367: Startup Secrets with Alisa Cohn

Welcome to the Leaders of Transformation podcast, the number one show for entrepreneurs and business leaders passionate about uplifting others and making a greater impact in the world. Join Nicole Jansen each week as she interviews influential difference makers and world changers who share their inspiring stories, transformative insights and practical tips to help you grow your impact and be the leader of transformation that you were born to be. Afterwards, make sure you head over to leadersoftransformation.com for full recaps of every show, along with valuable resources and opportunities so you can get connected and make things happen. Now, here's your host, transformational leader, speaker and business advisor, Nicole Jansen.

Hello.

Welcome to another episode of Leaders of Transformation. We have an awesome guest here today. You're going to love this. Alyssa Cohen comes to us through, actually, I met her through Alain Hunkings who's recently been on the show and amazing, amazing interview that we had talking about leadership and all sorts of awesomeness. Well, Alyssa is an executive coach and she also works with senior executives in high potential leaders to help them to create positive, permanent shifts in their leadership impact and the results they achieve. She was actually named as the number one startup coach in the world and that was at the 2019 Thinkers50 Marshall Goldsmith coaching Awards in London. She's also been named one of the top 30 global gurus for startups of 2020. She's got a tremendous bio. All that information is in the show notes for you. She's a guest lecturer at Harvard, Cornell, the Naval War College. I picked out a couple of highlights that really jumped out at me. She was selected as one of the top 10 coaches by women's Business. She's also an amateur rap artist and you can sometimes find her on Instagram lifting kettle balls. So, Alyssa Cohen, welcome to Leah's Transformation. We're excited you're here today.

Thanks, Nicole. It is great to be here. I'm having so much fun already.

Oh, it was great to connect the first time and I knew that we were going to have this awesome conversation and also a shout out to Dori Clark because we have a mutual friend. She's more a friend than she's more of an acquaintance for me, but she was on our podcast a while back. So for our listeners, just a little tip, go back and listen to Dori Clark's conversation as well. See, powerhouse women like Alyssa and Dori and many of the other ones that we've had on our show are just really like, they're really valuable to listen to and encouraging and empowering for you as women and Also men, you're going to learn so much from them. They're pretty smart ladies. So I encourage you to go back and listen to Dory's as well. I wanted to mention that.

And Dory's the best.

Yeah, she is awesome. Yes. So let's talk about you. Let's talk about your awesomeness and how you're creating transformation in the world. So tell us a little bit more about yourself and how did you become the named the number one startup coach in the world? That's pretty impressive.

Yeah, thank you. And thanks again for having me on the show. Yeah, that was a real honor, I have to tell you. And it was, I think, in some ways, you know, the culmination of what the things that I really care about. So I became a coach 20 years ago because I wanted to make a difference. I had this idea in my head that it mattered that I was in the world, that the work of my hands matters. Those are the kinds of phrases and sentences that would go through my head. And so I kind of had to seek out what do I want to do? And I met a coach and I thought, that is what I want to do. That's it. And so I took coach training and I put one foot in front of the other. Nobody handed me anything. I hustled every day. I put one foot in front of the other to build a business. I then moved to New York City about 13 years ago where I got very involved with the startup ecosystem. And so I got very involved. It was like in sense to my roots of startups. And so started working with a number of CEOs and that really grew from there. And now I'm really passionate about startups and helping CEOs understand how they can scale their leadership alongside the scale of their company.

Got it.

Well, we.

When you talk about scaling leadership and scaling their company, what actually do you mean by that? Because there are different definitions of success in those arenas.

Yeah, definitely. So actually I'm writing a book right now which is called From Startup to Grownup. And I divided into three sections. It's about managing you, managing them, and managing the business. All of those areas need to scale. So when you think about scaling the business, it has to do with the notion of having a small number of employees, which grows, a small number of manageable customers that you can actually keep track of on a spreadsheet, but that grows and you'll need a different kind of database to handle them. Customer support issues, the way you build infrastructure inside of the company, that is what leaders really care about. But when I enter as a coach, we talk about that, but then we back up to say, well, how are you managing them? Them being the employees around you, how do you hire them, make sure they're cultural fits? How do you help enable them to be proactive and motivated? How do you get them to kind of be headed in the same direction that has to do with managing you. How are you managing your own emotional state? How are you managing and how you change the way you communicate as the company grows? And how do you think about managing both the company and your individual employees as well as the company as a whole?

Got it. Now, when you're working with leaders and they're going from being a founder to a CEO, like what you're talking about, and I know that everybody calls themselves a CEO nowadays and they're the one person corporation CEO, but when we're talking about running an organization where, yeah, it's far beyond a spreadsheet of keeping track of people or even knowing everybody who's in your company, what do you notice that is the difference? That is the different skill sets that you talk about As a coach, what are the different skill sets? Not just managing people, but let's go a little bit deeper into who do they need to be? How do they need to show up differently as a CEO versus a founder?

Yeah, it's a great question. That's such the key question because to your point, who do they need to be and how do they just show up? It's like, what hat are you wearing now? So the founder hat is very often an inspirational hat, a storytelling hat, the leader hat, maybe separately is like, here's where we're going and helping people create clarity when there's a lot of ambiguity. Sometimes as a CEO, you have to be the manager hat, which is about holding people accountable, making sure you're hiring the right people, unfortunately, making tough decisions about firing people and then also managing your team as a meeting. So communicating one on ones, executive team meetings, all hands meetings, finding ways to repeat your story over and over. Whereas when you were like seven people in the room together, that wasn't the most important thing. When you're 150 people, 500 people, you suddenly need to make sure that your message is the right message and it's landing for people all the time.

How do you keep that family community of the seven people? Or can you even keep it when you have 500 employees?

Yeah, 500 or 5,000, right? I mean, startups grow, sometimes they grow very quickly to that scale. And the Answer, Nicole. It's such an important question. People who join startups want to be part of that family where they're eating pizza together at night at 10 o', clock, where they're all jumping on to help support the customer, and where there's sort of this tribal experience of going through that, the early stage together. The truth is that you have to be able to expand and enlarge your culture to expand beyond that family, that initial founding team, because ultimately you need people who have done this before, who are more big company people, who are also great at process, also who have home lives and they don't want to be there with you. And you're the team at 10 o' clock at night because they got kids at home. And so it's about really making room for a new set of people, but still maintaining the tenants, which are important to you, which may very well be transparency. It may certainly be dignity. And people first may also be, we have to have fun around here, but that's going to look different at seven than it does at 700, than it does at 7,000.

Yeah, that's so good. Well, because I know there's a lot of talk right now about humanity in the workplace and how do we instill that, that empathy in the workplace, and especially now. Okay, so we're in 2021. I know that most people want to put 2020 behind them and forget that it ever happened, but of course, it has changed us forever. And one of the things that I've noticed that has come out of it is a lot more companies are realizing that they need to be more humanized. They need to understand that their people, they're on virtual zoom calls and meetings and so forth, and the kids might be running around in the background. It's just life where we didn't have that before. If anybody would have gone on a meeting and had kids running around or whatever going on behind them, that would be unprofessional. But now it's just become a way of life because of necessity. And that's just one example of the changes. But to be able to build that family camaraderie in. You might probably see this, maybe you can talk about this, is seeing startups that have that family environment. I remember I had Karen Walker who started with Compaq many years ago. She was like employee 104 or something like that. And she helped build it to a $15 billion company. And there is a huge change that happens, of course, during that process, in terms of the culture, in terms of how you feel. And a lot of times what happens is it gets. People say, like, oh, it was so fun in the beginning. You know, it's like, like the story of Apple, right? It was like, so fun in the beginning. And then after a while, we all just became a number and we felt like we were disconnected. And then that top talent goes somewhere else because it's just not fun anymore. And so just talking about, where's that transition point at how many can you actually notice that difference? And then what do you do at that point? Like that transition point. And maybe it's a point not just like one day to the next, but a point where you transition. Because I think that can be very telling in terms of how we can help larger companies to start bringing it back.

Yeah, well, there's a lot in what you just said and it's very rich. First of all, I just want to address the first thing you talked about, the notion of, like, now we see kids running around in the background. By the way, that guy from the BBC who had his kids running in the background that everybody saw on the Internet, like two years ago, he's like, totally validated now. That's number one. And number two, I talked to a CEO and a founder of a biotech company. And his point was, I've used empathy to navigate through this crisis. I have been able to have conversations with my employees because I can see into their homes and have real talk with them because of their health issues and concerns that I've never been able to before. And it has broken through in many of us and we are more bonded now. And I don't want to go back to the other way, and we're not going back to the other way. So in some ways, this intense experience we've all gone through together has been an opening, really a cracking open of many of these boundaries for good. And so that is wonderful. And that gets back to your question about, like, sort of the familial primal feelings. I think that if you think about startups and if you think about you maybe thinking about building your own startup and becoming the CEO, the founder. CEO of your own startup, or just kind of knowing about joining a startup, you do have to think of them in multiple inflection points. In the early days, you want people who are proactive and are excited and they're going to do anything you want, anything they want. And you can do all these different things. You're making it up. It's so exciting. And you're there together all the time. You go out for drinks when you're not there together. And so there's a sense of like, we're in this together, we're all doing everything. At some point that model just breaks. It's like 10 people or 15 people or 20 people where you cannot all fit into the same room, you can't all go to the same meetings. We need to like be able to leverage time. And then from there you also need to build systems and processes and structures that are going to sustain a bigger business. Not everyone can decide everything. We can't get everyone to weigh in on everything. So that literally changes the shape, it changes the culture, it changes the kind of employee who's going to be successful around here. So what that means is you need to bring in people who are a little more experienced, not like huge company people at that early stage who are a little more experienced and can really create sort of structure out of the chaos that typically gets created. And then over time even more experienced people who could be specialists in a certain domain. So like what does it mean for the folks who stay? For the folks who stay, they hopefully get benefit of people who are mentoring them and guiding them and managing them, who are more experienced and can really teach them the craft of what they're doing, whether it's marketing, technology, whatever is the part, or they may want to go off and found their own startup or go off to another startup early stage. And one of my clients just a few months ago talking to somebody and she said, I just don't like this big company feel and it's 75 people, it's not really a big company. But she wants a different kind of environment. And I think everyone's entitled to understand that the key is self awareness and really understanding what are my most important values and then how do they fit into the overall company.

So what I'm hearing in that is that, well you talked about that example of the 75 people being big. So some people see a family, a nice tight knit family. Like we don't choose our family most cases, unless we marry into it or something. But we don't choose the family that we were born into necessarily. And so it's going to be the size that it is. Like so for example my parents, my brother and I, that was our family. Okay, so very small, tight knit. Some people are used to having a family with like reunions with a hundred people showing up or 150 people or Thanksgiving dinner with 25 people that show up. And so that's a different feel. And so the beautiful thing about what you're talking about is when you're choosing a company to work for and, or to build and even knowing, like, I know some of my clients are like, I know I'm a three year guy, or I know that I take it to this point and then I'm like out. That's not what I want. I don't want that other kind of environment or that culture when it gets too big. And so the nice part about this is you get to choose your family.

Totally.

You get to choose the size of your family. And so what I'm hearing is that it's not necessarily a point where you get over 50 employees and then it's big or over 500. That's big. What I'm hearing is that it depends on who you are and how you see it, how you perceive it.

Yes.

And so there are families that, families, corporate families that have maybe 100, 150 employees that can still have that family connection, so forth. And you mentioned a couple of things in there. Mentorship, Right. Culture, of course we've talked about and skimmed over that. But culture, like the type of culture having processes and systems in place, but also not just making the separation between the old employees and the new employees, but integrating them into the family and maintaining the values. And so that's just kind of some of the things I find that oftentimes when I'm talking to people, they do what they do so naturally and automatically that it's kind of like you just know your stuff. Right. And so it's like pulling out those nuggets for those of us that maybe aren't as familiar with that. And it's not old hat, so to speak. So.

So yeah, I'd just like to add, like, I think the key to all those things is first of all just your own self awareness. The more you can really understand what makes you tick and what's going to work for you, the more you can choose the right environment. And then on the topic of culture and even family, the truth is that you can feel like a family at work, but just honestly, it's actually not a family. Right. Actually your family of folks at home who can't fire you and would never.

Want to get rid of you, even for poor performance. That's true.

Yeah. You're still in a contractual, right. Transactional relationship in many ways and you can build great friendships at work. And the last thing to say is that even a CEO I spoke with just earlier this year, he really said, I really realized that I am a sort of a 1 to 10 million guy. And after that I've tried to build the company and I always feature a three time entrepreneur. I always at that point need to bring a professional CEO in. So as a CEO and the founder, it's really helpful for you to have self awareness to really see like where do I get stuck? It's, you know, self awareness helps us do everything we want to do.

Yeah. And it's that misconception that you have to stick with it. Who did I interview? Frank Fiume. And he got to that point where he said, you know what, it's no longer fun anymore. Right. He actually said, I feel guilty about the way that I feel about my company. This was back when he had i9 sports and it's big franchise for youth sports in the country and the number one franchise for youth sports. And he said, I actually felt guilty of the way that I felt and I knew that it was time to go, it was time to pass it on to someone who could take it to that next level. It just wasn't where I wanted to be with it. So that is so good. And bigger is not always better. You don't have to. There's this misconception I find a lot of times with entrepreneurs that are getting started that they're supposed to build it too. It has to be an idea that's going to go to 100 billion or some next Facebook kind of thing. When in fact just knowing who you are, like you said, self awareness is important to know that it doesn't need to be that to be successful. So, so good. So let's shift gears. Let's talk about COVID Obviously it affected everybody, everybody differently as well. So everybody had different experiences. So what was your experience? We can learn from your experience. What was your experience with COVID and how did you pivot? Because one of the things that we wanted to talk about here was the fact that every day is day one. Every day is a new day to begin anew. And so it's not just on January 1st or whatever the first day of the month is that we begin anew. We can start anew every single day. But it comes from our choices. So looking at that example of this significant impact as an example, so come back to my question. How did it affect you and what did you do about it?

Yeah, so I think about Ram Dass. So Ram Dass is a spiritual leader. Very well, meditation teacher, guru. He just died recently, but before he died, probably 10 years ago or so, he had a stroke. And so he's a Meditation teacher. He's very, like, serene. He's enlightened, all these things. And he said about the stroke, it was the ultimate test and I failed. And so that's how I feel about the pandemic, personally, is that I live in New York City. I kind of fled out with my. To the suburbs, which is where my boyfriend lives on March 13th. And I spent the next two weeks screaming, carrying, carrying, screaming, carrying on, yelling, being upset, thinking, it shouldn't be this way, it should be different, right? Resisting reality. So after about two weeks of that, I thought, well, this appears to be reality. And so I better figure this out. So how I responded was this. My inner wisdom, my wise self, I'm lucky, does sometimes talk to me through a specific voice in my head. So the voice in my head said, alyssa, do not waste this time. You are never going to get this kind of time back. And also you are going to want to. This is going to end at some point. You are going to want to look back on this and be proud of how you spent your time. So what does that mean? To mean two things. First of all, that my main focus in terms of coaching was to help my clients, to partner with my clients and to help shepherd them through this crisis, which for some of my clients companies was existential, right? This, like, formidable, really possibly killer threat. How can I be of service in this moment of crisis? All the things I've been sort of, you know, training for professionally and personally, that was my one massive focus. And my second massive focus was for me professionally. There's been a lot of things and I'm like, oh, I'll do that a different time when I have time. When I have time. And I'm like, this is the time. You're never going to get this time back to like, sit and think and write. And so I got to work on doing those things. So I could talk about both those sides, if that'll be helpful.

Yeah, please, that would be great.

So with my clients, I mean, all of my clients who are either first time, second time, third time entrepreneurs had to kind of like, figure out where am I, right? I sort of think of like, head, shoulders, knees and toes. Like, am I still even here? So then the CEOs I work with had to immediately figure out how my team's doing, how do we pull together our teams? And we quickly got into a communication system. Everyone's working remotely. We don't know what this means for the business. And I helped them think about how do I settle myself and then settle the Team and then step back. And I wrote an article for Forbes about this and plan for a future that you can't plan for. So I helped them do scenario planning, supported them as they again, sort of quickly, quickly got into a rapid communication cycle. And I'm really proud that so many of my clients were able to think about. I helped them reframe this way. And they're entrepreneurs, so they're focused on this. Anyway, what's the opportunity here? And really, a lot of my clients were like, fantastic, I'm so glad this is happening. We're going to be able to accelera this system or we're going to be able to accelerate this program or this is great. We had to stop and rethink anyway about what we were doing and reconfigure our business model. So now there's still this sort of uncertainty in the world, but there's a lot of sense of like, okay, here's what our plan is going to be like. And then also there's a bulletproof nature. Like, we have to be able to run our business if there's a pandemic or there's not a pandemic if we're at home or if we're working in the office. Right. So we have to sort of be ready for that and bulletproof for that. So that was a lot of source of the work as well as, of course, being just an emotional support for people who were like, didn't know what was happening. So that's side one to me, very, like, in some ways, holy work. Like, again, what I sort of was made for in many ways. Then the other side was like, hey, you said you wanted to build courses, right? So I recorded a course for LinkedIn learning. I recorded a course called Learn to Love Networking for Knowable, a new startup which is doing audio courses. And I had to learn the technology and I had to think about how am I going to design this course? And if you. If you take everything I know about networking, which I think is a lot, and boil it down, what would you want to say? So I worked on that. I pushed forward on that. That was great. I signed my book contract and so now I'm working on my book, which is something I'd wanted to do for a long time. And I became, as you mentioned, an amateur rap star by producing a rap video called the Work Is in youn, which was just like, for fun and a passion project to do during this period.

That is awesome. Yeah. You know, in the beginning, there was a lot of resistance, like, you talked about, everybody's going, this is not happening. I don't believe this is happening. This is going to be over in three weeks. So whatever that original. I forget. I think it was three weeks that we estimated it. And it was like, yeah, this can be a lot longer than that. And so there was this resistance. And then I even heard people saying, oh, okay, so I'm at home. What do I want to watch on Netflix? What do I want to do? And I was just like, oh, my gosh, this is the greatest opportunity. If you were going to try something out, if you were going to take the time to write that book, if you're going to take the time to do that course, if you're going to take the time, like I did in trying to do this startup, which didn't go so well so far. We're working on it. But at the same time, it was the greatest opportunity to test the waters and fail and grow out your hair, if you want to. Just saying. But it was such an opportunity. And it's the opportunity in the midst of crisis that I think is really going to start to, as we're in 2021 and beyond, is we're going to start to see the impact of that, then the momentum of that continuing in companies and the way that they're even redefining themselves and of course, individuals redefining themselves.

Yeah.

And there's a lot of times, I think to your point about working from the office or working from home is that there's also a lot of structures. I noticed there was a lot of structures and systems they realized they actually didn't need to have. I've heard so many people say, wow, you know what? I had more time with my kids than I've ever had. And I actually don't want to give that up ever. Like, I want this to be the way that it is going forward. And so what needs to be in place? What do I need to say no to?

Right.

So that I can say yes to what's really important to me. So the whole reprioritizing and. And so forth, so totally.

And choosing right. So, like this whole notion of every day is day one. I really care about that. I really resonate with that, like really today. And also it's 1:33pm Eastern time. 1:33pm eastern time. That could be day one, if you really think about it, for all of us, we have the opportunity. Any moment, any moment you can start over. Any moment you can step back and think, wait, what the pandemic was A dramatic moment, I know, for myself. And I guess in a little way, I was like, I'm just going to reform my newsletter. I'm just going to redo it. I was like, oh, should I do it? Should I not? I don't know. Boom. I just did it. All bets are off. So you could take on that energy anytime you wanted to and think about what you could actually accomplish if you lived your life that way and just said, okay, go. I'm going to do another sprint. Momentum sprints. Those are very powerful for all of us.

So what are some of the questions that you ask yourself that get you into that mode of like, yeah, I'm going to just do whatever. I'm going to do a rap song. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to start lifting kettle balls. That's what I'm going to do. And I'm going to put it on Instagram so that everybody else can, like, what are the thoughts that go through and the questions that you ask yourself that put you into that space? Cause I think there's a lot of people even still listening to this right now that are still in a funk or may find themselves coming in and out of the funk and need some tools to be able to stay on their game.

Yeah. So to me, a big question is, what's the opportunity here? Like, we already know there's a crisis. We know there's limitations. What's the opportunity? What would make you proud if you looked back on it three months from now? What is your highest and best use? I find it very inspiring to be like, I know you're tired. I know this stressful thing is happening. I know. But think about who you are. Who did you say you wanted to be in service of your life as a parent, as a leader, as a worker, whatever that is. And so that's how you can sort of begin to motivate yourself and activate yourself.

Got it. Got it.

Yeah.

And you actually have a. Speaking of which, you actually have a download on your website, so maybe this is a good time to talk about that. Questions to spark conversation. Yes. You mentioned about table topics and so forth. Can you explain a little bit more about what that download's about? And it's free, and we'll make sure, of course, the link is in the show notes so people can get access to it.

So a couple things. First of all, along with Dori Clark, we started to do virtual cocktails for people. We've done a lot of cocktails. There are a lot of Dinners in New York City. And it was like, oh, if you're in New York, come and join us. But guess what? No one's traveling right now. So we began to do virtual cocktails very quickly. And part of the when we do dinner parties, and then part of this also when we do these virtual cocktails, is to have a table question, to have something that will spark conversation. It's amazing how much people will share with each other when you have a good question to sort of dig your teeth into. And I realized that my clients were also asking, how do I have good connections with my team, but families home for dinner for the first time in a long time? We're also asking, how do we spark the right conversations and have the right relationships? Otherwise, everyone's just talking about the pandemic and the vaccine and the death toll or whatever. So I created questions to use in different ways. So some are very tactical. What podcast are you listening to right now? What are you learning from books or other things you're listening to or taking in? Could also be, what have you learned about yourself during this period? What are some strengths that you're really showcasing? Strengths and virtues you're showcasing. A fun question is, what's a luxury you've treated yourself to either during this time or in general? You can use these to mean anything, like during the winter or during the pandemic or even this past week. It just gets you going and helps you think about questions that are above and beyond the day to day and like, oh, how was your day? Or oh, what's going on in the world? Which at times is not the most enlightened or even personal disclosure conversation.

I love it. I love it. And we'll make sure that that is in, like I say in the show notes so people can get access to it. So good as well. Of course, I know your book is coming out in October, and that is Startup to Grown up. And so we'll make sure that that's kind of, like, listed there and people can get access on your website as well. So just before we wrap up, I'd love to hear a little bit more about these kettlebells.

And, you know, they're actually called kettlebells.

Kettlebells.

Kettlebells. Okay.

So that tells you I think of balls. Okay. So, yes, I have been in a gym. All right, so just so you know, kettlebells.

You're right, though. They're built in balls. That's a good point. I wonder why they're called kettlebells. I don't know. Because they look like bells. Probably.

Okay.

But yeah, anyway, yes, I'm still upset. Yes, it's good.

So, yeah, so I'm curious about why. And also that because there's a mind body connection that I'm also sensing in this too, like, about your discipline. And I noticed this with anyone who is a peak performer and who helps other people to live their best life is, generally speaking, with maybe very few in between. But most of them have a discipline of health, right? Physical health. Going to the gym, working out, working out their body in connection with their mind. So when you mentioned about kettle bells, I wanted to hear what that meant for you. Why did you pick that up at this point and what has it done for you?

Yeah, that's a great question. My journey of fitness is like 20 years in the making from the point of view of, like, I grew up kind of out of overweight and out of shape. And as I began to be my own person, not just my family person, right? My own person, I realized, like, oh, wait, I want to be in shape and I want to be able to move around, and that feels better. So I began the journey of fitness. And then I noticed, hey, fitness helps my mood. I feel better when I do my fitness, whatever that is. And I became a runner, and that was great. And then, oh, so sadly, I developed osteoarthritis in my right knee. And my MRI doctor said, give me your running shoes, you're done. I cried tears in the cab on the way home. I cried my eyes out, like, what am I going to do if I'm not a runner? And also, I'm going to get depressed and I'm going to be. But I thought at the same time, this is the opportunity. This is the best thing that ever happened to you. Because you knew you were over training. You should have probably worked on your more whole body. You should have hired a trainer. This is a sign. So I found a trainer and I found a coach. Over time, I found sort of a kettlebell coach, and he loves kettlebells, and I love him. And then I love kettlebells. And then over time, you see how being strong helps your mood, helps your confidence. The discipline and routine of it every day gives you something to sort of structure yourself around. It is always a great. Also, it's about trying and not succeeding and then trying and succeeding and understanding how you have to wave the load and how the combination of tension and relaxation is healing in and of itself. And, oh, by the way, when you get strong enough, you can run. So the notion of like, oh, someone gave me a limitation. Well, no, I found a way around the limitation. All of that is extremely empowering. As a woman, lifting very heavy weight is extremely empowering. And during the pandemic, I decided to do my series on Facebook and Instagram called Kettlebell, Kettlebell Quarantine to show everybody that even though we're stuck at home, we can still lift heavy weights.

I love it.

I love it.

And I love the fact that you talked about the opportunity and what the lessons are out of it. And for those that are maybe thinking, like, I can't do a startup. I'm not there yet. I need to do some things before I can launch that. How can they build their confidence? Even just doing what you're doing is, like, what can you do? What I'm hearing, there's a question of, like, if I can't do this, or this has been taken away from me, what can I do? It's the now what? Right? So what now what? Like, okay, where do we go from here? And you can build on that. That is so, so good. Well, Lissa, thank you so much for hanging out with us today. And I just. I love. I love your energy. I love your passion, and you are obviously a tremendous woman of wisdom and insight, and so I just. Yeah, I just really appreciate having you here today. It's been great.

Thanks, Nicole. I had so much fun being with you. And right back at you. Woman of power and wisdom. I love it.

That's right. We need more of those.

Yeah.

You know what? They're out there. I believe they're out there. That they have the confidence to. That's what we need, is we need more of them to step up and to speak up and to not to. Your point about the Kettlebells is to not limit ourselves or running or whatever is to not limit ourselves by what we can't do, but look at what we can do and go from there. So good. All right, for our listeners, go to alyssacoan.com of course, that's going to be in the show notes as well@leadersoftransformation.com but check out what Alyssa is doing. Maybe even check out, well, certainly download her questions to spark conversation, maybe even take part in her and Dory's cocktail parties and get to know what they're doing. There's a lot of great, great material that they're putting out there in the world that can help you, encourage you and help you really to be the leader of transformation that you're capable of being. I believe that every single person on this planet is here for a reason. And here not just to make money, not just to survive and to get by, but to actually make a difference in the world. There's some value that you have, some unique value. There's strengths, there's passion. There is experiences that are completely unique to you that the world needs. So how are you going to bring that to the world? That's the question. Okay. So we encourage you that to get involved in this conversation, to explore that. Let us know what you come up with. Let us know how we can support you along the way. You can find us on social media. You can, of course, find us through our website. We'd love to hear from you and we look forward to seeing you in the next episode of Leaders of Transformation real soon.

You have been listening to the Leaders at Transformation podcast. Thank you for being here. Remember to follow us on social and get connected. Apply to join our private Facebook group and share with us how you're making a positive impact. And if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with your friends and help us empower more leaders of Transformation to step up and make this world a better place for everyone.