How Personal Growth Drives Team Success

Foreign hi, I'm Susan Drummond. Welcome to the Enlightened Executive where your personal evolution sparks your leadership evolution. Each episode we feature groundbreaking techniques and strategies to help you get the edge in personal and leadership effectiveness. This episode is brought to you by Meritage Leadership. At Meritage, we strengthen leaders and empower teams to achieve high performance. Go to meritageleadership.com to learn more. Are you curious about your own development path to enlightened leadership? Take our free 5 minute quiz@susandrum.com to discover your superpower and the roadblocks that could get in your way of effective leadership. Today we're looking at social entrepreneurship and I'm delighted to introduce Daniel McCollum. Daniel is the founder and chairman of Torrent Consulting, a salesforce consulting partner with office locations in the US And Guatemala, and also founder and CEO of Torrent Sourcing, an ethical sourcing company focused on helping businesses in the US Access the talent in Guatemala. Raised in Charlotte, North Carolina, Daniel has previously lived in Moscow, Malawi, and now Antigua, Guatemala, and has studied different cultures and businesses in different areas of the world. So welcome, Daniel.

Thank you, Susan. It's great to be here with you.

Well, you have had a very interesting journey living abroad, so perhaps we could start there. And one of the things I'm particularly interested in is the patterns that you discovered you were leading in your life and how some of these moves really shifted them or shook it up and what you discovered on the other side of breaking a pattern. So maybe we can start a little bit about your journey and the different areas of the world that you've lived in.

Yeah, so I think, you know, I graduated with a computer science degree and after doing a two year mission in Moscow, Russia, in my early twenties, I spent the rest of my twenties working in consulting. And I was, I did, I did a stint in corporate consulting, I did nonprofit consulting and, you know, really love consulting. I love the idea of coming in and helping a business or organization from the outside. And so but in 2009, I, my wife and I decided we were going to move overseas to Malawi, Africa, which is a small country in southern part of Africa. It's landlocked. It's one of the poorest countries in the world. And so we both quit our jobs. I was doing consulting. I quit, quit my job. And right as we were going into the Great Recession of 2008, 2009, and my wife was a schoolteacher and she quit as well. And so we went to Malawi and.

You know, I think, wait, why now? So what happened that that has Someone says, I'm going to go move to Malawi, a small landlocked country in the middle of Africa.

Yeah, I, you know, I think my wife had lived in India for a year, working in an orphanage. She took a year off when she was 19. She took a year off college. And so we both had a global mindset, I think. And so we, we said, wouldn't it be awesome if we went somewhere to serve and kind of give back before we start to try to have kids and have a family and get too, too locked down. Right. And so we wanted to just have that experience together. And so we had a lo. We had a connection there, not with somebody we knew. It was a brother of a friend of ours. And so we talked a few times and he said, if you come over, I'll put you to work helping people. And so, yeah, we went over to, you know, we showed up not speaking the language and not really knowing a lot about. We'd never been to that part of the world, but really with a desire to, to help people. So, you know, I think looking back, for me, I'd spent almost 10 years in my career, my 20s and you know, doing, like I said, consulting and in the non profit space, in the corporate space. And I, I think looking back, I was a bit, you know, I was a bit at a crossroads, probably. I tell people I had my midlife crisis at 31. So, you know, I think I was searching for something more and didn't know what it was, but just felt drawn to take that big. I mean, it's a big leap of faith, right, to just pick up. And we packed our part, our condo and rented it out and went for a year.

Wow. And so that's a big pattern, interruption.

Right.

And I love that, that it wasn't. And one of the things we'll be talking about is like, do you have to break a pattern or make a change based on pain or can it come from a different direction? And it sounds like in this instance it was more an awareness of just feeling unfulfilled and want to find a source of fulfillment in your life.

Yeah, I have this pattern, as you mentioned. I'm living in Guatemala now. I've been here seven and a half years. But I do think, as I've reflected on this, there is something internal, I think, that has driven me. Right. I think, and I. Maybe I'll have a chance to get into it a little bit. But I do think this idea, like people ask me, like, well, why'd you move? And I'm like, I don't know, it was like something internal in me. Right. It wasn't a rash decision. It was very thought out. It was wrestling for probably a year or two and for each of these moves. But there's something, there was something deep in me, right. My spirit was like calling me to leave and go to these places. Right. And so that, that was what was happening. And fortunately, I have an amazing wife who also was willing to, to go on the journey and had the same desire. Right. To. To go explore the world and, and, and, and give back in the process. And, you know, we, we talk in our family about the McCullum adventures. Like, I think it's this a bit of an adventure mindset. And so. Yeah, so I think in 2009, we decided to do that. That was. It was this internal desire. Right. And drive and.

Yeah, yeah. And when, when you got there, what was your experience and what did you learn? How did it change you?

Yeah, so I, what I learned, I had wrestled with this idea because I had worked in the nonprofit space and I had worked in, you know, call it corporate consulting. Right. A career kind of the corporate America, like, dream. Right. And so I had wrestled with, like, trying to choose between one, one or the other. One side being, I want to live a life that's impacting people and have. Making a difference in the world. And then the other life was like, I love technology. I'm a consultant. I'm. I'm an entrepreneur, which I probably didn't really even know at the time fully, but, like, now I really know I am an entrepreneur. That is what I breathe. And so, but I wrestle with those two. Like, I felt like I had to choose one path or the other. So when you show up to a country like Malawi with 16 million people and the poverty that I saw, I mean, you, you quickly, you know, as a problem solver, a leader, social entrepreneur, or an entrepreneur, like, you start to ask, like, well, how do you help people? Right? It's like, there's the problem's so big. And so I was fortunate because I was able to plug into some micro financing programs that were going on. And I learned a lot about that. I started reading books about this new concept, social entrepreneurship. I mean, it was in 2009, it was a pretty new word, even in a phrase. And I think Tom Shoes was kind of the first big social business that really became mainstream. And so I, I also connected with a few social entrepreneurs that were living there, building businesses, employing people. They were using their profits to build hospitals and orphanages and they saw their employees as, like their extended, you know, family. And so, I mean, when you're sitting there and seeing that and experiencing that, it just had an immense impact. And, you know, I. I tell people Malawi wasn't life changing for me, but it was life clarifying. It really brought those two ideas of how do I help people with my life and then how do I use my entrepreneurial skills? Hence the word social entrepreneurs. Like, we're trying to solve a social problem using entrepreneurial means, business means. Right. And so, yeah, that was. I tell people I had to go 8,000 miles away from, like, Charlotte, my upbringing, and my world to actually see and live that out for a year. And it was a. It was a hard year. It was challenging. I wrestled a lot right with. And, you know, Malawi is not an easy place to live. It's. It's pretty. It's hard to get to and, you know, it's certainly. It's certainly a difficult place to live. But, you know, I left with a sense of purpose in my Life that at 32, this is what I'm supposed to do with my life. I don't know what, you know, that was the. That's the framework. I don't know what it all looks like. I didn't know at the time. At least, you know, this was 15 years ago. And so coming back to Charlotte, I had, I had no idea what that was going to look like. I just knew in my heart, like, this is how I'm supposed to spend my life. I'm supposed to help people through business, period.

Yeah, well, that. I mean, what a gift that is. Right? And so it required you breaking the traditional path, the pattern that you would normally be in. I'm sure some people thought you were crazy. Like, wow, how are you possibly gonna go and do this? And yet coming out of it, you had a clarity of, this is my purpose in life. Do you know how many times I hear people say, I just don't know what my purpose is or what I'm supposed to be doing? Right? And. And sometimes you've got to dig deep and follow that intuition, that guide for how it's going to reveal itself. You know, the same, I mean, the same thing happened to me, you know, at 30, I go to drama school and get a master's in acting five years after law school. That. That's crazy. But I was following this deep intuition that I needed to go that way, and it opened up the career that I do today as a result.

Amazing. Yeah.

Yeah. So tell me when you. So you Came back, and you're like, I know what I need to do. Then what happened?

So I went back to my old job. I was fortunate they hired me back, which was not a given when I left. So I came back and to do consulting in the nonprofit space. And I ended up. I spent two more years there. And so I got to another crossroads, the spring of 2012. And so there had been some turnover in my organization. And honestly, I was just wrestling again with, like, ah, man, I learned this big lesson 2 years ago living in Malawi. And then I came back, and we. We had our first child during that time. And so. And I was working, but I was just wrestling. And I. I got to another crossroads. I had a. I had a new job opportunity to go back into corporate consulting. I was enrolled to go get an international mba because I was like, I have this global mindset, and it was at one of the top programs in the. In the country, and it just didn't feel right. You use the word intuition. I think that's probably one of the most undervalued words and terms in our. In our lives and business, even. And so, yeah, I remember I was on the phone. It was May 2012, and I was on the phone with my wife, and I was like, they're gonna call me in an hour to ask if I'm gonna accept this job. What do I say? And she's like, I think you need to pursue your dream. I think you need to go out and start your own business. And I'd always want, like, I kind of always had in the back of my mind, this desire. I want to go out on my own. Hence the entrepreneurial. Right. Like, driving me. And like I said, I didn't really realize that probably in my 20s, but by my 30s, I started to realize, like, I'm probably supposed to be an entrepreneur, not go sit in a gray cubicle right in one of the towers and get. Get paid well and get an mba. But that was not. Yeah. So they called, and I said, no, I turned down the job. And then I quit my job four weeks later and started my first company, Torrent Consulting, in the middle of June 2012.

Yes. Yes. So you start the consulting, and what was it primarily focused on?

Well, eventually, it took us about a year, year and a half to kind of figure out what we were going to niche in, but we ended up becoming a salesforce.com consulting partner. So I picked up some of those skills and had some previous CRM experience and some of my other previous jobs. And so, yeah, we Went all in and said, we're going to go be a salesforce consulting company. And mostly in the southeast of the US in the Midwest is where we started. And we, you know, we started with small businesses. I mean, really tiny work and just, you know, that, that what I realized by 2013 and 2014 as we started to get focused was I kind of had this aha, one day, oh, I'm going to build the business that I think should exist in the world. Because I was always wrestling, I wish other people would build XYZ type of business with purpose, care for your employees. Right. All the things that I believe in that, you know, that, that are impactful to people. And I was kind of always projecting it on other people like, ah, they should do that, they should do it. And I just realized like, it was, it dawned on me one day is like, well, maybe I'm supposed to just build the business that I think should exist in the world. And that's what, that's what I did. That's what we started. I had a business partner at the time and yeah, we start growing really rapidly over the next three or four years within that, in that space. We did, you know, we showed up and did what we said with our customers and you made amazing how far that goes these days when you're building a business.

And what was, so what was the business, what were the tenants of the business that you wanted to create that you weren't experiencing otherwise?

Yeah, I mean I, I think all around putting people first was the big piece, right. I think people first creating a culture and environment where people could come in and thrive and grow. And at the time, right, we were, we were in person, we had several offices, but everybody was working together in our couple offices in the U.S. and so we just created this family type environment, you know, especially when we were 30, 40 people. And so, but it was really around people first. I mean, and I think leadership development, that was a big part of our language and like focus was like, we're going to raise up leaders. We're going to bring the right people in that have the right values and they could learn some of the skills that are needed in that industry. But yeah, that was, that was the big piece. I think starting out those first three or four years, that, that really was the, this, the centering of, in the values that we, we cared about as a company.

Yeah, it just sounds like you were very intentional about the type of culture and, and where your priorities were. And the priority was creating an amazing environment for people to work so that you could better serve your customers. What were the results then of leading a business from that perspective?

Well, I mean, we grew rapidly. We saw great results. I mean, I think part of it, the industry we were in was really hot. So there was a lot of demand for our services. But also, I think we were able to attract people and create a, you know, create an environment where people thrived and create a culture that was, you know, people centric. And so, yeah, I would say that was the first result. The second result. By 2016, we started, we started thinking about opening an office outside the US So I still had this, you know, having lived in Moscow for two years and then lived in, living in Malawi for two years for a year. I, I had this deep seed and dream and vision around opening office outside the US and really, you know, we were in a space where the millions of jobs were being created every year in the Salesforce space. There was just wasn't enough talent to do the work that was in demand for implementing, configuring salesforce, training companies on it, setting it up, maintaining it. And so I, I met. When I was In Malawi in 2009, I met a kid one day who was studying computer science. And I started talking to him and we just kind of hit it off. Obviously, I studied computer science 10 years earlier, and I was just blown away. Middle of Africa, this kid's about to graduate with a computer science degree. I was, I was just fascinated. But there were no jobs there. That's what I learned. So I actually helped him get a job with a company in the US they shipped him a laptop and he was doing data entry work, and he was making 12 times what somebody was making there. Just kind of, I'll say, like simple work, a simple connection that I made. And that just left a deep impression with me. I'm like, man, if there is talent, that is. And this was 15 years ago, there's talent in the middle of Africa. Like, there's talent all over the world that's just untapped, right? I was kind of just blown away. So Fast forward to 2016. We're growing. We need a talent. And I, you know, I started thinking a lot about opening an office outside the US In a place where we could make an impact, right? Where we could come in and say, hey, we're going to train you on these skills that are in high demand. We're gonna, you're gonna be part of our company. And through that process, we think we can impact a lot of people. So, yeah, so we ended up In Guatemala. I, I tell people we didn't find Guatemala. Found us. Yeah.

How. How was that? How did that happen?

Oh man, that's a like ba. Basically. My wife and I had traveled here for a week on vacation in 2012 before I started our company and visiting some friends of hers, I, who I didn't even know. And so we just kind of traveled through. And so when I think when we started thinking about back, you know, in 2016, thinking about opening office outside the U.S. guatemala just kept coming to our minds. I mean, I think you have 2/3 of the population here living kind of day to day and, and doing informal work, right? Not. Not having a formal job. You have about 70% of the population living in poverty, but yet it's so close. I kept think to the US I kept thinking like, this is in our backyard. I mean, literally it's a three hour flight to Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, two hours to Miami. And I just kept thinking like, this is like so close. Like, this isn't a two day trip. This is, you know, you can leave in the morning and be eating lunch in the afternoon in Guatemala. And so that, that idea, I think it just, it just kind of set with me and I don't know, I just kind of. We felt like this would be an amazing place to open, open an office and make an impact. There was nobody here that knew Salesforce. It wasn't. We had to come in and interview and train everybody from scratch and. But so my company thought I was crazy when I showed up and said, hey, we're going to open office in Guatemala. People were like, oh, is there a lot of salesforce talent there? We're like, nope, we're gonna. Daniel has this crazy idea that we can open an office and we can train people to do this work and employ them and pay them, treat them really well, play them well, etc, so. So yeah, that was what we decided in 2016. And so I started traveling down here helping getting our legal entity set up. And I mean it was. We had no idea what we were doing. Like, we were just, you know, we said, let's just set this thing up. So I was here. I was here in March 2017, so eight years ago, around this time. And I was interviewing our first group of people and I remember I got on a plane, flew to Atlanta or sorry, flew to Los Angeles for a client meeting, landed, I think I was on the tarmac at lax. I was texting my wife and I was like, this is gonna work. Like, these people we interviewed are amazing. Like, this is gonna work. And I said, but I don't know, like how we're going to get the office completely set up, the culture set and all of that. So that was like on a Wednesday. And then I went back to Charlotte on Thursday and by Thursday night she was like, well, maybe we should move there for two years and like take our six year old, four year old, one year old and move to Guatemala for two years and just help get it started. So honestly, by the weekend we had decided like, this is what we're gonna do, like we'll, we'll move down there. I think a big part I felt like, because we were like, well, maybe we get somebody else to move. Right? So we, we did have an employee move here for the first year in 2016 and he had committed a year and was about to finish that up and I was like, well, who else could we ask? And I, I think I'm just the type of person, it's like, I never want to ask somebody something to do something that I'm not willing to do. Doesn't mean I'm supposed to do everything, but like, that I'm not willing to do. And we just felt like, hey, we're willing to move and see this through. So we packed up and moved down in August 2017. My, my wife and three kids and 10 suitcases and thought we were going to be here two years. And that was seven and a half years ago. So it kind of, we kind of got sucked into Guatemala.

Yes, yes. And so what, what are the key lessons learned in building or thinking this way and building the culture that has created some huge successes for you?

Yeah. I think one of the biggest things from the very beginning I was very passionate about, like, we are going to treat this and everybody we hire in Guatemala as like our employees. We're not outsourcing, we're not treating it like offshore. Like, no, these are our employees. Isn't this another office it happens to be in, in Antigua, Guatemala, which is a beautiful place, so I'll plug that. But yeah, we just, I think in every decision we made, we tried to say how do we treat them exactly the same. Our benefits, like, you know, and you can't do everything the same just because, you know, for instance, 401k matching. Right. Like, we couldn't do that because they don't have 401k here. But we did do something very similar, a long term savings matching. And so I think it was a mindset of like, these are, these are valuable teammates. They have career opportunities, they have the Same career paths as our people in the U.S. and so yeah, we just started from that mindset and I think the big thing is seeing people as very talented human beings. There is talent around the world. The opportunities do not exist around the world the same way as they do, say in the US or other countries. And so that was a phrase I stole. So I'm not going to take credit for it, but I do use it a lot. Talent is distributed equally. Opportunity is not. So I just think that mindset, when you see somebody, they walk in, they're starting with your company, whether in Guatemala or in the U.S. like, hey, this is a highly talented person, we believe and we're going to invest in them and we think sky's the limit in their career here at Torrent.

Yeah.

And that, that is a novel concept in Central America and Latin America in a lot of places. Right. And so that's not how U. S companies typically come and view and engage in a country like Guatemala where there's a lot of call centers and outsourcing and BPO centers. So yeah, I would say that made the biggest difference, you know.

Yeah, you integrated this into the culture. When, when people just think of I'm going to outsource or offshore talent is act, they don't actually integrate the person, their culture and make it part of the company. And I think your success has shown that by doing that, you know, and that mindset shift, that this is part of our company and therefore we'll treat it equally has made a big difference in terms of, I imagine you're a magnet for talent down there.

Yeah, I mean, I think we can pretty much hire almost anybody here because of our culture. Right. And the opportunity for career paths. A lot of places you can, you might be able to get a job if you have a tech background here and experience, but the ceiling is really low is what we've learned. And so in our company we've, we've tried not to. We have a 15 year career path for our people and wow, it's about 15 years in the US and in Guatemala, same career path. And it's like, hey, if you come in at this level, there's all this opportunity. It is in our best interest as a business to actually see you advance because the more skilled you get, the we want to promote you, we can pay you more, you're gonna be more valuable on our projects, to our customers, etc. Like that's kind of the consulting model. Right. And so yeah, that, that we haven't, we haven't put a ceiling on that and I think that's made a big difference.

Well, first of all, you're not dealing with the turnover. You're not dealing with spending all the time trying to source new talent because you're a talent magnet. And then the future forward, think a 15 year career path so that people can see how they could be with you for a long time. They're more willing to invest their heart and soul in the company if they can see that level of Runway. Yeah, I don't see that happening. I, I feel like there is such a short term mentality that both talent and leaders have today in most US Businesses.

For sure. I see that all the time. And we had to have a, we really had to have about a three year horizon when we started. It's like, okay, where can we get these, this first batch of people, right? The first hires in Guatemala and the first couple groups, let's call it 8 to 10. Where can they be in two or three years? Can we get them three or four certifications and you know, salesforce certifications? Can we get a promotion in there? Like, can we get them to a certain level? And that's really, I mean, it took a couple of years and then we started to see the fruits of that, right? And then we started, people started to believe and we're like, okay, let's bring the next batch in and let's, let's expand. Let's try this type of person or Persona, right? With this type of background, can we get that, you know, get them in and have them be successful? So yeah, that's, you know, essentially that's where the first five years in Guatemala, I would say, you know, from 2016 to about 20, 20, 2021, like that we were building all of that out.

Yeah, yeah. What else have you learned by building this company in Guatemala and how you're running the business that you think would be valuable for other leaders in the world, other entrepreneurs and executives?

Yeah, I mean, I think. Well, I think this idea of talent is distributed equally around the world, right. I mean where, you know, and the studies show this, right? Where you're born, your zip code, where you start life at, right. Deter has a big, it's a big factor on like where you end up in life, what opportunities you get. Right. And so I think that's a big thing is like when you see somebody you know or you know, and I talk to leaders who, they already have people around the world, right. You know, people reach out to me a lot and say, hey, can we talk to you about what you're doing. I just had somebody from Kenya reach out to me that I'm meeting with next week. And so, hey, I heard what you're doing. I'm very interested. I think very similarly. Can we talk? Right. And so I think especially for companies that have people and talent around the world, and at this point a lot of businesses do it or you know, whether it's a virtual assistant somewhere or a team of people somewhere, like that's pretty common now. So I think seeing them as a highly talented individuals full of potential. Right. Is, is, I think is a big, that's kind of the primary lens I see. You know, and maybe that's a little bit of my, I don't know if gift is the right word. I mean, I'll walk into a restaurant here in Antigua and start talking and like other English is good. Like what kind of jobs could they be doing, right? Like, what kind of career could they have? Like, I, I'm just wired that way when it comes to this idea of, you know, seeing talent is full of potential. So, so I think that's a big thing. I mean that's, that's probably a big thing for, for me. And you know, I think we kind of built, our impact was really built on, off the foundation of putting people first. Right. Which I think early in our company, the, like, I mentioned the first four or five years, like, that was really big. And then it kind of, we went to this next level of like impact, right. And like went a whole layer deeper of how do we, how do we create really good jobs and transformational work? And I, and now I, I mean it's been eight years and I, I get to have a front row seat to it every day here in Guatemala. Like I, I see and hear the stories of the transformation that a really good job with a good company that cares about them, a human makes on somebody's life, whether they're in the US Or Guatemala. It really doesn't matter when it comes to that.

Yeah, for sure, for sure. I mean, just the fact that you lead with the people come first. You're not saying our clients come first, which was a lot of businesses would say. You're saying your people, your team comes first. I imagine some people might be like, well, that's, you've got it backwards. What would you say to that?

Well, you know, it's interesting the, the founder of Southwest Airlines used to get asked this question a lot back in the 70s and 80s from what I've read, because I've read some of the books about him. And so, you know, I think, I think my mentality is if you have, if you take care of your people, they're the ones touching the customers every day. Right. And so if they feel taken care of, if they feel invested into, if they feel like they're working for a company that, that truly values them, right. They're just not, they're not just a number, a widget on a spreadsheet, but they're really valued. And then those people, how are they going to turn around and serve your customers? Probably enthusiastically. Right. They're going to work well as a team. And we do, we work on project teams. Right. Those teams need to be highly functional in how they work together. Right. And so think that's always been the mindset, take care of the people that are taking care of the customers. So now it doesn't mean, like, doesn't mean the customers don't matter. Like, I mean, and I think there's a lot of growth for us actually in that, that, you know, I think you can maybe, maybe, you know, I think there's more we can emphasize on, like, how do we, how do we serve our customers? Even better. Right. And so, but I, that, I think that's just always been like, my thought is like, take care of your people because they're the people. I'm not talking to my customers every day. Right. Like, that's there. We have 135 people in our consulting business. Like, they're touching our 75 customers every day, not me. So I need them to be healthy and feel like they're valued. Right. And in a good place. And then in turn, I, you know, my belief is they turn around and do that to the people they're touching, which is primarily their customers and their project team members.

Yeah. Yeah. Great. Oh, my gosh. Well, there's so much more we could delve into. I just would love to kind of leave our listeners with what's one piece of advice that you would give to an executive or an entrepreneur in terms of how they need to think about leading their teams?

Yeah, I think, I know we hit on it earlier, so I'm going to, I'm going to go with this idea of intuition. So this, this is a little bit of, of. I've been spending a lot of time on this idea of stillness. And there are, I heard this recently, there are four ways to be still. You can pray, you can meditate, you can contemplate, and you can journal. And so I think even as I told the stories, like, well, why did I make this decision or that decision. Like, I mean, I think it's intuition, but I was doing some of these things, so I'm not saying I did them all and, like, every day consistently, but I think. Think, like, you know, I'm. I've been really focused on meditation and starting my days, focused on meditation right now. And so I feel the shift happening because I've been doing this about two and a half months since the beginning of the year. And so. But I think just stillness, like stopping thinking. So meditation, like listening is a listening skill. Contemplation is taking a topic and, like, really like thinking, like, taking time to think. And I think as an executive, as a leader, the days are really busy, the calendars are full, and there's always, you know, we have so many distractions, right? And we all know this, right? It's like, well, my phone gets, you know, there's a notification every 20 seconds, and I'm looking at it 87 times a day. So I think, like, having the skill. It's a skill, and I'm trying to learn and focus on it, like to have these stillness practices so that. Because I think that's where intuition probably really comes from, right? It comes from that. And I know as I've thought back, right, about some of these big decisions and why I made them, they're hard to explain. It's, you know, I think intuition's probably the best word. It's like, I. I felt it, but it wasn't. I woke up and felt it. It was like after months of wrestling and contemplating and talk, you know, journaling and getting whiz, seeking wisdom, then we made the decision X to do xyz. So that. That's probably what I would say. It's like, I mean, these are easy, free practices. I, you know, found meditations on Spotify that are free. And you can go out and start. Start tomorrow morning for 10 minutes. Right. And they're not the. You know, they're not. They're not big barriers to starting. So, yeah, you can't.

Yeah, you can't listen to your intuition if you're always in, which is an internal voice, if you're always engaging externally. 24 7. Practically correct. It's very hard then to get that wisdom that only you can access. And I love what you said, that you just do that through stillness.

Yeah. Yeah.

Love it. Well, where can people learn more about you and your company?

Torrentconsulting.com. that's our Salesforce consulting company, Torrent Impact Sourcing. So we didn't get to talk about this much. But it's a new company I started to help other businesses in the US Basically do what we did, find talent in Guatemala. We, we help with that and we help you employ that talent, build teams here, integrated teams like we have done. It's basically a turnkey service that I started about a year and a half ago. So torrent impact sourcing.com is the other place you can look. And then I'm on LinkedIn. Daniel J. McCollum so on on LinkedIn, you can find me there too. Awesome.

Well, how wonderful to have somebody have an access point there and be able to take all the lessons learned, the trail that you've blazed with your, with your sourcing company. So that's.

Yes, for sure.

Well, thanks so much for joining us.

Yeah, thanks for having me, Susan. I really appreciate it. It's been great.

Absolutely. And if you like this episode, you're not going to want to miss my interview with Jay Rosenschwig, another social impact entrepreneur and humanitarian who discusses the importance of carving out meaningful relationships and integrating humanitarian efforts efforts into business practices. Let's lead the way. Hope you enjoyed today's episode and I'd like to point you to the next important step. Hit the subscribe button to get notified when we release new content. I'll see you on the next episode of the Enlightened Executive. Sam.