and making me money while we do it. So there you go. It’s, it’s exactly as you say

[00:24:18] You mentioned at one point on a form, I think that you filled out for my podcast-

[00:24:24] you said something like, I didn’t excel in school, I couldn’t even hardly spell -none of that matters. Can you talk more about that? Yeah,

[00:24:33] All Kinds of Skills

[00:24:33] Kevin: yeah. So math, I was pretty good at spelling is getting worse every day. Thank goodness for spell checker. It’s n i I don’t consider my, I mean, I’m a smart guy but I don’t consider myself to be, you know, real, really smart.

[00:24:55] Like it’s just a matter of how motivated you are and, and getting into this business gave me a motivation that I hadn’t seen in myself before. And, None of it does matter. It, I, you should see some of the realtors I work with and I’ve worked with for years, they, they just know how to go and fire instead of aiming.

[00:25:20] And that that’s what they’re good at. They’re good at talking to a lot of people, their skills on the side of negotiation, you know, believe a lot, a lot to be desired.

[00:25:30] Really it is about the doing and. If I can do it, anyone can do it. Really. If and if, and if someone else can do it, I can do it. I, I’ve come to that realization and it’s, it’s super powerful.

[00:25:44] Miriam: Yeah, that sounds extremely powerful. I, I think about how. So many entrepreneurs did not do well in school. They might have been dyslexic or they just were wiggly. They might have had, you know, now they would say they had adhd and you know, I mean, perhaps they did. I’m not saying they did or didn’t, but.

Do Your Best

[00:26:06] Sadly there comes upon them this sense of I’m a failure because some teacher said, You’re never gonna amount to anything. Or they just got tired of bringing home Fs and whatever was happening in school wasn’t a good match for their brain. And then they find out later in life, Hey, I’m actually good at some things and I just appreciated your comment.

[00:26:32] You don’t need to spell in your job. We’ve got spellcheck. Google will do it for you. So you can do the things that you can do and you let the machines, or the help or the whatever, do the things that you can’t do. It’s all about taking those meaningful actions.

[00:26:48] Kevin: Yes. Yes. And, and can I add one other ca caveat to that?

[00:26:54] After 23, 24 years in business, it’s come down to one little thing for me that. Have distilled it to. Yeah. And this is gonna, this is so, it’s bizarre, but I’ve, I’ve come to the realization. So you have to be good at your job. That’s a given. You have to deliver what you’re saying. The rest of it is, do they like you and do they have a comfort level with you?

[00:27:18] Yeah. It’s so bizarre that it’s come to that, but that’s what it is. I mean, I’m in an age of internet. We’re in the internet age. A local broker shouldn’t. Excelling and beating Quicken Home Loans, but we do every single day and it’s because we can, we can communicate and we can talk to them, and there’s a comfort level and we like each other.

[00:27:39] Mm-hmm. really, really, that still exists and I would say stronger than ever.

Human Interaction

[00:27:44] Miriam: Well said. I agree with you. I think that people at some level are hungering for the human touch, the human interaction, and honestly decency. Yeah. I think people are pretty tired of reactiveness or getting screwed over by so and so, or.

[00:28:03] They want honesty, they want decency, and they want a live human, and they don’t wanna have to wait forever. So in addition to being good at your job, you have to be able to deliver in a timely fashion.

[00:28:15] Yep. Yep. Mm-hmm. , And you have to do what you say you’re gonna do.

[00:28:19] Yeah. Isn’t that the foundation of trust right there?

[00:28:22] Yeah. Do what you say you’re gonna do.

[00:28:24] Kevin: Yeah. It’s, it’s so simple, but some people just struggle so much with it and, and if you can’t do what you said you’re gonna do, you need to let ’em know as quickly as possible, and then you need to make it right. Mm-hmm. .

[00:28:36] Miriam: Yeah. Do you have any stories like that?

[00:28:39] Something that came up and you needed to make it right?

Making it Right

[00:28:43] Kevin: Oh, over the years, there’s been a lot of ’em. Yeah, I, I have some. So there was an example where someone had put earnest money on, on a home. Well, actually I have two, so I’m gonna, I’m gonna take two of them, if that’s okay. Yeah, totally. Someone had put earnest money on the home.

[00:29:02] And earnest money is, you know, a deposit when you’re buying a house. And this is a purchase transaction. And we didn’t deliver in the timeframe we were supposed to. Now we have wholesale lenders. It technically wasn’t our fault, but. The customer doesn’t know that they’re interfacing with me. They ended up losing that earnest money and we took upon ourselves to reimburse them for it.

[00:29:25] So that’s one example. Another example is I had this client, this is well into my career. He’s very, very, very small fish, very difficult client. The realtor referred me to this guy. You know, he’s trying to do creative things on a very small loan. We’re paid a percentage of the loan amount, so it does matter, you know, for our bottom line, how big of the loan is.

[00:29:52] I called the realtor after this guy had wasted just hours of my time and I said, Hey, do you care if I blow this guy off because it’s not going anywhere. You know, it’s, it’s just not gonna work out. And the realtor says to me, Oh yeah, go ahead. I blew him off like a couple months. .

Get Humble

[00:30:11] And then I had made the decision I was gonna stop working with his client.

[00:30:15] Then I had this little voice in my head that said, Stop being so arrogant and get humble. You’re thankful for any client that you have.

[00:30:24] And I just took that approach and I just worked with him and I made his transaction work. We worked through it together. I’m telling you, it was a total waste of time. If you’re thinking transactionally.

[00:30:38] Right now that client is my partner on a 10 unit V R B O development that’s happening in southern Utah, and that’s what happened as a result of that little tiny decision for me to say, Nope, get humble and stick through this.

[00:30:57] Miriam: Yeah, that’s a good mic drop moment because we do not know. Where the next big I don’t know,

[00:31:08] Kevin: opportunity, that’s not even mortgage related. It’s, it’s outside of the scope of the mortgage world, but we got that close over this and we, you know, one transaction led to another. He mentioned a project he’s doing.

[00:31:21] How can I do this? I don’t think I have the resources. I’m like, Maybe I do. Maybe we could work on it together. And just one conversation led to another. It’s just Miriam, you look back at how you got to where you are, and that’s the defining moment was a thought in my head that said, Stop being so arrogant and get humble.

Be Thankful

[00:31:39] Miriam: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I, I think that’s pretty profound. I, I do think. I would love to hear you speak about the progression from when you first start in a business, everything’s new and you feel kind of scared or at least insecure. Then you get better and better and better, and you tip over into that arrogance space and that space is a place where People just think they’re better than everybody else, you know?

[00:32:12] Or I, they just can’t deal with, I don’t need to deal with you. You’re a hassle or whatever. Bring it full circle as you talk about get humble. What does that mean in your day- to- day now with the people that you serve?

[00:32:30] Kevin: Well, if I, if I took it down and distilled that down, I would say It’s a thankfulness, right?

[00:32:41] You’re lucky to be doing what you’re doing. It’s a,

[00:32:45] I mean, success has its own problems and this is one of ’em, you, you when you do get successful, it gets hard to, to maintain the same level for everyone. So I would say a thankfulness, that’s the key piece is, Hey, you’re fortunate to have this.

[00:33:05] You’re fortunate to be here. And you need to act that way.

[00:33:10] Miriam: Yeah,

[00:33:11] yeah. You know, to me, Kevin, that feels like the perfect place to end this interview with us just looking at ways that we can be thankful for the people who have come into our lives, you know whether they’re friends or clients or whomever.

[00:33:30] Yeah, that thankfulness is really important.

[00:33:33] How to Find Kevin

[00:33:33] Miriam: Can you tell our listeners where they can find you? Yeah.

[00:33:38] Kevin: So I have a website, it’s mortgagesolutionsofutah.com. So kevin@better-homeloans.com.

[00:33:49] Miriam: We will, we will put all your information in the show notes as well. And I mentioned to you before we started that we, as a thank you, always do a donation in your name to one of four charities.

[00:34:00] You chose Mercy Ships. I love Mercy Ships because they offer free surgeries to people who can’t afford them on the continent of Africa. I think right now they’re outside of Senegal healing clef PS and tumors and things like that. So we’re excited to just send that in your name and thank you again just for sharing your time and wisdom and expertise with us.

[00:34:22] Kevin: Thank you. I’m so, It’s such a privilege.

End Credits

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Music by Tom Sherlock.

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As someone who has been a therapist for over a decade and has been coaching people for over three decades, I am uniquely qualified to address your concerns.

Allan Clarke video game addiction

[00:00:00] Allan: And all the kids were going mad playing Fortnite. Like the kid trashed his room? Cause he was playing fortnight for 15 hours and I was kinda like, but the parent let the kid play for 15 hours.

[00:00:14] Miriam: all right, folks.

Video Game Addiction

[00:00:14] I am excited to have Alan Clark with me today. You’re gonna love listening to Alan because he is from ireland. So I know whatever you have to say is gonna be music on our ears. And beyond that he is a mental health professional, and he is you know, dealing with things, all mental health professionals do depression, anxiety, suicide trauma.

[00:00:36] But the thing that I wanna talk about with him today is video game addiction, because I know that this is a huge problem. All across the world. And as a listener, you might be someone with an addiction, or you might be a parent of someone with a video game addiction. So we’re gonna get into that. We’re gonna get into some other things that are equally fascinating. And so with that, I just wanna welcome [00:01:00] you, Alan. What a pleasure.

Time Zones

[00:01:01] Allan: Thank you very much, Miriam really, really appreciate the offer. And thank you so much for asking me to come on. So really looking forward to this, I’ve been excited for it all day, so, absolutely.

[00:01:10] Miriam: Well good. I’m sure it’s probably pretty late on your end. Your day is done.

[00:01:15] Allan: Not, not too bad here. Just after just after 8:00 PM on, on Thursday evening.

[00:01:18] So yeah, I’ve, I’ve done interviews in the states where it’s been online at like one, 1:00 AM. So 8 PM is like, I can do that one.

[00:01:26] Miriam: You are a trooper. I’m a spoiled brat. I don’t do any interviews after seven. I’m like eh, I’m done

[00:01:33] Allan: Worst of all. Worst of all, the host ended up being drunk and he couldn’t put the episode out. I think he got a little bit nervous, a few drinks to calm himself. Went a little bit overboard with it and was obviously retrospectively embarrassed and didn’t put the episode out,

[00:01:47] Miriam: well, we’re gonna use, so you definitely look a lot more sober, so that’s, that’s a good start. Definitely. And it’s at a more reasonable hour in the evening, so, so I’m good to go. It’s all good. Okay.

Intro Allan

[00:01:57] Miriam: Well, why don’t we get into just a teeny little [00:02:00] bit about. You and your, you know, your background, we’ll just kind of go where this conversation takes us.

[00:02:06] Allan: Yeah. So I’m a psychotherapist in private practice in Caler town. Caler town is it’s about 50 minutes from, from Dublin in the Midlands of Ireland. I’m also host of the straight talk and mental health podcast. Former musician slash rapper slash DJ went on then did some acting.

[00:02:21] Got tired with that. And then concentrated on doing my degree. So my degrees in counseling psychotherapy, and then my master’s is in child and adolescent psychotherapy, which is the, which is where the, the dissertation on video game addiction, where, where that came in from.

[00:02:34] Miriam: Yeah. One of the things I’ve found as I’ve begun interviewing people is that every person is so fascinating that I wanna have multiple conversations and to say, oh, I wanted to learn about your acting. And I wanna learn about that and about this, but for today, We’ll just stick with the one thing.

Video Game Addiction

[00:02:51] Miriam: Why don’t you tell us how you got interested in the video game addiction and where your dissertation took you?

[00:02:57] Allan: This was kind of at the height of the fortnight [00:03:00] craze.

[00:03:00] Where, you know, everyone was giving out about Fortnite and all the kids were going mad playing Fortnite. And I was kicking around the idea of what to do my dissertation on. And I was like, well, what’s, what’s the most common presenting issues I work with with teenagers. And it’s like, typically anxiety, maybe bullying, anger and stuff like that.

[00:03:18] But it kind of developed out of, there was a, as there always is around video games, a moral panic. Of the fortnight. And I was like, did you see in the play due today? Like the kid trashed his room? Cause he was playing fortnight for 15 hours and I was kinda like, but the parent let the kid play for 15 hours.

[00:03:40] The kid’s gonna play as long as the kid can play. I I’ve played video games since like the late eighties. And I’ve never had any sort of an issue with video game addiction, but I thought it’d be an interesting and interesting topic then, because it’s something that I’m interested in. I’d still play video games to unwind and relax.

[00:03:56] And as, as most people do as a, as a form of escapism [00:04:00] so that had prompted that had prompted the study that had prompted the research

[00:04:04] The world, well, world health organization come out then and they admitted that there was some political pressure from the likes of China and Korea to kind of include.

Internet Gaming Disorder

[00:04:12] Because it’s, it’s a massive problem. And the key part of it is the internet gaming disorder. So this can apply to phones. This is, you know, phone games and stuff like that. Korea tried years ago, they tried to implement the curfew, but the kids would just take their parents’ ID to log in after midnight and stuff like that.

[00:04:29] So that became a bit of a failure.

[00:04:31] And the problem then again, being is, you know, young, young, you’re talking young teenagers kind of 13 to 16, 17 are most at risk. But the element of that then is which the parents in the equation.

[00:04:47] You know, it’s all well and good to, to throw the kid up into his room and let, let fortnight babysit him for a few hours.

[00:04:55] But the, the parents have to take responsibility as well of going, okay, this, okay, this [00:05:00] is a bit of a problem. And it’s the same as any addiction. What’s what’s the kid escaping from, you know, we, we, we look at alcohol and go, okay, that’s alcohol is your mood modifier of choice. You know, weed is your mood modifier of choice.

Mood Modifier

[00:05:14] Video games are your mood modifier of choice. You know, if you’re stressed, if you’re bored, that’s what you turn to. You’re feeling one way and you, and you want to feel another. So that’s what they turn to.

[00:05:24] And, and the majority of the, the majority of people that would meet the criteria for addiction are those who would play what are called MMO or PPGs so massively Multiplay online role playing games, the likes of world of Warcraft and stuff like this, where, you know, you have whole communities and stuff like that.

[00:05:40] And the reason those people are at risk is because it gives them the life that they don’t really have in the real world.

[00:05:48] They can play with their. There’s a sense of mastery. There’s a sense of autonomy. There’s all the opportunities that really aren’t there. Mm-hmm that they get in the virtual world.[00:06:00]

[00:06:00] Miriam: One of the things that I’ve run into with parents here, you know, they’re like, oh my gosh, get off the computer, get off your phone, go outside and play, do something real with your friends. And the kids are saying legitimately my friends don’t do anything. There is nobody to do anything with offline.

[00:06:17] I have run into this. I have seen this from the parent side. As some of my clients have expressed some of that. I’ve seen it from the kids’ side. I’m a business coach. So I’ve seen it from the employer’s side when these people don’t show up because they’ve been up till three in the morning gaming, and then they can’t get up and go to work.

Addiction Leads to Problems

[00:06:36] And this is not a technical definition, but I have a tendency to say something is an addiction when it starts creating problems in your life.

[00:06:45] Allan: Absolutely.

[00:06:46] Miriam: It’s definitely creating problems, problems between children and parents, between employers, between husbands and wives.

[00:06:53] Mm-hmm . Now I wanted to ask, do you see this Equally among the genders or is it primarily [00:07:00] more with males?

[00:07:01] Allan: I have seen it be primarily more primarily with men.

[00:07:04] Yeah. I think primarily men. And it is, it is primarily a, a kind of male activity. Mm-hmm , I think it’s kind of lend lended itself to that gender.

[00:07:13] But you know, as you described there, I mean, whether it’s weed, whether it’s drugs, whatever, whether it’s alcohol, exactly like that. And I would say to clients, you know, they will. Or the same as anyone coming in, you know? Well, you know, would you diagnose me with depression? Like, well, it’s not my job’s diagnosed with depression.

[00:07:27] I was like, yeah, but you know, do I, do I meet the five of the nine? I said, I’ll just say, don’t worry about that. You tell me, do you feel depressed? . Do okay. You’re depressed. You know, it’s not, well, you know, you’ve only really met four, you know, you need to be five of the nine to be officially depressed.

[00:07:43] At its core element, any addiction is an inability to stop despite the negative consequences on your life. So if it’s causing problems with your boss, if it’s causing problems with your, your wife or your husband, then it’s a problem

[00:07:56] if you can’t stop, then it’s a problem. Yeah.

Being Real Online and Offline

[00:07:59] Miriam: Yeah. [00:08:00] One of the things that I have noticed with things like this is that, and you use the word escapism. I find that young people. Are phobic about feeling awkward and what seems to be interesting to me is things that you could never do in your real life.

[00:08:18] You can do in a video game because there’s this layer of something between you and the other person. And so you can be direct or assertive or aggressive or whatever, you know, with that person in the game. But in real life, you can’t. Go up and make a phone call or, you know, return an item, or you can’t have a human to human interaction.

[00:08:42] I have noticed that people on the autism spectrum struggle more with both of these things, with interacting with people in real life. And with. The video game, escapism space.

[00:08:54] I was just gonna ask if you would comment on that and from your expertise and what you’ve seen, not [00:09:00] only the issue, but what you’ve seen, be helpful.

Escapism

[00:09:03] Allan: Yeah. But, but again, you know, it’s exactly, as you said there, where, you know, where you can’t make that phone call in, in, in your real life, but you create an avatar.

[00:09:12] You can, you know, you might be a skinny scrawny kid. And your avatar is a muscle man or a, a Centar, or, you know, it could be anything, it could be the opposite gender. You can be who you want to be.

[00:09:26] You you’ve afforded the opportunity to have this whole other world, you know, you can be respected for your skillset, you know, video game, and now is, is, you know, profession.

[00:09:36] You can be a professional gamer. There’s eSports. I was listening to a podcast today with Landon Norris, who is a Formula One driver and he has an eSports. So, this is there’s massive money going into this. So parents are going, you know, what’s ever gonna come from this a lot can come from it. If it’s nurtured in the right way, you know, you can create a career as a video game developer.

[00:09:56] You can become a professional gamer where there’s millions of [00:10:00] dollars in, in prize money.

Dopamine

[00:10:02] And I think where it lends itself to through autism and I some, you know, I was diagnosed myself last year. There is that hyper- focus. You know, and there is that escapism and you know, one of the, one of the core elements of autism is, you know, difficulty developing and maintaining friendships.

[00:10:20] You get to be whoever you want to be online. You don’t have to turn your camera on. You don’t have to speak you, you can be who you want to be, you know, and then all of the, maybe the, the social cues that you may be poor at in the real world. It’s all there as a video game character, there’s so much more to be gained from it.

[00:10:42] Plus, you know, from a, from a, a kind of neuro biological perspective, you know, you’re getting a massive amount of dopamine and, and that gets, that gets overhyped as well ago. Oh, you know, video games or is addictive as crack cocaine. It’s like, no, it’s not like, no, it’s not. And that’s, that’s just the truth.

[00:10:58] Yes. You get a dopamine boost, but you [00:11:00] get a dopamine boost doing anything. You are motivated to do or you achieve a goal or anything like that. Video games are designed that way, you know, and, and video game developers have, have their part to play in that as well. Because you know, you, if, if you are thrown into a game where you can’t get past the first boss, no, one’s gonna wanna play that game.

Opportunity to Grow

[00:11:22] You know, where where’s, where’s the dopamine, where’s the sense of achievement. Where’s, where’s the goal completion in doing that?

[00:11:27] So it’ll give you an easy level to start. This is what you do. Here’s your basic movements. Oh, okay. You develop different skills. You can get armor. You get, do, you can do this.

[00:11:36] You can do that. And each level or each boss as it would’ve been in the old side video. Is an opportunity to, to grow and develop and achieve and keep going.

[00:11:46] Myself. I’ve never really, I’ve never really got into the online gaming side of it, which, you know, and again, the, the hu the biggest part in it is the social side.

[00:11:54] So the people, most likely to be addicted are the ones that will play online with their friends, whether that’s Call of Duty, whether that’s [00:12:00] FIFA, whether that’s or the Warcraft, all of that sort of stuff, because of the social. So we still have that desire to be social. Same as social media. We, we, we forget the key word is social media.

[00:12:12] Yeah. We’re in this effort to connect virtually because that’s what we’re driven to do. We’re we’re social creatures. We have evolved over, you know, hundreds of thousands of years in tribes and we, and we’re still trying to achieve that. Oh, I can’t get it into real world. So let me get it virtually. Yeah.

Create Change

[00:12:33] Miriam: Have you found as a, as a therapist, I have wondered, could you use the video space to model change? Like everything you just listed out, you start with the easy thing, you develop these skills that you move to the next level and I’m thinking, well, my goodness, that’s what I do with my clients.

[00:12:52] You start with where you can start and you build muscles based on that.

[00:12:57] Instead of trying to get kids to stop [00:13:00] gaming. Maybe there’s a way to say, okay, try something that’s scary to you in the game. And then let’s try it in real life and report back to me how that goes.

[00:13:11] Or if this character were stopped in the game this way, what would you do? And they’re gonna say, well, I have superpowers.

[00:13:17] I can do what. And I’m like, well, we have superpowers too, as human beings, and we have to learn how to tap into those. I would just like to hear your thoughts and perspectives on that from a clinical space.

Human Superpowers

[00:13:31] Allan: Yeah. I, I think, you know, particularly, particularly with children of identifying, you know, well, remember the time you couldn’t do this, remember the time you couldn’t get past that level, remember the time you couldn’t complete this and developing that of, you know

[00:13:46] what would such and such a character do? Well, he would, he would do this. He would do that.

[00:13:50] And it’s really about embodying something that, you know, whereas we may not have it to draw from within ourselves. Perhaps we can interject from someone else and, [00:14:00] you know, that’s for kids or whatever maybe, or for, you know, for people in business.

[00:14:03] Well, what would such and such a person who’s one of your role models? Who’s one of, you know, well, can you internalize that of what would he do and what advice would he give? Because very often when we can, when we don’t have that to draw from within ourselves, we do have to take it from an external source.

[00:14:21] Yeah. You know, when, when the, well, when the, you know, there may be no water to draw. You know, sometimes we need to, we need to fill up from, from someone else and internalize and interject who or some of the qualities that that person has.

Try Something

[00:14:35] Yeah. To just go, okay, well, he will probably do this. All right. Well, let’s, let’s, let’s give that a try and it it’s really about, I always encourage people to go look, just, just throw something against the wall.

[00:14:45] See what sticks. Just, just guess just to draw a guess,

[00:14:47] Miriam: try something,

[00:14:49] Allan: treated, treated as treated as an experiment. Yeah. And just look, if it goes wrong, it goes wrong. It’s it’s experiment. It’s this a science. We’re gonna treat it like science. That didn’t work. Okay. What do we need to do? [00:15:00] Right. We need to readjust that.

[00:15:01] That didn’t work that time. Okay. What didn’t work with that? That didn’t work. Okay. Well let’s, let’s try this one. Oh, okay. Right. That worked well. Alright, well, let’s, let’s build upon that and you know, let’s, let’s move forward with that and see, see where that takes us. And it’s, it’s sort of nearly given someone permission to fail.

[00:15:18] Mm-hmm . And I think, I think that’s a huge thing for people permission fail.

[00:15:22] Yeah, I,

Keep Trying

[00:15:23] Miriam: I appreciate that the learning process requires failure. And I often will say to people, you know, if you’re trying to lift weights, you know, can you go out there and bench press 400 pounds. No, so you’re gonna try it and you’re gonna say, oh, I couldn’t do it.

[00:15:42] Mm-hmm no, but I bet you, you could do 50 and then you could add a little more and then you could add a little more and add a little more. And there is this iterative nature to learning and growing that I think many times people are too quick to give up. Well, that didn’t work. Yeah. And I feel like in the gaming space, how many [00:16:00] times did you try to supersede that, win that level, and then you got it and you remember that feeling of mastery.

[00:16:08] Okay. Well, it’s the same thing in your life. If you’re trying to follow through and get to work on time, or you’re trying to not get in an argument with your spouse or, you know, fill in the blank there it’s, it’s try. Test and learn and try and try and try until you get it. Mm-hmm

[00:16:25] so I appreciate you, you know, saying, okay.

[00:16:29] You were just diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder last year. Mm-hmm can you tell or explain to our listeners, what is that like, maybe receiving that diagnosis? And what could have helped you earlier in life? What are you doing to help yourself now? That’s a whole series of questions, but yeah. Yeah.

[00:16:50] They all kind of relate.

Autism

[00:16:52] Allan: Yeah. I’ll start, I’ll start with the first one of what it was like when, when I had the diagnosis and I suspected for a couple of years, But it came from [00:17:00] when I was doing my degree. And I remember we were doing like atypical development or something. So we were doing all autism and stuff like that.

[00:17:06] And I remember they had the PowerPoint up in the class and I went and I said, and I said out loud in the class, like that’s me. Wow. And, and the tutor was like, you’ll always find something, you know, I’ll always, you’ll always find something in yourself. But it always kind of stuck me and I started seeing clients and I started relating to a lot of their behaviors.

[00:17:22] And they kind of, the, the final straw for me was it was, it was some account I followed on the podcast to the podcast on the Twitter. And someone had retweeted onto the timeline now some autism specialist. And it was something like, just remember if you’re constantly find yourself going back to the fact.

[00:17:40] That you may be ASD or ADHD, just remember neurotypical people don’t do that. They just know they’re not. Hmm. So that was the kind of final straw of going, okay. I need, I need to, I need to check this out. So I start had the initial assessment had a couple of two, two interviews around that to start with, I remember saying to my partner [00:18:00] at the time that she’s like, how are you feeling?

Skilled Masker

[00:18:02] You know, today’s gonna be today. Like, I’m really anxious. Like I’m really nervous. And she’s like, why. I said, because what if I’m not, you know, what if, what if like the score and criteria is like 50 points and I get like 49 and it’s like, well, you’re definitely not normal, but you’re just not enough to be autistic.

[00:18:22] So when, when I got that and he said, look, yeah, he said what? He said at the time he was like, look, I said, Allen, I’m not gonna lie to you. And he knew from my profession and stuff like that, I said, you’re probably one of the hardest cases I’ve ever worked with. He said, because you are so skilled at masking and covering up and everything you’ve learned through your training and stuff like that.

[00:18:38] And, and he said, well, you know, but you know, you are, and I cried, I just, I just burst into tears.

Being Validated

[00:18:43] It was, it was so of validating, you know, at that point I was, I was 44 years. It was coming up on my birthday. It was nearly 44. And it was like, that’s why life has always been so hard for me. That’s why I could look at my brother, go, how come he was really good at sports?

[00:18:59] How come he’s had all [00:19:00] these friends since childhood? How come, how come this? How come that, how come this? And it just all made sense. Mm-hmm , you know, and, and there was a name for it. Yeah. And all those difficulties. And, you know, and I look back and I, you know, I look back through the lens of autism over every relationship I was in.

[00:19:20] Every job I was. And autistic traits that I was unaware of were there the whole time. Yeah. And I looked at, you know, and it was always, you know, cuz you look back and one of the things was like, I remember when I looked into it originally, it was, you know, well, you know, someone, the stereotypical things, you know, poor eye contact don’t get sarcasm and stuff like that.

[00:19:41] I was like, I get sarcasm, you know, I’m Irish, passive. We passive aggressive today. It looked like if there’s an Olympic sport for sarcasm, Ireland, stake gold, every time like and then eye contact, I was like, you know, I’d be no good at my job. What good will I be in my job? And I know I’m very good at my job.

Eye Contact

[00:19:58] So obviously I have eye contact. But when I [00:20:00] started to becoming aware of it, what I started to notice was, and, you know, people can look back over this video if, if there’s a video of it and you see when you are. I am focused in I’m all about whoever is talking to be when I’m talking.

[00:20:14] I I’m everywhere. I’m looking everywhere else but at, at the person I’m talking to. So you start, I started becoming aware of these sort of things across, geez. I didn’t even realize that’s what I did. And you know, I remember one in particular was saying, you know, any stimming behaviors, so stimming would be, you know, repetitive, you know, you might be rubbing your fingers or your neck, or, you know, any sort of thing.

[00:20:32] I was like, no, no, no, not. And now over the last few months, I was like, I find myself. I was like, I didn’t even, oh, I didn’t even know I did that, but I, but I catch myself on it. Mm-hmm and I, and I look back then of, you know, taking things quite literally. And it’s like, no, I never, never did. But when I look back over every single relationship I’ve been in, I remember arguments in every, in every one of those relationships going, you know, and it’s, and I would say, but, but that’s not what you said.

[00:20:58] It’s like, but that’s not what I. Like, [00:21:00] but that’s not what, what you said was, and they’re like, but that’s not what it meant.

Subtext

[00:21:03] Well, if that’s not what you menat, why did you say, and it caused the arguments the whole time where I was so pedantic and caught up on the explicit words that they were saying.

[00:21:12] whereas obviously they were talking about the subtext and its like, no, it’s the meaning underneath that? It’s like, well, why didn’t you say that? Mm-hmm you know, and, and you look back and you go, ah, okay, all right. That’s that’s what that was there it is, you know? Yeah. And then jobs, jobs I was in before I was in this profession and even this profession, it suited to me.

From Fixing Watches to Fixing People

[00:21:31] I was like, what are the jobs I studied the longest? What were the jobs I was happiest in before I was to put myself to a college, I used to fix watches. I was in an office on my. Happy out, throw on a podcast, throw on some music. I’m fixing watches. I I’m, I’m faced with a problem and it’s fixed. And autism’s like, I love that.

[00:21:47] That’s brilliant. Look at how watch it wasn’t working now. It is brilliant. So I went from fixing watches to quotation art, “fixing people”, another job. I, I drove forklifts and you know, you were left in the, forklift, you were up and down the aisles. It was like same thing. And the fork [00:22:00] truck left on my own listening to some music, happy days.

[00:22:03] Jobs I didn’t do well where I’m dealing with loads of people. You know, and you’re working with personalities and stuff like that. And that’s how, you know, that’s kind of how I stayed in private practice. The plan was always, I’ll go to private practice. So I’ll get my I’ll fulfill my accreditation hours and then I’ll go into a service, started working for myself, I was like, oh, hang on. This is great. This is just me and one other person at any given time. Yeah. I choose my hours. I choose basically the clients. This is just, this is made for me. so I stuck at it. Made, made a career over. Yeah.

Vulnerability

[00:22:39] Miriam: Oh, good for you. I love the things you’re sharing. I understand what you’re talking about. And nobody who works for themselves ever stops working for themselves. If they can make ends meet, like it’s just too good of a gig. Yeah. But I appreciate your vulnerability and the way that you’re sharing these things. I know within my listening [00:23:00] base, people are going, oh, I do that. I do that. I do that.

[00:23:05] It may be that they’re on the spectrum a little bit here or there, or it may not. But the, I think the validating thing that I’m hearing you say, first of all, having some sort of label helped you go, “I’m not crazy. I’m not broken. I’m not deficient. This is a thing.” Mm-hmm, , mm-hmm , this is a thing that people struggle with and I’m okay.

[00:23:25] Okay. Now that I know that it’s a thing. How can I help me? What do I need to do to help me be the best version of me?

[00:23:32] And what a relief to find something that you can do that is nurturing to that part of yourself instead of working against that part of yourself.

[00:23:45] Mm.

Make Your Strengths Superpowers

[00:23:45] One of the business principles that I was reading about at one point was saying, instead of trying to make your weaknesses, like, bring your weaknesses up into strengths, why don’t you make your strengths into superpowers?

[00:23:57] At first as a younger person, I didn’t [00:24:00] necessarily agree with that. I think as I’m getting older, I’m agreeing with it more and more. There are certain things we’re good at. So why don’t we do them and excell and bring that kind of space to humanity versus, you know, our, whatever you wanna call it, our negative 10 space and bringing it up to zero where we still feel like we’re failing with people.

[00:24:22] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:24:23] [00:25:00]

[00:25:02] Miriam: How has this diagnosis helped you with your clients?

Meet People in Their World

[00:25:06] Allan: Well, what I’ve become is I’ve become the autism whisper so I get a lot of clients and they might say something to me and straight away I’m like, oh, Let’s let’s explore now, let’s go down that road.

[00:25:21] So what I’ve become very adept and what I’ve done many, many times since is I’ve had a lot of clients that didn’t know they run the spectrum. Yeah. And. Identified a bit with that. Let’s and I know what the kind of avenues are down and they’ve gone off and they’ve, and they’ve been officially diagnosed and stuff like that.

[00:25:37] You, you get a client that’s on the spectrum, you just ask ’em about their special interest off they go. Yeah. You know, tell me about Thomas The Tank Engine. Tell me about video games. Tell me about Formula One. Tell me about, and they will go off and, you know, and you incorporate that, you know, you, so again, like you say, don’t fight it.

Connection

[00:25:54] You, you, you meet them in their world. And, and it’s the exact same thing I say to parents around video games. Play [00:26:00] with your child, meet them in their world. You know, you will find out video games are fun. So everyone’s like, oh, get off them video games, get off this. Or I remember I had one client and she, she was talking about her kids and she’s like, oh yeah, I haven’t really connected with the kids, but what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna go out for, she was, she was trying to lose weight.

[00:26:17] I’m gonna go out for a walk now. And you know, I’m gonna bring my daughter out. I was like, eh, let’s bring your daughter into your world. What does she like to do? She likes to play video games. Why don’t you play video games, especially like, oh, Mario card play Mario Cart. What does your son like? Do he likes to do karaoke?

Get Connected

[00:26:34] Do the karaoke, meet them in their world, same. And particularly with the teenagers, you have to meet them in their world. Just getting them and, you know, self disclosing of going. Yeah, I know what that’s like, I can certainly relate to that.

[00:26:47] Or, you know, have you ever found this kind of thing? Oh yeah. I was like, now we’re. Now you’re understanding me a little bit better and I’m understanding you a little bit better and oh, what have we got now? I’ve got a therapeutic relationship.

[00:26:57] Miriam: What I find happening is parents [00:27:00] freak out and then kids freak out. And the more the kids freak out, there’s like behaviors that are super disagreeable and the parents are kind of throwing up their hands saying, I cannot deal with this child. And then they leave them in front of the video game because at least there’s peace and quiet. It’s not a judgment on the parents. It can be very, very difficult dealing with difficult children.

[00:27:23] But talk about when you have a therapeutic relationship, you’re talking in that sentence about the therapist and the clients. And I know the research about that, but it’s true with parents too. If you can have that attending space- keep talking about what it does for that young person.

Give Yourself Down Time

[00:27:41] Allan: Yeah. I, I give, give you an example, cuz the kid was actually coming in. The parents had brought him in because he was addicted to the iPad and stuff like that. And I met the parent the kid was only 14 and I met this kid. Well, I met the parent first and the father had had a session with the father. Kid was being brought in the following week.

[00:27:59] And [00:28:00] when I heard the knock on the door, I was expecting the spawn of Saten the way the father had described this kid. I opened the door and just the skinny little kid’s head is down.

[00:28:10] I was like, alright. So again, pulling teeth, really, really pulling teeth. So we get into it and, you know, eventually got, I was like, you know what? This, this kid is lovely. This kid, he’s a lovely little kid. Like, you know, I’m talking to him about what he’s playing, but what I established was his day started with school at school.

[00:28:30] He had after study school after school study. So he was in, in school for another two hours after school. So he was in secondary school here, which would be high school. So typically those hours are kind of 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM. And then he was in school till 6:00 PM. So he had his regular school till 4:00 PM.

Intense Schedules

[00:28:46] And he had two hours of after school study, which is till 6:00 PM. He came home, he had his dinner and then he had to do another hour or two of study. Yeah. And then the parents are, are given out because he’s up until 1, 2, 3 o’clock in the morning on the iPad. [00:29:00] What other time did he have to himself?

[00:29:03] They were talking about putting him up for foster care and, oh my goodness. I’m like this. And I’m talking to the dad and he’s like, I was like, you know, I gotta be honest with you.

[00:29:12] I was like, this is, that’s not the kid I’m seeing. Like, I was like, yeah, the school principal said that as well. I was like, well, I’m getting a different kid. School principal is getting a different kid. There’s obviously this dynamic you, you know, you’re putting all this pressure on him. Of course you’d want to escape.

[00:29:29] If he was an adult, he’d probably be an alcoholic. Mm-hmm , he’s working, you know, 12 hours a day. We’ll. And if you know, what he doesn’t have is he doesn’t have access to a glass of wine or a bottle of wine in the evening. What he does have a video game console, and he does have an iPad. He, he needs downtime.

[00:29:47] He, but that needs to be structured. He’s got enough going on, like the kiddo’s 14. Don’t be putting all this pressure on him because he’s going to, he’s going to crack and he cracked. [00:30:00] And parents that are in that situation of fighting against it is only gonna cause arguments.

Strict Boundaries

[00:30:06] So it needs to be set out in, in sort of strict boundaries of, okay, this is the time you’ve got two hours of time, that’s it? And yes, you’re gonna get a bit of kickback. There’s gonna be a bit of kickback at the start, but you gotta hold that boundary. And, and I said, I need, I need a parents that come in of, you know, you’re dealing with a teenager, it’s their job to test boundaries.

[00:30:27] You know, essentially what you’re getting with a teenager is you’re getting a, a toddler that’s going through the terrible twos. Yeah. It’s the same thing, except they’ve got a bigger body. Now they can leave the house. Now they can reach the door handle when they want to run away. Yeah. And, and that’s essentially what you’re getting.

[00:30:41] And they’re testing the boundaries and they say, they’re gonna test the boundaries and it’s your job as a parent to hold that boundary and let them know this is what’s happening.

[00:30:49] So, or, you know, jump in, play the video game with the kids. Like, you know what? We can have an hour, I’ll jump on with you. What you wanna play? You wanna play that? Alright, cool. I’m not very good at it, but I’m, I’m willing to learn, you know, and, and [00:31:00] meeting them in that word, but holding in that boundary of, alright, we got, you know, half an hour, 30 minutes.

Boundaries are a Muscle

[00:31:05] Alright. 15 minutes, you know, five more minutes. Okay. Time to go on now or, you know what parents will say? Oh, just pause it, turn it off. And it’s like, I’m in an online game. I can’t turn it off. I can’t pause it. Understand that go. Okay. What the game is probably gonna last five or 10 minutes. Okay. Well finish that game and then we’re done.

[00:31:21] So it might be five, 10 minutes after the, the, the curfew, but just understanding. Okay. You, you, you know, you’re in a game. It’s gonna last for another six minutes. You can, you can have your six minutes. Yeah. And again, it’s just understanding their world. Yeah. And meeting them in and not fighting with them for the sake of it.

[00:31:38] Miriam: It, it seems to me that boundaries are difficult for people in any context. And you have the certain kind of people who are extremely rigid. I said, the thing goes off at 10 o’clock. It goes off now. And it doesn’t matter if that kid could have finished that level in another four minutes, it’s off.

[00:31:55] And now. You’re just frustrating your kid. And, and then there is the other [00:32:00] kind of person who said, I said it was 10 o’clock. I said it was 10 o’clock it’s now 1130. I said it was 10. O’clock turn it off. Yeah, turn it off. Boundaries are also muscles. How do you set a boundary in such a way that preserves the relationship, but is not a power struggle?

Setting Boundaries

[00:32:18] Miriam: How, how would you get them to help? Okay. We played for an hour and it’s gonna take another 45 minutes past the deadline to get to the new level. So how would you have them assert that boundary of, okay. We, we said 10 o’clock now it’s time to turn it off.

[00:32:36] Yeah, after

[00:32:37] Allan: that, it’s probably a little bit too much, but what I, what I would suggest in that is, okay, well, give, give the child a choice.

[00:32:43] Okay. It’s gonna take you 45 minutes, but that’s 45 minutes off your time tomorrow. And now the kid, the kid is, you know, you’re given some autonomy to the child. I don’t like that of going, okay, this is your choice. You know what? It’s gonna take you 45 minutes. That’s no problem. Do you want to, do you wanna end it now [00:33:00] or do you want to have those that 45 minutes tomorrow?

Battle of Wills

[00:33:03] So again, it’s, it’s not a battle of wills. It’s, it’s an understanding it’s one thing to set a boundary. That’s hard. It’s really hard to set a boundary. It’s even harder to maintain the boundary. And I will say to clients’ like, okay, have you put up a little kinda knee high, white picket fence here that they can step over or have you put up a wall, have you put up a wall, have you put up a wall with a gate of go, I can allow this. I can, I can choose to open and close the gate.

[00:33:29] When I was a teenager, you know, my mother would say to me, you know, when I’m going out and I need to wash the dishes, you know, okay. And I wouldn’t wash the dishes and I wouldn’t wash the dishes because I knew all I needed to do was put up five minutes of her giving out when she’d go home and she’d wash the dishes.

[00:33:44] You’re going, she’s going to give in and she’s gonna do this to herself.

Stay Strong With Boundaries

[00:33:47] So what she needed to do was she needed a whole rigid, you know, she needed a whole firm ago, said, well, this is the result. This is the consequences now, because, and of what happened from your decision.

[00:33:59] And it’s [00:34:00] always with that understanding of you have a choice and this is your choice. You can choose not to wash the dishes. And play your PlayStation or play whatever you may be, or you can choose not to. And you’re not gonna have a PlayStation tomorrow. Yeah. And with the, with the boundaries that everyone knows the rules and it’s not, you know, it’s not in a authoritarian parenting style where, you know, 10 0 1, the kids PlayStation is thrown out the window because they were told 10 o’clock.

[00:34:29] But understanding, knowing the rules, knowing what’s there of this is the consequences.

Your Choice

[00:34:35] This is your choice. You know, I had had, even my son, my youngest son is six and we were, we were on a, we were going on this boat down the river, Shannon out to a lake and stuff like that. He’s like, I’m bored. And I said, James, that’s a choice. It’s a choice to be bored. We’re on a boat. You can walk around, you can go over the other side of the boat.

[00:34:54] We can go up there. We can look at those birds. We need to understand that we have a choice and that [00:35:00] the kid has a choice. So like that, it’s like, okay, you’re right. 45 minutes to clear this level. All right, you can have that 45 minutes, but you’re gonna lose ’em tomorrow. So, you know, I’m willing to meet you.

[00:35:09] I’m willing to compromise. We we’ll bend, you know, we, we can bend here. We’re not gonna be so rigid that it snaps. So you choose you wanna you on play tonight or you wanna play it tomorrow? I’ll play it tomorrow. All right, cool. I’ll turn it off then. And you can get back to let me know how you get on tomorrow. Let me know if you clear that level or.

[00:35:28] Whatever it may be. Yeah.

Having Self-Control

[00:35:29] Miriam: Still showing that interest. I think that one of the things that’s so important that I explain to people with boundaries is that you have to be in control of yourself. You have to have that calm, assertive space that says this isn’t personal.

[00:35:47] And if he’s like, you know, just another 15 minutes or 20 minutes mom or whatever, and blah, blah, blah, you have to be able to say, you know, they’re in their own space and it isn’t. Directed at you. And then you give them the choice [00:36:00] and you let them make the choice.

[00:36:01] I can hear my listeners because I’ve heard, you know, clients say the, but, but this but this, but this, but this, but this, and there’s a thousand reasons why, whatever it is, won’t work.

[00:36:12] And I have to say. It’s going back to that experimental space of trying something, testing and learning, working with yourself and saying, okay, well, this piece of that didn’t work, but this other piece of it did. So let me keep this piece of it and let’s keep working with it until we get somewhere.

[00:36:32] We’ve been talking a lot about kids, but there’s an awful lot of adults who are partnered with someone who is, you know, Making a, a mess of their relationship with these games.

Not Worth the Fight

[00:36:44] What are your suggestions for a situation like that?

[00:36:49] Allan: I, I think it, it kind of, it goes to what you said earlier of, you know, do to just give in, do to just go, oh, it’s not worth the fight, you know? [00:37:00] And basically you’re enabling the behavior. Mm-hmm , you know what, what’s the consequence. So if he, if he or she stays playing. X amount more hours. What happens? What’s the consequences of that. You’re gonna have another route tomorrow. You’re gonna have another route tomorrow. Where’s that getting you? You know, and, and I, I constantly said the clients of how long do you continue to bang your head against the wall and complain about having a headache?

[00:37:28] Stop banging your head against the wall, do something different. This, this obviously isn’t working. What’s the consequences of, and again, it’s yo, well, if you do this, then I’m moving out. Or, you know, I’m, I’m doing whatever, you know, there, there has to be consequences for our choices and where we enable it. And, and I’ve seen this, I’ve seen it with clients of, you know, they’re coming in one particular lady and she was coming in.

[00:37:51] She was an alcoholic and, and the husband was given, he was going mad. He was giving out, he was the one that bought her to drink. [00:38:00] Mm. It was easier to buy her the drink. To keep her quiet. She was more manageable. So what needed to happen? That that conflict needed to happen. The drink needed to be taken away. The relationship needed to rupture.

The Repair Process

[00:38:12] Yeah. It needs to rupture, but the key part is the repair. Right? So how, what happens after the rupture? So constantly having the argument nothing’s changing.

[00:38:22] Miriam: No, no. And I think the, the moving out space can be extremely powerful. If you say something like, “I love you, but this is destroying our relationship. And I won’t sit by and watch it happen. I’m gonna go hang at my mom’s house for the next week and a half. And you figure out if you wanna stay married to me or partnered with me or whatever. Absolutely. Yeah. In a calm, loving way. I love you, but I will not be treated like this, or I will not tolerate this.

[00:38:53] Unfortunately, too many people kind of get to .”A space where they lose it. And then they’re yelling and screaming. And [00:39:00] at both parties are a Meg do in their, in their head. They’re fight flight or freeze. Nobody can hear anything. And I really recommend if you’re a person listening to this, that is in one of these situations, get some coaching from a therapist or a coach and find out how to stay in a space where you’re calm, but resolute and clear about what needs to happen. Mm. So that you can set a boundary that will stick.

[00:39:27] Alan, we’re getting close to the end here. Tell us a little bit about your podcast. I’d love to hear more.

Straight Talking Mental Health Podcast

[00:39:32] Allan: Yeah. So my podcast is the straight talk and mental health podcast.

[00:39:35] It, it does exactly what it says and it in it talks straight about mental health. You know, I’m a huge comedy fan.

[00:39:40] I’m Irish, you know, we’re, we’re known for our wit and stuff like that. And, and I incorporate it, you know, and I, I bring that through the therapy as a therapist, as, as a podcast host, I just try to be as genuine as I can be.

[00:39:56] You know, you’re talking to clients, but it has to be just us having the [00:40:00] crack. So the, I know a lot of Americans get mixed up with the word crack. It’s not crack cocaine crack in Ireland is it’s having the phone.

[00:40:06] It’s having laugh. It’s with your friends. That’s the crack. It’s C it’s C R a I C. So you have to crack, you know, you’re just having. Having the banter or having the fun.

[00:40:15] Miriam: Alan, this has been fun. It’s been a delight. Absolutely. One thing that my listeners know, and I mentioned to you earlier, we do a donation in your name and the charity that you chose was nature.

[00:40:24] Conservancy. So we’ll send that in your name and nature Conservancy is all about buying up land, so it can’t be developed so that it’s here for generations to come.

[00:40:34] Loved this interview, loved this conversation. Thanks so much. Miriam, thank you so much.

End Credits

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Music by Tom Sherlock.

If you are curious to know more, please contact me!

As someone who has been a therapist for over a decade and has been coaching people for over three decades, I am uniquely qualified to address your concerns.

Welcome Lisa

[00:04:27] Miriam – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17: I am happy to have one of my dear friends, Lisa Hendy with us today. And you’ve already heard the introduction of all the amazing things she’s done but I’m so happy to have you because you’re like a real friend like that I actually have known for more than half your life and more than half my life.

[00:04:45] it’s crazy. We don’t get to say that very often.

[00:04:48] So, Lisa, if you would give us your actual title, cuz I didn’t wanna mess it up. Who are you right now? This day?

[00:04:55] Yeah. So I am the canyon district ranger at grand canyon national park.

[00:05:00] So some of the things that I was so impressed as I was looking over your bio are just all the different aspects and twists and turns that your life has taken.

[00:05:09] And I mean, the skill sets that you’ve taken from the prep school and from USU, from your coaching, from the various places you’ve been. So I wondered if you would start out by saying where you thought your life was gonna go when you were younger and then some of the twists and turns you didn’t expect.

[00:05:28] And we’re gonna take the conversation from there.

[00:05:31] Life is Unexpected

[00:05:31] Lisa – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17: Okay. Yeah. Well, you know, I’m like, I was like any kid, like I had these dreams that were In hindsight, you kinda laugh. Like, you know, when you’re, when like a little boy is six and you say, what do you wanna be when you grow up? And like, what’s the point of asking a six year old that question’s completely ridiculous, but they’ll be like, I wanna be a fireman, you know, and they’ll, they’ll say those things.

[00:05:47] And my dad was he had a law degree. He was always into teaching us about, you know, not being afraid of law enforcement, which is interesting in this day and age, right. But then like, he was the one who would like walk me up to like the bank security guard and be like, say hello to the nice police man, you know?

[00:06:03] And they would, he would do that because he wanted me to always know that it was okay, if something was wrong or scary that I could go to these people and that would supposedly be a safe place to go. And that led me into, I was interested in criminal justice. So coming outta high school, I had two dreams.

[00:06:18] I wanted to play Olympic basketball in hindsight, ridiculous. And I wanted to I wanted to go into law enforcement.

[00:06:24] And so that was like, I hit Auburn university with that, those two things in mind. But you know, the other thing that I found, is that I’m just fascinated and love being outside. I love outdoor activities.

 

Being Outdoors

[00:06:37] I love outdoor sports. I love camping and I love the challenge of, of some of the outdoor adventure sports that I’ve always participated in.

[00:06:45] And so I went to a professor at Auburn at one point and was like, what do I do with this man? Like, I, I really want to go into law enforcement, but. I don’t wanna be stuck in a car in a city all day long.

[00:06:54] Looking into Land Management

[00:06:54] Lisa – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17: And he told me to look at the land management agencies and, you know, I mean, I grew up in Chattanooga, so I’m envisioning like national battlefields and I’m sort of snoring and he’s like, no, no, no, no. He’s like think like big national parks. And that was the first time that light bulb went off. Right. So.

[00:07:09] Ended up getting an internship in Yosemite. And I was just the little back country office person who gives you your permit, you know, and like that’s an incredibly important job because those people are the ones that educate the public to hopefully not die out in back country. You know, that’s their first point of contact, right.

[00:07:26] Plus they help protect the back country by, mitigating, how many people are out there at one time and like squished into one spot. So, so it was an important job, but it just felt I was just an intern. So I went out there, bright eye and bushy-tailed and got eyes on what all the national park service does.

Yosemite

[00:07:42] And Yosemite was a great place to do that because you know, it’s federal exclusive jurisdiction. There is no other law enforcement. There is no other search and rescue. No one else is coming you know, it is, that is it. We do all the structural fire, all of the emergency medical, all of it. And it’s the size of Rhode Island.

[00:07:58] It’s it’s, it’s like its own state. It’s got its own jails, got its own court, got its own schools, got its own zip code. So that was an amazing place to get that first impression. And because it’s federal law enforcement, it was like, oh, like I could combine these two things, you know so, so that light bulb went off right in time for the Clinton administration’s hiring freeze for the federal government.

[00:08:20] So I went back to school and was retooling at USU when I met you and was my other passion was basketball.

[00:08:27] And at this point it become very apparent. I wasn’t a good enough player to play Olympic basketball, but I was like, but I could coach it.

[00:08:34] I was in grad school in physiology and biomechanics, and I was coaching basketball and I loved doing that.

[00:08:40] And I, I really did, but I think, you know, moving forward from there I was paying for grad school and paying for all these things by working seasonally for the park service at Rocky mountain, as a climbing ranger there and law enforcement ranger.

Youth Ministry

[00:08:52] And and that passion was always in that background, you know, of like being outside and allowing to do all those things and then like going and playing basketball winter. And like, I mean, I was just having a great time. And then in the midst of all that, you know, I, I got involved with. With some youth ministry opportunities particularly at the community church in Moab, and then moving on from there.

[00:09:11] And so, so it was like, all these things were kind of mixed in a ball because there was, I was in my twenties and there wasn’t a real clear direction. Like it’s not, it wasn’t easy to get a job in any of those fields. And you know, I was very blessed in that while I was in Moab. You know, nobody can survive in a tourist town like Moab at that level with just one job.

[00:09:30] Right. So I was the youth minister at the community church. I was a seasonal or part-time employee at Arch’s national park. And I was coaching the high school basketball team. Like I was one of the assistant coaches. And so it was just, and then I was eventually the assistant city rec director ocean, all kinds of basketball.

[00:09:45] Right. So it was like, there was all of this mix and mingle and then September 11th happened.

[00:09:49] Becoming a Paramedic

[00:09:49] Lisa – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17: And it was like this clarity lightning bolt, just, you know, I was actually at a EMT refresher at Zion and I’d just gone over there for the refresher that morning. And on the way home, that was when I made the decision, I was like, I’m going to paramedic school.

[00:10:02] And I didn’t know what exactly I was gonna do with that. But right out of paramedic school, a friend who I had worked with previously while I was seasonal called me up and he says, I’m at grand canyon. I’m gonna hire you permanently.

[00:10:13] And I was. Okay. I don’t have like competitive status, but, and he’s like, send me resumes. I’ll figure it out. And he did.

[00:10:19] And so, yeah. I got my first permanent job at grand canyon and then the park service career took off from there, but there was this jumbo in my twenties of like all these different directions. And and that was kind of like the big mashup of, you know, where do you want to go?

[00:10:32] What do you wanna do? What do you like most? And. Like a direction became apparent out of all that.

[00:10:38] Break Down Your Future

[00:10:38] Miriam – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17: So, sure. The thing that I wanna comment on that era, because that era is, I, I remember all of those, those moves and those places and those opportunities. And I got to visit you in every single one of those parks and see your life at that point-

[00:10:52] and the thing that I was so impressed with then, and still I’m so impressed with is. Nothing in your future seemed too daunting. You just broke it down into small pieces and figured it out. I remember having a conversation when you were studying for your paramedics stuff. And I remember just all of these different trainings that you did.

[00:11:12] So can you talk us through the process of like maybe not knowing exactly what you wanna do, but you know, the next thing and that next thing requires X amount of training and then you pursue it, like, talk about that a little.

[00:11:27] Chase the Passion

[00:11:27] Lisa – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17: Yeah. You know, I might, I might go backwards on you here and start from like what I know about all of this looking in hindsight, and then I can, I can talk about the little chip away of, of one thing, another task- wise to get there.

[00:11:42] But in hindsight, looking back across all of this, you know I’ve asked to speak, I’ve been asked to speak in a lot of places and people always are like, you know, what’s your big drive or passion or whatever.

[00:11:51] And I, you know, the big lesson. My life is, you know chase the passion, not the dream. And, you know, everybody will say chase the dream, not the money.

[00:12:00] I’m like, well, duh. Right. So , you know, moving on from that. But, but you know, when I look back, I had all these dreams just like everybody does. Right. And especially when you’re young, some of ’em are completely like you look back and you’re like, okay, well that was cute, you know, but there’s no way that was gonna happen.

[00:12:15] But the passion that I have discovered that I have that if you look and you take a single thread, Through everything I’ve done. And it’s, I love, absolutely love leading small teams of super skilled people to do things that everyone else thinks is either insane or impossible. Like that is the passion

Working with Small Groups

[00:12:34] Right. And so when you look at, you know, I mean, Let me just tell you how much the grand county red devils women’s basketball team was, the world’s biggest underdog, right. Or, you know, when you look at like, you know, building a youth ministry from four kids at a church that has a hundred members, and they’re gonna support a full-time youth minister, like really?

[00:12:52] And we had 40 kids when I left there. I mean, you know, it was You know, it’s, it’s these, these little things. I just, I love that challenge. Right? So when you look at search and rescue, when you look at some of these outdoor activities and, you know, facing the challenges that nature throws at you, and, you know, you take these little teams of people, the.

[00:13:10] That’s what I love the most. That’s the passion is, is taking a team of folks and doing something everybody else thinks is either just crazy or impossible.

[00:13:18] So like, how did you, how do you get there? Like in all these little, I don’t know which way I want to go. You know, it was, I can’t tell you that at any point that I knew then that was the thread through everything.

[00:13:31] Like I didn’t. Right. I, I don’t think I fully came to that. About three years ago.

[00:13:35] And, and so when I was, when I was kind of working my way through all these things, I just like chased the things that brought me that, I mean, like, I couldn’t have put the finger on it. Right. Like it, but it brought me that that win that like, oh yeah.

Do the Impossible

[00:13:50] Like I’m passionate about that. Right. And.

[00:13:52] Emergency medicine is one of those things. Search and rescue is one of those things to be really good at search and rescue and to be good at emergency medicine. I mean, the big joke at the time was that I went to paramedic school so I could push narcotics because it was hanging on cliff walls at Rocky mountain with people who were like screaming in pain.

[00:14:07] And I couldn’t do anything with. You know, we were getting ’em out. Right. And I was like, I weighed 125 pounds. Like I weighed nothing. So when it was like, well, who’s gonna be the rescuer to send over that. We have to now haul back up. Well, let’s send the scrawny woman down there. like, she doesn’t weigh much, like let’s haul her back up.

[00:14:23] And then once you had a paramedic, you know, it was like, you were definitely the person they were gonna send because you could actually do something about the pain. So. You know, you got this broken person that you’re trying to haul up a cliff and, you know, I was like, I need to be able to do more for these people.

[00:14:36] Like then just tell them it’s gonna be okay.

[00:14:38] You know and keep them from bouncing against the wall as we , as we raise them.

[00:14:42] So, you know, it was, it was. Like that passion was there to be a part of that team and say, how do I be a more contributing member of that team? Right. The team was the small team trying to do the impossible.

[00:14:53] Right. And it wasn’t until, you know, years later that I became a leader of those teams. Right.

See the Success

But which is what I really love doing, cuz I love, I love seeing that success and I love being able to use that- you have to have all that experience as a member of those teams to be a decent leader of those teams.

[00:15:09] So. Certainly no, no qualms about that. But, but that was what it was. It was like, okay, I need this training now to be a really quality member of this team, the way the national parks work is, every one of ’em is different, which is what makes me so awesome. And we needed different skills in each one. You know, I had to learn to climb to be at Rocky.

[00:15:27] I had to learn how to boat and do a lot more canyoneering and survive in the desert to be at Grand Canyon. You know, and my, my skills in aviation went through the roof at Yosemite because that’s what I needed there. The helicopter rescue team, there was super advanced and I was in charge of that. So, you know, and then, Big Bend it, it was a lot more border security and it’s just, there was all these different things that, that.

[00:15:50] The trainings followed the need to be a contributing member to those teams. But the thread that ran through all of it was, you know, like here’s this really rocking team of really good people. And the park service is full of those people because they don’t get paid much. So, you know, they gotta be highly motivated cuz they love their job.

[00:16:07] Right. And so that thread of, you know, I wanna help lead these people to do these crazy things we’re being asked to do. That’s. I mean, that’s the common piece.

[00:16:17] Writing and Study Skills

[00:16:17] Miriam – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17: So that’s the common piece. I love it. What allowed you to know? A lot of times people think, oh, I need to learn how to do that. I, I don’t know that I can learn how to do that.

[00:16:28] What gave you the confidence – because a lot of people don’t know they can learn.

[00:16:32] Lisa – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17: Yeah. Well, I, I wanna start by saying I was wicked privileged, cuz I did go to a private school and the two things that school taught me to do was how to write and how to study, you know, I mean, you, you know, I can remember like crazy battle dates from like, you know, the battle of Hastings and all those little nuggets that you learn in high school.

[00:16:49] But what I really learned there was how to write and how to study. And so that was a really good foundation, but So, I, I don’t know how to, how to apply that to anybody else. But because I had that foundation, I had this confidence that it’s like, well, you know, I know how to study. And I can put the knowledge that I’ve gained from studying on paper effectively and communicate it.

[00:17:09] So I just had had a bunch of previous success in it. So I, I think that’s how I, I mean, I just had the confidence imbued in me from a pretty, pretty early age.

Confidence Definition

[00:17:17] Miriam – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17: Pretty early age, you had people believing that you could learn. I, I really like the definition of confidence as not knowing everything, but knowing that you can learn whatever it is, you don’t know.

[00:17:28] Mm-hmm I have the confidence that I can learn it. And that is an acquired skill. So it was imbued in you at an earlier age, but I think people can learn that at any point in their life, is that as long as you don’t give up, you have another chance to continue to try and learn X, whatever it is.

[00:17:46] Leadership Under Pressure

[00:17:46] Miriam – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17: Can you talk about maybe leadership under pressure?

[00:17:50] Lisa – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17: I’ve been a part of some of the best rescue teams in the country.

[00:17:53] And it I’m very proud of that, but you know, you can talk about the person rapelling outta the helicopter and the cool video is the helicopter hovering over the boat and like pulling the people off via long line. Right? Like there’s. That’s the cool video that everybody wants of a rescue, but what they tend to forget is there is a very broken person whose life just changed at the bottom of that line.

[00:18:12] Right. And the person we’re going after, and there’s often some intense tragedy in that.

[00:18:18] And I think so I’m, I’m cautious not to glorify the work that we do too much because that work is done because someone else has suffered this life- changing event or the loss of a loved one. Right. And so I try to be humble in, in recognizing that and not trying to self- aggrandize or glorify what we do too much.

[00:18:37] But to your question about, you know, high functioning teams you know, I think… there’s a lot of places where I have seen teams come together and have to figure out problems and like really complex problems, really fast.

[00:18:51] And I think that rescue is just one of those areas. We do it in incident management in the park service, which is something that most people don’t realize we do, but like we respond for hurricane response.

[00:19:00] We do large scale dignitary visits.

[00:19:03] We manage the security on the mall for the inauguration in 2021, which. Terrifying.

Big Bend National Park

[00:19:08] So there’s, , there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of stuff that we do that people don’t don’t know that we do. And some of those teams that were managing those really big incidents were some of the most interesting, I think you know, and that was once I got up to a pretty high leadership level you know, working with the border patrol along the border.

[00:19:25] After the 2016 election and we were in charge of 12% of the US Mexico border at Big Bend National Park with Big Bend and the Rio Grande wild and scenic. And, you know, that’s all either wild and scenic river or proposed wilderness. And the threat of infrastructure being built along that border was super scary to us, you know, cause we, we just thought the degradation of everything we stood for in that.

[00:19:44] So so any specific event I. One of the most, the one that leaves the biggest impression on me was the 20 21 inauguration.

[00:19:54] So I was the deputy ops chief for the national park service. Alongside the ops chief was the us park police captain who was in charge of that area. That was his operational area.

[00:20:04] And normally. From around the country, you would have people who would show up to help with security on the mall because it’s a big deal, you know, and I imagine that every governor wants to see their state troopers out there and like, you know, high boots and looking sharp for the new president.

[00:20:19] But because of COVID a lot of those partner agencies didn’t wanna send officers and just like every emergency service agency was super nervous about losing people to the pandemic and being short staffed.

Rangers in D.C.

[00:20:30] So the park service had to figure out how to, to manage the security on the mall. And this is even before January 6th, this is like starting in way before the election. We didn’t even know who was gonna win yet. We just had to provide security for the, the inauguration, like we do every year. Right. But we always had had these partners to do it with and they didn’t, they didn’t wanna send anybody.

[00:20:49] So for the first time, the parks was asked to round up 300 Rangers from around the country to provide that security on the mall. And. Those Rangers don’t have crowd control training. Like the, I mean, you don’t, you don’t expect the Rangers at grand canyon to have like large scale riot crowd control training, right?

[00:21:07] The park police who is a branch of the national park service in the metropolitan areas they do. But the rest of the Rangers don’t it’s not part of the normal curriculum. So we had to figure out how to get ’em all trained. 300 of ’em. We had to figure out how to get ’em safely to DC during a global pandemic.

[00:21:22] We had to figure out how to house ’em and do all of the things you gotta do when everybody else is descending on DC at the same time. Right. And then we had to get ’em all deputized by the us Marshall. So they would actually have jurisdiction because even though the mall itself is park service grounds.

[00:21:38] The, you step off a sidewalk in DC and you’re in a different jurisdiction, right?

Jurisdiction

[00:21:41] So, so to be able to be effective in that area, you know, you have to have blanket jurisdiction, and only the us Marshalls can accommodate that. So that’s a huge paper chase for 300 people.

[00:21:52] So I, I gathered up a team of people who I’ve met over the course of my career and there were five of ’em and.

[00:21:59] They, I, I found people who knew more than I did about a bunch of different things, which was really important. And and, and it was, you know, the questions they had when I asked them to join this effort were, do I have to come to DC? Because again, COVID was a big deal. Right. And I’m like, I’m not sure yet you might.

[00:22:15] And and the second question was, you know, Who’s really in charge here. Is it the park police? Is it the instant management team? Is it the park service? A lot of those questions that are very much rooted in the concerns for how this was gonna go, because everyone knew it was gonna be a really contentious election.

[00:22:31] And of course, this is all happening in like October of 2020, like the election hadn’t even happened. And as it got closer, like, so they all committed. God love ’em they all committed. And these are old friends that I’ve met from all over the park service. So I was counting on their friendship as much because of the trust as much as I was counting on their skills.

January 6th

[00:22:48] And after January 6th we had to bring ’em all in faster and and everybody was 10 times more scared and and we had the wives of people we have known our entire careers calling in tears. Like, how are you gonna protect my husband? We had superintendents calling us. How are you gonna keep my Rangers safe?

[00:23:08] And we had a plan for it all, but it was such a scary time. And, and the five of us, I just wanna be clear. We were just one piece of a giant machine, right? Like the national park service had a huge machine out there to manage all aspects of the mall. And then there.

[00:23:24] You know, the, the white house grounds are, are park service. And so there was the transition of the furniture and the white house. I mean, there was all these crazy things going on that this whole larger incident management team was figuring out how to provide housing for all these Rangers.

[00:23:36] The logistics folks were doing that. And I mean, so it wasn’t like the five of us, our job was to take care of these 300 folks, get them all jurisdiction within the DC area.

[00:23:46] Get them all there safely. Figure out how to account for them from door to door, from their hotel, because there were all kinds of threats to law enforcement going out all over the country and then how to get them in small pods. So if somebody got COVID, we didn’t infect all of them and how to transport them.

High-Level Decisions

[00:24:02] And as the city locked down and the security became more like more and more tight, like how do we get them through that every day to their posts?

[00:24:09] And, you know, at the end of the day, Like the decisions were made at a way higher level, like department of justice and department of defense levels to lock the city down to the degree that we ended up in the center of concentric circles of security.

[00:24:24] And we were like watching Katie Perry do sound checks by the Lincoln Memorial. And like, you know, it was totally chill, but we had no way of knowing that until two days before. And so so that little team of five people sat on the roof of the hotel after everybody else left to go home. And we were like, did that really just happen?

[00:24:40] That was heinous mm-hmm . And I think, you know, like, so that is one example of, you know,

[00:24:47] finding the right people who you really trust and then going to do something that like, we didn’t even really know how we were gonna do it. Mm-hmm and we had a lot of help. I don’t wanna make it sound like it was just the five of us.

[00:25:00] The park police was stellar to work with and the rest of the incident management team. That little tiny think tank had a lot of pressure on, and I was super grateful for ’em all.

[00:25:10] Communication Among Various Entities

[00:25:10] Miriam – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17: Right. So, I mean, what I hear you, you didn’t say this specifically, but it sounds like there was a ton of communication going back and forth between many, many entities.

[00:25:20] I think a lot of times teams under pressure there are some spaces where that communication isn’t happening effectively, or people start disagreeing. And especially when you have people who are so skilled- how do you keep it from being a power struggle or how do you keep it from, I mean, obviously there’s one person in charge, but you don’t necessarily say we’re doing it my way, because I’m in charge.

[00:25:44] That’s not how you lead a team, you know? And when you have people who are, you know, more skilled or, you know, they always say, get your team who are smarter and better than you, you know, make sure you keep like, they’re, you’re playing up, basically. I wanna just hear how you navigate those things in concrete terms, because.

[00:26:02] you know, I’ve, I doubt very many of our listeners have your position, but they can utilize your skills. Mm-hmm mm.

[00:26:11] Lisa – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17: You know, the, the, a lot of people try to start from. The communication and, and I don’t know which comes first, but the foundation has to be a trust. So, you know, I picked those five people, like I said, not just cuz they were skilled, but because I really like, I had trusted my life to every one of them at some point, right.

Instant Management

[00:26:30] Because we had worked on search and rescue teams our whole life together. Right. And we had all just worked our way up through instant management skills to end up at the level where we were. And, and so, you know, Anybody who’s ever been in, whether it’s military, whether it’s emergency responders anybody who’s ever been in that position where you, you truly have to like trust your life to the other person, like on the level of, you know, I mean, one of the women that I was that was there you know, We worked on the helicopter rescue team together.

[00:27:00] And like from the buddy check of your gear right down to, you know, we’re gonna rapel outta this helicopter. And you’re like doing all kinds of hand signals and you’re looking at each other’s gear and I am counting on you to be looking at my gear to know I’m right. You know, and you know, and so for that person to come out and tell me that my spreadsheet’s wrong well, that doesn’t seem very threatening.

[00:27:17] I’m like, okay, what do we need to change? You know? Absolutely. What do you think? You know, so, yeah, so you know, it it’s It’s the rooted, the rooted foundation of trust was really a big piece of that. The communication between us at that point, we had established you know, because they were people I’d known a long time.

[00:27:34] We’d established communication. I think some of the, some of us I hadn’t seen some of those folks in several years and some of ’em didn’t know each other. And so that just became a, a product of we put the group in the room and we sort of delegated the tasks based on their skill sets. And it was interesting.

[00:27:50] Speak Their Language

[00:27:50] Lisa – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17: The, the skill sets I needed were I needed planners and I needed operations chiefs. Right. And so the two planners I brought in, they speak the same language. So they just went off to the races and I’m just like, okay, here’s all the tasks that involve planning. Good luck, you know? So, you know, and then the operations chiefs, you know, they, to, they totally spoke the same language.

[00:28:08] And so the tasks that involved operational Like, you know, moving of X asset to X location, put them all in the same space. So learning how to speak each other’s languages. And then that trust builds , that respect, like all the communication was in with, with respect.

[00:28:25] So and some of that was inherent in a incident management team, you know, that’s just what, the way they’re built.

[00:28:30] It’s kinda like the military, like you have a certain communication strategy for the bigger team. That, that keeps that kind of on par with the, the hierarchy and the respect and how things are supposed to work. But, you know, every single person in that room was coming from a place of vast experience.

[00:28:48] And I think that, so that history of trust, the knowledge that even if you’ve never met this person before that, to be where they were, they had to have insane experience. And and then just the structure of an incident management team and the ability to talk and the same language as a greater team.

[00:29:04] And then within the segments of that team, where, where all the things that contributed to the success of that.

Trust

[00:29:08] Miriam – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17: So, yeah, that makes sense. I definitely know certain people I’ve had situations where people have said, well, if Miriam trusts you, then I trust you. You know? And I think you had some of that going on for sure.

[00:29:20] Where if, if Lisa trusts you, I don’t know you from Adam, but I’m gonna trust you.

[00:29:24]

[00:30:03] Miriam – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17: So I do have a question about trust, like friendship and trust and what breaks that. So maybe go back like 20 years to where these relationships were being built. And there obviously all these people made the cut and the people you’re friends with now made the cut.

[00:30:20] But, you know, there are people, I was just working on a course on friendship and boundaries earlier today. And I was looking at the crappy way people treat each other and how they break trust with people and stuff like that.

[00:30:35] Beyond someone, having the ability to save your life and do gear check and stuff like that.

[00:30:40] Trusting Others

[00:30:40] Miriam – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17: What makes someone trustworthy to you?

[00:30:42] Lisa – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17: Yeah. You know, I think, I think part of it is the ability to see beyond themselves to what we’re trying to accomplish. and it’s interesting because when you’re, so when you’re in that like ground level, field level you know, it’s, it’s real easy, especially early on in your career to be threatened by your teammate’s success. Right. Because if they got to go do the cool thing that meant you didn’t get to go do the cool thing. Right. Because a lot of these things, there’s only one person who gets to rap down that line. Right. You know and building a culture. and Now I look at it as a leader, building a culture where the success of one is the success of all.

[00:31:14] That takes a lot of work. Like that’s really hard to do dealing with like super type a, like, I wanna be that guy every time kind of folks. Right. And that was me too. Right. So figuring out how to harness that energy is really important. And, and, and direct it as a, a team moving toward a goal, not just an individual trying to move themself toward the ability to perform in this level.

[00:31:39] Right. And I always, my thing I like to tease my guys about all the time is like, there’s no such thing as smarter points and life is a team sport. Right? so, so trying to get them to think of everything in that term and build that into the culture of the operation.

[00:31:53] So that if it’s we’re pushing wheel barrels around to try to move some gear to a location, which is not particularly glamorous. Versus we’re actually loading on the aircraft to go somewhere. Those, those, that mentality is the same.

[00:32:05] People Tend to Weed Themselves Out

[00:32:05] Miriam – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17: How, how long do you think it takes to create that sense of ” Our success is your success.” You know, one for all in all for one. And did you ever find people who couldn’t couldn’t get there?

[00:32:19] Lisa – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17: Oh yeah. There’s definitely people who can’t get there, but it’s, they weed themselves out because if you can get the rest of the team, move in that direction, then, then they sort of end up out on the fringe.

[00:32:30] Right. Cause everybody recognizes that they’re not, they’re not the one. And, and so that lack, so what it creates is a lack of trust in that person. Because you don’t trust, they have your best interest in mind or the team’s best interest in mind. You just envision that they have their best interest in mind.

[00:32:45] So, you know, so they, they tend to, they tend to weed themselves. How long does it take to do that? I think it depends on the group you start with. It depends on what the goal is, right. If the goal is very, obviously greater than the individual Like the saving of a life, most people are gonna get outta the way.

[00:33:01] Right? Like they’re gonna say, okay. Yeah, I don’t need to be the guy, like, like, please just let’s get this person outta here. Right. But but if it’s a longer term goal like the success of a program, you know, as opposed to an incident you know, I think it does take a lot more time to get buy in.

Determine What You Want To Accomplish

[00:33:16] Lisa – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17: I think you have to start at the beginning, with, why are we here? What is it we’re trying to accomplish and agree on that? Right? One of the best books I ever read was Simon Sinek’s Start with why. why are we here? And I think you have to gather your team up and start. With why, why are we all here? And what is it we’re trying to accomplish?

[00:33:33] Let’s determine that as a team, all at once, if you start with that, and then everybody has that same mental picture and they’re all in agreement, then you can start building that culture of “remember, here’s our end state. This is where we’re trying to get, you know and you may not be the glory guy today, but your job today still contributes to all of us getting to this end state” and defining what that looks like for them.

[00:33:54] And holding that out in front of ’em repeatedly as this is what we all agreed we were trying to do. So I think if you start from there, you can get everybody to move forward and it’ll go way faster. If you, if you get somebody who gets added into the group in the middle of all of. You can get ’em on board, but you have to get them.

[00:34:11] They, they have to be imbued with that, that same vision. And they have to know what it is before they come in so that they are confident they can get on board. Cuz if they can’t again, I think teams self-select you know, if you’re really truly marketing in the same direction and somebody decides to deviate they’ll self-select out.

[00:34:26] Own It

[00:34:26] Miriam – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17: Sure sure. As a leader, how, how many times do you have to say over and over and over, this is where we’re headed. Young leaders say, oh, I’ve already said that, you know, but older leaders know it’s the drum you beat.

[00:34:40] This is where we’re headed. This is why we’re heading there.

[00:34:44] Lisa – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17: And a little bit of this is who we. Right because you want them to own it on a level that is like really deep, you know the Jacko and his, you know, extreme ownership. Like, I love that principle of like, they, they have to own it or they’re not gonna, they’re not gonna go through the hard days cuz we have a lot of hard days, you know?

[00:35:03] A lot of what we do is be out in the worst possible weather covered in mud, like dealing with the worst possible thing. Right? Like I have intubated people while lying in mule pee right. Like, I mean, just this miserable, right conditions and get people to go out and do that in the middle of the night in the snow, you know, over and over and over again, like they gotta, they gotta own it.

[00:35:23] They gotta believe that we’re headed in the right place, deep down at the identity level.

Rein Them In

[00:35:29] Lisa – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17: Yeah. Like deep inside. And, and, and I. You know, you’ll, you’re gonna have the person who either waivers or who was never gonna be the hard charger to begin with. Right. And mm-hmm if you have a choice of your team, you know, I’d always rather rein in a stallion than flog a mule.

[00:35:45] Like I would much rather grab the guy who I’m gonna have to constantly rein him in and redirect him and remind him of the team. Then the guy who is like just the dead weight on the team. Right. Because eventually if you can get that guy harnessed, he will help drive the team forward.

[00:36:00] If you’ve got the mule in the background who you just having to, like, he’s just dead weight and the rest of the team’s dragging him. Right. So how do you motivate that guy? The, the weight on the team. I found a lot of times the reason they’re dragging is not anything to do with what you’re trying to accomplish.

[00:36:17] Like there could be something going on in their personal life. It could be that there’s some part of it- like you’ve got them in the wrong job on this team. Right. And you didn’t even know that. Right. And so I’ll give you an example. I had a guy here at grand canyon. We do everything. We are structure fire.

[00:36:32] We are wild land fire. We are law enforcement, EMS search and rescue river patrol. All of it.

Backcountry Patrol

[00:36:38] And I had a guy who I could not get to go on back- country patrol. Like he got paid to go backpack in the grand canyon to patrol. I could not get him to do it.

[00:36:47] I mean, like he just, and I’m like, is he lazy? Like, what’s his problem. Right.

[00:36:51] And it turns out his passion was structural fire. Well, he was a back country. Ranger, structural fire was not even in his position description, but that’s what he was passionate about. He wanted to be an engine operator for structural fire.

Work Together

[00:37:03] And I said, tell you what. I will support you to go to engine operator school and do these things that are not in your position description on work time. If you will, please , you know, commit to just much back country patrol. Right. And, you know, and that’s what it took, right? I had to give him some opportunities to participate in that because that’s where his that’s where his heart was. Right. And, and then he would go do the other parts of his job that weren’t as much fun for him. Right. And, and that’s, I think how you get that person as you figure out, do I have them in the right job on the team?

[00:37:34] And maybe I don’t, maybe their being a big slug is not a deficiency on their part. Maybe as a leader, I should go to them and say, what do I need to do to help you be more successful? And quite honestly, I’ve learned to just start from there. If I’ve got a slug at this point, I go to them. And the first question I give them is how can I help you?

[00:37:54] Because I’m seeing you not work at the level of your peers. What am I not giving you that would allow you to do that? And so now after, you know, 27 years of learning, I, I start from that place instead of blaming them for not being there.

[00:38:08] Miriam – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17: Yeah, I love that. That’s what a true leader does is take responsibility for what’s happening or not happening.

[00:38:16] First Woman Chief Ranger

[00:38:16] Miriam – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17: I wanna do a little bit of a tangent here. You were at the pinnacle of your career. Like that particular move moved. You. Higher and higher and higher to the first wo like, correct me if I’m wrong, but the first woman ranger over that park ever ?

[00:38:32] Lisa – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17: Yeah. I was the first female chief ranger at the Great Smokey Mountains, at the end of the day, it is not an anomaly for the national park service.

[00:38:38] It was just an anomaly for the smokey

[00:38:39] and so, but which is the busiest park in the country from a visitation standpoint. That, that job was there’s only 11 chiefs at that level.

[00:38:47] They call ’em the crown jewel parks around the country. Yeah. So grand canyon yellowstone, and all that. There’s, there’s 11 jobs at that level that are still in national parks. There’s only 11 of us that were out in the parks at that level.

[00:39:00] And it’s a very small group and they’re pretty tight knit. We all know each other. Right. And, and we drive the train from the field of like national policy and you know, and it’s why I ended up in DC so much during COVID, you know, trying to help you know, from a leadership standpoint. And it gave me opportunities.

[00:39:17] And, and I think a lot of people thought I was headed toward DC toward the end of my career. You know, that that would be where I would end up

[00:39:23] Success and Joy

[00:39:23] Miriam – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17: for sure you had the skill set and could have you just could have kept climbing and climbing climbing. Yeah. But the place I want you to talk about is this, this juxtaposition of success in the eyes of the world and success personally.

[00:39:37] Mm-hmm yeah. And what, what brings you joy?

[00:39:40] Lisa – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17: Yeah. Oh yeah. Well, I mean, so it was, it was a wonderful park and it, I had the best superintendent I’ve ever seen. You know, my boss was fantastic, but, and I had an incredible management team to work with. Like I had the team of brilliant people that we were running this park and, and it was phenomenal.

[00:40:01] And yet my soul was dying it was because I was sitting in an office all day. Right. That’s right. And at that level, as a chief, your guys are afraid of you. Like I would be driving home and pull over on a traffic stop to back up somebody who asked for backup. And I’d pull off and they’d just look at me in horror.

[00:40:18] like, , chief, what I do wrong? And I’m like, you asked for back, if I was driving, I’m gonna drive by you. You know, so, so, you know, I you know, I, I just didn’t, I, I didn’t have the opportunity to go lead the small team anymore.

Back to Basics

[00:40:34] I had 75 employees and most of them were afraid to talk to me. We were moving the ship on a much bigger scale. Right. And,

[00:40:43] but that small team doing that one little impossible task, like that’s where my passion was. And the opportunity came to rebuild the river program at grand canyon and to help escort the canyon district, which is the Rangers who were down below the rim through the rebuild of the grand canyon pipeline, which is coming up here pretty quick.

[00:41:03] And those are both, career mic drop enormous tasks, both of them. And so to throw ’em both on one position, I was like, oh yeah, I’ll do that. Right.

[00:41:14] And it means that I get to be in the canyon again. It means I get to be on the river again, it gives, I get to be on the aircraft again. And so, so it was like this let’s go back to where your passion was, right?

[00:41:23] Yeah. The passion was not. This giant, like I’m gonna make giant executive decisions for the entire national park service. That was never the passion. The passion was I’m gonna take these little bitty teams and, and we’re gonna accomplish crazy impossible things. Right. And, and so I had to just go back to that and it was very apparent to me, like, I was definitely not happy.

[00:41:47] In spite of the fact that it’s the classic, you know, I had absolutely everything. I was getting paid more than I, everything I was gonna get made, but, but I wasn’t, the passion was gone. Like I’d lost it. And that’s where I had to like, pinpoint. Okay, well, what was it? And how do I get it back? And then the position came open here and it was, it was a no brainer for sure.

[00:42:04] Yeah. Even though it was a downgrade in the world’s eyes, but it was a big deal to me.

[00:42:08] Coming Home

[00:42:08] Miriam – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17: What did you experience when you drove back into the canyon? This, this time?

[00:42:15] Lisa – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17: Oh, I like, well, okay. So there’s a Keith urban song called “coming home” and I purposely had it all queued up and I was like, there I came through the gate and And drove up to the rim … I went to one of my favorite spots to pull up and walked up to it and then I just sat down and wept.

[00:42:30] I could just feel. Okay. Like now I’m back where I’m supposed to be. You know, it was like a tectonic shift in my soul of like, okay, this is okay now we’re back. Right. Everything’s okay.

[00:42:41] The Canyon’s a part of that because it, it, it provides all of the challenge and the amazing, amazing place that it is to, to feed all of my interests and all of my things that I enjoy.

[00:42:52] It’s about my role in the place that, that makes it so special

A Good Fit

[00:42:57] Miriam – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17: Yeah. Yeah. What you’re doing now is a perfect fit for who you are. It’s everything you dreamed of and love and it’s you through and through.

[00:43:06] Yeah. Yeah. So I’m gonna take another little shift. You’re in midlife, I’m in midlife- as you observe people, what do you think they do that holds them back from their best self?

[00:43:18] Lisa – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17: They, they worry about other people’s expectations.

[00:43:21] You know, I think there’s been several turns in my life where. People expected me to go do something. I got offered a permanent job at arches long before I took a permanent job at grand canyon. And I turned it down because it wasn’t, I could tell it wasn’t it was what everybody expected me to do.

[00:43:40] They’re like you got offered a permanent job. Why would you not take that? But I could tell it wasn’t gonna be a good direction for me. And, you know, everybody expected me to go to Washington and I was like, Ooh, no,

[00:43:50] I think when we try to meet everyone else’s expectations is when is when we, we really lose sight of what we’re trying to go.

[00:43:58] Miriam – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17:  Mm-hmm I’d agree with that. Yeah. I don’t know.

[00:44:00] Next Level of Development

[00:44:00] Miriam – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17: What do you think, what do you think is next in your, like in your near future? What, what concept or idea are you chewing on?

[00:44:10] And what do you think is your next level of development? Those might be two different questions. They might be the same question. I’m not sure. Hmm.

[00:44:19] Lisa – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17: You know, I, I think at some point I’m gonna have to figure out. How to scale down – I think anybody who’s ever had a role like mine, they have to figure out how do you scale down from it? Like, how do you, how do you step back down from it?

[00:44:32] I need to look deeply into now that I’ve kind of identified the passion, like where do I find that somewhere else?

[00:44:37] So I. I think it’s a blessing to have kind of figured out what that thread is that’s come through all of my, all of my decisions and gotten me to where I’m like super happy and, and figure out, okay, now how do I carry that into the next phase? Because it’s not getting to be the guy in the helicopter anymore.

[00:44:53] That makes it great. It’s getting to lead the team of people that are in the helicopter.

[00:44:57] How do I carry that forward into the next job? That’s not that doesn’t involve aircraft? How do I do that?

Good Mentors

[00:45:02] I’m very fortunate in that I have had several mentors who have retired before me who have had that same conundrum and they’ve figured it out and they have some great options and directions to lead me in that I think are gonna be worth listening to as I explore what that might be.

[00:45:16] But I think, I think figuring out what that passion is for you. And how to carry that, even if you can’t do the same task, how do you carry that forward?

[00:45:25] Miriam – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17: But hopefully not any time soon, cuz you just got there.

[00:45:28] Lisa – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17: Yeah, no, it is gonna be a while because the river program is definitely not rebuilt and the pipeline build is pushed back a year by contracting.

[00:45:35] So , it’s gonna be a while.

[00:45:38] Miriam – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17: Lisa, this has been so fun. I have loved, loved, loved. Just hearing visiting with you. It’s been an honor and a privilege.

[00:45:46] You know that on my podcast, we generally gift someone to say thank you for their time by making a donation and their honor, and you chose the charity, mercy ships.

[00:45:55] So we will be doing that in your name. Thank you for your time.

[00:45:59] Absolutely. It’s been a pleasure. Thank you.

[00:46:05] Half Dome Fire

[00:46:05] Miriam – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17: Okay, that’s fine. Yeah. So, so you asked me about any one incident. You know, can you, can you imagine, like from a leadership standpoint, you know, like, did that really happen? Was that really me? You know, and yeah, there were, there were several times over my career where I sat in a room after something happened and with the buddies that were with me and we were like, did that just happened?

[00:46:28] And one of the most striking was the me fire in Yosemite national park. I can’t remember exactly which year I wanna say it was either 20, 20, 14 or 15.

[00:46:38] Lisa – LeaveBetter Podcast Ep. 17: And there was a, a fire that started. Behind little Yosemite valley behind half dome. And it, it blew up. It was a drought year, as many years in California are, and it just started raging up through the valley behind half dome and it chased 80 some people to the top of half Dome And you know, these are people who spend their lives in cubicles and get sometimes, and, and some of them are dentists and folks who, who don’t necessarily get the excitement of even. Hiking up half them. Right. So that was the most exciting thing they were gonna do all summer. And now they’re being chased up, half Dome by a fire and they’re gonna get evacuated by helicopter.

[00:47:16] Right. So their minds are blown and they’re, they’re all over the place. I mean, herding cats would be far easier, right? Like it was just nuts. It, it was more like, like, you know, like herding monkeys, they were out of control, like just screaming everywhere. And and meanwhile, you know, the Park’s trying to fight the fire.

Passengers

[00:47:32] And so there are huge air tankers. Just dropping incredible loads of slurry and water on that corridor behind half dome. And we were trying to evacuate these people into the valley to bring them back down into the valley. And we had we had four small aircraft. We had two CHP and those are our Aerostar aircraft.

[00:47:54] They can ha they can hold like three passengers. And then there was the aircraft out of Sequoia. And then eventually we, we got a, I think it was a, it was either Cal fire force, service helicopter. And so we had four pads in Aweenee Meadow And so it’s just a big meadow. There’s not an actual pad there, but we called them pads.

[00:48:10] There was four locations to land in Awan meadow, and only one of them. We had a portable fuel tank. And so the aircraft, we couldn’t just say, come back to pad one every time, like they had to be able to shuffle and they couldn’t fly above a certain elevation because they would go straight at the face of half Dome and then let the thermals carry on and like get up to the top and then get the people because there’s all this other air traffic fighting the fire and they have to stay out from under.

[00:48:33] it They have to stay under it. And so and so then these people get off the aircraft and we’re offloading them hot with the rotor turning and, you know, it’s loud and loud noises make people amp anyway. And it they’re just like trying to keep them from like standing up too early and like walking into rotors and I, it was madness.

Endorphins

[00:48:51] Right. And they’re already. You know, all of the endorphin response that comes with being in a situation like that, especially if you’ve never ridden in a helicopter or been chased by a fire, you know, I mean, they like, they tunnel vision, auditory, exclusion. They’re not listening to you. They don’t even see you.

[00:49:07] Like you’re trying to help them. And, and then working with the Rangers to just get them off scene, like we got a. And we literally built a funnel out of caution tape. And we were like, go that way. And we just funneled ’em all into this van. And we would offload a couple of aircraft and pile ’em all in the van and then drive ’em away and then dump ’em at the closest bus stop in the valley.

[00:49:25] And they’re like, well, we wanna wait for mom. And I’m like, mom is gonna come to the same bus, stop into the van, you know, and then we gotta track them. We gotta track everybody’s name and email address and phone number because for the next week, everybody who had, you know, A third cousin’s nephew hiking in the Yosemite wants to know if their buddy’s okay, because they hear this story.

[00:49:42] And so they’re gonna call, so we better know who’s on that roster, who we just evacuated. So so yeah, that day was madness and, you know, trying to get those aircraft in coordinated making sure that they are deconflicted from each other, making sure that they’re deconflicted from the airspace above him with all these other aircraft that are fighting the fire

Protect Each Other

And then getting all these completely panicky people off of half them. And the ones who are there with your, their selfie sticks, that they’re about to stick up into the rotor. And I mean, all the crazy and we got done and we were like eating pizza in the rescue cash later. And we’re like, that just happened.

[00:50:12] Like, we’re just looking at each other, like, but you don’t have time to think. And I imagine that some of your listeners have business situations. They end up in a position where like they just have to react to what just hit ’em and they don’t have time to think. And what made us successful that day is everybody on that scene had a ton of training in how to manage aircraft, like how to safely manage aircraft and how to communicate safely with aircraft.

[00:50:42] And we had trained with all of the, he attack crews for those aircraft previously. And. While, none of us ever imagined that scenario, we had built relationships. We had trained with those people for the worst case scenarios that we had imagined at the time we were apparently not creative enough, but we had, we had definitely tried to imagine panicky situations.

[00:51:04] We had trained for mass casualty incidents and, and we had the right people on the ground to, to manage it. And then we just trusted each other and managed it, you know? . And there was, I mean, there was a moment when the hill attack foreman for Sequoia, like grabbed me by the collar. Cause the, the type of aircraft we were walking out from under you had to wait.

Move Forward

[00:51:25] For a certain period of time until they, they completely shut down because the rotors dip as they shut down and you know, it’s not even safe to, like, you could walk out from under that aircraft when it’s running. No problem. But if it’s on the process of shutting down, like you gotta stay right up against it, or you gotta be all the way out front of the Roers.

[00:51:42] And it was in the process of shutting down and it was just a different aircraft. That’s not the one I fly on all the time and you know, and she’s like, whoa, wait, you know, It’s like, you’re just looking out for everybody else on that scene and looking out for each other. And then you just move forward and you deal with it as it’s hitting you.

[00:51:57] And I’m sure people in, in different lines of work, deal with that in a, in a totally, it may not be as dramatic or make as, as good a story, but it’s the same principle for that team that has to deal with it. So, yeah, it’s the same principle. I love that. You told that story. Thank you.

 

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