189: Alisa Cohn & Growing Up

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Wayfair. Every style, Every home. Before we get started today, I wanted to tell you about a new offering that I have. It is a private podcast called Advocate with Elegance. It's for any of you that are interested in learning how to advocate for your boundaries, your pocketbook, your potential and your dreams with a little bit more elegance. The way that it works is I'm going to be sharing three cues in this private podcast. Three three things that have helped me and my clients learn to be better advocates. The first cue is a qualified recommendation. This is a book, a podcast, a television show, maybe a piece of technology or something very cheap that I bought on Amazon that has helped me to become a better advocate. Number two is a question. Questions are the magic wands of advocates. And I am going to share questions that have helped my clients become better advocates for themselves and their dreams. And then the third thing is going to be a quote, because I believe that quotes change your perspective. And perspective is one of the tools of an advocate. This private podcast will be coming to you automatically in your podcast feed every other week starting in October. If you sign up for the private podcast, that's it. It's that easy.

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It's for you. If you want to advocate for everything you want in your life with a little bit more elegance. The link to sign up is in the show notes. I can't wait to hear from you there where you're going to build a community around advocating with elegance in that podcast and in that place. In the meantime, back to the Elegant Warrior. This is the Elegant Warrior podcast. It's the podcast about elegance in all of its forms. We're talking about our definitions of elegance and how we maintain it in times of trial. We're also talking about how we can advocate for ourselves with elegance and in a way that makes us most likely to win. I'm your host, Heather Hanson, author, speaker, consultant, trainer, and self advocacy expert. Let's talk elegance. Hello, my elegant warriors. This is episode number 189, Alyssa Cohn and growing up. Alyssa Cohn is My friend, she is a phenom. She's an executive coach. She is the top startup coach in the world. She has been named the number one global guru of startups. She's also a Broadway investor, and she is a rap artist. Guys, she is on here with me today because she has written a phenomenal book. It is called from startup to grown up. Grow your leadership to grow your business. Alyssa, it is so good to see you.

It's amazing to see you, Heather. Thank you so much for having me.

I loved this book and it really was so much more helpful to me than I knew it would be before I started, because I think that. And I think the listeners need to know that because you're thinking, oh, startup. I don't have a startup. Maybe this isn't an episode for you. It is absolutely the episode for you because Alyssa really breaks this book into three sections. She talks about managing you, which applies to every single one of you listening. We all need to learn to manage ourselves. Then she talks about managing your team, and then she talks about managing your company. But I want to take a big bird's eye view here. Alyssa, why did you write this book now?

Oh, well, first of all, thank you again, Heather, for having me. It's such a pleasure to see you and to be part of your movement here. I wrote the book because I would constantly go into new situations and I would think, I wish I had a book to hand you to kind of say, this is kind of some of the things you need to know. So there were these questions about the employees or the executives. Were they the right people? And I kind of walked back and I said, well, how do we hire these people? Do we hire these people for this situation? And they didn't. And the founders and entrepreneurs and startup people, but also the leaders in companies I would work with would say, oh, I never really thought about that, or, how are you thinking about your own leadership role? And they would sort of, I've never really thought about that. Or even, where's your leadership team? I don't have a leadership team. What's a leadership team? And I just kind of realized there were these same themes coming over and over again that I could address because I've seen the movie before and I really wanted to address them. And so I was excited to write this book, to have something to teach people the teachable things that we can the predictable and teachable things that we can start out, know where you're going to go wrong or know where you're going to be. Problems for you and then address them before they become problems.

It really just shows your generosity when you say that, you know, and at the end of the book you do this phenomenal thing that not many people do and you give the reader scripts for different situations. And you know, you just said you wanted to be able to give it to them. This is something that for people who can't bring you in to coach them, you can leave this, give this to them or leave it behind for those people that you have coached. It's just a phenomenal resource. But let's talk with managing you, because every single listener, whether they're doing a startup, whether they're considering a startup, or whether they're working with in a law firm. I remember when I was a young lawyer, I felt very strongly that I was my own little company and that my name, my name as a lawyer when I went out to court and to the different committees that I served on was my own little company. And I think that's a lot of what you're talking about in that first section, isn't it?

Definitely. We are all the CEO of us. I am the CEO of me, you're the CEO of you. And, and you're, you are your own startup. And not only that, but in, in the very first, you know, section I say, hey, you, the first person you lead every day is the person who wakes up in your pajamas. So no matter what, we have to worry about managing ourselves. And that's a whole bunch of different dimensions because we're all, you know, in our head a lot. We all have self doubt. We all are just wondering and second guessing, should I do this, should I do that? We all either make fast decisions or slow decisions one way or the other. Getting a handle on your own psychology makes you more effective no matter what you're gonna do.

That's right. And so your first chapter is called Startup Self and you talk a lot about self reflection. Tell us what that is.

Well, self reflection is just your ability and your willingness to take time sketches to set off from your, in your calendar where you spend time tuning into your inner voices. So what that means is journaling. That might mean meditation. It might mean any number of practices that have to do with you really getting in touch with how you're doing, where you're coming from. Maybe feeling demotivated, recognizing that you are and then course correcting or at least not bringing that to other people. Maybe you're feeling motivated and you can sort of take on different kinds of things and you're excited to take on something which have been challenging for you before one way or the other, to tune into where are you right now and use that in service of whatever leadership you want to execute on that day.

Yeah, And I love that chapter. And I kept thinking about reflection and how that leads to awareness. And self awareness is sort of an underrated, not super talked about skill and talent and trait that leads to huge amounts of success.

Oh, absolutely. So first of all, you need self awareness just to kind of figure out where are you locate yourself inside of your company. Whether you're a founder or a leader inside of a company. But also without self awareness, you're going to be susceptible to the things you're susceptible to. So, for example, if you tend to be irritated with people who, for example, just make you this up, who are always late, well, they might be a great employee and they're always a little bit late. And rather than address, hey man, it bothers me when you're always late, you instead blow up at them or you instead get irritated with them, or you might take it like they're being disrespectful to me and then you take it out on them or you treat them as if they're being disrespectful when they may not be. And you may not even be aware of what's inside of you that's telling you these things. So. So without the self awareness, we don't have the tools to rise up above what's going on inside of us and then take productive action. That's what's so important about self awareness. Yeah.

And when you talk about self reflection. I know, Alyssa, it's so clear in this book that you have got the chops to back it up that you have done this coaching. And when you talk about journaling versus meditation. I'm a meditator. I struggle with journaling with your experience. Do you find one more that your leaders do more often than the others or one that's more helpful? I guess my question is really, I want some coaches coaching on whether I should be doing more journaling.

That's right. Right. Well, so first of all, go with what works for you. So the idea is that whatever you're naturally attuned to, you should. You don't have to force yourself. Right. If you're the kind of person who's able to sit in stillness, that's fantastic. If you're the kind of person who likes to write things down and write things out, then you could discover that about yourself. And then other people do really well with like running or other kind of rhythmic fitness activities, which also helps them kind of tune into what's going on with themselves. But I would say to you, if you did want to get better at journaling, then there are good reasons to get better at journaling. Then what you could do is you could decide, I'm just gonna do it for five minutes. And that's a good starting point for all of us to change behavior by just saying, I'm gonna do a tiny bit of it and see how that feels if it works for me, over, you know, if you're consistent with it. But it also helps you build the muscle. And it's really about muscle memory for all these things.

Yeah, it's a great point. That brings me right to chapter two, because one of the things I do encourage my, the people I coach to do and that I do myself is I keep an evidence journal. And at the end of it, I call it the evidence journal. At the end of every day, I write down evidence of my credibility, my talent, my resilience, all of the things that I might want to look back on in the future to use as evidence that I deserve that raise, that job, that client, that promotion, that whatever that keynote. You talk in the second chapter about imposter syndrome. And I think that kind of journaling helps me and my clients overcome imposter syndrome. Why is imposter syndrome? Well, first of all, you coach some really high flyers and it's interesting to hear they too experience imposter syndrome.

Yes, it turns out that actually a lot of high flyers, high achievers, plenty of celebrities, plenty of famous people experience imposter syndrome. And imposter syndrome is simply this notion of like, oh, I'm going to be found out or oh, my luck has run out. So that's a kind of intense self doubt, which makes you just think, oh, they're going to find me out. That's what the imposter part is. And it's amazing to me, actually, I spoke to a very well known investor who said, the more achievement I get, the more successful I get, the more imposter syndrome I have. You think it goes away? It doesn't go away because you're pushing yourself harder and because in some ways you have on a higher pedestal and you have more to lose. So you have to kind of accept that imposter syndrome is a thing that you may be susceptible to and there are strategies for you to handle it. I love your idea of evidence. I love that collecting and gathering evidence that you are competent, you have been Successful, you will continue to be successful. And that's what I call a highlight reel in the book. And the highlight reel helps remind you of your greatness and who you really are.

It's in. It's. So I think that, you know, for the listeners, it's gotta be sort of comforting to hear that everyone experiences this to some extent or another, this idea that I'm not good enough and sort of. There are a lot of tips and tools that you give us in chapter two that's going to help people to overcome imposter syndrome. But I love that you point out that it's going to be there. Sometimes just knowing that, knowing that this is going to be hard or this is going to be challenging, or this is something that's coming along for the ride, it makes it a little bit easier to not get so worked up about the fact that it's present.

Yes. You know, I spoke to Greg Gallen, who's the founder of Muckrack, on my podcast, From Startup to Grown up the podcast, and he said that when he was kind of on his journey of growing from founder to CEO, sort of a younger entrepreneur, he was like ashamed and felt like he had this like, you know, secret that he couldn't tell anybody because he was having cash flow problems. He thought, oh, I'm the worst. They're gonna, they're gonna yank me out. And then he went to a CEO group, which is another way to counteract imposter syndrome and intense self doubt to share with other people. And he said, oh. Then someone said, oh, you have a cash flow problem. And he was like, oh, it's not this thing that only I'm struggling with. Like, it's like it actually has a name, right?

It has exactly right.

There's a name for this, right? There's a name for this. So like the, there's different tools that everybody can use to counteract both imposter syndrome and also intense self doubt. But then to your point, you know, it goes along with success. You push yourself, you know, and in, in my book, Susie Batiste, who's the founder of Poo Pourri and really one of the most, you know, the, one of the most successful self made women in the United States. I know, she said, I don't have imposter syndrome. I am an imposter. I've never done this before. And I just thought that was so refreshing to sort of think of it that way. You know, in some ways, if you try something new, of course you're an imposter. If you're in the habit of continuing to try something new all the time. You'll always feel like an imposter. And that's where to your point about evidence and the highlight reel, having evidence of your past successes is very helpful to counteract that.

Yeah, it's a great chapter. It's an important chapter to read. And then, then you move on to managing the team. And the first part, I want to get into this because it keeps coming up. You know how I call them Godwinks, like when things keep coming up in your life. And chapter three is entitled why should they Follow you? And you talk about praise and the importance of praising the people around you. And for you listeners, that's your family members, that's your partners, partners at work and partners at home. It's giving that kind of praise to people. But why is praise so important in the workplace?

Praise is so important in the workplace because if you don't proactively praise your people, then what's going to happen is they're going to be wondering, I wonder how I'm doing. She doesn't say anything to me, so I guess I'm doing okay. In fact, I have a story in the book about the. One of the. My clients that I work with, I coach, she's a CEO, and I would talk to her executives and one of them kind of almost got weepy with me about, like, not knowing where he stood with the CEO. And I said to him, hey, let me stop you right there and just tell you, she thinks you're great. She thinks you're a creative genius. And that was so comforting to him. Now, why does the coach have to say that? It's because people only think to come and talk to you when there's a problem, when they need something from you and they don't think to come to you, to proactively praise you. Now, the problem with that is that people can kind of be wondering they might be demotivated. It's hard to know if their efforts matter and if they make a difference and if they're leading towards, you know, sort of success. And over time, the lack of praise, plus a normal amount of correction or criticism or feedback or whatever makes people think the weight of that is more feedback, negative feedback and criticism, and less praise. So you've got to counteract that natural tendency that we all have and build people up, bulk people up with praise.

Yeah, I love this. So one of the things I do in my business, and I, you know, I have a handful of employees that work with me But I just started doing this. It's the MBA inventory. What it really is is the love languages at work. So trying to figure out how people like to be appreciated, you know, and because praise is a way of showing appreciation. But it turns out that some people want quality time with their team. You know, they want to sit down and have lunch with me or have a zoom call with me once a week. Some people want the words of praise, the words of affirmation. Some people, the physical touch is a little iffy. At work, though, they do kind of talk about, some people want like a high five or a fist bump. Some people want gifts. And so, you know, I think by talking about praise as the umbrella, we're talking about all of those things and how important it is to do it in a way that people receive it.

Well, totally. It's basically encouragement. I love your idea of the love languages. That's absolutely true. There's another tool that you could really have all your people work together and fill out a sort of get to know me document. So that really shows that showcases that everybody can kind of self select, here's how I like being appreciated. And then, you know, and then you can look at the way they like being appreciated and appreciate them in that regard. And there's no wondering and no questions. And that also cues you to proactively remember to acknowledge them, to encourage them. Because ultimately, praise creates the environment where you can build trust. You have rapport, people know you're on their side. And then when you have to have tough conversations or give difficult feedback or give criticism, whatever it is, which you definitely will, because that's what it's like being a leader. You at least have that baseline of good feeling and rapport and them knowing that you're on their side. And that's what you're signaling when you give that kind of praise and encouragement.

Yeah. One of the leaders that I coach actually puts into her calendar once a month to she calls it an appreciation check in. Like, who needs to be appreciated? Who has done something that I can appreciate? Because to your point, you don't put in the calendar when someone needs to be criticized or they need some negative feedback. Those things just happen.

They happen naturally.

Right. And you talk in that chapter a lot about accountability and giving people guidelines as to what they're going to be accountable for. Why is accountability so important, Alyssa?

Well, accountability is important because again, assuming we have this good feeling in the, you know, good environments, right. People feel encouraged. They know what they're doing. Then, of course, all PI Performers want to be able to both hit goals and also be working with other people who hit goals. So if you let things slide, the problem is that there's no longer a container. Right? There's no longer a sense of actually what we. We do, what we say we will do. And people around you will notice that you're not holding that person accountable. So accountable accountability is important for everybody. But what does that mean by accountability? So constantly a leader will say, oh, I can't count on this person. And then when we dig into it, I ask simple questions like, well, what did you guys agree to? And then it turns out there wasn't a strong discussion about what the endpoint looks like, what I call what done looks like. There was not a strong discussion about when this thing was due. And then leaders will say to me, well, they should have known. Well, I don't know how they would know or they wouldn't know. They can't read your mind. So making sure that you have clear expectations, again, not in a punitive way, but because everybody feels much better when they understand what is expected and who will do what by when.

Yeah, it's so important. So one of the things that I. One of the five Cs of an advocate is credibility. And if someone finds their leader credible, they believe in them. It makes them a phenomenal part of the team. It makes them more likely to advocate for their leader. And that credibility is built on accountability. It's setting expectations and meeting them. And so those things have to be clear. And you talk in the book, you give specific examples of different people setting those types of goals, setting those types of standards and the data that they need in order to support the accountability. And I think it's a really important part of the chapter.

Thank you. And Heather, can I say one more thing about that? Because what happens is that I'll say to any leader like, okay, good, so how are you thinking about holding them accountable? And then they'll say back to me, well, I'm not going to fire them because they made a mistake. Absolutely not. Not necessary. So even this notion of accountability feels to sometimes people like, I can't punish them. I don't know how to hold them accountable without having either a punishment conversation, which is never helpful, or like, I'm going to fire you now conversation, which is not necessary. Right. Hardly ever necessary. Instead, it's that people want to do a good job. And when you notice them and you also are able to have just a conversation with, I expected this. You know, think back from you on Wednesday, and now it's Friday. So just walk me through what got in the way. You can actually friend and an ally even in that conversation, because something probably got in the way. They want to do a good job. And so when you give them context in the environment to do a good job by also holding them accountable, that makes everybody step up.

Yeah, I think it's also important you say they want to do a good job. And there's another part of the book, I don't remember which chapter it's in, Alyssa, where you talk about having the will and the skill to do certain jobs. And most people do have the will to do the job that they're doing. And it's, you know, and if they don't, maybe they don't belong there. But the accountability helps them to grow the skill to actually fit that space.

Exactly. You got it. Yep. Now let's talk about cultural conceptions and misconceptions.

In that chapter, you talk about values. Tell us for the listeners. You know, because a lot of my guests have talked about setting your values, having your values. How do you work with the people you coach on figuring out what their values are and how they can guide them in the business?

Right. So there's a few ways to do that. As a leader, it's really helpful for you to first understand your own values. So there's a few assessments you can do. But also, it comes down to, I often just have a list of 200 words of values, and I help them choose. I ask them to choose what are the most important values to you? And we can winnow them down to sort of five or six value statements, and they're different for everybody. And that is the joy of it. Right. Because we're all different. We have different values. Then the question is, what does your leadership team think are the values around here? And then what do your employees think are the values around here for their personal values? Because you don't have to have the same exact, lockstep personal values, but what you can do is you can have a culture was an amalgam, which is an amalgam of these different values. So, for example, One of the CEOs I coach, he's got a strong value around learning, culture, and excellence. That's wonderful. That's great. We want to have a lot of learning, culture, and excellence. One of his executives said, have a value around fun. And the CEO was actually taken aback, like, oh, I never thought about that. That's amazing. What if we could have a culture which is both about excellence and about learning and about fun. And that's the joy of it, that you can actually bring those all together. And then culture is really about values and action. How do you give life and how do you bring those to the fore? And how do you operationalize the things which are important to you, that has to do with what you reward, what you talk about, how you hire people and how you make sure that they embody the values which are important to you. I'll just give you a few more. This notion of acting as an owner, that's a very big value in startup world. Okay, great. But what does that really mean? Well, I worked with two co founders and what we talked about was it had to do with people who are proactive, people who will put the team before themselves. Great. So when you're hiring, you want to think about people who are proactive and ask them specific questions about when they were proactive. And then you also want to think about people who put the team before themselves, specific examples from their past about when they put the team before themselves. That's how you hire people in concert with these values and that's how you operationalize the values around you.

Yeah, I think that that's a really great description because. And I love how you said it, sort of the words you say repeatedly, way you act repeatedly. My values now I've recognized are my five C's and it wasn't planned that way. Right. The five C's of an advocate are choice, compassion, creativity, curiosity and credibility. And having repeated them and talked about them and shared them, I realize that those are my five values. But had someone sat me down and said, write down your five values, I don't know that I could have done that. So I think you live them. And when you do what you talk about in the first chapter, the self reflection, you sort of start to recognize what they are and then you can bring them to whoever it is you lead, whether it's your family. For me, it started with me, my paralegal and my secretary. That was my little team that I led. And then it grew from there. So I think the idea of being tuned in and aware of values and reflecting on them makes them come to the forefront.

I was just going to say, and also what you said is very powerful. You can't always sit down and say, here are my values. Ta da. It's also like, notice what you tend to do. So actually one CEO I was coaching, we talked through, you know, what is really very successful CEO and a very successful business. So that my question is what are we doing this for? Like, what's important to you? And what he said was, I care about the employees a lot, and I want to make sure they're in, like, this, you know, great environment to work in. I'm like, okay, great. Well, he didn't say this. I sort of said, so what's the end game? Like? When you look back on this whole experience, what's going to be important to you? Like, is it the money? Is the technology? Is it the products you made? Is it just the people? Is it your legacy? You say, oh, legacy? Like, it wasn't even a question for him. It was legacy. So sometimes also, just being in the presence of people who ask you these kinds of questions and also observing what are the things that light you up the most, that gives you a roadmap to your values.

Yeah, I think that's a really good point. And you've pointed that out once or twice. You know, with the imposter syndrome, being surrounded by other people who are, you know, within that CEO group you mentioned, and then here getting coached. You know, however you do it, guys, the people around you can often see what you can't see and hear things in your voice that you don't hear and see things in your body language and your face that you don't see. And so it's a really good point. I can't believe how much the time is flying. I do want to talk a little bit about hiring and firing, because everyone does it, even if they don't think they do it. You know, someone listening might hire a babysitter. Somebody else might. You know, I have a wonderful dog walker. After a couple of missteps with the dog walker, I also myself have been expanding my team. But one of the things that you point out here, Alyssa, that I think is important is you say, identify and address issues right away. I feel like I advise mostly women, female leaders. That's something that sometimes they struggle with. Why do you think people struggle with that? You know, identifying issues, addressing them?

I think very often people are, as we say, uncomfortable with conflict. And I think people put a very wide circle around what they think is conflict. And I think that's very interesting. You know, and I don't always know why that is, but I would say that people think direct conversation can sometimes be conflict, sometimes questioning looks like conflict. And people even use that language. Like, I wasn't going to call. Like, for example, somebody might have shown up to the meeting and they didn't do the pre work, and so they were a little Bit disorganized in the meeting, by the way. Not a federal law. You didn't break any federal laws. Right. Like not the worst thing that's ever happened to me. But like that was a moment. So you might think, especially for a new person, and you might think, well, I don't want that to happen again. So I want them to know that like on the one hand, no one's going to get fired over this, but on the other hand, like I just want to make sure that you understand the expectations of how we show up in meetings. So I would talk with the executive about that and she would say to me, I don't want to call him out. Well, I'm not really sure what you mean by calling him out. You know, it doesn't have to be public, it can just be a, hey, let me just check in. And by the way, was the person confused? You better know that, that you may be sending out confusing signals or is the person busy on other things that you're not aware of? Well, check in on that. Is the person having some issues at home? And you don't have to get into their personal lives, but you can express concern and compassion and empathy for what might be going on with this person. There's a lot of ways to have that conversation, but at the end of the conversation they should be clear about your expectations for preparation for meetings as just as an example.

Yeah. And it's a. And it's a great example. And you're so right about conflict, especially for women. A lot of women avoid conflict and men don't think it's in its cultural. Different cultures address it different ways. So I love that idea of like they put a wide circle around. Well, that's a conflict. And a lot of times the other person doesn't think so, you know, and so then there's a, it's. You're not on the same page.

Right. But that's also why I tried to give my scripts, I tried to give these scripts to help people handle what they would consider uncomfortable conversations, difficult conversations, delicate conversations to be able to give people some words to use. And then also tone really matters. You don't have to come in guns blazing. You could say things like, I just want to check in. By the way, using more words softens the sort of a long wind up, softens what you're about to say. Especially if you do a nice collaborative tone.

Oh my gosh, I love tone. It's a great way to. I can't believe we're running out of time. So it's a great way to sort of wrap up in the last section. I'm going to tease it, you guys, you've got to buy the book just for this raci. Am I saying that wrong? Right. Racy.

Racy.

Just for this racy, which is a, which is a well known thing in leadership that I had not been familiar with and now I'm instituting in my, in my team. So, so buy the book just for that. But I do want to talk about, with respect to tone, the last chapter of the book is your new workplace and you talk about zoom and email and remote working. And I'm a little bit obsessed with tone of voice. I know that there's a Yale study that shows that you can tell more about a person's emotion from their tone of voice than body language and facial expression combined. What do you think about phone versus zoom in this current world of remote work?

Well, I think what really matters is context. Right. So I just. Actually somebody just called me the other day, you know, he sent me an email, can we meet? Sure. And he sent me an invite. I didn't notice what the invite was, but at the appointed time he called me and I was like, oh, so refreshing. Not necessarily zoom. I don't think it matters. I think it's good, helpful to find your own place. I think that if you're going to have a delicate conversation, it's a little bit better to do it so you can see the other person so you can try to read their body language. I think the issue is also though, using email rather than any kind of voice, whether it's video or phone. And the problem with email is that people don't do some of the niceties. Again, it's that long wind up. You've got to make sure that you're putting, you're checking the boxes, right? You know, saying hello, maybe a nice greeting, hope you're having a great day, something pleasant, and then giving context to what you need done. Not send me the spreadsheet, but more the report that I'm collating is due on Friday. So if you don't mind sending me the spreadsheet today or tomorrow, that'd be super helpful context, making sure that you're going through that in a comfortable way. I think that's one of the keys to email. There's many keys to email, but that's one of the keys to email. Not to keep it short. Short is good in terms of brevity, of like reading the message, like, here's what I want, but make sure you have the opening and closing niceties so people can read your tone. You want to signal good intent in everything you do.

Yeah. And the book is so great at giving. Like in that email section, you lay it out, these are the things that you need to do. I can't say it enough. This book, it is. It is full. It is chock full of information. There's scripts in there, there's specifics. It is so clear that you walk the talk and that you're doing this every day. And everyone who reads this book is going to be very lucky to have the benefit of your experience, especially if those are people who can't or aren't in the position to hire you. So, Alyssa, it's a gift. The book that you've written is a gift. Before I let you go, we always wind up with the same three questions. And the first question is about elegance. The root of that word is to choose. And so we believe you choose your elegance. What does that word mean to you?

Well, I've come to think that elegance has to do with your ability to, let's say, lean into situations which make you uncomfortable. And whether you do that with a lot of grace or a lot of tears, it doesn't matter. Elegance is your ability to wade into things you might otherwise stay away from.

I love that definition. It's different than anyone's ever given. And it talks a little bit about the conflict we were just talking about. I love that. Now, books other than your own, what is a book that you would recommend to the listeners?

I'm gonna have to recommend the Long Game by our mutual friend Dori Clark, which is also just out new book now. It's really one of Dory's best works. And I personally have benefited from Dory's insights and knowledge over the past few years. And so it's wonderful that she put this together into a book that will help everybody. The Long Game.

Yeah, we had Dori on. She was on episode number 181. That was just a couple weeks ago. And when. Just a fabulous book. I loved it. I loved it. Last question is my favorite question. And it's, I think, going to allow us to talk about something that we hadn't yet talked about. But what is your theme song? Alyssa, when you're walking onto the stage of life, what song is playing in the background?

I'm going to have to say the rap music video that I myself created. It's called the work is in you. Because, Heather, the work is in you.

And we will add that to the Spotify playlist for sure. We're going to have to get it off of YouTube and we will also put a link in the show notes to, to the YouTube because watching you rap is just phenomenal. But very briefly, tell the listeners about just a little bit about your rap experience.

Well, I'm gonna, I will say it very briefly. It's a bit of a long story but the brief version is this. I fell in love with Hamilton the musical like everybody. But why did I love it? I realized there was something inside of me that got inspired around the creativity there. So I actually took a class on, on a freestyle hip hop rap and I realized in doing so that I wanted more of a be able to express myself in a way which was like get over my self consciousness and take a risk and do things that I wasn't great at so that I could model the way for people. And I also realized that it opened up a whole channel of creativity inside of me. And you know, doing this, this rap music little piece and putting into a video was a fun collaborative effort. I think it just made me feel like whimsical.

It's so great. And just to bring this back around, Dori talks about your rapping in her book the Long Game. If I remember correctly. It all comes around guys. It all comes around. Alyssa, it was so good having you on. We will put a link to from startup to grown up. Grow your leadership to grow your business in the show notes. Phenomenal book. I can't wait for everyone to read it.

Thank you so much Heather and thanks for having me.

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