Rebecca Vickers on Values-Driven Culture in Hybrid and Remote Teams

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My catchphrase, my motto is you can't create in chaos. And I've gotten pushback from folks on that with the idea that, well, art can be messy. And I absolutely agree it can start messy. You're still shaping it into something and you're delivering it in a structure that people can consume or collaborate with or enjoy or use and benefits them.

Step into the world of success with your brand Amplified, the ultimate podcast designed to unravel the intricacies of thriving businesses. I'm your host Anika Jackson, and I'm on a mission to uncover the stories, strategies and secrets that have propelled entrepreneurs and business leaders to success. Rebecca Vickers, you are a woman of many hats, many creative, but also in operations, which I think is really exciting because it's not often that you hear that people are good at both. So I'm really excited to dive into your story and your journey, what you're doing now and then. I know you have some new releases coming out soon perhaps.

Yeah, yeah, there's a lot going on. Many Hats is very accurate. When I first started my career in theater, nonprofit arts and marketing as well as being on stage. So I was both on stage and offstage working in the nonprofit art sector and it's quite important to have many different skills and abilities and rely on them because they're usually more constraints than you would find perhaps in a for profit business. And so you have to be resourceful and fortunately I was blessed with many different skills and abilities. Lean on and to leverage and a lot of great mentors and leaders to coach and train me along the way. And one thing that I do remember from that time though is some folks feeling that you had to stay in a lane and sort of box yourself in, pigeonhole yourself into one thing. And it can be quite challenging when you're in the arts to do that. And kind of a little bit hypocritical to me for anyone in the arts to share that point of view. But the phrase jack of all trades, master of none comes up quite a lot. And folks forget the third part of that. Sometimes better than master of one. And it's that idea that we can leverage all of our skills and abilities and wear many hats. I think it's more important to know where your priorities lie for the most impact. And I've been able to take my journey from nonprofit arts and marketing into different sectors and different avenues because I understand how to problem solve and think and listen critically and then adapt along the way, which are unfortunately considered those softer skills, but I think softer because they're harder to learn and pick up on. And whether it's marketing or operations, there's an agility that's needed and a curiosity to insight gathering. And then there's also that understanding of improvement. Kaizen Constant, steady improvement. Are we improving our marketing? How are we having fun? Experimenting. And I see when it comes to business that it's both an art and a science and more so in art. So there's a fun element to that. And then the science can be the structure and the formulas that help us develop capacity and workflows. So it's very long answer to a great highlight that you. You point out. And I like to use it to encourage people too, not to box themselves in or pigeonhole themselves into thinking they have to stay in a lane, that all of our skills and abilities can be used in different ways in different capacities to make progress in our careers and in our journey.

So many excellent points there. I've also done a lot of different things and at some points it's been hard to get a job for somebody else because I am not specific enough. Right. And we often talk in business about the riches are in the niches. So thinking about being really specific to an audience is a great way to go often. But I think for many of us, we do have this curiosity, we have this push, pull, we want to try things out. And so it can be really hard when people are going, oh, you do so many different things. And in our minds we can see how they're connected. But in other people's minds, or just outwardly, they may not see the same thing.

Yeah. And that's where you actually was interviewing someone on my podcast on leadership, and she was talking about marketing and positioning your career from the storytelling point of view and understanding that we can market ourselves. And I once had a really great mentor and leader, boss share with me that I was really great at marketing, but terrible at marketing myself. And I wasn't making, you know, the effort, the investment. This was still kind of early on in social media, too, so personal branding was sort of a thing, but it wasn't really the specialty that it is now. And so I didn't really have the desire to put myself out there. I didn't really understand what marketing myself meant. But I like to now think of it as that storytelling approach and something that I. I feel like a lot of people are coming to the realization of. And. And that's, how do you tell the story of your career, your background, your experience, in a way that helps connect the dots for other people? And for me, you can leverage that around your values and what's important to you, and that certainly can come through in your storytelling. And then the skills that you share, too. It's the skills that I've developed and the relationships that I've intentionally nurtured along the way while following that curiosity that you're talking about that has brought me to a point, whether it's, you know, the love of storytelling brought me into theater and helped me not just on stage, but offstage, because I learned how to tell the story of the story we were about to share for an audience and prime them for that story from a marketing point of view. I also learned how to manage company and manage business because I learned to be instrumental and translate what our artistic director needed to other people. And then I learned how to translate playwright and what they're looking for in their story, hopefully effectively, to other actors. So all of these different kind of skill sets, picking them up along the way and then translating them, turning them into valuable skill sets in different kinds of business. When I move from theater into the real estate world, there's still that need for storytelling, still that need for adaptability and my skills and technology to help leverage and use those marketing skills so that those agents there could tell a story. And now I do that for an agency where we're helping all of our clients tell their story and connect with their community online. So for me, it comes down to some of the basics. And when you're trying to share that and communicate that for a job or for any kind of interview or networking, I like to figure out, well, what's the story I want to tell that shares the impact and the value that I can bring to the table in the situation, and then how does it align with the needs of that role or that person or a way that we can connect and have a meaningful conversation together? Yeah.

Oh, my gosh, so much good stuff there. And I do want to ask, to your point, how you speak about yourself, because you are. You've moved up from digital marketing to Director of client services to VP of Operations for FMO Media, which we will get into, talking about a lot of the work there and digital marketing. But you're also an adjunct teaching assistant, you're a personal trainer or certified, you have a podcast, you have books coming out, you know, so I would love to hear how you frame that in your personal elevator speech, I guess.

Yeah. Thank you. It almost sounds like I'm all over the place and not focused. And that gets back to that connector that you're talking about. And anyone that just listening or might see that might think, well, you know, how could you do any of that half well or half good and be effective, too? And so for me, it does tie back to those skills of storytelling and creativity and. And I love to tell stories. I'm not on stage right now. Someday I might get back to that. I'm not in front of a camera for storytelling purposes, for art's sake and entertainment, but I can leverage those skills in my storytelling for children. So I have a book that came out, Vanita the Brave, and I took a story from my childhood and used it to celebrate and honor a dear friend who passed away over a year ago from cancer, as a way to commemorate her and share in my love of storytelling and who she was inherently as a person. And so taking that, I like to think of it as feeding a part of me that appreciates the art and the creativity. And then from a work perspective. Well, yeah, I started out at FMO Media as a digital marketer, and I was able to leverage my skills that I had developed over the years. I understood real estate, which is where a majority of our clients were falling in that vertical. And so I had those skills. I also had the business skills and running teams and building out departments that I was then able to take and apply. And because we were a startup, there was opportunity for me to grow with the company and help the company grow by starting to implement systems. And I'm a recovering perfectionist. And so I like to have things organized in A certain way. And I think very critically and analytically about processes. So the marketing background and understanding our end goal or we're aiming for in marketing, then I was able to help support because I also have the organizational skills. And so the responsibility layered itself over the years. I also attribute a lot of my presentational and customer service and theater skills that I developed to the client services director role. And so it sort of naturally progressed and layered on. And I would say that taking back to that idea of value and aligning yourselves with the needs of the company, because I was so close to where we were growing and I understood those needs and I was able to listen and approach from a problem solving point of view, I could develop what we needed and stay aligned where my skills could best affect a positive impact. And so, you know, there's a little bit of circumstantial sort of opportunity at play. It's not all on me as a person. And knowing where you can add your value, where you can leverage your skills to contribute to the needs of a company, and a greater good or a greater mission bigger than yourself is key. There's. And then the other aspect of it for me is also feeling that training and that teaching and giving back. I know it's a little bit cliche to say these days, but I'm a lifelong learner, and I think it came from being homeschooled and being in some ways independently responsible for learning and knowing that I need to constantly learn and I'll never know enough. So there's, you know, the element of staying humble there. I know I don't know everything and I never will, but I need to continue to stay curious and gain insight. And so being able to share what I've learned, pass that on, and those experiences, I feel is a responsibility of any leader of any kind. So when I started my master's program in organizational management, I wanted to be able to take what I was learning and start applying it. But I also wanted to be a better leader for my team and have something that my team could help train on too, because I had leaders who are working and growing within the team that I needed to be responsible for growing too. So I started my podcast to help kind of bridge some of that gap that I see in leadership development and management development while picking the minds and interviewing a lot of guests who've been there, seen it, done it, and are light years ahead of me in that realm. So that was a personal project, and a lot of opportunity has blossomed from that, and it feeds that desire for connection, communication. I know I'm quite verbose when it comes to answering, but there is a lot at play in those decisions. And so for me, it's about making time for some of the personal and professional pursuits that align to feel a little bit more holistically fulfilled, if you will. So that's again, a long answer to a short question. But. But they're all very meaningful projects to me and they allow me to stretch my skills but also strengthen what I do currently practice.

Yeah, I think that's really important. And many of us live in that push pull space. Right. I also, I teach grad school. I also have obviously a podcast and it is more of my full time gig now. But I have worked in many agencies over the years and had my own PR firm and you know, and then most recently was executive director of a nonprofit foundation. And I just had to take a moment because those all fed different parts of me as well, like you're saying. But then I had to just step away and go, I'm really going to focus on teaching and podcasting because those are both. I'm continuing to get educated. I have to stay up on trends and I'm sure you do too, and what's going on in our markets right now because things change every day. What tool, what technique, what algorithm, all of that stuff when it comes to any kind of digital media and marketing. And then I also get to impart the knowledge. And so I see a lot of similarities in the work that you're doing because you're training your team. You're also training, you know, your students, teaching them. You're also having to learn and keep up on things. And then with the podcast, you're both educating your audience, learning along with them and getting to meet other people who've been in your shoes and different roles and might have different aspects and different parts of the business that they've emphasized. So I love that and I think it's something we need more of in today's world. And I wanted to ask you particularly about the name bad bosses, great leaders of your podcast because there is a difference between management and leadership. And that's so nuanced. So what was it that prompted you to name your podcast?

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Yeah, so. Well, first let me say we are very much alike and aligned and I love that. And you know, in our pre conversation you highlighted that. So there, there. I do feel like there needs to be more us's in the world. And you're absolutely right. There's a time and a place and a season for everything. And when I was starting the Bad Bosses Great Leaders podcast, I was mentoring young women, specifically in the design and digital marketing space. And the program at this great program, Women Innovators is a wonderful network. And I had the pleasure of speaking at several of their webinars and in person conference. And they're doing a lot of great work to help support women in our space who are working in marketing, PR design and need guidance and direction. And one of the areas that I found was recurring for them were challenges around bad boss behavior, toxic work environments, and learning how to navigate that while also aiming for higher leadership roles. And to me, there is definitely a difference and I don't think anyone would necessarily disagree with this, but I have seen a difference between management and leaders. And there are people who manage work and there are people who manage people. And the people managing people need to be great leaders in order to support their people, to serve them, and change the type of leadership that that individual or team needs in the moment. And there's a lot of great thought and ideas around leadership and sometimes it's hard to translate them into practice. And so I was seeing a need for that and I was also seeing a lot of frustration in the women that I was mentoring. I've had bad boss experiences myself in the past, and I didn't want it to be a situation where I'm encouraging anyone to cancel a person or to bash their old boss. At the same time, we still need to draw awareness around the behavior so that we can all change because we're all capable of falling into a bad boss mode or habit. It could be a bad day and we're a bad boss. And so I wanted to draw awareness around that and show what also great leadership looks like like too, at the same time. And so I was asked to speak on a LinkedIn Live session for the network and I was looking for a title and I knew I wanted to do a leadership podcast. So I was playing around with some different naming conventions and you know, doing the like the AI podcast generator. And there was a combination of like bad, the bad bosses podcast or something and great leadership. And I sort of put the two together because there's an element of negativity that people do kind of like to latch onto. What. Oh, what's the. The anticipation there? What you might say, it feels a little dangerous, if you will. And there's still the positive of great leadership. So I want to juxtapose those two ideas and leave room for what the podcast can grow into as well. So that's sort of where it blossomed from and has grown from and continued to try and experiment with it, too, as we're reaching different audiences and different leaders out there in the space.

That's the fun part about podcasting, though, isn't it? Because you might start in one place and then you completely shift and change. If I listened to those episodes, my first episodes, I was really trying to focus on a few questions and people in pr, and really quickly I was like, I need to pivot this, because that's. I mean, if you. You know, I could niche down to that, but I was more interested in hearing stories from people. But got you. What's your motivation? Like, what is your personal brand, and how does that work with what you do today? And of course, then get some things that are helpful for other people, whether it's mindset or SEO in whatever year we're in. Right. Or how to use this AI tool. So I really appreciate that you noted that, too, that there is an evolution and you can talk to different types of people and what the title means, and those conversations might have very different outcomes.

Do you feel like you might get this from other guests? And I don't think there's a right or wrong way, but I'm curious if other people feel like they have to be boxed into their brand and stay consistent almost to the point of stagnation.

I actually created an AI for that because I had some guest experiences where you have people on and they're not giving much. Right. Like, this is the kind of dialogue that I love, where, yes, you're giving us tangible advice and you're going to give us more tangible advice, but talking about your career trajectory, talking about what makes you sing, talking about how all the things you do are interconnected and being able to be open about those instead of being, I don't want to say a robot, but somebody who comes on and just gives really short answers because they really want to stay focused on one topic. I just don't feel that that provides as much value, at least on my podcast and my experience to the listening audience and to myself.

Yeah, well, I like to share a lot. So when I'm invited on as a guest I try not to talk too much. Annika But I want to give context because I think it's important and oftentimes what I've experienced in listening to others advice is that I could give you a step by step for how I approach my career. But if you don't have the context or of what I value, what I developed and the opportunities that were laid out for me or the people that I came across because I had some folks in my life who were great leaders and I learned a lot from and the folks that I would deem and I'm judging obviously, but I'm judging the behavior as bad boss behavior also contributed to who I am today. All of the people that came before me have made me the person that I am in the sense of I've learned from them, I've learned what not to do. I'm going to make my own mistakes and I have to be responsible and accountable for that. And so to give advice without some of the context I also think could harm people in assuming that it's an easy trajectory, that everything is linear too. If you were to interview me even five years ago, my answers would be different. And five years from now my role is going to shift and change. And I wonder how much we're wedded to the idea that it consistency means that we can't evolve as humans and our brand and our the nuance of who we are can't evolve with it too.

Yeah, absolutely amazing. We could go off on so many tangents. So I'm going to try to stick a little bit to the script. But I know that you are an expert in so many things and when I think about systems and processes, you know, when I started multiple of my small businesses, I didn't really have those in place because I'm coming out from the organic oh, this is what people are really interested in. This is what I'm interested in. Let's just start a company and I'll learn along the way. And through that process, of course I've learned that I need to have really great SOPs because especially if I have team members, I mean just even for my podcast, right? We have a structure and it's really fantastic because I don't have time to edit all the episodes but I can work with great editor and a great admin and they can do a lot of the stuff. I still manage the guest process and like find the guests, but then I can kind of let them take over some of the aspects, because we trust each other, because we have those systems in place. And it has really created so much more freedom for me to know that I have, you know, we all have our role and we're all going to do our role and we're going to communicate if there's something that's going on in our lives or something that's going awry. So I want to talk to you about that and what you see in operations that you really love and that helps you thrive and like, what are some systems we can implement? I know this is a multi part question, and then have you been in organizations that have had that more chaotic environment that you've tried to implement things in before, obviously becoming VP of Operations now?

Yeah, that's a great question. And there's a lot we could cover. So to give some sort of tangible thoughts too, that everybody can take away with one, my tagline, my catchphrase, my motto is you can't create in chaos. And I've gotten pushback from folks on that with the idea that, well, art can be messy. And I absolutely agree it can start messy. You're still shaping it into something and you're delivering it in a structure that people can consume or collaborate with or enjoy or use and benefits them. And so whether you're in the theater, whether you're an artist, I have a family of artists who paints and had sculpted. And so I've been exposed to different types of art and creation and the same thing goes for business too. And one of the things that I found in the nonprofit world especially, and you probably experienced this as well, is that there's room for a lot of chaos. And it can sometimes be put on a pedestal of resourcefulness and figuring it out as we go. You know, there's that the business idea too, that founders are building the plane as they're flying it, and there can be time for that. There's also a lot of room to proactively develop a system that your team and you yourself can use. And I find that systems set you free to create because you're not trying to build the structure while you're also trying to get to the outcome that the structure can provide for you. And one of the things that I've also seen is that the more growth you have, whether it's growth, which is multiplying and adding team members and revenue, or scaling, which is adding revenue and creating a more efficient system so that your costs don't increase, you still have to have a solid structure that will help support that. And the more that you grow or look to scale, the simpler your system needs to be to eliminate, mitigate any additional chaos. And so I love thinking through the processes of that and what those steps need to be. It also requires a second order thinking where you're also looking at the consequences of actions that may or may not unfold. And so there's a, there's a proactive, it's less reactive, but you can also have reactive planning as well. So offense and defense within the business and how you're going to react to something can also proactively be planned. It's also about using your resources wisely and the talent of your team in a way that helps them succeed and puts them at a different level of success and path for growth. And there's also the additional element of making sure that your communication is also clear. And I find more often than not that really healthy operations are stemming from very clear goals and objectives that you set forth as a company and then as a team and aligning people around that. So it's okay to be messy in the beginning and there's going to be some mess. There's always going to be some kind of bottleneck and constraint that you're going to have to solve. And I think one of the challenges is if anyone assumes that things are going to get easier and that you're not going to have any kind of problem. And in operations it's just not realistic. So there's a level of reality that you have to understand where you're at here and now and then also be able to look to the future and see what that ideal vision is and map out backwards what your, your step by step action will be towards that outcome that you're looking for. So I just packed a lot in there. The other thing I think that is definitely needed were I also thrive is in agility. And there's capital a agility in project management. There's lowercase agility in the skill set of learning to adapt and the infamous word we all learned in 2020, pivot. But learning to adapt and be flexible because as you mentioned earlier, things change in the world around us. I actually don't like to consider myself an expert in marketing because platforms change and consumer tastes come and go. You can be an expert in the foundational principles and at the same time we have to stay sharp and we have to keep learning. So there's an element where I like to master what I'm working on and at the same time I know I might not be the expert in it, and that's okay. But having some basic structure will help you when it comes to planning out your time, you, your resources, your budget, and communicating clearly with your team. The more that you multiply and grow, the greater room and opportunity there is for chaos. So I would rather spend a little bit more upfront time planning and working with more efficiency and a healthy pace than urgently trying to instigate an initiative or a project that hasn't been fully thought through for the sake of innovation, if that resonates. I don't know if you've experienced any of that yourself, of course.

No, it all, it very much resonates. And it can be really hard when you're so excited about your business or what you're doing to take a step back and to realize, let's get this process really mapped out. And I have some client work that I'm doing to help people with their podcasts for right now. And I've been really slowly. I'm not really promoting it, I'm not doing advertising. I'm just slowly building that up so that I can make sure. Because even if you have systems and processes for everything you're doing there, each client is still an individual and has different needs. One might need more social media help because they don't have a social media person on their team. Another person might need you to be a guest curator. There's so many different aspects and so it can be really hard to think about, but we have to go slow to go fast, because by putting those things into getting out of the chaotic energy and just the excitement into excitement about the steadiness and the system flows and processes is a game changer.

Absolutely. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast. When you can slow down and pace yourself properly. And you talked about a pull and a push system, and there's a time to release work as well. And that's something that I like to be really aware of and mindful of when I'm overseeing marketing and production and client services specifically. And there's a time and a place for the work that needs to get done. And there are things to consider, whether it's training, communication capacity for your team, of course, from an operational point of view. And so knowing when they are ready for that and who needs to be looped in when who needs to be trained without overburdening them. Because when you put people in a level of stress and overwhelm unnecessarily, it diminishes their ability to retain information and knowledge and you're setting yourself and them up for failure as well. So that pacing is so important. Right. And I don't think we give it enough credit. The saying your emergency or your urgency is not my emergency rings true. It's not something that we want to say because it's not polite to the folks working around us. But I never want to be creating any kind of urgency in my team that puts them in a state of emergency because I didn't plan something well for them.

Before we had AT&T business Wireless coverage, our delivery GPS wasn't the most reliable. Once our driver had to do a 14 point turn to get back on route. A 14 point turn, an influencer even livestream the whole thing. Not good for business. Now with AT&T business wireless routes are updating on the fly and deliveries are on time. And the influencer did get us 53 new followers though. AT&T business Wireless connecting changes everything.

That'S really key. And it's again something that we often are faced with is something happens. Everybody expects you to drop everything when it may not be as important to the overall, to your sector, to the overall business itself. And it can be hard to the communication cycles for those kinds of situations.

Right.

And I wanted to ask about in person versus remote as well because we obviously all went remote if we weren't already during the pandemic and we're still talking about it several years later because it still has a big effect because now we see a lot of things about people want to be back. I see that people want to be in person for live events. I teach both online and in person. Most of the coursework I've taken like yourself has been online for our master's programs and I've only had to do a couple of courses where I went back to Philly for extended period of time to do weekend courses or some kind of specific thing that I had to finish there in person. So as this translates to because I think about how I work with my students and how I still try to make a lot of connections with the students I have online and some of them we have amazing connections and I think most of them feel like my teaching style is actually helping them so. And I would say that they'd get a lot of the same experience as my in person students get. But there is still there are some nuanced differences. So thinking about that for your business, I'd love to hear a little bit about your thoughts, your processes and how to keep people engaged in both kinds of environments.

Yeah, there it's a trade off, right? Every situation has its pro and its con. And sometimes we come at it with a preference because it's our individual preference. I love being remote because it means I don't have to spend the commute time. And I have, I have worked and commuted, I think my fair share. So I know I have that experience. So I know what that's like too Similar to you. My first master's program was in person. And there's a great benefit to being in a program where you're part of essentially a cohort. You get to know people and have relationships and you're fully immersed in that environment. And then my second program, fully online, incredibly flexible, study late at night over the weekends. And it definitely kind of different kind of exhaustion, but it was flexible for the life that I had in the lifestyle that I had and needed. And the same thing can go for remote work or in person work. If you are the kind of person that thrives in an environment where you're physically around other people and their energy, then I think that's something that you need to be mindful of and that's what you need to look for versus someone who needs that remote flexibility. And by flexibility, that could be a number of different things, right? Whether my team is in person or remote, I'm still going to give them off to go to the dentist. There are a lot, right? Like I'm not, I'm not going to say no, you can't go to the dentist, that's ridiculous. But there's a level of flexibility where someone might not have the means to purchase a second car for their family and so they can't commute to work, so they need a remote job or maybe they're a parent and they need that kind of remote flexibility so that their commute time is now time that they can take their kiddos to school and help with homework at the end of the day and make dinner. And so there are different kinds of trade offs, pros and cons to the different kinds of environments. And so I don't think there's a hard and fast one is better than the other. And certainly different industries require a different kind of presence. And if you're remote, you can also schedule time for in person team retreats and meetings. And if you're in person, I think you can also probably for a lot of industries find time where people can work remote and be flexible if circumstances or time will allow that. So that's where I see there's a lot of flexibility there. I manage Both in person and remote teams. And I don't find that productivity is any worse or greater. Whether you're in person or, or whether you're remote. There's still the water cooler talk, whether it's physically at a water cooler or you're spending a little extra time with someone on a zoom call. I've actually seen productivity improve with people who are remote working, especially in our line of work in the digital marketing space, because they're able to tackle the tasks that they have in their home as well as be available online and not feel like they're constantly distracted and pulled away from extra meetings, conversations in the office. There's also a level of communication that I find has improved because we are forced to be a lot clearer with people and ourselves when we're giving direction, when we're talking. There's not the awkward sort of hallway pass by, which I've definitely probably contributed to, but also received, where somebody gives you an instruction as you're passing by in the hall and, and you're not fully getting the information or storing it and logging it in your management system. So, you know, I find that there's a lot of pros to being held accountable and holding other people accountable in remote work. I also want to acknowledge that there are folks who have an easier time connecting with people in person. And so the effort to connect with people when you're remote, I believe comes down to being clear in your communication expectations. Work isn't about agreement that we're entering into. So what's the agreement that your team and you have with them? What can they expect from you? Having time for one on ones and the right kind of team meetings, being very intentional with your meetings and allowing for that flexibility when it's needed and required with your team, whether they are taking kids to school, having really clear time blocks and calendars put together so that there's an a level of transparency, transparency meaning context, without involving yourself in someone's personal life inappropriately or unnecessarily too. So while I, you know, I don't believe that culture is built on the time spent or not spent with your team, I believe it's built on the values. And so having really strong values as a company that you then demonstrate in your small acts that compound day in and day out, building that consistency and then making the time to listen and to share context intentionally with your team are my quick, long, long answer. Quick answer, go. The quick sort of tangible steps that you can take as a leader, as a team, team member, to connect with People.

Yeah, thank you for that. Because I do think that people are still trying to figure it out. And everything you just said about the intentionality and the way that the company culture really has to be interwoven so that people can see how you're going to show up as a company and a culture and they can feel part of it, no matter if they're hybrid, remote, fully in person, whatever the case may be.

Yeah. You understand, I'm sure, from pr, I don't want to assume, but it does come down to communication, and lack of communication can be just as damaging as the wrong kind of communication. I believe in being an uber communicator, where you're thinking ahead to what your team needs to hear from you, the clarity of the message and the directive, and also that time spent getting insight. You can have a challenge in both situations where you assume you know what someone's going through or whether you're in person or remote. I think the assumption gets amplified when we're not visibly seeing people in their work environment and we make assumptions that they're either not productive, they're not working, that they, you know, they must be watching television, or, oh, they're probably folding their laundry and not doing what is needed of them. And for me, it's not so much about hours input, even though we have our set hours. It's more so about the outcome and the impact that you're delivering, the value. And some people are going to get their work done quicker and be able to fit in that extra dog walk. And I say go for it. Right. And other people are going to need to take that full time on a task. But how are we communicating about and being honest and transparent with each other at the end of the day, too?

Yeah, yeah, that's so important. There's so many other things, but we could talk about so many other roads we could go down. But in. You know, I want to honor your time that you've given already to the show, and I know we're going to have more conversations in the future, so I'm already looking forward to that. And I do want to note. So we're going to lead people to your link tree, I believe, which has a lot of really great resources, everything from content machines to content angles for podcasters, but other people could use them, too. Productivity hacks, text call, your podcast link, and so many great. I mean, I'm like, I need to click on each one of these, except for the ones that I'm already involved in or follow. So is there one last Piece of advice that you'd like to leave for the audience today.

Oh, I love that. Well, I do have a lot of resources and I, I encourage everybody to make use of them. I think it's really important to get clear on what your goals are for yourself, especially if you're personally branding and being okay with them changing and adapting to that. I think we get, we feel like we need to be boxed in and make a decision and that we can't change. Whether that's something generational that gets passed down traditional or it's, you know, some kind of inner conflict that we have. And, and I encourage everybody to be okay with changing your mind and changing your direction at the same time. Be really careful and intentional with the purpose of that too. When you're working in digital marketing, you can make updates, you can make changes. I've got a website where I'm going to have all those free resources eventually. I'm okay with it as it is. And we can't let perfect be the enemy of good. And I think sometimes I'm saying this is a recovering perfectionist, right? There are times when excellence and a level of accuracy, not perfection, but accuracy is needed from us. And there are times when we need to be kind to ourselves and to others and know that it's okay to evolve and grow. So get really clear on your goal, make those decisions because there's no time to waste. We still can have set a pace for ourselves to get towards those goals that isn't rushing or urgent. And as you move along the way, be okay with changing and adapting because the map is not the territory. We can set out a great map, it can look beautiful on screen, paper, whatever you're using. But things are going to change and come at us and life is going to change and we're going to need to evolve with it. So be okay with adapting to the terrain.

So many great quotes in there. So many. I'm like seeing them all on social media posts. The content for this episode is going to be amazing. Not just what people are listening to or watching, but also what we can share out in small snippets. Thank you Rebecca for having this fun conversation. Just bringing your full self and all the different things that you do and making. I mean, I know that you made me feel okay with all these different parts of ourselves. We can sometimes have self doubt mindset shifts because people are questioning how do these things connect. But as long as we stay steady, we know how they connect. We can still enjoy all of the things that we want in life as long as they stay true to our personal brands and values as well.

Absolutely. Thank you for the opportunity. This is great to chat some of my favorite things to talk about, so I appreciate you to share. Yeah, thank you, of course.

And thank you to everybody who's watching this episode listening to it. Please leave us a rating review. Go to Rebecca's podcast Leave her a rating review. They really help us with discoverability and to you know, we didn't even talk about all the great things that have come out of either one of us podcasting, but they really help with that as well and give us new opportunities to grow and learn and to help others with that. I'll be back again very soon with another amazing guest to share their story, their journey, and some tips and tricks for you. Thanks for listening or watching to this episode of youf Brand Amplified. Don't forget to leave us a rating or review on your favorite podcast listening platform. And if you want to learn more, check us out@yourbrandamplified.com.