#166: Finding A Creative Opportunity: From Ashes To Diamonds With Eterneva

Welcome to The Conscious Pivot Podcast with international speaker, business mentor, bestselling author of Pivot, and your host, Adam Markel. The Conscious Pivot shares the stories and wisdom of people who have successfully reinvented some area of their business and personal life. You'll gain powerful insights into how you can fully embrace new opportunities, increase your performance, and master the art and science of innovation and resilience. So please join Adam as he guides you on your conscious pivot.

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Conscious Pivot Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Markel, and I am just sitting in gratitude at this moment, feeling just very lucky for the fact that I get to do this today at this moment. What a blessing it is given the environment that we're in to have the freedom to be able to think and think clearly and hopefully Not be in reaction to a lot of the stuff that's happening and even the amount of fear that seems to be also out around us. More than ever now, I think it's absolutely imperative that we be the calm, the eye of the storm. It doesn't mean the storm isn't there. Of course, we get that. That's the whole hurricane thing. It's a storm. And yet there's safety in the eye and there's more than just safety in the eye. There's perspective. There's the ability to be guided, to trust in yourself and trust in a greater knowing, a greater order. of things, I suppose. I'm just not a big fan of random theory. So I just don't believe in randomness at all. And in this moment, I'm feeling very much on purpose and very grateful to be here with all of you, as well as to have just the most wonderful guest. I mean, this is a person you're going to love. This woman is just crushing it in so many wonderful ways. And I don't just mean financially or from a business standpoint, but she's just doing wonderful things with her life and in the world. And I'm super excited for the conversation we're going to have. So before we get to that, I'm going to read a little bit of her bio. Adele is the CEO and co-founder of Eterneva, an innovative company that honors the lives of remarkable people and pets by turning their cremated ashes into diamonds. Yes, I just said that. In 2019, Eterneva was named Consumer Startup of the Year by the Stevie Awards and was featured on Shark Tank, receiving an investment from Mark Cuban. Adele has been featured on both Inc. and Forbes' coveted 30 Under 30 lists. Prior to founding it, Adele received her MBA in entrepreneurship at the Acton School of Business, considered the Navy SEAL program for entrepreneurs. At only 23, she graduated valedictorian of her class. She spent 4 years as a product marketing leader in tech, launching major products to market with partners like Amazon, eBay, Square, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. Adele, it is so wonderful to have you on the show today. I'm really excited for our talk.

Thank you so much. And I'm very excited as well. And just, I love your opening. I love your perspective. I think we need more of that right now. So couldn't be more excited to be here.

Way cool. So that's a very impressive bio. What is not written there? What's not part of your bio that you'd love for people to know about you as we start?

Gosh, great question. I think I completely agree that I'm not a big believer in random theory, but, you know, if you kind of look at how the heck did you get into what I do, you couldn't have seen that one coming. But I think there always is a line that connects it all. And I previously was actually in politics before I even got into entrepreneurship. And I look back on that time and I just realized I'm a very mission-driven person. I went into politics thinking, hey, there's big problems in the world and I want to go figure out how to solve them. Just so happens, I think I'm more of an outside-in disruptor than inside-out, but I think all of it definitely ties together. And when you know that you need to be on a mission to do something really important and bigger than yourself, you're kind of guided to the thing that you're supposed to be doing. So really grateful for the work that I get to do now. And I think that that's just something that has always been true for my past is just kind of following my heart and making sure that it's aligned with something that's bigger than just myself.

Yeah. Such a wonderful distinction there that you gave us. First of all, well, before I go there, the one piece of advice more than any other I've ever given to any other entrepreneurs or business leaders in the fact that I've been able to speak to a lot of people over the last 10 years or so, Since I left being a lawyer. And that advice has always been follow your heart, that there is a guidance inside of you that is so strong. And when you are seeking purpose, when purpose is your mission, that's the mission-critical thing, is that you be on purpose and that what you're doing is in alignment with what will bring you fulfillment. There's a lot of things that just sort of move out of the way or space that gets created or things that get materialized quite literally out of thin air. Well, we're going to get into your pivot story. So I can't think of a better pivot than out of politics. I mean, I thought from lawyer to what I do That's pretty, pretty good. But from politician or to be in politics, then to start the company that you started up, we're going to love that story. I love that distinction between outside in, looking at disruption as outside in or inside out. I'd love to get your thoughts on that. What do you mean specifically about that, that you're more of an outside-in disruptor than an inside-out disruptor?

Well, first of all, you have to be very patient to be inside out. And I would not say patience is one of my top redeeming qualities. I mean, I think I use impatience probably to my advantage and go make things happen. And I think what we do at Eterneva is we have a very strong vision of the change that we're trying to create. And I think that what's really special about being an outside disruptor is sometimes you get to start with a blank canvas. You get to look at like, who are you adding value to? In our case, it's our customer. And how do we know them so well and figure out really unique and innovative ways to just drive an incredible amount of value to them? And then that kind of, they'll share it with others and it kind of grows and expands from there. So it's not as confining in my personal experience. You kind of get to grow and amplify things and be the change, if you will, versus having to kind of navigate and be kind of bringing a lot along with you as you're trying to drive change inside out. Again, it takes patience. I have a lot of respect for people that do it.

Resilience. It's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And in times of massive change and disruption, the kind of rapid change that we're all experiencing as leaders, as business owners, as entrepreneurs, we have to learn how to not only increase our own resilience, but that of our teams. So right now we have a powerful opportunity for you to find out just how resilient you are. Some years ago, my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilience leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So, go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are. Absolutely. I mean, it's the difference sort of between building a home. You and I, just before we turned on the microphone, we're talking about Austin and what a great market that is, wonderful city and things like that, and how probably 15 years ago, somebody said to me, yeah, I'm thinking about moving to Austin. And what a great— I mean, if you love music, it's a great music town. But back then, it was also a pretty great opportunity if you were going to start a life there and buy a house and stuff. And obviously, the market's come a long way since then. So just using that analogy, I suppose it's the difference between building a house from scratch and architecting, creating the plan, and then executing on that plan versus taking an old house like that old show from PBS, Mm-hmm. This old house. And we all know when you work on an old house, those renovations are tricky at best. They can be because you don't always know what's going on inside of those walls or in that foundation.

That's right. And then you're building in a historic district where you need to go and get all the permitting and like, yeah.

Exactly, right. Oh my goodness. All right. Well, why don't we dive right into Eterneva and what they do? Because I'm sure people are going, wait, Can you rewind the tape for just a second? Did you not say that they turn cremated ashes into diamonds? And so that might be a good place for us to begin. And then as you tell us what the company does, I'd love to reverse back to you in politics and what it looked like to make the pivot that you did.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think what's really interesting is we even had a kind of further pivot with Eterneva. Politics to entrepreneurship was, I would say, following my heart and knowing kind of who I am as a person. And I wanted to be a visionary change agent that went out and just really created something special that added a lot of value and joy to people. And I really found that energy and excitement in building something. And I went into technology for 4 years, had a wonderful experience there. But then when we actually first were starting Eterneva, it was just going to be a regular lab-grown diamond company. I thought that was a really cool emerging technology. We're going to be bringing it to millennial audiences. And it was kind of a funny thing because as we were starting this company, completely in a separate aspect of my life, I had my really close friend and my business mentor get diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and she passed away. And Tracy was just like— to call her a mentor does not do her justice. She was just one of the most extraordinary people that I have ever known and has been kind of one of the top 5 in my life. And so when she passed, she had her ashes divided among 4 of us and left us a note that was just like, hey, go do something meaningful that you think both of us would really like. So it was this total private side that I was looking for what to do with ashes. And then overnight with one of our diamond scientists at dinner, so Tracy decided to have her ashes divided among 4 of us and just left us a note and said, hey, go do something meaningful that you think both of us would really like. So for probably 5, 6 months was looking for, well, what could I do with ashes? And this was just such a special and important person to me. I needed to do her justice. And it was over dinner one night with one of the diamond scientists we were working with that he and I were kind of talking about this. And he told me, well, I mean, there's carbon in ashes. If we could get the carbon out of Tracy's ashes, I could probably grow you a diamond. And I knew like, oh my gosh, of course, absolutely. That is what I need to do for her, by far and out. And that was just something that as we looked at it, having just gone through that whole experience, we realized we really lack meaningful ways to honor remarkable people. And there just isn't a great experience out there around losing somebody important. This is a really important and hard problem to solve. I think we're onto something. Let's pivot our focus and completely go and serve people in this way. So that's what we did.

Wow. So talk to me about, was politics a thing that was going on in your life before the tech play?

That's right. Yes.

Got it. Yeah. So at some point, I guess, realized that maybe the fulfillment for you isn't in the world of politics. Is that fair to say?

I would say so. Yeah, exactly. I like to see the change that I'm driving and really see kind of, I guess, the fruits of my work and be working with people who are enthusiastic and all in, and we're going to go build something great. And feel that forward momentum rather than spinning wheels sometimes.

Sure, sure. The conversation that you have with that scientist, I just want to go back to that. So you realize kind of a moment of awareness, light bulb moment that, okay, this is a way I can honor Tracy, your mentor. And so you then do what? You say to that scientist, okay, you think you can turn ashes into diamond? Show me. What does that look like? I know a lot of people have great ideas. And if we could bottle all the ideas that people have had over the years that were never acted upon, can only imagine the size of that. So what does that look like at the time for you?

Oh, absolutely. I mean, well, first it was, okay, let's test her ashes for carbon content and validate we can actually yield enough to be able to grow a diamond. And we did that. And this is a super intricate process. It takes about 7 months to do this. And there's about 7 different stages throughout. And there's a variety of different kind of scientific backgrounds and expertise that you'd need to employ to be doing this process. So it was actually quite a long time and kind of Herculean effort going and finding the scientists that we needed, like literally all over the world, you know, and finding the best technology, the best scientists, convincing them that this is something that they wanted to help us figure out and work on. Many of them are involved in other projects and other disciplines and pulling all of that together, but it felt to me like the absolute right way to carry Tracy with me. And, you know, again, I think like you were saying, when your motivation comes from a different place, when In my case, originally, it was just doing something extraordinary for someone who was so important to me. I just felt like she really deserved it. And I also wanted a way to physically keep her with me. There just is something really special about having a piece of your loved one with you everywhere you go in a beautiful way. And then as I was talking to other people about what I was doing and they'd say, oh my God, my mom passed and I have her ashes. Would I be able to do this? And you hear all of these stories from people who lost other remarkable people and they just got this absolutely right away. So then Really quickly, it was not just about me. It's about all of these people who all have this need. And as we started kind of going through the process of actually taking people through it and growing diamonds for them, we were just sending kind of pictures and videos and trying to be as transparent as we could so they felt good about where their loved one was. And we just started getting these responses that were just outsized responses. People that were saying, oh my God, I'm crying. And I just showed everyone in my office that picture. And then I emailed it to my whole family. And just this amazing, amazing thing. So fast forward 2 years later. Like, this is just as much about the experience around the diamond and really involving our customers in the process and making those videos and those updates, like, just really celebratory and special and cool and designed to be shared on social media. So it's kind of this participatory legacy project. It's so much more an experience than it is just a memorial option.

I don't think I even knew that you could grow a diamond. Is that—

Yeah.

I mean, I thought it's like we got to go to the blue clay in South Africa to find diamonds. No.

No. It's literally recreating the same conditions just above ground. So extreme pressure and temperature over time applied to carbon. You've got a little diamond seed in there and you've got carbon in there. Over time, that carbon will start crystallizing on top of the seed and grow into a diamond. It is amazing. Absolutely amazing.

What's the largest diamond you guys have grown so far in terms of carats?

We can go up to a 3-carat diamond actually. So quite sizable. And you only need a really, really small amount of ashes actually. It's only about half a cup of ashes. And from that, we could grow probably 4 or 5 diamonds. So a lot of people come to us and it'll be a family looking to honor somebody and everybody in the family will get one and just a really special alternative.

Beautiful. Maybe this is the wrong question, but I'm going to ask it anyway because I think I'm not alone in asking this. Are these sort of jewelry-grade diamonds? Are these the kind of things that people wear in a ring or in a drop around their neck and really are clear white diamonds and the like?

Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, we hold ourselves to super high standards and we actually have all of our diamonds graded by IGI or GIA. So they're graded just like a normal diamond because it is a real diamond. And we do a lot of different colors. So some of our customers will do a colorless diamond, but a lot of our customers will actually go for a color that just feels representative of their loved ones. So they might choose blue to match their eyes or yellow because that's the sunshine of their life. And it so much is about what kind of triggers those emotions that bring up positive, happy associations to your loved ones.

So, let's do this because I know people are probably thinking to themselves, wow, this was a great idea, because you can already feel just how sticky it is, right? Yes. And as you say, it's an experience on top of— it's an honoring and a legacy and so many wonderful components coming together. So, you're a startup and you have to get funded, I assume, and that process is not ever sort of easy, let's say. Do you get funding before you get on Shark Tank? Is Shark Tank the manner that you got your funding from? Walk us through that just a little bit.

Yeah, absolutely.

The trip to Shark Tank.

So we actually bootstrapped our company to start. And so I think that that's a great experience for any entrepreneur to really, you know, because you have to make every dollar count and be really wise about every investment that you make. So started out bootstrapping up to about our first million dollars in sales, and then we raised a strategic angel round. And this was also just a, you know, something that I look back on and I'm really glad we did. Phenomenal folks involved, all prior entrepreneurs and founders or active founders, and all have built and sold companies, technology technology and consumer brands alike. And they're just kind of our power team. I can't say enough great things about our original angels. And then we were on Shark Tank. We took an investment from Mark Cuban, and then we actually also just closed another round. So yeah, just have a lot of really, really wonderful folks that are involved. And most important thing across the board is ensuring that all of them are aligned with our mission, because I think that we have a very special opportunity to build a very big and successful company. But more importantly, it's about changing a culture around death, grief, and remembrance and really being the visionary brand that reshapes this whole category and gives people a better experience around loss. So that's what we're here to do. And any supplier, any investor, any employee all have to be excited and bought into making that a reality.

Sure. Don't know Mark's, you know, sort of more about him, although I've seen him quite a bit, as many people have. Is he an Austin guy? Does he live in the town, in the city that you guys are based in?

He's in Dallas.

He's in Dallas. That's right. That's right. Because he's a Mavericks owner, right? That makes sense. But did he get it right away? I didn't watch that episode. I'm going to go back and check that out. But was he tough on you? Did he get it right away? Because that whole experience of being on that show is itself kind of a gauntlet, isn't it?

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, I think they're tough on like really any companies that have traction because you're coming in with a bigger valuation and you have to stand your ground on why you are worth that much. So it was a really fun experience. We had a blast doing it. And yeah, absolutely. He got it right off the bat. You could absolutely tell. And he is actually in the process of having some diamonds made himself, which he's planning to gift to his wife for Christmas. So just, I think he had an immediate personal resonance with what we do.

Wow. The pace of change over the last couple of years has been rapid. And if you're a leader, a business owner, an entrepreneur, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Every day it's something different and something new. But the one thing that I've learned in performing at the height of all of those roles has been that we must be resilient. In fact, it's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And it's the reason why my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilient leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So, go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are. Yeah. So cool. And the company itself, I think you expressed it earlier how important the company culture is. I think maybe that was something you— and I talked about right before we started. So you are now in the role of designing a company culture and from scratch architecting that. What was that like for you? And what was the greatest challenge there in that kind of leadership role? More than just an idea, the idea and creating something as an MVP and getting into momentum, as you say, bootstrapping it, that's one aspect. But for the long term, the culture is very much something that is as important as product, I would say, in many ways, because when the culture is failing, or isn't optimal, everybody suffers and often those companies don't survive. So, you've put a lot of time and effort into that. Share a little bit of your vision for the culture for Eterneva.

Absolutely. There's a lot of thoughts. It's such an evolving thing, right? Like, it's a living organism that you have to constantly tend to and really humble and knowing like you really— like especially as a young millennial leader, like I'm learning as I go too and tell my team that all the time like, hey, forgive me, I'm going to make mistakes and just kind of show me the way when I'm off track. But I think it first starts with what are we here to do? And our most important stakeholder is our customer. We're here, like we take our role very seriously that we want to provide them a grief-changing and healing journey throughout the process with us. And we will go absolutely to the end of the earth to make sure that that's the case. And so, you know, I think that that just is an incredible motivator to everybody that's a part of what we do. You know, we just get these amazing handwritten letters and people flying to Austin to meet us and people who have created documentary thank you videos for what we've done. And when you get to kind of have your cup filled in that way on a daily basis, it just creates a culture of gratitude and service and just enthusiasm for always doing more and kind of taking things to the next level. And so I think that that's just been part of our DNA from the beginning. We do have cultural traditions from— one of my favorite ones is called inaugurations that we've done from the beginning. And every single customer, we get on the phone with them and we're like, hey, you know, I'm sure a lot of people are asking how your loved one passed, and that's not what we're going to focus on here. Like, we actually want to know who they were as a person. Like, can you give us some good memories? Stories, like, give us the good stuff. And so often that person just is like, wow, I haven't been asked that question yet. And they pour their heart out and we just hear these unbelievable stories because I don't think you'd become a Diamond if you weren't just an awesome human, just even the smallest of ways. And so we gather every single week and we tell the stories of these people that we're honoring to our team. We have their picture and we put it up on our wall and it has always been a tradition from the beginning. And now we actually even broadcast that on Facebook and Instagram Live and people tune in just because it's like listening to NPR. our storytelling. It's just amazing. And I think that that's just kind of cultivated that culture of gratitude. And even now, I think especially right now at a time that's really hard, the thing that's rallying our team the most, and we're super active on Instagram about it right now, is our mantra is bring the brightness. We bring brightness to people during a difficult time. We've always said that that's what we do. And I think we're here to show up a little bit extra for everybody right now because we're all grieving the loss of normalcy. There's people that are grieving the loss of loved ones and grief is harder than it's ever been in the current environment, but I think everybody could use that brightness right now and our team really rallies to that call and how we show up and what we know that we need to do and focus on to be able to serve others.

Yeah. Now more than in any recent memory, I think people are thinking about how we will honor lives that we lucky enough to be able to live, be living, as well as those people in our lives that are with us and the stories of people that we know or people that we know who know people who've lost their lives due to this virus. It's one of those reminders in Buddhism of the law of impermanence, this idea that things are not permanent. And I do actually believe in eternity. So it's interesting that the name of the company is Eterneva. Just personal aside, I believe we're eternal beings. And yet in this physical life that we have, certainly it's everywhere around us that things are impermanent. So how it is that you honor life and— Yeah, it's so important. So I so love what you guys are up to. And what would you say is the toughest terrain that you can not so much predict, but in just looking at the road ahead, because there's a lot of people who are also entrepreneurs listening to this right now, running a small business or involved in a business, and that's likely to be in some form phase of startup. We have some more mature companies as well that are part of our community. But even in a mature company, this kind of a disruption, which I guess we could call a disruption from the outside for sure, and certainly one that wasn't predicted. What are you seeing as those challenges ahead? And as a leader of a major startup, what are sort of the proactive steps that you're taking, like meeting that challenge right now internally, if I might ask you? I know that's an evolving question for all of us as well.

It is, yeah. I mean, you know, it's fascinating. I think it is about being adaptive. Gosh, I probably would have even answered this question differently like 3 months ago, you know, before the pandemic. And I think we've actually changed a lot of what we're focused on right now in light of it all and showing up and serving our funeral home partners as much as we possibly can because they just have enormous volume that they're needing to go through and they're all needing to move completely online and doing everything that we possibly can to help them with that transition and make it easier. And so, I think there is just fluidity that just kind of acknowledging what's on the horizon and how do you need to quickly adapt and change to be able to thrive through a difficult time and add value to others rather than just staying the course. So, I think that that's something that I certainly keep very top of mind. And I think too, as a disruptive company, like you'll always have kind of naysayers Or if you're kind of disturbing the way things have always been done, you know, there's going to be people who kind of try to take you down. And as long as you are values-aligned and you have a team that has their heart in the right place and you continue to do the great work that you do in sowing the seeds of culture and, you know, adding value to your customers and keeping that very pure, I just think that that's the right way to build a disruptive company. I think that those are always things that every entrepreneur should be focused on. And then there's growth and there's scale. And that is just such an acknowledging that there's different inflection points. You need to scrap a system and decide to start over and build something new on top of that. And I can't emphasize enough how important it is to be tending to the infrastructure building as you're going rather than kind of getting to that oh shit moment when it catches up to you and you hadn't been thinking about it. Something I learned from a mentor early on is always be focusing on streamlining and building that foundation so that growth is just easier. There's less friction.

Yes. The need for resilience now, I think, is more profound than ever before. I wrote a book called Pivot years ago. I'm a resilience guy. I've been focused most of my career on what it takes to be at your best in times of disruption, times that we don't expect change to occur. And now more than ever, I think that concept of being able to develop resilience is really key. So I'm curious what your definition of resilience is and how is it that you are creating

Yeah. I mean, it's actually an idea that we think about all the time, even pre-COVID, because I think that there's just something really unique and extraordinary that we have observed of our customers is that they have gone through some of the most challenging losses you can possibly imagine, losing a teenage daughter or son to an overdose. And, you know, how do you come back from that? And they just are doing amazing things like writing books and going and lobbying Congress to change laws around opioid access and like the things that they're intentionally doing. They're intentionally choosing, they're being active in their grieving process. And as a result, they're kind of climbing upward across their grieving journey instead of spiraling down and getting stuck. And there's just something really, I think, humbling and special that we've learned from our customers about what they kind of choose to focus on and where they put their time and their energy when they're in an extraordinarily challenging situation that I can't even begin to compare to. And so I think that we find a lot of inspiration there and just kind of hearing their stories and telling their stories and sharing them with others. think they inspire a lot of other people in what they focus on. But then as a team, things like, I don't know if you've heard, LeBron James has a phenomenal episode with Calm on emotional mastery, and I just think it's so on point. Our team listened to that and we talk a lot about mindset and we just talk a lot about every morning we have a gratitude practice where we have to cultivate gratitude even on the days that it's hard and can't dig and find something, and choosing how we're going to— the meaning that we're going to give different challenges and different events that are coming up and being really intentional about all of that because I think it's all the perspective that you choose to give all of this that creates your experience around it and doesn't mean that the feelings of frustration or uncertainty or those really low days that you need to maybe go have a cry, like you should go do that. Don't bottle that up, but then come back to what is the meaning that I'm going to take away from all of this because that is within our control.

Without a doubt. Yeah. And you and I were talking again right before we started. How important it is that people, your clients, your customers, and internally the teams know that someone has their back. In fact, I was wearing this t-shirt today, which we had a little internet glitch, which is a bit why on YouTube you'll see we turned our cameras off. I'm going to try to turn my camera on right now just to see if that works out. I'll just show it. But this concept of got your back, what does that mean to you in terms of your culture and the way that you are cultivating resilience in your teams? How do you let them know that you've got their back, the company's got their back, that we've got each other's back? What does that look like at Eterneva?

Yeah. I was mentioning to you right before, like, that's literally one of our core values. So I just thought it was so funny you used that exact definition. For us, got your back is really around just acknowledging that the team fails and everyone fails. This is really about all of our role in the mission that we are trying to accomplish. And it's not about one individual's performance in getting there. It's about getting there as a team and really building trust through vulnerability and caring personally and not demanding others support you, but leading by example and showing how you're going to support them, coming alongside your teammates and collaborating to find the best possible answer. And I think especially in times of crisis or strife and when stress is running high, if that's a good cultural undercurrent and practice, that's the support that we all need. You know, we all need a shoulder to lean on sometimes. And, you know, I think especially right now to be able to extend that hand to somebody and just say, hey, I got your So,

if you could chunk it down, let's say, like to these little diamonds, the 3 diamonds that would be principles in your got your back culture, what are those 3 diamond principles?

Starting with leading by example and how you're going to support someone. Checking in, I think, especially right now, we're all working from home and it's hard to see who's having a tough day. I will Slack people all the time just saying, hey, how are you doing as a human?

Yep.

And I think we all need that check-in and know other people care. And showing somebody that you want them to win, not that you're trying to critique them, not that you're trying to point out where they're wrong, but that any way that you're helping or any advice that you're giving is in the spirit of just wanting them to win and being their champion, being on their side of the table, not across from it.

of the Change Proof podcast. If you've not yet gone out and gotten your own copy of Change Proof, it's not too late. You can get your copy right now by going to changeproof.com and not only getting the book and all the bonuses there, but getting access to our proprietary resilience assessment tool. It'll just take you 3 minutes to do, and it's something that will really help you to Utilize the book even more effectively to create practices and rituals and habits that will increase your mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual resilience for the long term. Again, go to changeproof.com to get your copy today. Beautiful. I limited you to 3, so I'm going to now remove the limitation. Is there anything else that you would say as part of that culture you're creating on top of what you already said that would be a part of that, that you'd want to be in the mix?

Gosh, I think what is really important, especially as a team that is doing something that's so personal for people, I mean, gosh, we're hearing like, we have some of the most vulnerable conversations with people that they don't even have with their families. And so, I think that takes having a certain culture with each other to be able to then provide that to our customer. And so, I think removing that boundary of, you know, work versus personal and caring personally about each other. And we have a teammate right now who's got 3 family members who are positive COVID cases. And one of them is her 89-year-old grandmother. And that is something that all of us are equally carrying every single day because our team just cares so much about each other and we need to have each other's back and we need to be checking in with her and seeing how her mindset is and doing whatever we can to kind of support her outlook through all of that. It's not just how she shows up as a salesperson every day, It's what kind of support she needs as a human through personal challenges that she's having to deal with.

Yeah, beautiful. I so appreciate you unpacking that for us and the fact that you guys are living it as it's happening. I mean, it's an interesting position to be in where you are on the front line of the grief and of the loss and the honoring. All of those things are happening right now under a greater microscope than I can ever remember other than after 9/11, honestly. So thank you for the work that you're doing. Thank you for the company that you've created and the way that you are so positively impacting people's lives. My last question for you really is about your own personal rituals for resilience. What's one thing that you do on a ritual basis, maybe even daily, that helps you to create resilience for yourself?

That's great. And I'm a big believer in rituals and mindset. So, I mean, I just believe in a really good morning practice. I think that that's just something so powerful about waking up in the morning. Getting a bit of exercise so that you actually have kind of energy flowing through you and it just frees your mind up in a good way. I might go outside for a walk or do a workout, always a meditation and cultivating just some calm and some presence. And then I just have kind of a rotation of positive content that I start my day with that I kind of jokingly say I just like pep talks. So whether it's Eckhart Tolle or Tony Robbins, I'll walk around and just get a pep talk. And that just puts me in a good headspace to go into the day. I avoid the news. I don't look at my 401. I know it's going to bounce back. And I think it's just as much what you kind of choose not to fill yourself with. And then kind of that positive content consumption can just really help you shift your focus. And I think so often it's just what we're focused on that then creates the emotions that we feel.

Beautiful. Love that. Well, I've loved the conversation and the connection with you and just what a blessing. Speaking of blessings, I will leave everybody as I do every time, but it's a reminder for me and for those of you that have listened to a number of these shows, you'll recall this, that our days are truly a blessing. I'm not saying they're easy or simple, and quite the contrary now for sure. But even on a good day, in the best of circumstances, life is not easy. And so there's a difference between that and just recognizing and honoring truly what it means to be alive. And so to be interviewing you in a company that deals so much with death, with people's grief and their loss and their honoring of these very special others in their lives, it just brings to mind how important it is that we honor our lives as we have them. And so that to me starts just like you said, Adele, with waking because when we go to bed at night, there's no guarantee we get to wake up. There's just no guarantee of that. Yeah. So a waking ritual in the morning, mine, and if you choose to adopt this and try it on for yourself, that's great, is to wake up first and foremost. So that's the question right out of the gate. Adele Archer, are you willing to wake up again tomorrow?

Heck yeah.

Heck yeah. I mean, good. Wow. We're off to a good start, right? Wake up and then we can be in gratitude. Smile. Just think of the cheeky little conversation that Adele and I just had and think about it's not a small thing to be able to wake up and be happy about just that. I mean, I'm not saying you'd be happy about everything going on in your life. So that would be a lie. You can be in gratitude. And that's sort of the second piece of this. And the third And the third diamond, if I can borrow that from you, is that you can cultivate that positive content right out of the gate for yourself by the first words that come out of your mouth. My first words of the day for more than 10 years have been, I love my life. Those 4 words. And for all of us, they could be different. I'll invite you all to find the words that make sense for you. I had a beautiful guest on our show, a woman in her late 70s, a couple of months back and she shared with me that her words are, I wonder what miracles are coming today.

Oh, yeah.

What a beautiful thing to say at the beginning of the day, right? So whether it's that or I love my life or any other thing that just feels right in the moment for you, say them. Say those things out loud and create that positive content and give yourself that pep talk to start day. It's a good way to begin. Adele Archer, thank you so much for what you do in the world and I appreciate you very Thank you very much. Thanks for being a guest.

Thank you, Adam. Really appreciate you having me.

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