GA 175 | How to Be Resilient with Ria Story

You're listening to episode 175 with Rhea Story. Welcome to the Gemba Academy Podcast, the show that's focused on helping individuals and companies achieve breakthrough results using the same continuous improvement principles leveraged by companies such as Toyota Del Monte and the U.S. department of Defense. And now, here's your host, Ron Perera. Hey there. This is Ron Pereira with Gemba Academy, and I'd like to welcome you to another edition of the Gemba Academy Podcast. As always, this is. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day and your week to listen to the show and for watching our Lean and Six Sigma training videos over at Gembacademy.com, we definitely appreciate each and every one of you. Now, like we did last week, just wanted to give a quick reminder of the upcoming AME conference. I don't want to go into great detail on it because I want to get right to the show here, but all the information for the conference can be found over@gembaacademy.com forward slash ame. So again, gembacademy.com ame, you're gonna find a coupon code on there for 10% off. And you're also gonna be able to RSVP for our cocktail party, which is gonna be on Tuesday night on the 50th floor in the Prudential Tower. You are not gonna wanna miss it. So all that's over there on that website. So go check that out. Now. Today, I'm excited to welcome Rhea Story to the show. Now, last week we interviewed Ria's husband, Mac, and it was a fantastic episode. Towards the end of the episode, I told Mac that I needed to get his wife on the podcast. And he quickly, as soon as we got off the interview, I had an email from Ria saying, hey, she was ready to go. So we literally recorded her interview the very next day. And so, so excited to, to have both Mac and Ria's here on the show. Now, Ria's focus today is going to be on the topic of resilience and leadership. And well, I basically wanted to say without, I don't want to spoil what Ria's story is all about, but it's an extremely powerful story and it's like as you'll hear, no other story, not even close to anyone that's ever been on this Gemba Academy podcast. And we've had 174 guests before this one. And so this, this is going to be one that you're going to want to listen to all the way through. But with that said, if you are listening to this podcast in your car or something like that or at home and you do have younger children, there's going to be some topics in there you're probably not going to want your younger children to hear. Nothing. Well, there's no bad words or anything like that, but it's an adult based topic and a very serious topic. So I don't want to get too much into that right now. But yeah, so that's definitely probably not one that you want to listen to in the car with your kids in there. So now show notes for this particular episode can be found over@gembapodcast.com youm'll just look for episode 175 again gembapodcast.com and look for episode 175. Okay, enough from me. Let's get to the show. All right, Rhea, thank you so much for coming onto the show. Where are you coming calling in from?

Good morning, Ron. I'm calling from near Atlanta, Georgia. It's a privilege to be here with you today.

Well, thank you. Yeah. So, you know, last week we released the episode with your husband Mac. And as I was telling you before we started the recording, Greg, you know, who edits all of our episodes, says that, gosh, that he thinks that the Mac episode may be the best thing we've ever done. So I don't want to put any pressure on you or anything like that.

No competition between us.

Yeah, no, it's all good. We really enjoyed talking to Mac and I told him at the end of that episode, man, I really need to talk to your wife and get her on the show. And golly, shortly thereafter, we had it all set up. So appreciate you taking time to come on with us.

Absolutely. It's my pleasure.

All right, well, you know how it goes. And I'm sure you've listened to the episode with Mac. So we like to begin all of our shows with our guests sharing a quotation of something that possibly inspires him. So do you have one?

Oh, I have far more than one, but I had to pick one. My really favorite quote is Viktor Frankl's quote, and I'll share it with you. It says, everything can be taken from a man. But one thing, and that's the last of human freedoms, is the ability to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances. It's just powerful to me.

Yeah. What's it mean to you?

You know, I think to me, particularly in leadership and influencing other people so often we find ourselves dealing with difficult situations or tough situations. I mean, that's why we're, that's why we're in leadership. Right. And yet we all, we often forget that we have the ability to choose our attitude in any circumstances. And where we find more influence is when we choose a good attitude when things are not going well. You know, you're not increasing your influence if you have a great attitude when things are going great. It's when you're going through the tough circumstances, making the difficult decisions and still choosing to be positive or rise above that that we find we increase our influence in our leadership.

Great. So the topic of today is going to be just, I guess, resilience and leadership for a tagline. And so I wanted to begin the conversation with you, Mary. Just tell us. When we hear the word resilience, you know, lots of things come to mind. But talk about what resilience and leadership means to you and then tell us why you believe it's important for leaders to be resilient.

You know, resilience is one of the qualities that we admire in leaders and in everyone. In truth, we admire that ability to bounce back, to thrive and to be positive even when someone's going through adversity. You know, choosing to be resilient, as I mentioned, is one of those qualities that helps us increase our influence and leadership with those around us because someone is always watching. You know, how will we respond when things aren't going well at work, when the project is late or behind schedule? Will we choose to be resilient and positive even in the face of those difficulties? Or maybe it's just going through difficult personal circumstances? Will we choose to rise above that and say, I'm going to look at the good in things or look at the bad. And that's why I think it's so important for leaders because it's so critical to affect our influence with other people. You know, we don't always think about that, but people are always watching us to see how we're responding. Are we actually living out the values that we, you know, claim to have as a leader? You know, so many organizations that have values like respect for other people or integrity in the workplace and things like that. And as leaders, our role is to live out those values and model those values. So I think to me, that's one of the reasons resilience is so important, because it's absolutely a choice.

Yeah, yeah. So, you know, this is episode 175. So we've had 174 guests on before you, and we've had a wide range of folks on and I have to say that never have I been. I don't even know what the right word is, but more anxious or. I've thought more about how to approach this next topic. But you have a story, Rhea, like no one else that we've ever had on the podcast and in fact probably no one else that I've ever known in my life. So just shooting straight with you. So you faced, I don't even want to call it adversity because that to me doesn't do it justice. But I guess I don't have a better word, but you face adversity early on in your life. So maybe can you share that story with us?

Sure. You know, I'm incredibly fortunate to be where I am today because statistically, I probably shouldn't be. I was raised in a very isolated situation, homeschooled. We lived on a small farm, growing up in the middle of the woods in the middle of nowhere. And at age 12, I was sexually abused by my father. And that continued through the years, progressing as I got older, even to the point where I was really just forced to play the role of a wife. A lot of circumstances went into that that contributed to just making me feel like I certainly didn't have a lot of self worth or a sense of self worthless personally, but also carried a lot of shame and a lot of fear just over the years between being sexually and psychologically abused. And you know, there were times when life was almost just not worth living. And that's why I say I'm very fortunate to be, to be here today because statistically the odds are against it. So When I was 19, I left home just desperate to escape. I left behind the father who had sexually abused me since I was 12, and I left behind the mother who blamed me for it. And you know, that was difficult, just leaving my family behind. And you know, I didn't have anything when I left home. I didn't have a job, I'd never gone to school. So I didn't have a high school diploma. I didn't have any money. I didn't have a car. But you know, what I did have was just a sense of hope that regardless of the circumstances that we find ourselves in, it doesn't mean that tomorrow has to be just as bad. Tomorrow can always be better. And I carried that sense of hope, that saying, I can't change everything in life. I can't change what happened to me. I can't change my story. But I absolutely get to decide Will it define the rest of my life or will it refine me? You know, it absolutely changes us. You know, anything that we've gone through in life shapes us, but how it shapes us is the question. And that's, that's really our decision. Back to Viktor Frankl's quote, my favorite quote. You know, we have the ability to choose one's attitude and in doing so, we find the ultimate freedom.

So what did you do? I mean, you're 19 and you leave and you have nothing. Like, what did you do?

You know, I looked around and I was like, well, I need a job. That's kind of the first thing. And I couldn't. Obviously, since I didn't have a high school diploma, there wasn't much. I didn't have a whole lot of options. So I started waiting tables at Pizza Hut and I was, when I, when I speak in high schools today, I share this story and I said, I'll ask the kids. I'm like, you know how much money I was making? And they're like, oh, well, you know, I don't even know what minimum wage is now, but they usually guess like seven or eight dollars an hour. I'm like, no, keep going down, keep going down. I started out waiting tables for $2.13 an hour plus a few tips. And it didn't take me long to realize that if I wanted life to be different, I was going to have to do something different. The job of my dreams wasn't going to come along and find me. So I started working. Working there, waiting tables, it taught me a lot. You see the good and the best and the worst in people. When you're working in food service, I think. So I started going to school, taking classes. I earned my ged. I worked two jobs over the next few years, eventually moving away from waiting tables and into office type work and really figuring out my path forward. I was determined to achieve and perhaps even overachieve because I really felt I had something to prove to myself, if not to anyone else. But that helped. It really was a driver for me. So working my way up through the corporate world and found my niche really in the administrative side of healthcare, leading compliance and policies, procedures, rules and regulations. Process improvement was certainly something that fringed on my area as well. So it taught me a lot over the years.

Now, did you go to college and that sort of thing?

I did. Once I started, I didn't want to stop, apparently. I started out at a state local community college and then I graduated from there. I moved on to Faulkner University. And then I went to an MBA from Auburn University in Montgomery.

Now, I believe Max said that you were a decent student. Is that fair?

You know, the secret is to marry your best cheerleader in life. I had a 4.0 cumulative GPA throughout my scholastic career.

Wow. Wow. Okay. Not many people could say that. Wow. Okay, well, let's get into a little bit about your book, Leadership Gems. Leadership Gems for Women. And, you know, obviously, resilience is a big part of your story there. So, I don't know, talk about characteristics or some of the things that you talk about in the book.

Sure, that's a great question. You know, it took me a long time, even after leaving home and even after working my way up in the. In the corporate world to realize that, you know, every one of us has leadership skills and influence. Because I. I thought I wasn't a natural leader. I thought leadership was one of those things. You either had it or you didn't, or maybe you got the title, but if you weren't the boss, you weren't a leader. So as I grew and continued to study and learn, I realized that if every one of us has influence, it was something that even if I didn't feel naturally gifted at, I could learn to be better at it. I could learn to influence people and learn to improve my leadership skills. So I wrote this book because I tell people I'm like this. These are the golden nuggets I wish I had known early in my career. Just the tips to help you be successful in relationships and leadership, both not just at work, but at home and a personal level, too. So the book actually contains 30 characteristics. Are there more than 30? Absolutely. But I had to put. I had to pick a few. Some of the things that I talk about really foundational in here are authenticity. I think it's something we don't have enough of in our culture today, particularly as leaders. You know, we feel pressured to always have the answer, to always look good, to always be on our best behavior, so to speak. But as leaders, I think we inspire people when we're able to say, you know, I may not have the answer, or, oh, I made a mistake. Let me work to correct it, because that builds trust with people. So the more authentic we are, the more influence we have, because it builds trust in our relationships. So I think that's important. And being proactive. Stephen Covey talks about in his book the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, that being proactive is responding based on our values. And, you know, we've all had that situation where we get mad or upset or frustrated or, you know, something goes wrong and we blow up or, and then later we think, oh, I wish I had not said that. So the ability to just step back in the heat of the moment and choose the right response, maybe not blow up or not get mad or upset, it's huge for leaders. And again, this applies to our personal life as well. You know, our ability to choose the right response when we're dealing with our children. How huge is that? Or your spouse.

You know, I don't know if you've, if you've studied or read much about stoicism, but much of what you're writing about and talking about is very stoic in nature. And in particular, I was watching some of your YouTube videos and you mentioned, I was just taking some notes, that it's not important what happens to us in life. You said it's important how we respond. And that's exactly what someone like Marcus Aurelius or whatever would say. It's not, you know, you can't control that the guy cut you off on the highway, but you can control your anger because you don't know, maybe that guy's wife's sick and he's rushing to be at the hospital with her, you know, and so he doesn't deserve to be flipped off. Right? You just don't know. So, and getting angry is just not going to help. So I see a lot of stoicism in your teaching.

Honestly, you know, it's. It's so true. We tend to tell ourselves a story based on some of the things that we see. And so rather than responding all the time based on, on the facts of a situation, we kind of go off and running based on our emotions. And that doesn't always serve us well. Now we all have emotions. We're human, but we don't have to act on them. And I think that's where we see as leaders, one of our greatest challenges is.

Any other characteristics you want to share?

Oh, there are some.

One more. One more.

You know, to me, I always think about being purpose driven, you know, as a leader, as a person even, because, you know, our world is so busy, it's so full. We're always challenged or stressed to do more and to do more with less. Sometimes the biggest challenge is staying in alignment with that, that purpose, or our mission, if you want to call it that, because that gives us the ability to say no to a lot of good opportunities. But if we say no to the good things, we can say yes to the great things. And being able to stay focused and stay on track. Because as leaders, that's one of the things our followers are looking for. Are we focused? Are we going a very certain direction? Because if they sense that we're not sure they won't be either.

Now you also spend a lot of time talking about the importance of discovering your why. And you obviously have discovered your why. Talk about that process because we talk a lot about it. You know, know your why. You know, whether it's in Lean or Simon Sinek talking about your why or whatever it might be, talk about how folks can go about discovering their why.

That's a great question. I think everyone probably gets there a little differently. So I talk about it in, in terms of starting at the top of the funnel, if you will. You know, if you're in that beginning phase of, well, what is my why? Search for clues and the things that really touch you emotionally. A cause that you're passionate about, that certainly could be a sign about it. Things like hobbies are also good road signs. Now the key thing about hobbies, if it's something you're not actually good at, that stays a hobby.

I really like basketball, but golly, I'm five foot nine.

It's true. Just because we're passionate about it doesn't mean it's our why or our mission. So spend some time and you know, it's a process. You know, you start at the tip of the funnel. You say, well, brainstorming on all the things I like or I'm passionate about what is something I cause that causes me so much emotion. You know, I get so excited about it. Maybe it makes me cry because I care so much about, gets me fired up or excited. I would do it for free, that kind of thing. So starting at the top of the funnel, take some time and just reflect. I love reflection on even an annual basis, but maybe even once a quarter, you know, take some time, some quiet time and get, get really in touch with yourself. And I know that's kind of frou frou to say that, but, but think about these things, you know, if we don't spend any time thinking about them, we're not going to discover it accidentally.

You know, a couple of us here at Gemba Academy, we started using these self journals. It's just a. Basically a kind of a daily planner, but it's set up to allow you to kind of set some goals, Short term goals, long term goals, and then basically each day you're really kind of reflecting back on how did I do against my Plan. Right. And I think it's so important. And when you don't do that, you can just fall into a funk. Right. I'm busy, but I don't know if I'm accomplishing anything right. And so that reflection is so important.

It is. Andy Stanley touched on this in his book, like a Becoming a Person of Character. And he actually did this exercise where he sits down and he visualizes the end of Life, or your 80th birthday, if you will, and saying, what would I want people to say about me at that time? And so he wrote down a few of the qualities that he thought were important based on his values, and then he compared them to how he was living. And he said, you know what? I was falling short here, here, and here. And that was a great way to just make sure that we know our values. Because when we know where we're going, like you said, it's so easy to get at the end of the day and go, well, did I honor that? Did I fall in alignment with that?

Yeah. Yeah. So the last question I have for this section, Rhea, is let's go back to resilience and leadership and give us some keys or some practical things that we can think about as we all try to be more resilient in life and in leadership.

Sure. You know what I talk about this as. There are four keys, really. And of course, everyone's journey is different, but this is a process that's really worked for me over and over in both my personal life and overcoming my history, but also as a leader at work in the corporate world. So the first one, I call it responding proactively. Oh, and each one, it's an acronym. It's R I, S E. It stands for rise.

Okay.

So the first one is respond proactively. So again, responding proactively to past or present circumstances, kind of what we touched on. I can't control what happens, but I can control my choices and my response to that. The second one is identify accurately what's holding you back and what will help you overcome. So anytime we find ourselves in a situation where we feel stuck, or maybe it's just a job that we aren't enjoying or that's not fulfilling, identify what's holding us back and what will help you move forward. So if it's that process of thinking, I feel stuck in this career or stuck in this job, or it's not fulfilling, maybe I need a change. Maybe I need to consider a new place. It could be personally, it could be professionally, but respond proactively. But Then identify what's stopping me, what's preventing me from moving forward, and then s the third one step forward consistently. I talk about our daily choices moving forward so often we set a New Year's resolution. It sounds great to say, well, gosh, this year I'm going to run a marathon or this year I'm going to quit smoking or lose 10 pounds, whatever it is, you know, we set this big aspirational goal. The problem is that it's so big sometimes that it's not really bite size. So think about it in bite size, little bitty steps forward, the daily choices will help us move forward. You know, we don't have to go 10 miles today, but if we're just moving forward consistently, that adds up over time. John Maxwell said, we overestimate what we can accomplish in a day, but we underestimate what we can accomplish in a year. And it's the power of just consistently taking action. I may not can commit to losing ten pounds today, but I can commit to eating a healthy salad instead of a cheeseburger and fries and milkshake.

Exactly.

So little small steps and they're not as intimidating.

Yeah, I actually do. Sorry, I do CrossFit and might the one of the coaches, he's constantly. His hashtag on all of his posts or whatever is a little better every day, you know, and I just love that mindset hashtag a little better every day, you know, and I think that's a good way to live life.

Absolutely. You know, if we could all say that and just, just be a little better, you know, I don't have to worry about saving the whole world, but if I could just make my corner of it a little better. Yep. Yep. And the fourth one is experience abundantly. I think all too often we forget to live in life. We get in the habit of going through the motions. And life is a gift. If you woke up this morning, the question is, what will you do with it? We're all different and unique. We're all gifted in different ways. Are we living that out in a fulfilling manner? Because life should be beautiful. You know, I've been in a situation where I didn't always believe that, but having come through that, I can look back now and go, you don't have to stay there. You don't have to stay there.

So a question I do want to ask, kind of going back to your story.

Sure.

And it's kind of a very personal. I don't even know if it's appropriate to ask. So I apologize in advance if it's not. But when you're in those, I don't know what, however, to say it, like, in the darkest moments, in the darkest times, like, what did you do? Like, how did you get through that? I can't even imagine in my mind, like, how, you know, I have a. I have a, you know, teenage daughter myself, and I'm just can't imagine her going through something like that. Like, what did you do? Like, was it God? I don't know if you're a person of faith or, you know, I don't know.

I am a person of faith and, you know, I love the concept of maybe a guardian angel sitting on the shoulder and maybe giving little tidbits of hope. But even today, I share with people because we are all different. We all find ways to cope or to be resilient in maybe different ways. So I share some of mine, but I think it's important that we identify our own. So I talk about, and I talk about in my book Beyond Bound and Broken, where I really share the steps of my healing and learning to overcome that. But one of the things I talk about is the first step, I think, is learning to be grateful for what we have. We can spend all of our life or all of our time focusing and being bitter about what we don't have, but that doesn't help us. And I'll just be honest, that doesn't help us move forward. Oprah Winfrey said, what we focus on expands. We can think about the bad in life or we can think about the good. So I think that's the first thing for me is just finding out what can I be grateful for today. Like you said, you do CrossFit. Be grateful for the health, to get up and go to the gym. You know, be grateful for the little things, the big things. The other thing I think it's important that really helped me, even after I left home, was just learning it's hard to feel sorry for yourself when you're helping someone else. And, you know, it doesn't have to be big, but when we can learn to give something to someone else, whether it's doing a random act of kindness or buying a cup of coffee. Maybe it's just smiling at the cashier in the grocery store and lifting up their day. Maybe it's volunteering. You know, everyone finds it a different way to give. But I think when we do that, it helps give us an appreciation and a new perspective. So you know that those are two big things that really helped for me. And then I think being Intentional about making good memories. Mac and I don't. We don't buy gifts for one another at holidays or birthdays or Christmas. Even today, we focus on making memories. And so, you know, if you're in that. That situation of life isn't so great. Give yourself something to look forward to, and then that will turn into a good memory to look back on.

Great advice. Oh, well, golly, I could talk to you all day about this, and I want to. We'll get into the reflection section, but I want to make sure people go, what's the best way? And I'll ask this again at the end, but for people to learn more about your books and whatnot, where do they go? What's the best place for them to go?

Sure, that's a good question. Riastory.com. that's R I A S T-O-R-Y.com and then we also have a website where Mac and I do speaking together. It's topstoryleadership.com but either place is great. Connect with me on Facebook, LinkedIn.

Good.

Any of those places.

And again, it's Ria Storyleader. S T O R Y. Okay.

Ready? Yes, sir.

Okay. All right. Very good. All right, let's jump into the reflection section. So I know you live with a lean thinking maniac and all the rest of it. So you've heard all of us talk about it, and it sounds like you've practiced it quite a bit yourself. So, as you know, we spent a lot of time talking about kind of those certain pillars of continuous improvement and then respect for people. And what we try to do is ask our guests to kind of define what respect for people means to them. So what does it mean to you, Ria, to respect people?

To me, when we respect people, it means taking the time to understand first before trying to be understood. And, you know, we could do this in so many ways. It's taking that. That time to respect someone's opinion or thoughts or feelings. It's giving them a voice to share feelings first. You know, so many of us are, and I'm guilty of this. We're so quick to be, you know, in the middle of a conversation, and you're so busy thinking about what you're going to say that you. You're not really focused on what the other person is saying. And I know I've done it. But to me, respect for the people really starts with us as individuals. On a personal level, do we have the respect to say, if you're talking, I respect you enough to listen and then worry about my response or not be worried about my grocery list or maybe not checking my emails while I'm on the phone with someone. Respect for people, I think, starts with each and every one of us on the individual level. And if we do that, if we all focus on that, you'll find that the culture of the organization will change drastically.

What's the best advice you've ever received?

I read a book called First Things first by Stephen Covey, and best advice I found was in that book, honestly, where he really talked about learning to say no. And I touched on this earlier. As leaders, we have a bias to action. We get excited about doing things and making things happen and we want to just take on the world, but when we do, we find that we don't have the. The bandwidth to accomplish everything with excellence. So learning to say no was huge for me because I'm that kind of person that I want to say yes to everything, every opportunity. But when I did that, I couldn't really focus on the very important things. So learning to say no has been huge for me, but it simplifies things. I hear so many people say I'm too busy for this, or I'm too busy to exercise or, you know, when we say no to the things that are not as important, we have room for the. To say yes to the things that are.

Yes, yes. I think of the book Essentialism. Gosh, the author's name's escaping me, but British guy, fantastic book.

I'll have to check it out.

Yeah, it says if it's not a hell yes, then it's no. Right. Greg McKeown or McCowan or something like that. Yeah, Essentialism. So, all right, so. So you've been very successful in your career, Ria, but I'm sure there's been an experiment or perhaps a project or two that didn't quite turn out like you hoped. And if that's the case, can you tell us maybe a lesson that you learned?

Oh, yes. We were implementing a new software records management program in a hospital where I was working. And like everything projects of this sort, probably it sounded really great on the front end. And it was going to be a very quick implementation period up and running. Moving from a manual file system to something electronic was huge in and of itself, but it took far longer and was much more difficult, much more expensive than expected and anticipated. And I was the project manager of the lead on the implementation. Talk about failing forward. It was a great lesson for me in learning, number one, how important it is for to just be flexible. I think sometimes when we make plans again, whether it's personal or professional, we make plans in life and things are not always going to happen the way we think. That's just a given. But learning to not get upset when that happens and learning to be flexible and saying, hey, the situation's changed. What do we need to do different in response? Nothing fails like success in life. And I think that, that, that implementation taught me so much about learning to fail forward.

What are you most proud of as it relates really to your life?

To me, I'm learning to overcome. I'm not a natural communicator and not a natural leader, not a natural influencer. I think what I'm most proud of is that it really, when I really learned that communication and influence was a skill that I could improve on, I didn't have to stay stuck, if you will. You know, I tell the story of I once got on an elevator with John Maxwell. He's one of my mentors. And we were the only two people in the elevator. And it was like a golden opportunity to ask this leadership guru, you know, words of wisdom. And I said absolutely nothing on that elevator ride. And so we get to the bottom floor. Fortunately, he was not conversationally challenged like I was. And so he asked me some questions and we started to chat. But I got off that elevator and I said, you know what, I can. I've got to be able to learn to do this better. And now I speak for a living.

So, yeah, I was going to say you're a pretty good communicator. Rhea, I don't know. If you don't know how to communicate, none of us have hope.

We all, you know, we all can learn to do it better. We absolutely can.

Beautiful. So any good books that you've read lately?

Andy Stanley's Like a Rock. I touched on it earlier, but I think the subtitle is Becoming a Person of Character. Fantastic book. It challenges you on a personal level about really reflecting on personal values, again, personally and in your life as a leader. And how are you living them out?

Last question. Is there a knowledge or skill area that you feel you need to improve? You've mentioned about communication, but I think you're pretty good at that. Rhea, not that you can't get better. I'm sure you can, but you're pretty darn good. But is there just maybe an area within the professional world that you want to. Want to focus on?

Influence for me continues to be a focus, influence self, you know, because it's just as important to make the good choices and lead ourselves right. In order to be able to lead others well. And so that continues to be a focus for me, is embracing that concept of continued growth and continued improvement on a personal level so that I can do that more professionally as well.

Beautiful. Wow. Well, Riya, thank you so much for taking time. I feel so fortunate. I don't know if you know Rick Forman, but Rick. Rick sent me an email. Yeah. And just said, hey, you gotta. You gotta talk to these folks. They're pretty amazing. And that's all I needed to hear because I really, really appreciate and like Rick. And gosh, I'm so glad that Mac and yourself came on and I feel better for knowing you a little bit here through these episodes. So let's go ahead. You're welcome. Let's go ahead and wrap things up with you sharing some final words of wisdom and then remind people again, the best way for them to connect with you about your books and also about your speaking, what that you and Mac do.

Sure. Final words of wisdom. You know, it's. And we've said this kind of as a theme throughout, but it's so important to me. I'll say it again. You know, it's not important what happens to us in life. What's important is who we become because of it. You know, it's absolutely a choice. We can be bitter about what life gives us or we can be better because of it. So, yeah, Mac and I do corporate speaking. We speak at conferences, small events, seminars. We speak on a few of our books include communication, leadership, time management. Some of those areas that we really have felt that personally touch us. You know, you can get in touch with us@topstoryleadership.com or riastory.com I'm on Instagram or Twitter, Facebook. Connect with me. It's Ria Story. So look for me just about everywhere.

Yeah, so we have a great relationship with the folks over at Lean Frontiers, Jim and Duane, and the folks at ame. It's a big, lean conference. And AME folks, Lean Frontier folks, you need to get the story crew in to speak on the stage at your event. So hopefully they're listening. I know many of them do, but you guys have a fantastic story. And thank you again for coming on Rhea. I really, really enjoyed speaking with you.

Absolutely, Ron, thank you. It's a pleasure. You know, I tell people I married Mac for his name.

Yeah, well, that's a great name.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you, Ron. It's just been a true privilege. Thank you.

Okay. You take care.

You too. Bye. Bye.

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