A Conversation with Erika Sinner | S03E09

Welcome to season three of the Leadership is Feminine podcast. I'm Chris Plackey and I'm so happy that you're here. In this season, we're doing something different. One of the things that I believe to be true is that there is so much unsourced, beautiful wisdom in the everyday person. I really like to talk about what I call obscure wisdom. That means these are things that people know that unless we meet them at a cocktail party or at a barbecue or sitting next to them, you know, on a train, we don't hear about it. And these aren't celebrities. These aren't people who've written, you know, best selling books yet. These aren't people that are on the circuit that everybody else is learning from. These are everyday women who are CEOs, building, dealing with, working through all the pieces and parts of running a company. And I want to bring my beautiful clients and their wisdom to your ears because I know that you'll find it to be validating and insightful and hopefully also some fun. So, without further ado, let's get started with this week's amazing personal client and guest on Leadership is Feminine. Welcome. Welcome everyone. I'm so glad that you're here for this episode of the podcast. I'm super excited to have my client, Erica Sinner here to talk to us today about her beautiful business and her beautifulness. Erica and I have worked together for a while, a couple years. I don't know.

Yeah.

Wild.

Yeah.

I just love Erica. So, Erica, for the listeners, who are you love, what do you do and what's your magical business?

Yeah, so I am the CEO of Directory. We join small to mid sized pharmaceutical companies and help them commercialize the business so that their medications can get to patients who need it most. I live in St. Louis, so I'm in the middle of the country. But having this company and being able to help, you know, companies across the nation, it's just been really awesome.

Oh my gosh. It's such a wonderful business and I love your story. So can you tell us a little bit about how this even became a thing that you do?

Yeah. So I grew up in farmer marketing. I have done since I was like 21. I worked my way up four years ago.

Is that.

I wish.

I wish. But I started at the lowest level. Like I think I didn't even have a title, it was like associate or something. And for 11 years I worked all the way up, you know, coordinator, marketing manager, product manager, senior director. And by the time I was on my last company Project, the company decided they didn't want to be in St. Louis. St. Louis is not the Mecca of pharmaceutical. It's usually east coast or west Coast. So they wanted me to move. And I think that's when I took the chance to say like that on myself. And I let them know, hey, I would love to live in St. Louis, so you can let me go. And then I could start the next Monday as a consultant. And so I did that for a couple of years, consulting, which opened the door to, you know, do other projects as well. And then I realized, like, one person can't do business development plus the project, plus have three launches going on at the same time. And the idea of directory was born. It's a hard industry to break into. A lot of the times they say you have to have five years of experience to come into the marketing department. And then at the same time they're like, but nobody will hire you to give you the experience. You're in this crazy circle. So directory has been really great because we have top talent, but also we have Directory University to allow really smart people with really good DNA join and be able to be in the healthcare industry too. So it's been pretty awesome.

That's awesome. Directory University.

Yes.

Have the foresight to do that.

I feel like a lot of the skills. This isn't like we're surgeons in an OR where a surgeon is going to say, hey, can you hold this patient's heart? And if you mess it up, there's real consequences to that. I feel like our role. Nothing's rocket science. You can teach the skills, you can't teach DNA, you can't teach passion, you can't teach grit. And so I really felt like if you could figure out a way to create some sort of training for an industry that doesn't offer this type of training and have the right people come into the, into the organization that they could soar and do really well. And I think that the industry needs that. I just came up with DIRECTOR UNIVERSITY OF well, we'll just take the things that we do and we'll figure out our templates and ours. You know, it was locking yourself into a room for a few days and like writing everything out. And it's still evolving. Always, every day we learn something new. But it's been really cool. Yeah, I think that, you know, I.

Think that's something that you. Well, it speaks to your entrepreneurial spirit, I think, first of all. But I do think that there's these ideas that we have that we sort of take for granted. Like, well, of course I should do that, but. Right. Like, obviously not since so many other people haven't. And that's the, you know, that's what's so fun about. For me. Working with you and other women like you is just this ingenuity and thinking about how to solve problems ahead of time. So I don't know, it's super cool. And you just celebrated something really cool in your business.

We did. Yes. We just got our trademark approval. So I officially own the trademark of directory. And it's. I am like, ecstatic. I just framed it.

You just framed it. Yay.

Yeah.

No, that is no joke. That process.

Oh, yeah. That took over a year. Yeah. Yeah. But when you get the official letter from the United States of America with like the patent seal, it's pretty awesome.

It's pretty good. Mine.

Yeah.

And where did the name come from? I don't think I've ever asked.

Yeah. So directory is this idea that we come in as commercial experts. So it's the idea that it's director level thinking on any commercial discipline. So whether it's your marketing coordinator or product manager or director, it's the best one you've ever seen because you've had a director teach them and really elevate their role. And so then IE means in other words, so director level thinking on any commercial project. In other words, we'll manage your speakers bureau, your education, your training for your sales team, your policies, procedures, you name it, we're ready to get started.

That's amazing.

Yeah. And then the other great thing too is we elect to tell our clients if there's something that we don't do. We can serve as a real directory because right now we have a front row seat to how multiple companies are launching their brands in real time. And we get to meet ad agencies, market research firms, print houses. We can always pass along and serve as a real directory for them if they need one.

A directory with a Y instead of ie.

Yeah. Yes. But I own the ie. I love to say that I own the ie.

I have to put anything in my marketing. We have to put a little tm.

Yeah. Yeah.

What we do, I don't know how to do that, so. But we'll figure that out.

Okay, so let me ask you some questions. Now, you've been doing this for a while. This work with us anyway, and how to CEO. And I think you've been an incredible client and student, really, Erica. Right. Like you've really shown up for all of it and really applied a lot. I'M kind of curious how you think about or believe in or credit like magic.

I think magic is. I see it in a couple of ways. I think, you know, every time an employee blows their own mind, I think is magical. I think when they have those, like, light bulb moments and you get to witness them, it's a really cool thing to see their growth from, like, day one, especially if they don't have any. Any experience. And now they have. We're celebrating all of their wins. I also think, you know, it's magic to watch my leadership team be so aligned with, you know, my core values and how I want my employees to be treated and how I want them to feel and how I want them, you know, to know that we care about them as a team. And, you know, that's a lot of. I think some listening might say, well, gosh, you know, wouldn't you want. Isn't that a given? I think it probably is. And I think you always see these, like, leadership books and posters that say, like, if you take care of your employees, they'll take care of you, you know, meaning they're going to take care of your clients. But I don't know that everybody really does that. And I think it's because it takes a lot of, you know, listening, paying attention, showing up, priorities. Yes, yes. So I would say those are the magical things. I think it comes back to the people and just watching them succeed. I love that.

What do you think? I didn't, I didn't share that. I was going to ask you this question, so work with me on it. But I think it'll be easy for you to answer. What do you think learned by that through that? 11 years of working in a corporate culture. Right. A larger corporate culture that now you have either applied in your environment or you were like, we're not doing this in your environment.

Yeah, I, you know, when I started Directory, one of the very first workshops that I ran with the two leadership team members that we had was sitting down and saying, like, gosh, like, what were all the things that we hated about our corporate life? How do we navigate against that? And whether it's, know, the simplest of things around. I hate the way we have to submit our expense report and like the 27 required fields that have to be in, you know, putting it through. And you just need to be able to focus on work and focus on the fact that you're tired, you've been traveling, and you've been doing all of these things, and now your expense report is hard. So something is easy as that. To make sure that we have the right employee experience for what they're doing so they can focus on the work, I think was one part of it. But then the other part is the culture and also the training. There's not enough management training. There's not a handbook that comes with that. And that's a hard thing because you also see that out in the world where employees quit because of who their boss is, and you just have to hope you get the right boss. And so we set up standards, and I think I learned that through your group, too, around, how do you set up your core values? How do you coach against them? So we set up standards of these are the things that managers have to care about in terms of their employee. Right. And that they're their advocate for the employee and their career, and they're the ones who lead them down this path. And it just matters. It matters to say it doesn't matter if you are delivering on all your client work or all your numbers are in or all your sales team things are in. If you suck at employees, internal culture, like, you're out of here. Yeah. Because I think. True. Right. Like the best way to demotivate your star employee is to let your other employees who have a really crappy attitude continue to do, you know, have your.

Yeah. So true. And I think, you know, one of the things that you've done since we've worked together is you've invested not just in your own growth, but in the growth of your leadership team. Right. And I, you know, I think that there's a belief that a lot of people have who run companies that you don't need to do that until you're like a big company. Right. Where you're multi, multi, multi, multi, millions. And you've really had that line of sight all along, which I think speaks to the culture that you're building. And I just want to sort of compliment you on that and also echo it for other people listening that it's never too early to be thinking about the things that Erica's talking about, because it becomes foundational. And whatever you tolerate when you've got four employees becomes much more potent and difficult to deal with when you have 15, if you haven't come up with solutions or you haven't sort of removed it from your culture to begin with. So, you know, I do think something to be said for those of us who've worked in bigger companies, we have that where, you know, Right. Like, there's women who are in our program who haven't ever worked in a big company. So they don't see the longer tail of tolerating two or three kind of sub poorness of team members and their behavior or their results. They don't see that. They don't have the perspective that maybe we've had by having to do.

Yeah, 100% a million times like agree with you. I think if you haven't seen it before because you haven't been in the corporate world, everything you just said and then in addition it happened in the corporate world you needed even more because you have to break the habit of those that are coming into your organization. And I think you really do have to set up. Who are you going to be, what is your company going to be about, what is your culture going to be? And the sooner you can get those around you, rallied around that or aligned with you, then everything you build on top of that is in alignment versus having to undo down the road.

Yeah, so, so good. That's, you know, that's, that's that CEOing. I don't know if you were on this call, but Ann Barnes was one of our guest experts, I don't know, five, six months ago. And she talked about, right. Like the one job that she has as the CEO is the team. And you know, here's a woman who's running a billion dollar business and that's right. We talk about weeds and talk about distractions and talk about things that could really interfere. And she's very, very clear, which is why she runs very, very well run businesses because she does focus on the team. So it's a sophistication in the way that you think about it that I think is really powerful and hard to stick to sometimes.

Yes.

Which kind of leads me to another question.

Yes.

What do you wish you knew when you first started that, you know.

Now I wish I had found your course when I first started directory versus, you know, years in because I think, you know, you always hear from people who have their businesses and they're starting them from the beginning and scaling is always the hardest thing to do. In general, scaling is hard. But I think when you're pushing to scale and you're pushing to do all of the things that you know are the right things to do. I think what I wish I would have known is how to trust myself more and how to know that I do know at least you know, the next step to take even if I don't know the whole picture that I know at least the next action to take. And I think that that is having that mindset shift around. Like I know what to do or at least I know how to move it forward. I think we would have. We would be way much more further along than where we are today. We've done incredible work. I would say we're in a really great place. But I wish I would have known that from the very beginning. And I know that's a little bit of validation that I get from your calls and hearing other women CEOs and how they lead their companies. But it's not a given. It's not inherently something that you do.

Right?

Yeah.

The argument I've had this long standing belief that a lot of people when they start a business, they're so concerned with generating revenue. And of course, I mean it's hard to know what the chicken and the egg. Right. But there's so much emphasis on client acquisition, revenue, marketing, really figuring out how to build traffic and create relationships to generate those. Those. The revenue. And yet there's very little attention given to once that revenue comes in. And you have to bring people in to support with the delivery. Right. There's just not a lot of attention to that. And I was just talking to another client on a different interview that we were talking about. A lot of masterminds and a lot of business sort of groups that you can be a part of tend to focus a lot on the financial part of the business, the marketing part of the business, sales part of the business. And then team is like this little thing over here. And she said that fosters for a lot of, especially women a lot of shame because not talked about. It's like assumed that you should just know what to do. Right. With this person for 5 years and is a train wreck and isn't doing their job anymore and you don't know what to do. Right. That's just assumed. And that isn't assumed. It shouldn't.

Yeah, it shouldn't be. I agree with you. I think how to manage your team and how those that start with you and as you grow and things evolve and how your own role as your founder CEO changes as you get bigger. That's been a hard transition too. And I appreciate all of the work that we've done in terms of like how to do that, how to have those conversations. Because it has been hard. It's hard. Then new team members coming in when you've already started to elevate yourself and you're coming out of that client lead role, they see you the way you've wanted to be seen. But to Kind of get everyone else to go along the path with you is not always the easiest thing to do. And I would also say, you know, one of the things that to get into your program, you have, you know, your. All your CEOs come in, and you have to have your vision, you have to have your core values. You have to have real processes set up before you start. And I think maybe some might think, gosh, well, this is what I need help doing. And you learn how to do that in program. But the value of that, like, the value of you're always focused on the revenue and your clients and things, but building your company internally is equally, if not more important to focus on.

Yeah, it's really, really good. It's very sound, and I appreciate you echoing it because it's a. It's, you know, it often falls under the COVID of soft Guild.

Right.

Which are hard.

They're the hardest ones.

They are, yeah.

So I'm kind of curious how your role, right, as the CEO of this business, how has your role evolved and where are you now compared to where you were? Like, what are some of those milestones maybe you've achieved for yourself in the role?

Yeah, I think, you know, when I first started, I was the lead marketer. I was the lead person on the different brand teams that we were on. I had my team with me, and I brought them along with me. Here's almost in shadowing, right? They were professionals being professional marketers, but working for corporate versus being on what we're doing. So I think it was me really leading them and showing them. Here's how I've been doing this, and I've been successful over the last few years to consult in this way. And where I'm kind of where we are now is, you know, coming off of that client lead role and having teams that are built underneath you and really taking a step back and being fresh enough to be able to think about, like, what's the future? What other parts of the organization can we offer? What other problems can we solve? What other divisions can we create within directories that will make a difference to our clients, to each other? But that's not been an easy thing to do. I think even today, I still struggle where I default back to wanting to swoop in and help help them. I also struggle with, you know, if I will. My employees think, well, gosh, you know, if I'm not out working them or out traveling them, you know, or. There's always that voice inside of your head that makes you wonder and question yourself.

You feel guilty.

Like, yeah, are they gonna respect me, right. If I'm not outperforming them? You know, and you weave as founders and CEOs forget. You know, we have from the beginning been traveling more, working harder. You know, it's been blood, sweat and tears to get here in the first place. But I think the most important thing is like the fact I even just said that to you is like, we don't need to justify. We can put back on the team and say, you know, please take it from here versus us solving. And then that provides them an opportunity to learn and have new ideas and put their own spin on it. And then it lets you kind of keep yourself fresh so that you're not, you know, overextending yourself.

It's about what is the value you bring to the business. Right. And of course, when you're boosting strapping, it is selling, it's marketing, it's building client relationships. Right. For most of us, that's part of. Right. And if you're an online business, it's copy, it's content. You know, everybody kind of falls in a different place, but it's always sort of the same. But your value and contribution to the business now is very different, as it should be. Right. Because what, what people now are paying for is the strategy that comes out of your brain that you can invite others to co create with you. And that's what I've been thinking a lot about. When it comes to team and employees and all these words that we use, I really think that we're in a revolution when it comes to.

Employer relationship. And I think a lot of what we've done for years has been very based on.

A parental model. Right. You go. And I have so much I could say, but my point being I like to think of people I work with as co creators, not people who work for me. And that allows for more ownership on their part. Right. It's an evolution of the growth of the company. So I like to hear you say that because that your value will only continue because you have so much ingenuity, so much idea making that comes out of there that we can't have you ground floor. It's not serving the business.

Yeah, a hundred percent. Yes. I mean, I think even we set up our processes and our ways that we do things. And I think taking the time to really outline those in a way that makes sense and that, you know, conveys everything that you want to see in your business is taking the time to do that is so important. But then Allowing for the space for your team, you know, you ask them, do it my way the first time. Learn it, experience it, and then tell me all the things that you would change. How would you make it better? What else could we be doing? The ownership part, the pride part. But also, like, you should always be hiring people that are smarter than you. Like, that's my. If I'm in a room and I feel like I'm the smartest person in the room, I'm really scared. Like, that's not where I want to be. You know, I want us all to be contributing, and I want to have superstars on the team, and they're there for their brain, too, and they will have better ideas than you have sometimes, you know, So I think that's awesome.

Yeah. And a lot of times.

Sometimes a lot of times.

A lot of times. A lot of times that's a way better idea. Yeah. Let's do what you said. I like that better. I don't want to listen to my brain, I think, more clearly, really.

But it took a lot. It took a lot to do that, though, for myself. Like, I would say over the last few years, being in your course has been one thing that's really changed the game for me in being able to do that. And I also set up, like, little tests for myself where, you know, I maybe went and got my nails done, like, in the middle of the day so that my hands are occupied. I can't be on the phone just to prove, like, nothing happened. They were fine, nothing burned down.

I love it. I think that's funny. We have a client that we challenge because she's a really pretty car and she lives in a small town, and she. She won't park the car in front of the nail salon during the day because she doesn't want anybody to see. And I'm like, so we last Hawaii trip, we completely challenged her to park that thing right in front of the nail salon. It's 1:15 on a Tuesday, you know, just.

Yes. Just because, like, just because you can and because you trust your team to do their part, and they trust you as their leader. And again, this idea of not having to justify things, but also, like, for me, it's proving to myself, like, I don't always have to be so quick to respond and text or jump in on black or see that email that comes through, they actually will figure it out.

Somebody actually just said to build on that. Somebody just said that on one of our calls. She said, I'm intentionally waiting 24 hours to reply to anything, because usually someone else will then handle it and I don't have to. And it's teaching. It's creating the discipline for myself and also teaching people. Like, not everything you need me to answer is really necessary. Like.

Right. Sometimes we become so much of a crutch.

Yeah. That is what we become. We do become a crutch. And I think you create inadvertently a lazier thinking culture because they're like, oh, well, they'll just tell me what to do and I'll go after it. And it's not so much that they're not working hard doing all those things, but the thinking part of it, you're kind of taking that away from your team when you do that.

Wow. Are you creating a lazy thinking culture.

By thinking that you're helping?

By thinking that you're helping?

Yeah.

I think that could apply to a lot of places in our lives.

Oh, 100%.

No. I'll take care of it.

I'll have it.

Yeah. Just one question can be enough to say, well, what do you think we should do? Right. Like, that's just.

And that's enough sometimes to help people know. Like, wait, maybe I do have an answer. They just want to make sure they're not wrong. Yeah. Yeah. And they want you to take the blame if it doesn't work.

You said Erica. So. So I'm kind of curious because you and I have worked together, so you did have a CEO. You did.

We.

It was called the Founders Lab when you were doing it. But you continue to be in the lab, and I'm kind of curious why that's.

Wow. You know, I don't think I was.

Going to ask you that question either. I'm just no fun, am I?

I go off screen.

Good question. You know, honestly, like, I think it. Your class, you know, your class taught, you know, structure. It was knowing you're not alone. It was the processes, it was how to coach, all of those things. But the lab, I think, is just a place where you have created space for women who are going through the same thing together. To feel validated, to feel heard, to feel seen, to really know we're not alone. It does feel. It's hard. Right. You can talk to your spouse, your significant other, whoever, your friends, but they don't really know how you feel.

Right.

You have your leadership team, but of course, you also want to show up for them and be seen as a leader. And, you know, there's certain things you can share with them. But where do you go when you just want somebody who really Understands whether it's negative or positive. I think there are times the lab and shared really exciting news that every woman on the phone is like, congratulations. They're genuinely happy for you, versus, like, wow, you're so lucky you did that thing. And it's like, there is no luck about this. Right. We worked really hard. Yes.

Yes. Amen. Please don't chalk it up to luck. There was a lot of slog in there. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's good. Because I do think, again, like, for women who listen to this podcast, you know, I was just talking with another client about this, Tara, actually, who, you know, from Wednesday, and we were talking about how a lot of women who run businesses have a hard time making connections with other women and having, you know, a lot of girlfriends. Right. Not everybody does, but a lot of women do. And I think it's because a lot of us, we do face different challenges than women who maybe work in a company or women who don't work. And. And everybody has a great purpose. So there's not one that's better than another, but it's unique. And I think a lot of women who run their own companies don't realize that they're not.

Alone. I think a lot of us think, well, this is just my cross to bear. I'm just bad at it. Until you walk into another room and everybody is talking about the same things that you're talking about and whatever that is, for some people, it's figuring out how to market, it's figuring out how to sell, it's figuring out how to pitch. There's places to go for that, too, if you want to get venture capital, and there's places to go where there's other people like you seeking similar.

I think it's also recognizing it's something you talk about and I think you taught me is like, your business really is like this living, breathing thing that, like, observes certain things and that needs to be paid attention to. And when you really shift your mindset to thinking that way, then nothing that you have is one and done. You know, this policy. And now I'm over it, this process, and now I'm over it, or I learned how to coach this person on this thing. Every employee is different. Every client is different. There's new things that happen all of the time. And to have a safe place to come back to when the sleeping breathing thing goes a little crazy, you can come back to. I think it's amazing, and it's safe.

So good. I love that you said that it's safe. That's an absolute goal of mine too. So no judgment. We laugh at each other regularly.

Yeah, yeah. But we also, when one of us is breaking down the other, like putting hearts and saying like, I feel you, like I've been where you are.

Exactly. So you know.

Got it.

You gotta, you gotta laugh at some of this stuff because I don't know what else. Like the. My favorite is laughing at what comes out of him team members mouths or what they did. Like, okay, that happened.

Like that happened out loud and people heard it. And now you have to figure out how you're going to reply. So that's fun. Okay, a couple more questions. So one of the things that I know is true is that there are things about running a company sort of on the heels of what we were just talking about, that it's like once you hit seven figures and once you have this team and you move through this, that it's almost like everybody knows these truths but nobody talks about them. So. Right. It's kind of like I remember when I got pregnant with my first son and I was like, everybody always just made pregnancy sound like this kind of a thing. And then I was like, wait, nobody told me this part. And then you talk to people and they're like, oh yeah, this needs to be in the book also, not just all the other things. So I'm kind of curious what you sort of like if you, you know, when, if you had a chance to like kind of pull people over and say, listen, this is kind of. Is there anything that comes to mind?

I don't know if there's like truth around the business at certain goals. I would say.

With similar advice maybe I would give someone around, you know, starting a business and running it and continuing to run it. I think the most important thing you can do is, you know, find the right people you want to take advice from. Build your own advice. So good.

Yes.

I think everyone wants to give you advice. Everyone. And a lot of it can conflict. And I think that's hard when you're already questioning yourself and what is it that I need to do next? And you have differing opinions coming at you from everyone. I think when you can find the group that you're like, these are the people that I trust. This is where I'm taking my advice. This is where I'm going to come back to. Those people have to be not only ones that you can trust, but also that will give it to you straight. That will tell you when you're being crazy or will tell you like, course you that's probably, like, the most important thing. And I would say the second would be. I read this. It was like. I think like a health person said it. I think one of my peloton instructors said something around, like, you know, this mindset around replacing, I don't have time with. It's not important. Change the game for me. Because when you think about things, about your business, you know, you always feel like we don't have time to create training, we don't have time to hire. I don't have time to go work out. And if you replace that with it's not important to create training, it's not important to worry about my health, it changes. Like, it shifts how you feel about, like, the things that you said. Because when you really think about it that way, I mean, you have to. You have to prioritize the things that are important. Something or something's got to give, you know?

Yeah.

Wow.

That's really, really powerful.

It was for me. It's got a complete skip.

My brain is exploding.

I don't like that. Erica.

Thank you.

That makes me mad.

Me, too. Me too. Like, when I need to work out and I'm like, it's not important to work out.

Like, it's not important to cook healthy meals.

Oh, my God.

I don't have time.

I would think anywhere you would say, I don't have time, or I would also say the other one is it's too hard to.

It's too hard to deal with him. Then it's not important to deal with him, but he's the person who is, like, creating all the drama in your business. Yeah, that's a good one. I like it. Words to the Wise People.

Do a whole journal exercise on that.

Maybe. We'll see. Are you coming to Hawaii in September? Have we talked about this? Yes. Yeah. You're registered. Oh, yeah.

I don't book. Everything is done. I cannot wait, by the way.

Yeah. I was just talking to Tara, and I guess we're lucky we did it when we did because I guess the hotel kind of cranked the rates up.

Wow.

Wow.

Now we got discount.

Yeah.

See, I'm excited.

Why are you coming? Why are you coming to Hawaii?

I need to just disconnect away from, you know, you. You held this retreat virtually in January for three hours, and I learned more about myself in those three hours than I think I've ever, like, sat down and really, like, sat with myself. Sat with my thoughts figured out. Like, what is the thing that lights me up? I think I have a really Bubbly personality, I'm super high energy, I'm always caffeinated. You talk to me about my business and I can tell you all everything, all the things about what we're going to do, the vision, everything. But when you ask, you know, Erica, what makes you happy?

I'm completely like at a loss for words, which is anyone who knows me is like, that's not possible. But it's true. And I think, you know, we're here for a lifetime and I want to make the most of it. And I don't want to wake up, you know, in 10 years and say, gosh, like, I really wish I would have done all of these things. They were important to me and I could have done them in parallel or I could have figured out a way to work them into my business or the things that I'm working on. But I think sitting with yourself and your own thoughts and really getting clear about like, what are your passions and what makes you happy and what lights you up and like, what is the mark you want to leave? I. I want to find that for myself. And in the three hours in January, virtually, I can't imagine what it's going to be like in person for a few days in Hawaii.

Other women love that. I love that you're here in this point of discovery because that tells me a few things, right? That tells me that your business has left this consumption phase of you, right? Like you got through that hustle, all consuming place. It doesn't mean you're not thinking about your business and growing your business and nurturing it. But there are these moments in our lives where we have limited capacity because we just can only make so many decisions in a day. And I also think what's really great and powerful to remember, regardless of wherever that work happens for you, is that the wisdom is always there.

But we often need quiet space, right. Or we need an environment that pulls our vibration up into a space where we can hear in a way that we don't normally. Right. And so back to what you said about choose your advisors wisely. Because my hope for everyone, whether you were to ever work with me or not, is that you would have that kind of experience. Because what Erica had for herself, what you had for yourself is yours, has nothing to do with anybody else. And that's the magic for me to hear about.

Yeah. Yeah.

Beautiful. Yay. Excited.

I'm excited.

Okay. And so one final question.

Yeah.

Too. But like, what. What would you say.

Maybe we could wrap these together, like your biggest, kind of most potent leadership Lesson and any advice, recommendations, things you would say to.

Other women, doing what you do, trust yourself more. And I think I said it earlier, but I would love to just say it again around. You don't have to have everything figured out, but you probably do know what the next thing you have to do is. And I think as long as you're taking action and you're. You won't get stuck, you're going to continue to feel like you're making progress. And sometimes that's the thing that's going to get you through whatever phase of the business that you're in is just knowing that you're taking action. It kind of like propels you forward of continuing to go.

I think that's the first thing I would say. I would say, like, advice for other women is, you know, I read this somewhere else and I should write down when I read things from people to give them the appropriate credit. Someone said, like, how you do one thing is how you do everything. Yeah, right. I.

But I don't. I don't think. Or somebody else said it.

So, yeah, you're mastering your business, you're mastering your craft, you're mastering what you're putting out into the world. But then you have to take that same approach into all of the other areas of what matters to you, what is important to you, and you can't lose sight of it. I just think you have to keep that in perspective in terms of the things that matter to you and knowing what those are and holding on to them and not letting them go by the wayside.

I love that. How do you think you know or have learned how to trust yourself?

I think you talk about this a lot too, and, you know, creating evidence around, like, the things that, the thoughts that you want to have and the thoughts that you're kind of battling with or thinking about. And I think the trusting and being a part of the lab, I think putting out what I think I should do and then getting the validation from peer, your peer set of those who are in the same position that you're in. And yes, that's what I would do or getting their feedback on. Here's what I would do differently for myself. It's just, you know, thank God I found your group. But I also think right before I found it, you know, there was a lot of times I had made decisions or I'd taken a step back and kind of heard the group consensus, and then we moved forward. And then later on you find, oh, I knew that was going to happen. And you don't ever come back to your team and say, like, I told you so, or I knew this was the right thing. But I think you do have that gut feeling of what you know you should be doing. And I think practice it. I think you have to practice listening to yourself. And I've learned to journal. I've learned to be by myself and not to, you know, fill the time with other things and just to really think about what is the issue at hand or what is the decision I need to make. And you do know deep down, you know what you should be doing and to trust that a little more. And the worst that can happen is, is what you have to rework the plan or take other advice or move down a different way, take another path. But I think more times than not, you will find that it was the right decision. And then it continues to create evidence for you of like, yeah, I'm doing good.

Do this. I can trust myself. And I think that, you know, I say to my kids a lot, actually, like, when we talk about what's the next next best step, right. I talk about it as like, what's the next step? Lily pad. We could jump to. Yeah, we're just going to jump and we might stay on that lily pad for a year and it was the best lily pad choice. Or we could be there for like four minutes and then we're going to go to another one. But this belief that you have to. To your point that you said, right, that we have to pick the best next action is and be perfect at it is a lie. And Jody Honeymoor, my good friend, right, she talks about the importance of B minus work and that it's okay to. There is no perfection, but it's much better to ship it than to not ship it at all and learn from, oh, yeah, I didn't do that. Oops. Let's try that differently versus being so afraid of that. But I'm really glad you brought up trusting yourself. That's something that I know I talk to a lot of clients about. I just talked to somebody else about it today that that wisdom is not something you acquire. It is genuinely always in you. It's just that there's a lot of noise. As you are younger and you get older, I think what happens is the noise, you just sort of stop listening. But when you're younger so much, what is it when there's a lot of radio static, there's a lot of static. And so that makes it harder to hear and to trust yourself.

You teach too, Chris. I mean, You, I think the thing you help us realize is, you know, there is already magic happening. You have created something out of nothing, and you've put it into the world and you've created jobs and you've created. You're solving a problem by just having done all of those things there is right. You're on your right path, and any decision that you have to make, you're going to make it with the information that you have available to you in that moment. Hindsight is always 2020, of course, but there is no perfection. And I think you teach me all the time, right? You make the decision, you see what happens, and then you got to let it go. You got to just move forward. You got to just keep going. And if you've got to adjust, if you got to fine tune, no big deal, do those things and then keep moving forward, you know, versus, like holding on to, gosh, I wish I would have done this thing. You made the best decision that you could with the information that you had. Yeah.

I love it.

Yeah.

You're brilliant. You're just lovely. I'm lucky to work with you.

So I love you too.

I get to see you soon.

April.

Yeah, April. I'm so excited for April. Oh, my gosh. I have a whole list. I can't wait for a prep call. I have a whole list.

Okay, good. Is that next week?

I don't know when we're doing. No, I'm in.

I'm in Massachusetts next week. Is it this week? Maybe it's the week after. We'll figure it out. This podcast, people don't care in our colleagues. Doing a VIP day with me. That's what we're talking about. But I'm excited. But I will have just been in Hawaii for two weeks, so I'm going.

To be nice and tan.

Finally, I got to get rid of this camera thing happening. It's been far too long.

Thank you for your time. It's been lovely to have you talking to me and our listeners today. And where can people find anything about you if they want to know more?

First, I want to say thank you for having me. It's been such an honor to be on your podcast. I had been listening to it for years prior to joining your course. I feel like I manifested this moment completely.

Am I on your board?

Yes, you are in a very big way.

Thank you for having me. And I, you know, if anyone's interested in directory, it's director ie.com. it has, you know, who we are, what we're about. I think you'll see all our personality on our website and you can reach out to me there, too. I. You know, I hope this was helpful for anyone.

Yeah, it was lovely. Thank you for all your wisdom and your time. And we'll talk again soon. Thank you. Thank you, Sam.