Leadership Lessons: The Power of Story to Transform Rwanda with Ayla Schlosser

Welcome to Make More Marbles. My name is Brad Hart, and we're here to interview the game changers, the future makers, the co collaborators and creators who are here to collaborate with one another towards a better future for all of us. Enjoy the show. We've got a great guest coming up for you right now. Welcome to Make More Marbles. I am Brad Hart. I'm here with Alex Schweizner. Oh, my God, I'm so excited. We tried to do this interview, like, a few weeks ago, and we didn't have the interview. Internet wasn't working, and now it's here, and I'm excited. So welcome.

Thank you so much. It's good to be here.

Absolutely. So let's dive into where we were before you started telling the story about where you've come from, your heroine's journey, if you will, and where you're at today. So let's get people at home caught up with the wonderfulness that is you. Thank you.

Yeah, absolutely. So I'll start a little bit, I guess, with sort of why I do what I do. At Resonate and at Resonate, we're unlocking leadership potential of women and girls in East Africa. But I often say that I am the problem that I'm trying to solve in the world, because even as a young girl growing up in Northern California with a feminist mother and an unenabling environment, as a woman in my lifetime, I still found myself in situations that a lot of women are fearful of and face and nobody wants to find themselves in. So I ended up in an abusive relationship in college. And I was really lucky that I had the support network and the strength and the resources to get myself out of it. But I didn't even admit to myself or to anyone else what had happened until years later. And it was through discovering the Storytelling for Leadership framework, which is rooted in community organizing and is a leadership development framework that was used in the farm workers movement and the civil rights movement and then more recently in the Obama campaigns. And through going through this Storytelling for Leadership framework, I learned the difference between standing up for an idea, which it turns out I was really good at, and setting up for myself, which I was pretty bad at. And when I had that realization, it helped me understand that there was a lot more possible for me and my life and opportunity and what I deserved and what I was worth. But I had to learn to think about and talk about myself in a different way. And that is true for women all over the world. And so I had learned these community organizing skills, skills in Washington D.C. and it was 2012 and there were a bunch of other people who had the same skill sets as me coming off the Obama campaign, also living in D.C. and I said, you know, if I faced these challenges growing up here, they're just as bad, if not worse, other places in the world. And I started looking for an organization that was using the storytelling for leadership approach to work with women and girls in the developing world. And I didn't find one. So I was 25 and I did a crowdfunding campaign and I found a partner organization that was willing to work with me in Rwanda, which is an incredible place for women's leadership where there's a huge percentage. Percentage. More than half of parliament is female. But then at a local level, only about 7% of leadership roles are filled by women. So there's this huge gap that exists and I wanted to see, you know, if we apply this confidence building framework, can we close that gap? And so I moved there to pilot it, met Myron and co founder, originally just met there, moved there for six months to try it out. And this month will actually be four years that I've been there.

Wow. And when you're living overseas, where do you live exactly? So you're in Rwanda or.

Yeah, I'm in the capital city of Kigali.

Kigali. Got it. So I was going to say this last time before we got cut off, but I have a very dear friend I've known for many years that lives in Democratic Republic of Congo and she runs a, like a movement, an organizational movement. Like she has this very similar story to you where she was working at Capitol Hill as a lobbyist and kind of, you know, doing the thing there and realizing that only about 2% of the money that was going towards programs to rehabilitate war torn communities were going to things that actually worked, like investing in the women who rebuild the community and then the men chill out and the war stop happening. So she started with the Resolve Network and she's been doing a lot of really great work there. And she lives in Goma. I wonder if you've heard of them.

I've met her in Goma.

Oh, you know Vidya. Okay, great.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, there you go.

So it's such a small world and.

Yeah, really, really, truly connected. Yeah. So I just figured you guys had to have bumped into each other at some point. That's awesome. So that's wonderful. And then my other thought was there's a woman named Lila Jana who just put out a book called Give Work. And she kind of takes a different tact, is giving work to underserved communities in Africa. And she's got a great book out and I'm a huge fan of Lila. We actually went to Kenya together. It was Tim Ferriss, Charlie Hohn, myself, and then the whole Samosaurus crew went to Kenya to tour the Serengeti and to see all the different work that they were doing out there. So that was really wonderful. But there's definitely, there's this piece of this that you're, you're taking forward is like you're using the key core human operating system or program which is the story. And you're doing it in such a way as to empower women who I believe. You know, I met Sarah Blakely at the beginning of this year, I think it was in February in Atlanta at Spanx headquarters. And she said something hit me right between the eyes. She's like, female entrepreneurs are the most underutilized resource on the planet right now. I was like, oh, you're right. And what can I do to help? So since then I've aligned my mission a little bit differently. And I've been thinking like about this problem and this is just a really long way to answer. The question is like, what do you see as being the most impactful way to take the tools that you have, whether it be, you know, the storytelling aspects or the on the ground, you know, kind of action that you're doing and get that into the hands of more people, ideally women entrepreneurs. Because I really feel like they, they could kick butt. So they should and will and will continue to.

Yeah, I mean evidence so far has proven that they will. So yeah, it's actually that's such an interesting question. And the way that we work is totally through partnership. So we believe that having the mindset and the confidence to go out and make change is totally important. It's necessary, but it's way more impactful when that's coupled with specific, you know, hard skills and knowledge. So we're partnering with groups that are teaching entrepreneurship or teaching job skills, teaching vocational or professional, professional readiness, and then they give the professional skills and then we come in and integrate the leadership training. And you know, our biggest, our biggest question throughout the process, especially now that we've gotten some really great statistics backs that show that a three day training can result in increased income, increased self efficacy, taking on different leadership roles and communities of like, how do we get this to more people? And the thing about the storytelling model is exactly what you said, right? It is fundamentally human but we've found that it needs to be delivered human to human and in a room with other humans. So, like, the incredible moment in the workshop is when you hear, we have women go through this process where they redefine leadership. They begin to understand their values. They tell a story of a challenge that they faced, how they overcame it, and how it's led them to where they are today. And there's this moment where they hear other women sharing their stories. We sort of watch their eyes light up and they're like, wow, that woman is so amazing. She's so inspiring. She's such a leader. Then, wait, hold on. She's just like me. That's where that mindset shift happens. So that can't happen if you're just sort of doing a mooc. So it presents us with this really tough challenge of how do we get people physically in the room together, but do it in a scalable way? And so we are looking now, and what we're piloting for our model for scale is a training of facilitators model. That is, we're really trying to figure out on the spectrum between, you know, with scale at one end and control at the other end, how far can we get? You know, how much can we give up direct delivery? How much can we give up direct control without losing the impact? And we're sort of testing the boundaries of that right now with, you know, one where we just give people curriculum, one where we give them curriculum and a bunch of training, one where they give them training videos. And how exactly can we make it easy as possible for someone to take this up in a big organization like, you know, care to, for example, say we're going to adopt this into our training model? How can we make that easy for them while also making sure that we're maintaining the integrity of the curriculum and most importantly, the impact.

Oh, my God, I got so many people to connect you with, but I'll put that for another conversation. But okay, so what we need, or what I perceive that we need, my hallucination, is, is we need a way to scale this. Keep it high integrity, high touch, which is, again, what we're trying to do as well. Like, we could put out online courses day after day after day, and we put out a lot of video content, a lot of content like that. But where it misses is like, it's not personalized.

Right?

And one of the things I've learned after 10 years of working on this problem is that every, you know, just use wealth as a kind of a metric for this, every wealth creation strategy is a little bit different. Like, have you ever had a really successful mentor or somebody that has done some amazing things in their life and they give you really great advice? You're like, that sounds awesome, I'm going to go do that. And you try to implement that advice yourself. It doesn't work for you because you don't have the same strengths or connections that that person does. And like, how do we hack that problem? Additionally. So, like the personalization aspect, the human to human aspect is you really need to be there to get the story.

Yeah.

It doesn't quite translate through a computer screen or your phone. So these are like the problems that I see that you're a platform, it's connected us. We're here now and I can see you and hear you and interact with you and the Internet strong. And I'm so grateful. I mean, this is a beautiful, amazing world that we live in. It blows in my mind. It's only gonna get better. But like, is the next step VR or is the next step some new augmented reality? Or, you know, that we can now interact with each other in a way that our brains can have the same warm fuzzies, that vibrational quality, the same reason I don't use dating apps, because you can't get the vibes through pictures. Right. That, that we have as humans when we're, you know, actually physically in each.

Other'S presence or is the next step that that enables us to meet, to like meet other humans in a different way. Right. So that's the part that I think is powerful and where I see potentially technology being a really important component of our work in the future is can we create something that can be distributed via technology, but that requires a bringing together of people in person after that. So I don't know. That's something I've been thinking about.

Yeah. Like get it, get you up to speed for the ultimate meetup. Like, we did that in China. I wanted to learn about Amazon. I go to a guy who's been doing really well on it. I'm, I want to hire you to be my mentor. And Amazon, he said, sure, it's this much money. I'm like, or there's so many people that want to, you know, you know, and I have no problem investing in mentorship. But I'm like thinking like, how can we make this serve me at my strengths? Which is like, I don't ask all the smartest questions ever. You know, like, I'm not the only smart guy in the room. How do you get a lot of smart people in the room and make it really fun and then defray the cost of actually going to China and learning about all this? So in two weeks I raised 35 grand and we went to China and had our whole trip paid for and we had a really fun time. And 52 people got to be a part of that experience where we had the training happening before they hit the ground. So, you know, when you go to China, it's an ordeal, right? Your whole body gets screwed up. So when you get there, you're 100% trained and you know exactly what to do. And then we just kind of, you know, personalize it a little bit while you're there. But all the hard work's been done. So maybe it's like a hybrid model between the online course model. Get caught up, get up to speed and you come to the meeting of the minds. Amazon's actually really good at this. When they have meetings, they have a brief and it's six pages long and everybody has to read the brief. So the first 10 or 20 minutes of the meeting is literally just everybody reading the brief and then everybody's on the same page and therefore the meeting can begin.

Fascinating. Yeah, it's interesting. I feel like we've come. So the model that we use comes from community organizing. And in so many ways we've moved very far away from that and how we've had to adapt it. Right. So community organizing is meant to empower communities to make national scale change. And we've really sort of our idea of sort of shrink the change is take that same framework and give it to individuals so that they can make community level change. But in essence, a lot of it's really the same. And I think some of my friends in the political organizing world are some of the best that exist in that sort of online to offline transition. But it's a whole different world when you're thinking about occasional access to Internet and feature phones and like definitely in the next 10, 15 years we're not going to have that barrier in most parts of East Africa, but right now it still exists. And so it's a, it's a really interesting how do you both deal with the current reality but also plan for the future and make sure that you're capitalizing on that change when it does happen.

There's the business you're in and the business you need to be in. When I see, you know, a lot of organizations, Richard Branson is doing it, Facebook's doing it, Google's Doing it that are trying to blanket the world in Internet, and that's gonna happen. And I'm almost, like, a little sad because there's still parts of the world that exist today where this thing doesn't work. And I'm super happy when it doesn't sometimes, because the amount of incoming now is exponential.

Yeah.

And the amount of real human connection. I just watched Lady Gaga's documentary five Foot two, and there's a part in it where she says, people touch me, want to be around me all day, and then at night, I go home and cry, and I'm like, if Lady Gaga's lonely, what the hell is happening? Right. Like somebody who's so beloved by so many millions of people, she tweets an 18 million people read it or whatever. It's like, how do we get this wrong? How is social media so asocial or antisocial?

Yeah, yeah.

What are the hybrid models that allow this to exist and be.

You know, I don't know.

I'm rambling now. Please go ahead.

You know, I think that's. That's one of the things that's so interesting, and this is somewhat of a digression as well, but, you know, we'll just roll with it. You know, I grew up and there were definitely mean girls, but, like, at least they couldn't tweet at me, you know? And I. I went to a women's college, and I was, like, sort of terrified because I was scared of groups of girls. I was, like, mortally terrified of groups of girls and then went to this women's college and, like, realized that there is a different model in which rather than picking at each other, women pick each other up. And what a different and refreshing perspective. And I think that's something that, you know, we've really seen in our workshops, is that outside of the content, just being in a room of other people who are supporting you, I mean, being believed in is one of the most powerful feelings in the world. And so if we can create environments where people feel that way, you know, sometimes you can't believe in yourself until you know that someone else believes in you.

I love that Being believed in is one of those powerful feelings, and it kind of is the opposite of your human fears. Right. It's like our fear is that we will not be enough or we won't be loved or we won't belong, like, all these little pieces. But when somebody believes in you and your potential, they see more than what you are. That can open up your whole life. I mean, who hasn't had somebody in their life that saw more in them than they saw in themselves.

Mm.

And we see so many stories that changes people's lives.

It's also terrifying. Right. Like, I think as an entrepreneur, one of the. One of the things that people say that I feel most uncomfortable with is, like, well, I'm investing in you. You know, I'm like, oh, man, that's a lot of pressure.

If you're gonna invest in my company, which is over here, it's gotta be in me.

But this idea is really good. Have you seen our results? And it's both terrifying and motivating. You know, on the one hand, it's like, what? I've got my healthy dose of imposter syndrome, and I think, like, oh, you've made a mistake. Like, I don't. I don't know anything.

You found me out.

Yeah. And then I also think, like, well, I guess I better live up to it then.

Yeah. And it's eustress versus distress, right? Distress causes cortisol and, oh, my God, everything is death and fear and flight and freeze and all that. But then eustress is this other type of stress, which is, like, that impetus to move forward, right? The positive channel or current or flow that allows you to really grow into the person that ultimately, like, I always look at it like, we have these desires, right? We're inspired, right? And we move towards this thing. And in order to get what we originally desired, we have to, like, go through these challenges and obstacles, become the person to grow into the person that then gets the things we ultimately wanted effortlessly. And then the law of familiarity kicks into place, and it's the whole cycle over again. And that's just growth until, you know, inevitably, we shuffle off this mortal plane, and who knows what's next? But it's really interesting to think that that same thing you just described as being so stressful and, oh, my God, I don't want to push away, is literally the thing that. That might ultimately cause you to succeed versus fail.

There's this leadership quote that I love, which I hope I can get exactly right. But also that you'll forgive me if I. Imposter. It's a word Benefit says being a true leader is as simple as becoming oneself. It is precisely that easy, and it's precisely that difficult.

Yeah. The leader creates more leaders, not more followers. Please, please, and thank you, everybody.

Yeah. The way that we define leadership, that's, like, literally the first thing we do in our. In our workshops, right? We say we're unlocking leadership Potential. And the first thing we do is just like, completely break the definition of leadership that most people in Rwanda especially, that's a super hierarchical society. You know, we say leadership is literally. It is being proactive in the face of a challenge. That is what it means to be a leader. Like, if there is a problem in your life, you solve it. So you walk into a room of women in rural Rwanda and say, you know, how many people in here are leaders? Like, you might get a couple hands. If you walk in and say, how many of you have overcome a challenge? They're like, I've got one for every day of my life. Which one would you like to hear? And then when you reframe that as, like, that's what it means to be a leader, they're like, oh, man, should stand up a little taller.

Two millimeter shift.

Yeah, yeah.

This great quote comes to mind. A speaking coach of mine says, people will respect you for your successes, but they'll love you for your failures. Because not everybody can relate to success, but everybody can relate to failing. And that's the. That's the kind of. That key part of the hero's journey or heroine's journey or, you know, some successful person's journey that we should talk about is how do you speak for leadership? How do you have that impact through your story that allows you to move the masses? And starts with one, right? It starts with the story you tell yourself, and then one to one. Me to you, you to me, and then us to many. Right? So if somebody wants to be a leader, somebody's inspired or, you know, wants to take that impetus, if we're creating some eustress within them to step up and be a leader. Hint, hint, hint, hint, snap my fingers, nlp, whatever, you know, what would they. Where would they start? Like, what are the things they could learn or do to take imperfect action and lots of it.

Yeah, I mean, I think just like, lowering the barrier of, you know, what. What it means, like, taking action is of any kind. And that's, you know, one of the reasons, too, why we've really made this shift from. It doesn't mean necessarily national change. Like, and we're also pushed in the. In the sort of, like, social enterprise, you know, nonprofit social impact world. There's this emphasis on, like, you know, what's your one outcome? You know, what's the one thing that you're improving? And we have a lot of things that we see change, but what we're. We're really stick to when we try to change the conversation around is, well, we want the women that we work with to make the changes that they want to see in their lives and communities because how could we possibly know what's best for them? And for what that looks like in terms of output is for some people that does mean starting a business. And for other people it means having a conversation with their husband and saying, I don't care if she's a girl. I want my youngest child to go to school. And you know, that's. Those changes are equally important as far as I'm concerned. And one of them might have a different type of more countable change. But who knows who that little girl's gonna grow up to be. And she then has a role model of a woman who stands up for herself. So I think really this idea that we're trying to distill everything down to, you know, as the development community, what should we decide is the most important way to reduce poverty? You know, these women know, they know what needs to be done to make their lives be what they want them to be. They just need the courage to do it and the resources to go alongside that. So any action is, you know, any action.

Yeah, it kind of reminds me of two things. It's like man plans, God laughs, or what do we know, right? Honestly, like, what, are we going to go to another country that we have no experience and be like, oh, this is how you should live your lives? That's worked out super well for countries all over the world with the imperial economics that we've practiced. But the other thing to consider is that there is no one right answer. There is no one right outcome. And by getting so hung up on what the outcome should be or must be or could be, we kind of eliminate the possibilities that come from trying to not connect the dots, but just again, taking imperfect action toward a. With an intention versus, you know, it has to be this way. And not being so hung up, it's like this enthusiastic intention without being so hung up on what actually comes out. And what comes out of it may be better than ever we could have imagined. And that's certainly a possibility. And then we can consistently refine it from there. It's not like it's the end of the show.

Yeah. We recently finished a three year strategic planning process and our facilitators had something which I loved, which was planning is everything and plans are nothing.

I like that. And life is what happens when you're making plans. Just ask any parents, right? They're like, well, I had these plans of doing this thing and then you came along, and it was amazing.

My mom will not let me forget that she was going to go to India. Okay, I'm sorry, Mom.

Yeah, exactly. But I think she turned out pretty well. So, you know, lighting a candle and the ripple effects and the domino effects that go on forever. I mean, some people's purpose in life is to have children that go on to do great things and just support and nourish and love those children as much as they possibly can. And I can point to that in my own life. My dad stuck around for an extra 15 years. He wouldn't have lived because I needed to be raised. And very shortly after we got into a fistfight and I had to leave home at 16, he spiraled and killed himself with alcohol. And I think he would have done that a lot sooner if it wasn't for me, you know, he was never a happy go lucky kind of guy all the time. He was a very smart, intelligent, crippled, you know, man who had a lot of problems. And I loved him, and he had both sides of this. You know, he loved people and he loved life, but at the same time, he wasn't equipped to deal with his own demons in a way that was sustainable. So I wonder, like, my purpose, you know, and completely putting my ego aside for a minute is my purpose, or was his purpose just to make sure that I got to a place where I could take care of myself?

Yeah, he was able to put those aside to the extent that you needed him. Yeah.

And I'm grateful because, like, he sent me up with a heck of a life, and I'm grateful for a minute of it. I'm just trying to live the crap out of it now.

Yeah.

And do as much good as I can.

You're also trying to connect other people to the resources and the things that they need to be successful.

That sounds like an acronym. We should make one up. Let's call it Crops. Connect resources, opportunities, people and systems together.

We can make that sound because then we can have some sort of clever image that something, you know, like, looks like a growing seed. Yeah.

We can use that to make more marbles if you got nothing else going on. In case you like alliteration and black and white animals and pina coladas getting caught in the rain. We got all that stuff going on. But it starts with the seeds, Right. It starts with seeking in every encounter to diagnose, create space, serve, support, and solve in that order. Because you can't really get to the heart of the problem until you create space for it.

Absolutely, absolutely.

People need to feel seen and heard before you can solve their problem.

Yep, yep. And people can have all the skills they need, they can have all the resources they need, it can all be right in front of them. But if they don't believe that they're the right person to do it, they won't. He won't.

If only we could convince the world that taking lots of imperfect action was the only way to win. Like if we could just kill the disease of perfectionism and realize that now is perfect at all times and now is perfect perfectionist.

I'm a recovering perfectionist.

Oh for sure. I'm still like a little bit add Luckily I also thrive in non aesthetic environments. Like if you ever take disc or strengths finder, like aesthetics for me are like super not important. So like I can kind of be and live and do whatever I want anywhere. And it doesn't bother me that the world is coming apart around me. Like some people need to have every paperclip in order to make life happen. And I'm like, I'm good, right? I can kind of like thrive anywhere. Ideally I have a good environment, but at the same time, you know, I can kind of make it work. But I'm wondering, like, as a recovering perfectionist, what are some of the things that you used to do that gave you comfort or certainty that you no longer do?

Man. Well, I would say maybe I do to a lesser degree. I wouldn't claim to have completely eliminated it, but this idea of over preparing, I mean, I wasted so much time like going over and back over things that I knew that I knew just to make sure that I knew them. But honestly, I think at some point there's diminishing returns there. Like you're making yourself worse because you're second guessing things.

Well, how about this? Put it, put this on super side. I'm 32 and you're however old you are, I'll never ask, but you've been training for that many years, you've been training your entire life for this moment. This moment you're exactly ready for because you're exactly who you need to be. And just get a people to trust you, get to be able to trust that whatever you have right now is exactly what you need inside of you to make what you need happen at the highest level. If you just believe it, you can access that resource. And the function of humans is so funny. It's like what we believe becomes real. We are literally co creating a reality at all times. So just by believing that you have what you need in any circumstance, it shows up.

Yeah. I mean, yes. And then I also want to be super cognizant of the fact that we're like, especially in the work that we're doing, we're working in areas where there are some amount of creativity and there's some amount which people like, straight up need. Education, loans, food. But you can have all the things and then have them in front of you, but not within reach.

And you're super resourceful, which is something that you have that you need to do that work.

Totally.

And I've come up against a lot of roadblocks in my life. I'm sure you have, too. But as Ryan Holiday would say in his book Obstacles Away, you know what. What is the impediment to action? Advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way. And it's sometimes these little detours you have to take that give you the tools that you need to ultimately achieve the thing. And I'm just grateful that there's people out there in the world that are getting together and connecting the dots and making it work. Right. Because that's. That's what we're here to do, I believe.

Yeah. It's what we're good at too. You know, as social creatures, as social beings is making connections. So our brains do all the time. And sometimes I worry that we don't externalize that quite enough. People are very. They're. They're making the connections inside their heads. They're not always making them outside for fear of what? I'm not totally sure. I mean, maybe it's ego, maybe it's. Maybe it's being afraid you'll get it wrong. But you know what? I. Especially if you talk about making good in the world, doing good in the world, I think that there's a lack of people trying to say, hey, what you're doing is cool. Let me help, or let me connect you to someone. Or, you know, and I say this with a fully conscious that I started an organization, but sometimes when people come to me and they ask me for advice, like, hey, I'm thinking of starting something, what do you think? I say, like, are you sure it doesn't exist? And is there a way that you, you know, if you're starting something just for the sake of starting something and not because there's a problem in the world that you must solve and there's no one else doing it, like, we're diverting resources and human, like smart humans who care is the most important resource. So I think that we've just been sort of become like obsessed a little bit with this idea of entrepreneurship in the US but also I see it all over East Africa too. And yes, it's important. Yes, we need to, we need to create jobs, we need to create new solutions, but we also need to find solutions that are working and co create those. And that means also connecting with each other and connecting other people to good ideas. And, you know, I really appreciate that when I see that my. A friend of mine, George Shorer, who was on your podcast recently.

George is a great interview. Yeah.

So he did the podcast and he said, you know, I think like, here's two people that I think would be, would be interested in and good at this, you know, and he didn't have to do that, but he's just the type of person who like, he wants to connect and equip people with resources. And I feel like that's something that I try to do. And when I see, I mean, his ability to do it is phenomenal and it inspires me to do it more. So I just, I like appreciate that in people.

What a brilliant data scientist George is. I can't get over how on point he was with his numbers. I was like, I'm just gonna pick your brain for an hour. This is amazing because I'm not a numbers guy and even though I ran a hedge fund is all my team, I promise. But yeah, I do agree with that. And that's really near and dear to my heart. And that's the whole kind of core of my message. Like, how do we get together to make more for everyone because we can only have so much. We focus on ourselves. And, and it kind of points to your old, your other ideas, like the idea piece. Like so many people are hung up on. I got to start the thing because it's really their ego, right? That's saying I need to be the head of this, the faces. But if you've ever actually created something, it's like pushing a boulder up a hill for many years. And sometimes people help and sometimes people don't. And sometimes you're the only person to get it and you can't even articulate in a way that makes sense. It took me four years to get the Make More Marvel's message to a point where I could turn it into a video that people like, get it, you know, or they just, they watch the video and it's over and I don't have to explain it anymore so long to get to that point. And if I had an impact storyteller like yourself, you know, that. That really understood the hero's journey and the way to really connect it to the things that already people care about. I would have been so much further along. So just looking back and just not knowing how hard it was going to be, I think it's really easy to say I'm gonna start something as opposed to just getting in the flow that somebody else has already created and scaling the solution that is already working to more people. Right. All the ideas. The future is already here, guys. It's just not evenly distributed. Let's distribute it.

Mm. Mm. Absolutely. Yeah. I'm. I'm like always very, very inspired. So actually a great example of this is I was recently in this. This really fantastic program called the gsbi, the Global Social Benefit Institute through the Military Miller center in Santa Clara. And in the same Cohort, there was 16 companies in it. And two of them were called Hippocampus because one of them was in India. And then this other friend in Mexico saw their model and came to them and said, we like what you're doing with early childhood education. We want to do it in Mexico. Now they're doing it in Mexico, you know, and it was just such a cool. Like, they didn't need to try to create their own thing. They're like, no, what you're doing is work. We've surveyed the landscape. We think this is going to work. Like, franchise it to us.

Done.

Yeah.

And the best part is you pay a very small amount of money as a back end royalty and you get all of the stuff worked out. Because the most waste comes from trying to figure it out on your own.

Yeah. And that's what we're trying to do with our model is like, we've done all of the slog. Well, you know, there's probably some slog left to go, but we've done a lot of slog in the last four years to figure out how exactly.

Imposter. No, I'm kidding. We don't have everything figured out forever.

Hear a voice in my head every time I break your pattern a little bit, how do we get it to more people? Right. Like, absolutely. And if that means white labeling, fine. That's fine. You know, if that means we just want to get it to more people.

Yeah. And it works. And then the impact, you know, the domino and ripple effects go on forever. It's a beautiful system. It's a beautiful way to think about the world. It's like, what if we could just spend the rest of our lives doing what works and not wasting time and energy and attention and money and all these resources that we have, some of which are renewable and some of which just aren't.

Okay, but hold on though, because then that sounds like you're recovering perfectionist, though we also need to be okay with doing that.

Well, yeah. What the different the definition of a waste is too, I guess, is the really the key question there. Like, is it wasted time if you enjoyed it? Of course not. Right, sure. That's what we're here to do, is enjoy time. And I think more and more and more we've been turned into little productivity machines and everything needs to be on all the time and there's magic in the mess. Right? So I totally get that piece. But at the same time, it's like when we are working towards something, how do we get there further, faster without missing the key lessons along the way that actually allow us to grow? So efficiency for efficiency's sake maybe is an end result of suffering and misery, but then again, sometimes you want to live also in addition to your mission or your work, whatever that means to you.

Yeah, no, I think that's. Yeah, I think, I think being able to do everything you do with peace of mind is. I mean, it's a goal, right? I definitely, I think that's. That's aspirational. There is that. There is that little bug inside of us that makes us want to do more and want to do better. But I actually think that that's one of the really important reasons that rituals exist in human cultures all over the world in totally different forms. But the act of reflecting on our lives and what we've done and what we've accomplished and we often don't. I mean, I know this about myself is that as soon as I achieve something, I move the goalposts. So, you know, I'm. I did the strengths finder thing. My number one thing is activator. My whole team. Yeah, of course you are. Like, I want everything done yesterday. You know, just like, let's go.

My first one is relator. Self assured is on there somewhere too. I'm so modest. I'm just so modest.

But I mean it's a like this idea of just like constant efficiency. But then also, you know, I actually, I completely lost my train of thought. I don't even know where I'm going with that.

Oh, that happens. Yeah. So that's, that's because you're an imposter. No, I'm just kidding. I have, I have this like really like, you know, fourth wall breaking pattern Breaking podcasting style that kind of throws people for a loop sometimes. So you want to be the first or the last. I'm getting better, but I'm still not there yet.

But I'm in a, in an illustrious line of thought train losers Brad Hart.

Confusing people since 1985. Okay, so let's switch gears just for a second. Let's talk about what it is your mission is now, how people can connect with that mission and then ultimately how we can connect you to the resources, opportunities, people and systems that can help you move your mission forward faster. Because you're on the Make More Marvel show. So we got to help you out.

Yeah, absolutely. So we're at like a super fun and interesting time right now, as I said. Right. So our mission is to empower women and girls to unlock leadership potential. We do that through delivering leadership training and partnering with groups that are doing complementary skill building and education programs. So we're really collaborative in that respect. So, you know, looking for organizations that do have a really good, strong skill building, vocational entrepreneurship, financial program that could use a leadership component in order order to increase the skill adoption of their of their programs. So we found our programs really have a dual impact. They, you know, through the partners we work with, make the women and girls that they serve more able to adopt the entrepreneurship skills, vocational skills, education so that they can turn opportunity into action. But as a result, we're also making our clients or these other NGOs more effective. And we've gotten to a point where we've, we've, you know, done some research on it. We've seen, you know, our three day training leads to 43% increase in income, 30% increase in self efficacy, 25% increase in women taking on leadership roles. And now we need to figure out a way to make this get it to more people, but without compromising the quality for scale. So we're super interested right now. You know, we have a couple of different areas that we're looking. First of all, we want to hire really smart people. So we have two open positions right now. But we also, you know, need people who can be mentors and advisors and board members and people who have experience with the, you know, taking a service delivery and scaling that. And then, you know, we are a nonprofit social enterprise. So if people want to help us bring this monetarily to the next level, that's also something that's always super important. But ultimately we found that people who are invested in understand this idea that it's not just access to services and skills that's stopping women and girls from reaching their full potential. But there is this core confidence, leadership, belief in themselves. People who really buy that those are the people that we want to be connecting with. And usually because of our collaborative approach, we can find a way to integrate them. So we are starting to recruit US Based ambassadors. So if you're someone who's in the US and you love this mission and you're not going to go move to Rwanda, that's totally fine. So how can we galvanize networks of support within the US and how do we also, you know, make. Make communities exist here as well?

Yeah, and I mean, I know a lot of people would love to move to Rwanda, but I think, you know, San Diego is pretty nice too. It's gonna just gonna go with it. The Hotel California versus Hotel Rwanda maybe. That's a horrible joke. I'm sorry, we're gonna edit that out. But wow. Anyway, sometimes I just say things I don't actually think them through, but yeah, so, okay, so if people want to get involved, they can obviously donate, right? They can help you out with your mission. They can become ambassadors here in the US and spread the message. I have somebody perfect for that I'm going to connect you with. And then additionally, if there are curriculums that just need a leadership component, then you can plug right in, which is pretty cool, right? Okay, great. And then how do people get in touch with you?

Yeah, so I'm very accessible on the Internet, so I'd be happy to have people. Our website resonateg. It has a sign up if you want to get our newsletter. We send a newsletter. You can follow us on social media, on Twitter, on Facebook, we'reworkshops on Twitter. And my personal email is ayla a y l a resonate workshops.org and the secret is that if you send the infoesonateworkshops.org I'll also see it.

Awesome. Ayla, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for being on the show today and sharing your mission and sharing your gifts with the people and just being a super fun guest. I mean, you've been awesome and I'm so grateful to George for connecting us. And I want to connect you to some people. I'm thinking Mitch Russo is one. My friend Katie Ward, who's an impact storyteller here in the States, she could possibly get involved with this mission. And then also Jenny Mandy over Greatness Foundation. I think that would be radio. And you already know Bijia. Tell her I say hi next time I talk to her. And yeah, all my best. Everything you guys got going on. I'm just gonna keep talking about how great you are to everybody and see what comes of it.

Thank you so much. I appreciate it. And also thanks for your patience with me.

Oh, my pleasure. Yeah. On behalf of everybody at Make More Marvels, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being here, for being so wonderful, so gracious, and giving us a little bit more insight into what you do and how it affects the world and just your. Your positive vibes and energy. I mean, that's really what the world needs more of, is less doom and gloom and. And more of what you're doing. And I appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

Thanks so much for listening to the Make More Marbles podcast. For more tips, hacks and strategies to create an amazing, abundant life in your health, wealth, and relationships, whatever that means to you, head on over to makemoremarbles.com, check out our cool explainer video about what we're about, and join our community of entrepreneurial game changers. We want to help you level up your life in every possible way. And don't forget to subscribe to us on itunes, Stitcher or Google Play wherever you're listening your podcasts. And please do leave a review. Thank you so much and we'll see you on the next podcast.