Why the Best Leaders Ignore the Norms

0:00 The topics and opinions expressed on the following show are solely those of the hosts and their guests, and not those of W four WN Radio It's employees or affiliates. We make no recommendations or endorsement for radio show programs, services, or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability, explicit or implied shall be extended to W four WN Radio It's employees or affiliates. Any questions or common should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W four WN Radio. This is Beyond Confidence with your host d W Park. Do you want to live a more fulfilling life? Do you want to live your legacy and achieve your personal, professional, and financial goals? Well? Coming up on Dvaparks Beyond Confidence, you will hear real stories of leaders, entrepreneurs, and achievers who have steps into discomfort, shattered their status quo, and are living the life they want. You will learn how relationships are the key to achieving your aspirations and financial goals.

0:52 Moving your career business forward does not have to happen at the expense of your personal or family life or vice versa. Learn more at www dot Divpork dot com and you can connect with Diva ants Contact Dants divpark dot com. This is beyond confidence and now here's your host, div Park. Good morning listeners, It's Tuesday morning, and I'm thrilled to be here with you because I get to be in your presence and spend time with you. So I want to share that kind of story. One of our audience sent it out to us, Nicola. So Nicola, I want to give you a huge, huge shout out. So Nicola was just kind of walking by in her neighborhood and then she saw a mom just kind of like you know, struggling like her to older younger kids like probably around like five and three. They were throwing you know, they were hungry, tired, sleepy, don't know, but they were like, you know, crying and then she's trying to get the baby seed out. So what Nicola did was just kind of picked up a couple of sticks and sat down and like you know, she was like, oh, do you see this rock? Do you see this? So she engaged those kids and mom was able to get out the baby and so it is just amazing, like Mom just hurt hugged Nicola and said thank you, and then they

2:24 went inside. And so here's the beauty that when you keep that kind of circle going. So even though Nicola did not know who her neighbor was, but just extending that kindness goes long ways, and now she is friends with them. So I invite you to spend one hour of your time every month spreading the kind of circle. It can be five minutes here, one second here, one smile here, one smile there. And I want to thank each and every one of you who have got her box, because I will tell you, like our books, will make a difference, and it goes three ways. One, you're helping me spread the message, helping you help yourself. And then we also give partial proceeds to keywoo dot org to entrepreneurs because entrepreneurs are special. Let's get into today's conversation.

3:20 Let's bring in our guest. Welcome Laura. Good to see you. Good to see you as well. So share with us if you recall a moment from your childhood or youth where a person or situation left a positive mark on you. So I had a ton of great coaches and mentors and people that have guided me throughout my life. One of the individuals that I think had just a tremendous impact during my upbringing and then definitely as I kind of got into adulthood in my career is Scott Taylor. He is a family friend and godfather to my little sister.

4:00 He was an entrepreneur himself, and so he built and developed an incredible tech company, and throughout that time it was interesting, I think, very early on before it became kind of common nomenclature, everyone described him as a servant leader, that he was always someone to give back and always send one to lend welcoming hand or kind words and support those around him. And so definitely throughout my playing career and as I went into college and as I started kind of my work career, he was always there to just be a sounding board to provide coach coaching encouragement. He definitely was somebody who said, you know, the sky's the limit, right, set some goals and expectations and see what you're capable of. So he was definitely kind of you know, and has been and continues to be kind of consistent in my life. I think there's so many different coaches that each bring their own little facet of what they do. I think it's an interesting dynamic that you know, as you kind of curate your ecosystem and the people you surround yourself, your goal should be to take anything you can from the people around you. So I think probably list every soccer coach I've had in talk or skill set that they've bestowed upon me. So a lot of people in my life that I think continue and have always said. You know, you're capable of whatever you know you want to do, you just have to put your time, effort, and energy behind it.

5:22 Yes, oh, you said something very powerful. Surround yourself with someone who's part who can uplift you. And even if it is not the way I've seen it is that even if a person has their own quirks, which we all do, every person has something that we can learn from. It's up to us. It's our choice. And as you mentioned, you can learn things from anybody surrounding from you. So that's a really powerful perspective to have. So as you grew up, it sounds like you know, you were playing soccer and all of that. What were your main interests so interestingly off very early on, I would say in high school in early college. I whether it's just the dynamic of circumstance, whether it was exposure.

6:09 You know, I had probably very high goals in terms of athletics and soccer. I think I don't know that I really had a ton of career ambitions. I think whether that was circumstances of where I was growing up or just kind of the dynamics. I came out of college thinking I was going to teach second grade for my entire life. So my undergraduate degrees in teaching. I was very lucky that I get extra years of eligibility to pay for a master's degree. But even still, when I came out of college, my initial kind of goal was, you know, my parents, being you know, very philanthropic and involved in different things, kind of said go get a job that's something you're passionate about and you enjoy. Right, That was kind of the goals at that time. And I came out and taught. And it wasn't until probably my second year or my third year of teaching that I realized, Wow, I'm more competitive than I than I realized growing up. I was an advice to do it, and now that I don't have that outlet, I have to find other ways and opportunities to really challenge myself.

7:12 I don't know that I would have said in high school, Wow, I'm smarter than I thought I was, and I can learn at a fast rate, and I'm really outgoing or you know, a strong, you know, time manager and organized, you know individual. I don't know that I would have come out in my twenties and ever been able to do articulate here's my strengths as a human. I would have been able to describe a bunch of ways I spend my time. But I think it definitely took into my thirties to really realize, Okay, wait a minute, I'm capable of more than I thought I was. And that's a powerful insight to have. So so many times, as you mentioned that, it takes us time to find our way through what we are capable of, what are our true passion and you know, where do we want our lives to go? So gen Z is already in workforce and you have gone through several different careers in your life. Define the norms? What would you tell that gen Z generation while they're in their twenties currently, Like, what could they do differently so that they don't have to wait till they're in thirties to direct the.

8:21 Guidance absolutely, you know, I tell people all the time, figure out, really hone in on what you're good at. And I know that sounds very simple, but I think we get stuck too often at very high level superficial taglines or tag words. Right. We talk about all the time that people say they're a good communicator. Everyone on my team is an exceptional communicator, but they all have very different strengths and how that comes to the table. We have some people that are very articulate and very clear and concise, their nomenclature, the vernacular is really strong. We have other people that come across as very empathetic and engaging, and so because of it they can get in from and collect information from others.

9:02 But even the skill of taking a very complex topic and making it easy for people to understand is really the underlying aspect of being a strong communicator. Right. I think I'm a storyteller, so I am an open book. I share stories all the time. That is kind of my facet within being a strong communicator. And I think what our young people need to do is really kind of dissect and have some self reflection to say, what do I think are really my best assets, my best astributes, my best skills, how can I develop and home those? And then I think that the opposite is really dissect your biggest weaknesses. Right, So I'm very transparent, and I had the opportunity to do some three sixties in my thirties where I knew my weaknesses or I knew what I thought my weaknesses are. But having somebody else really articulate them to you helps, and that's a fraighting experience.

9:57 I think there's sometimes all too often in our early career we are too concerned about getting negative feedback. We are too concerned about telling us everything that we could improve upon. And I think the complete opposite now, right, you should lean in on where your weaknesses are so you can improve on those, or hone on those, or quite frankly, find people around you that can balance you out. So if you are not going to be good at one aspect of you know, for example, in my career in the consulting space, if there's something I need support on from a technical perspective or it's outside of my depth, then every call or engagement or interaction I'm going to make somebody and sure we have somebody from the provolest team on that call to balance out where my strengths and weaknesses are on our team in general, like our direct team. If you look at the personalities of each of our resources and each of our individuals, and each of my teammates Kayla and Sam and Shay and Ryan, couldn't be further personalities from each other and further from me.

10:56 And that brings kind of a very dynamic, engageing opportunity to grow as an individual because you're constantly learning from those people and rounding out your weaknesses definitely. And here's the thing. So many times we are so positivity driven that we forget that it's important to know our shortcomings as well, and these are how we label them. Sometimes what happens is, so I'm just gonna share, Like recently, what happened with one of my clients. He was given constructive feedback because nowadays, you know, people can be a little bit sensitive about criticisms. Like let's drop the word criticism and say, okay, constructive feedback. And he's like, oh, gosh, I did not know this. This I was blindsided. So we took, like, you know, a moment, and then he realized, oh, this can be a strength in certain circumstances, and it can be so for example, like he's in sales, so when he is he has salespeople will have to be a little assertive and aggressive and doing the follow up, so it becomes a strength there. But you're doing the same thing with your younger gen Z, it doesn't work.

12:11 So then he realized he had this insight all on his own. Oh, it can be a strength, it can be a weakness. So what you're saying is that knowing your assets there it is it's important to lean into it. And you have leaned into your life multiple places, so you have changed multiple careers. Can you walk us down that path? Yeah? Absolutely, So, as I shared, I came out of college and I had a job offer before I graduated, so I took it, which was teaching second grade. And while I was teaching, I think realized, Okay, I need something else. I have this fix on the side that I need to really feel this you know, competitive dynamic and challenge myself.

12:54 And so I started at the time, which was in a different league that exists today, but was a pro women's soccer team. That team did incredibly well and had a great kind of you know launch. We got sponsors and donors and made money our first year, which is unheard of, and by kind of, I say, the grace of God, I ended up getting invited to present to what was the larger league that owned a mix of teams men's, women's, different levels, the USL and presented and was offered an opportunity at that point in time to leave my teaching and my team in Detroit and come and run the team in Atlanta. And it was an interesting dynamic because it was a massively of faith. I say all the time that I had no family, no friends, nobody had left kind of the greater Michigan area, and I was going into a town that I knew nobody in a field that I had done kind of on the side. And so it took a lot of trust, I say, from from Boris and John and the owners and the individuals at that time that kind of said, hey, we're going to take a chance on you. That opportunity was like a critical life decision because in that environment I was given a certain amount of money and they said, go build this and present to us every quarter in terms of how you're doing and how the team's doing.

14:15 That really enhanced my ability to say, Okay, what do I know about finances? And what are I do know about marketing? And what do I know about operating a business? And all of these different aspects that I think gave me carte blanche to really hone so many different facets of what I didn't know about myself at the time. After that, in my thirties, it became pragmatic to say, how am I still going to do this and work till two in the morning and travel thirty weeks a year and physically be pregnant and have a child? How is this possible? And another door opened where my aunt ran into someone she hadn't seen in years, Dev Dean. And Dev had been traveling to Atlanta all the time, and my aunt kind of offhand said you should go see my niece. And we met for coffee, and after forty five minutes, she said, I'm going to are you and you're going to come work for me? And I remember chuckling because I had no idea what she did.

15:05 I didn't know I love the consultant space. I couldn't even pronounce the company name, which was Spearan at the time, and she said, that's okay. I I'm going to teach you everything you need to know, and she did, and I joined that organization really as a corporate green beam. I had no idea about the staffing, consulting, light industrial finance, and accounting, all the things that kind of came with that consulting aspect, and kind of did that for for several years. The company was acquired by Ronstad, stayed and then decided to make a change again at that point in time. It's interesting if you think about it, and everyone in the company knows the story, but our company was founded by, you know, two couples, and Todd Black and Michael Winwood kind of were the two core founders, and I had worked with them at spheren A Ronstad and they said, Hey, what are your thoughts about coming into the IT space. We joke that at the first dinner where we all sat down, they literally Todd literally said to me, I really don't know if you can do this job, because I'd never sold before. And he said, I don't know if you can do it, but I know you'll put in the time up for an energy and you'll represent our brand well, so you know, let's see if we can make this happen. And so now I've been here twelve years, I've held a multitude of hats, so helped our optimy organization on the consulting side, helped launch our organization on the managed services side. And it's the longest run I've ever had with a company. And so everyone asked me, right, how did you stay after

16:38 making a change every five years? And I think what I've been offered here is an opportunity to dynamically evolve as our company has evolved. So what I was doing five years ago is very different than what I'm doing today. And that dynamic has allowed me to continue to challenge myself and be engaged and meet new people and continue to grow. And so a couple of questions come to my mind from the story that you have told us and your journey phenomenal journey. One actually several questions you mentioned about being pregnant and having kids, and you were traveling at that time. So a lot of women who are in this place where they face I'm going to kind of go back to that word, like you know, and we shouldn't shy away from it because it's like criticism, like you know, because these are societal nons. There are certain expectations for women, Oh you got to do this, you got to do that, and that goes for men as well.

17:40 So when we lean into it, I mean, these are just words. Let's drop the words. They feel guilty that, oh how can I have a career, and like you know, they're stretched and torn like so being there myself, I know the feeling. How can I balance both being a mom and also having that career? Am I doing enough for both? So tell us, like, how did you pass your phase throughout that time? Yeah? Well, first and foremost, I think it's kind of ironic that when I left the sports space to travel less, I ended up volving quickly into a role where I was flying every day with spear and a roundstad so that travel never actually went away. I have consistently traveled with with you know, provels in the organization, helping us, you know, build our role centers. I think what I found is a couple of things. One, I bring the kids in and my family is involved in a lot of everything that I do. So my kids traveled with me extensively. They I found babysitters in different markets to make it work. They went on site at clients for every single kid's career day, and when we did things at work that I could integrate them in, they came.

18:52 So everyone on the team knows that during the holidays for provals, we have a lot of our leaders that will travel for two or three weeks. We'll do everything we can to make every holiday party. And so one great intremendous opportunity that my kids authentically remember is we ended up doing it as a road trip a couple of years ago, and we drove literally from every single location over a fifteen day period, traveled six thousand miles, hit all these volunteer events and holiday parties and what have you. Where that comes into plane now is when I have to travel for work or when I'm working late, they actually have a connection to what we're doing. So they will say, oh, is that team going into Jasper?

19:35 Is that team? Is Amy going to be on that team, or is you know so Joe going to support that team, or who's going to be on it. They know who I work with, they have met them, they hang out with them. The sales team to kick off the year came and stayed in my house in January, and yes, that means they had dinner with my family and we hung out, and the same goes kind of vice versa. So we have people on a team obviously that our moms, and we know their kids and we're involved, and we visit their houses when we're in market. So I think I made a very early decision to say, I'm not going to shy away from the fact that I'm a working mom. I am going to lean into it. My kids are going to know what I do. I am going to be open and honest with them when there are conflicts or issues or things that I'm going to miss, but they're also going to know why it matters to me.

20:21 And I think I'm very lucky in the fact that I know what we're doing is having an impact. We're helping rebuild rural communities, we're almost sixty percent women, we're sixty five percent military families. We are having an impact in the world, and so it does make it a lot easier to say, this is what I want to do, this is why it matters, this is why it should matter to you. The other dynamic I think that is interesting is deciding what is a parity of what you can and can't miss. So I have never missed, for example, a medical appointment for one of my daughters. She has a series of rare diseases in dynamics, and I will not miss an appointment at all costs, period hard stop.

21:03 So I will change schedules, I will change flights, I will leave at four o'clock in the morning if I have to and take a red eye back, but at all costs, I will not miss for medical appointments. And I think also as your kids get older, setting what those boundaries are for them and for you is a critical critical aspect of what is a hard stop you have to be there and what do you have more flexibility on. Meaning if my kids have both now soccer and gymnastics practice, me traveling on the nights, their training aren't a big deal because they're not going to be hung either. So being chancious to some of those aspects for sure. Yeah, Now, thank you for sharing that, because as women, we do have a lot of and it's nature and it's awesome, Like you know, we come with naturally packed empathy and nurturing and all that. So I'm very very happy to be a woman because nature heads provided us very a lot of things. And so again leaning into it can make a huge, huge difference to as to how we approach life and approach the careers. So as you kind of move through it, a lot of questions that come in as like, oh, if you've been in a career for four or five years, you can change it.

22:20 So how can people first of all challenge that norm that like, oh I cannot change careers? And then secondly, how can the build a brand and leadership style throughout all of this? Yeah, So I think in terms of changing careers, it first and foremost is understanding what you're good at, what your strengths and weaknesses are, and then if you want to make a pivot, taking some time, effort, and energy to actually hone or advance your knowledge in the space. So I have to be honest. When I shifted from our consulting, you know, offering the optomy into probalance in the managed service space, I didn't have a lot of knowledge at that time, but I made the commitment to say, Okay, I'm going to watch and consume everything I can line.

23:00 I'm going to go to every single video and every single book and see what I can you know, parse of information to build my knowledge over time. I still to this day, when we present customers on a subject matter or area that I don't have any knowledge in, I see them as the expert and I'm going to ask a lot of questions to procure that information. So first and foremost, you have to be willing to learn, and you have to know and acknowledge. Hey, here's what I need to you know, advance in terms of skill sets in order to go into that area. Meaning if you're a salesperson and you all of a sudden want to go into an operational element. Is that operational element regarding process and project management skills? Do you need to develop financial skills? Do you need to run a P and L? What does that look like when you're going for company to company? You know, I always say you need to do your research, you know, meet as many people as you can, interview as many people as you can.

23:51 Just because you applied for a job and you're set up for an interview doesn't mean you can't go on LinkedIn and find ten people in your area or your community, your network and say, hey, I see you work for this company. I'm interviewing with them. Are you willing to have coffee with me to share a little bit of an insight in terms of what the environment is, look, what is the culture like, what is the management style like? I think being informed is absolutely critical in making any career move. And I think the last thing is is know what you're willing to sacrifice and what you're not people. We always talk about this, make critical decisions like this, sometimes for title, sometimes for compensation. We have all these acronyms in the company in terms of you know location, you know why you're making a move, know what your stack ranking is in terms of priorities before you go looking for a job. If you're just looking for a job for compensation, change, that is a very very tight needle to thread. If you're looking for it to grow as an individual or expand your knowledge or expand your leadership capabilities, that is something dynamically different. On the leadership side, I will say I think the biggest thing I've learned over the years is your style has to be adaptable, Meaning your leadership style with some individuals on your team may be entirely different than early talent or people kind of starting their career. What in how you engage folks and how you build that level of trust and relationship is something that you have to develop over time, and it is constantly evolving based on your environment. But I

25:22 think initially when I probably read and researched a lot in my twenties and thirties about what it means to be a good leader. A lot of times, you know, they try and say, well, you're either servant minded or you're very I think on the disk scale, right, you're very data driven, or you're very This in my metel is kind of evolved like why can I be all of it? And why can't I? Based on the environment, And so that leadership style will evolve with you, but it'll also evolve within your job and within your corporate construct and within that environment based on what the cultural norms are. And a company today where you know we talk about and provol us, we're a big Italian family, and we will there's no hierarchy that matters, and we will call each other out and we will demand a lot from each other, and we want to make a profound impact as quickly as we can. That is normal to our environment, and that is okay. That might not be normal to a like for light company in the same space and the same industry doing the same thing.

26:24 Their corporate norm of how you engage and how you interact with leadership and how leadership interacts with team members may be dynamically different. Yeah, definitely, And I love what you said that. You know, it is our family and you know we push each other. So you have resen in the ranks to become the chief growth officer of Provelus. Not sure if I'm pro pronouncing the name correctly. Everybody does it right, everybody doesn't do it right for the first time. Yeah, Oh, so tell us about that journey and tell us, you know, because you had said something in our earlier conversation mission with the margin, So tell us about that and like, you know, how your company is making a difference, how you're part of that social impact.

27:11 Would love to learn about that. Yeah. Absolutely so. When we launched Provalis, which stands for Providing Value from the US, the mission initially was pretty simple, right, go into rural communities and build u ass delivery centers that support BPO and ITO and support kind of companies you know in country that there's this incredible talent pool right here in the United States that is being under leverage because they might not have high speed internet or fiber as we know, you know, depending on the stat fifty to eighty million Americans are still waiting for that to be run for their home. And you also did not build that. Yeah, you also have all these military based communities. So you have these, you know, communities where you have transitioning veterans, you have military spouses, you have family members that are in these communities that once they exit kind of their terms of service, they might not want to relocate again. They might want to stay in that community and stay close to their team and close to the VA and that community and all of those things.

28:11 And so I think early on the mindset was pretty simple, We're going to find these communities, we partner with governors, not going to have development to really identify the best and brightest kind of communities to go into. And that's really where we started. I think where we've evolved to now is recognizing just the incredible talent. Right you get individuals that come to us that want to build a career. They're not coming to us for you know, a job or a stop on their on their ladder as they as they you know, determine their path and life and what they want to accomplish. Like they're coming to us for a life career path. And that dynamic is profound because we get, you know, a couple hundred people in a community that not only are invested in us and the customer, but also each other. So we get an incredible team dynamic where everyone works together at a site and so they're all sitting together, but they're invested in each other very quickly. And so I kind of say, our brand is our people. Our people are rural Americans and veterans and individuals that really, quite frankly, I think we've overlooked for too long and it's a great opportunity to go in and make an impact. So the dynamics are which is a really fun stat is that if we hire two hundred and three hundred people in a community, because of how much that money turns over and over again six to seven times before it leaves that town, when we hire even two hundred people, it can have a twenty million dollar impact on that community. And so

29:45 that is money going into the schools, going into the infrastructure, and so in some of the towns we've been in for a couple of years now, it's just so exciting to go back and see that the local development and the way they've grown and expanded accordingly. Oh that because what a beautiful mission. Especially as you mentioned about your veterans. You know, we cannot do enough of them the freedom that we have, and I want to think all the veterans take this moment to thank them for all the you know, they put their lives on the lines, and not only that but their families. As you mentioned, they're moving around all the time, and the sacrifices they're making. So it's wonderful to hear that you're going out there taking care of our veterans. So very very inspiring. So one of the things you have mentioned is leaning into the weaknesses and leaning into your shortcomings.

30:42 So what are one or two things that you have worked on yourself that have been the hardest. My heart is, for sure is I am, as you mentioned earlier as a you know, hard charging go getter. Is there are definitely times where I'm a bull and a China shot where I want to get things done and I want to get them done quickly, and I have, you know, a highly demanding, high expectation mentality, and I think there's time where that doesn't give other folks space an opportunity to grow right if I'm constantly you know, and I still do this today. So this is something I will say, I will self own that I'm still working on this, but that it doesn't necessarily give enough space for the people around you to grow.

31:27 Right. If you're constantly holding the bat too tight as the saying goes, or commandeering the situation, whatever it may be, sometimes you don't give kind of the space for those around you in a good way. I have and we have a great team where now they just call me out on it when that happens, and they role and they say, okay, you know, let's move on and we're going to take this or we're going to own this. And they've all found kind of an opportunity where they can kind of carve out a niche and I release the bat and they own it. That has been one of most my most difficult things, partially because of my expectations for myself. Partially is because of what we have on the line, right. We need to be successful in order to put and keep these people and our teammates and our team members working, and so there's a lot of pressure that comes with it, and I think some of that desire to be too aggressive is because of those expectations. The second thing is, you know, generally speaking, I've always had a very empathetic dynamic. And you mentioned this earlier that there's sometimes people that are around you help you grow and lift you up and enable you.

32:31 And then there's sometimes you're that person supporting. You're that person lifting them up and you know having them or you're their support system. And I think as I've gotten older, I've gotten more carefully conscientious about, you know, who is in my network, who are my trusted confidence, who are my friends? And do they reflect the value system that I want in my life, but that I also want my kids to see an experience. And some of that is is simple little things in terms of, you know, how they interact, how they manage their children when they're around you, or how they parent. Some of it is a bit more dynamic of saying, hey, what are your philosophical views on life? Right? I'm pretty open and honest on my faith. Most people in my life know that, and that's great, but there are certain dynamics where I feel like I have been more careful about really coveting the time in relationships. I'm developing around me to say, are they going to be there to support me when I need it? And is this a billanced relationship? And are they you know, really helping me do this walk in life so to speak.

33:38 Yeah, balanced relationships, because it's important to have those. And what you mentioned about having that space that you have created for your team for calling each other out and balancing. So what I'm hearing is that both for your personal and professional life, that that balance is bouncing it off from one another. Now it can only go as far then other people are receptive too. So any thoughts you may have, any tips that sometimes you know, some people are not open, some people are. How you've created that space.

34:18 Yeah, you know it's hard because I've actually had to just make some tough decisions to say, Okay, this isn't a relationship I should continue to keep investing in, or this isn't an individual that you know makes sense or aligns from an organizational perspective. You know, what I say all the time is you know, anytime you pass potentially or hit a crossroad in a relationship, whether that is work or personal, I think my mentality always is that person came into your life for a reason. You hired them for a reason, you brought them on the team for a reason, and you should treat it with that level of like empathy and character and quality of character when you embark on those discussions. I think one of, you know, the things I'm most proud of in our organization is, you know, we really haven't had any any resignations.

35:05 Right. People come in because they believe in the mission, they're passionate about what we're doing, and we align fair and appropriate expectations. But when there is a mismatch, yeah, absolutely, we sit down and say, hey, this isn't working for all of these reasons, and I don't know that this is fulfilling to you, and I don't know that you're feeling success, and you know, how are we going to solve this? Either with kind of a structured plan to say here's what we're going to do to get this all on track, or you know, take the weekend and is this the right path for you? I think all too often we get so defensive in critical conversations or difficult conversations with people that we we forget just coming from a place of empathy of saying here's what I'm saying and failing, What are you sailing and seeing and feeling?

35:49 And what are we going to do about it? And I think very in those conversations, it's very telling to see how they react and is that person willing to invest the time, effort, and energy. And I don't care if that's like a dating relationship, a marriage relationship, or friendship a colleague. Right, that open dialogue and just raw transparency and honesty, I think can tell you a lot to say. Is this something that we need to continue to work on an invest in or has this just kind of come to pass because you know, w'ere different people or things have changed, or you know, the expectations of what needs to be accomplished from work just aren't being accomplished. Yeah, so you're not letting things fester, because that's when a small wound can become a boil and then it borsh open and that's one of the worst things you want to happen. Now, what happens is so many times people don't make decisions. So when they're like when they're stuck in a job, they're feeling that you're feeling that excuse me, or having that critical difficult conversations. People don't do that because of fear. And then that fear could be that, oh what if that person doesn't like me?

36:56 Or you know, what if this lends another way? Or what if I fail? So there's so many different fears. How can people lean into them? Yeah? The big fear factor, right, it's this underlying I think maybe the bigger driver than anything else in terms of ambition and goals and what have you, is fear. Fear of failure, fear of making the wrong choice, you know, fear of the outcome, you know, I think one of the things. And it's funny I talk about this with my kids a lot of saying, you know, what is the worst case scenario? And can you live with the worst case scenario? Right? If the worst case scenario this relationship is going to end, or you're going to lose this friendship, or you're going to fail, what are the consequences? Really? Take it a step further, right, you you lose this friendship or you lose this In our ecosystem, we don't perform for a customer, right, and we lose a customer? You know, can I still wake up tomorrow?

37:49 Right? Is my day still going to function? What can I do to rebuild their relationship and what does that look like. I think dissecting what is driving your fear in what the real risk is is probably the most critical skill in making those difficult discussions viable, right because if you come in with a bunch of anxiety or anger or frustration or resentment, then is the other person really going to hear what you're saying or are they just going to see that anxiety, frustration, anger and resentment. And so I think getting your mind space right to say, Okay, what am I fearful of based on the outcomes here, what are the potential best and worst case scenarios? What would I do with the worst case scenario, and how would I kind of recover from it or what would be the outcome? And then going from there. I have had some really great things happened in my life, and I've had some really terrible things happened in my life, and I somehow survived it all. And I talk about that on a financial perspective, I talked about that on a health perspective. You know, there's been dynamics where I think unless you really experience some of those very challenging dynamic times, you know, I think sometimes it's difficult because those are the opportunities to grow the most, and we shouldn't just automatically shy away from that because you know, you hit a level of complacency and then you're going to limit your growth one way or the other.

39:16 Yeah, definitely. And the piece that you mentioned about dissecting because humans fear uncertainty, brain fears uncertainty, So laid out what's the worst thing that can happen, and when you see excuse me, when you see that, Okay, these are the outcomes that are possible that you're fearful of, then you have a way to kind of create a solution or a pathway through that. And that's really a good way to kind of move through those types of uncertainty and fears. So tell us like a little bit about how people could get involved with the mission of your company if they wanted to.

39:59 Yeah, so we talk about, you know, all the time, it takes a village to accomplish what we're doing, and so we definitely have state partnership economic development partnerships that come to us and say, hey, here's a community or here's an area that you maybe look at. So by all means, that's where our supply chain starts if you're in a rural town or in a rural community. We have ten locations today, we're expanding quickly. You can go to our website and see if any of those locations either you know, are local to you and you're interested in opportunity, or if you want to move to a rural community, you can kind of see the locations we're in. And then third, obviously is just getting the word out.

40:40 We present companies every day of the week, multiple times a day, just sharing our mission and reminding them kind of the opportunity to bring this work back in country and the profound impact that we can have. So we say all the time, that's spreading the word, you know, sharing our company name. If there's executive executives out there that are looking to bring work back in country, by all means, give us a call. And that is a huge part of it is as a fast growing small company is the constant, incessant news cycle where there's so much information out there. I think it's sometimes difficult to break through as this mighty engine that could saying hey, we're here. If you need us, call us. And there's at least several times a week where we get on with Fortune five hundred companies, which is a core foundation of the clients we support, and they say, wow, I've never seen anything like this or never heard about anything like this, and this is a great, brilliant idea and you have to love what you do, and we say, absolutely we do, and hopefully there's an opportunity to partner.

41:43 So there's definitely a bunch of different facets to make us successful in how we kind of build the business and how we're growing fantastic. So if somebody wanted to reach out to you in your capacity of chief growth officer or for any of the different modality that you have shared that people can help your company, whether it's angel investors or other companies, tell us, like, you know a couple of ways that they can reach you. Yeah, So obviously I'm on LinkedIn. You know that was linked here. People can message me for sure. That is an easy and quick way to get to me directly. If you're interested in information about the company and you go to provalis dot com, there's an get info button and you can press kind of you know, get more information and message our team. That communication goes to our marketing team and our you know, local development team as well as our recruiting team, so that kind of you know, hits a bunch of different groups within our organization. We're pretty direct access organization. I think this is you know, what has enabled us to grow as fast as we have is we're very sticky. So we're totally accessible. And if there's someone you know in our organization outside of me, you know, within the company that you're connected with, feel free to message them as well. I think we're all ultra responsive, so you'll get a response for sure.

43:05 Well, lovely, Well, thank you for joining us, Laura, any last thoughts you'd like to share with our audience. No, thank you for taking the time and the fun dialogue this morning, and appreciate you, you know, helping us highlight our mission and you know what we're trying to do with the Provolus. But no, it was great. And I tell people all the time that don't be fearful of changing jobs or changing industries or change don't be fearful of doing it while you're a mom. My girls are now twelve and fourteen. They are incredible humans and it has been one of the greatest satisfactions of my life and most fulfilling opportunities is to raise two little people and to kind of see what they're going to accomplish in their life. So I would say, don't be fearful.

43:50 If you're trying to figure out how to balance it, you can find a way. Well, thank you, and I'm positive that your goals are going to be wonderful, wonderful human beings. And given that you are their mom and listeners, I invite you to especially check up Provolis dot com and see if you're in the community, and I know that you know some of you are in corporations, entrepreneurs. See how you can get involved, because, as y'all know, I'm big about impact, because life without impact remains empty. So as we always talk about kindness, check it out and see how you could get involved. Spread the word, share the mission because especially our veterans are close to our hearts. You know, we enjoy our freedom because of them. And also like bringing up rural communities back up again, how strong and powerful that can be. So invite you go ahead, share the message out, share the episode with more people. And as you all know, I don't ask y'all a whole lot because I'm here to support you to live the life you want, and let's keep the kindness circle going by sharing this out. So thank you again Laura for joining us and your company for doing such work with mission and impact. And thank you wonderful audience for being part of her show because without you, the show would not be possible. Let us know how we can support you, who we can bring so that you lived the life

45:24 you deserve. And thank you one for making the show technically possible. Be well and take care until next time. Thank you for being part of Beyond Confidence. With your host dv Park, we hope you have learned more about how to start living the life you want. Each week on Beyond Confidence, you hear stories of real people who've experienced growth by overcoming their fears and building meaningful relationships. During Beyond Confidence, v Park shares what happened to her when she stepped out of her comfort zone to work directly with people across the globe. She not only coaches people how to form hard connections, but also transform relationships to mutually beneficial partnerships as they strive to live the life they want. If you are ready to live the life you want and leverage your strengths, learn more at www dotwpark dot com and you can connect with want contact atwpark dot com. We look forward to you're joining us next week