What has two decades of being in this high consequence environment taught you that books can never teach?

I think it's what I just shared with you, that we've got to go back to the fundamentals, taking care of people.

You have a responsibility to the organization to produce results, to give a return to the shareholders and the stakeholders.

But you also have a responsibility when you decide that you're going to be a leader to lead.

And that means every single day you must become better and challenge your team to become better.

And that doesn't happen without being intentional.

You must be intentional that every day you choose to grow.

Hmm.

Mm

... and what it does to your health? What does it do and ch- how does it change and shape your personality, where you go from being a fun, happy, loving, engaging person who you wanna have personal relationships outside of the workplace to now I'm tired, I'm exhausted, I don't wanna go, I don't feel like it.

And so now you begin to see some of your other relationships, your personal relationships being impacted.

You're grouchy.

You go to the doctor.

You, now you have a disease, you know.

Maybe it's your body, your immune system attacking yourself.

Mm.

Can you take us back to your childhood, literally? So what experiences shaped your character and, you know, leadership mindsets growing up?

Oh my gosh, that is such a good question out the gate.

I was not prepared for that.

Well, I would say one of the most impactful childhood experiences that I had, actually two, I'm going to give you two if that's okay.

Two of my most impactful childhood stories that have really shaped who I am today.

The first one was at 12 years old, I lost my father unexpectedly.

Oh my gosh.

You had to win people over so you could speak for the voiceless, right? So that is, I think, a good way, right? One could actually participate in politics and like I said office politics right because the goal at the end of the day is to help the voiceless so yeah that is amazing and from your story I think people would learn a lot right your stories are packed with so much insight and you know it stems from lived experience which even makes it more doable right and more understandable and also relatable because i believe some people out there could relate to what you're saying right so another thing i want us to touch on right is what you're doing today basically so for someone hearing about your work for the first time right what are what are the most common leadership challenges or um that organizations they face today

An

individual contributor normally executes the vision.

A leader has to be responsible for the execution of the vision, meaning they may not necessarily be doing all of the work.

They may be overseeing how the work gets done.

And so part of that is understanding that you've got to remove some roadblocks.

You've got to be able to have some more challenging conversations with your colleagues.

You got to be able to have the challenging conversations or their courageous conversations with your direct reports.

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