Are You Making These Team-Building Mistakes?

[0:00]  I think we need to have a bigger conversation about accountability because in the world today if you work remotely or you work hybrid whatever it looks like you are an adult and you are expected to get your work done but that also means from a leadership perspective we really have to trust our team members to get their work done and I feel like a lot of leaders especially as we came out of the pandemic really struggled with that trust element into their teams because if we couldn't see them we couldn't understand what they were doing and could we really trust that they were getting their work done which is a really Dynamic I would say skill set leaders had to develop over the last couple years but it seems like you're leaning into it really heavily I mean I remember um back going way back to my real estate days um we had there was a culture where you stayed until your boss left the office you just sat there and I remember we would just be S we would

[0:47]  literally be sitting there um not doing anything just waiting to see if there was anything remaining for him to ask us to help with and then he would walk out and we would 30 seconds later make sure the elevator was down and and we would leave and I think that how ridiculous was that it was not productive for anyone involved um he probably knew that we were leaving right when he did so why didn't we just walk down with him and say good night and be on our merry way but we you know there was this kind of purposeful waiting for him to leave for us to leave and I think I think that's of the past all right guys welcome back to a brand

[1:42]  new episode of the heart and hustle podcast now I'm incredibly excited because we have an amazing leader sitting across this digital table with me we have Rebecca Parks who is a Uso Regional president of the North Region I'm guessing so Rebecca welcome to the show this is going to be an amazing conversation about your heart and hustle thanks for joining us thank you for having me Keenan I'm so excited to be here and to talk to you so I think what we should really kind of cover as we get started into the episode today is a little bit about your heart so we recognize that today you're a regional president of an amazing organization but let's kind of rewind so who is Rebecca as a kid as a younger person what kind of things kind of like got you excited about the world what kind of take us back to that place yeah I mean as a kid I was you know I was one of those kids who really thought uh you know two things either one I was going to be you know president of the United States you

[2:30]  know with George Washington as my role model or a professional athlete um you know I didn't really have any kind of in between it it was one of those two things um and I did uh Sports as a kid took up a lot of my time um I was a three sport versity athlete in high school um I played lots of different sports year round and well I thought at the time and you know reflecting back on it you know I I enjoyed playing sports but I think more than that I really just enjoyed being part of a team um and sometimes in those cases as I got more uh advanced in those Sports uh leading a team and being captain of a team and what that meant um as you know A Life Lesson that I wasn't really even realizing at the time so um I of course also had to focus on school um you know

[3:19]  and did my best in that but I was really focused on you know being kind of the best athlete I can be and ultimately that's what led me to even choosing the college I attended um and really kind of framed the early stages of My Life um early on in addition to something that I fell in love with at a young age around the age of 11 um I fell in love with sailing um and had the opportunity to very quickly become a sailing instructor um and that really was something that shaped my Summers not only doing the sailing itself but um I also was able to uh with a Boatyard that was very uh willing to let me just take on and do whatever I was able to and willing to um I learned all about kind of boat building and other things that were involved in the sport so um exposure to a lot of different things and having to

[4:07]  interact with a lot of different people as I went through that I think did shape a lot of uh my kind of future career that at the time I wouldn't have even thought about if I think about one of the most independent right Sports I think about sailing I see stories of 11year olds 12-year-olds who sail around the world to make vast Journeys by themselves what kind of lessons did you learn about Independence and leaning on yourself when you were sailing at such a young age yeah of course I I never made it around the world um I kind of stuck to the coasts of Massachusetts but I think it does teach you um you know you really do have to be in control of a vessel of out in the open you know sea so you know all those things that you have to pay very close attention to while you do that you know the depth of

[4:54]  the water the wind um other boats and so all of those factors play a part of what it means to be out at Sea um on a sailboat when you know the ones that we sailed they didn't have an engine so you were needing to find your way out and back uh kind of using nature and I think that um that in of itself uh is something that you know can teach you different aspects of patience um but also you know just paying attention really focusing on something at that time um at the Boatyard uh one of the things that we did as instructors is we were also responsible for trying to fill the lessons up and find people and do some marketing and advertising and talk to parents of the kids who were taking the lessons Word of

[5:42]  Mouth trying to get other people to to learn about what we were doing as a sailing school so that um you know really was something you know early on again when you're doing it you're not thinking about it in the context of career but you know with some early early sales skills um also dealing with customers so so customer service and um having to you know think about you know parents are sending their kids out with us on the Open Water the concerns that they have and making them feel comfortable for doing that um and then also ultimately having a great experience at the end where they want to keep coming back summer after summer I want to talk a little bit about your competitive greatness so I also was a three sport athlete in in high school all the way through then went to go play college baseball and then I realized at one point in time that my athlet career

[6:29]  was going to end like it does for so many of us and I had a mentor come to me and say Keenan now that your dream of being a pro baseball player has kind of the chapter has turned now we have to take your competitive greatness and you have to figure out what you're going to turn pro at next what was your process of turning pro next at something beyond the Athletics field what was that like for you yeah I love that I love that concept of turning pro next and I also I think it's you know some one of the things that um when we prepped for this this call you know what I loved about the the name of the podcast and of itself that hustle right you know competitiveness there's a hustle to being competitive and there's a hustle to taking your skills and developing it to be not only the best you can be but doing it at a competitive High highly competitive level um and ultimately

[7:16]  whatever that Pro looks like and so for me um you know it was really the development of kind of being a pro leer of a sports team that I think I focused on building so you know without knowing it um I ended up being able to guide a lot of players that came after me and what their college experience or High School experience and their ultimately their athletic experience looked like and I think I did that without even knowing it by being someone who they could come to who would listen to them um give advice to them and ultimately coach them into becoming a better player and a better teammate and what that meant and so now I do that as a leader of a different very different kind of team um but I also use that I think there's a communication aspect of that

[8:06]  and so one of the things that I was attracted to right out of college was kind of the field of sales so selling things to people where you had to you know use different skills of convincing uh persuasive skills uh in your communication to get someone interested in a certain product and I started off with real estate um and then very quickly realized that while that was fun I wanted to do something that was more impactful and so since that early time of selling real estate in New York City I've used that leadership and persuasion and communication of influence to ultimately convince people to believe in different missions of the nonprofits that I've worked for and

[8:53]  consulted for here's a question for you now this is really important because often I feel feel like there's a social narrative that says when we start our professional career right we should go into an area specifically and focus on that for a really long time in order to get good but you started in real estate then pivoted what was part of that superpower of changing your mind to recognize that real estate wasn't for me and I can apply my skill set in a different direction because I feel like a lot of people struggle with that yeah I mean I was fortunate and again I think one of the things that you do learn kind of going back to where we started about kind of the concept of being in an involved around a team is you learn that you have to also you know be aware of your environment and find people that surround you that can give you you good advice and so I was fortunate to be surrounded by people who

[9:41]  were doing a lot of different things I sold real estate to people who had a lot of careers and as I did that I observed the different things that they were doing um I also got involved as a volunteer um starting off kind of back to my passion I started off coaching Sports at a local YMCA um and through that realized you know what the YMCA was more than just a membership based organization that had Youth Sports programs that it was really a community organization where different underserved populations and kids in particular were able to come after school and for programs um so that they could have different advantages in life that they wouldn't otherwise have um and in working with some of the people there I learned that in order to do that they

[10:28]  needed to raise money um and ultimately I kind of made the connection myself that I'm asking people to give money for a beautiful New York City Apartment I can definitely go and do that for something that helps some of these kids that were living in you know hard neighborhoods in the city have access to Youth Sports and after school programs and so I did that at first as a volunteer um and then out of different networking and again listening and kind of learning from people that were around me realized that there were people who did that as a career um I hadn't I hadn't known that you know going into college or picking a major or anything like that but I did meet a lot of people now that I was in New York City who had made a career in bringing money into different Mission

[11:16]  oriented organizations um and I started doing that for the YMCA of Greater New York um I also um I don't know if if you're if anyone's everever in New York but you kind of see the New York City police foundation and horses that some of the New York City police officers uh you know use as they kind of do their jobs in the city and those horses are funded by the foundation and through the generous donations of different people living in um in different foundations in the city and so I learned that and I asked you know is there a way that I could help the foundation and so I started volunteering for different organizations and had access to a lot of just different information on what it meant to run and be part of and then ultimately fundraise for a nonprofit and that's what got me hooked into saying I can I can still build and use a lot of

[12:05]  these skills in in sales um but I'm selling a cause I'm selling a purpose and I'm selling a mission and that felt like something that not only would be able allow me to use some of my skill set but also kind of mix that purpose and passion together um to kind of find the right position ultimately for at that time from a career standpoint you said something that was really powerful you've used some words incredibly intentionally you've talked about Mission we've talked about purpose you also said listening in there which I think is really interesting I want to double click on that what is the importance of listening in today's world while we're exploring what our career paths could mean because the social narrative says that we should be as loud as possible people are always talking but I feel like often we don't take the time to listen and those lessons that we learn through listening can inform our

[12:53]  careers and the trajectory of our lives so why is listening something that you mentioned there because it's really interesting to me I I think listening is absolutely the most powerful tool um and it's been one that hasn't been that easy for me to even build um as a skill set because just n anyone who likes to communicate likes to talk their natural instinct is to just share information and want to you know provide someone who they're in a conversation with or in a room with with the most information possible in hopes that they take it all in and and that the purpose for which they come there for is fulfilled and I think it's the reverse and and it's again it's been one of those things over my career that I've I've worked on um I've challenged myself to work on and

[13:42]  it's not easy um but listening is ultimately where you get the ability to persuade and influence and ultimately have that fulfillment with an individual or a group of individuals that you're interacting with because everyone's motivation is different and you can't find out what motivates different individuals without listening to them and that goes for people on my teams as well um you know what motivates them to want to be in the roles that they are or what they want to do with their careers and so how you coach people on your own team it's so important to listen to them and take cues from where they're at in order to be able to help coach and guide them and ultimately help them shape their own careers for the future as well

[14:29]  so I think you know listening is the goal that ultimately connects us all and makes for a really strong team a strong organization um a strong company that if more people listen to one another we ultimately you know become better people and better co-workers and colleagues and all of those many things I it's easy to tell how you are a captain of your teams because all these lessons that we we kind of have been able to pull out of this conversation have been absolutely amazing and you're right I mean listening is a superpower especially for leaders right if you think about some of the most fulfilling roles and responsibilities and fulfillment that comes from our work often people say when I have an idea my leaders listen and that in itself is just like such a

[15:15]  small Nuance that has such a huge multiplicative impact on just the culture of an organization as well I want to I want to Pivot a little bit into the amazing work that you guys do at Uso so I know you spent some time Consulting in the UK and Europe and you brought all those experiences back to eventually finding your role in The Uso so let's talk about what attracted you to the Uso and some of the I would say early lwh hanging fruit where you saw you could have a huge impact in the organization yeah so as you as you mentioned I mean I spent a lot of time um you know again starting with the YMCA of Greater New York but but really built on that um in a career that I took from New York City overseas to Europe back to Boston um and and being in Boston ultimately brought me to the role that I have now at the US so um which while I'm in Boston I oversee now 22 States across

[16:04]  the North Region um but what initially attracted me to the Uso it was one of those again some some might say serendipitous but it really was around just different people giving me information um and a former colleague of mine um who is in the DC area which is where the Uso is headquartered said you know I know you're not necessarily thinking of something right now but but maybe soon in the future and have you have you seen this role with the Uso and my initial reaction was what is the Uso um and for someone who had spent a lot of time in I think major markets in the nonprofit space I always and and as a consultant too and so as a consultant one of my jobs was to sell our services to as many nonprofits as feasibly

[16:52]  possible right and and be out there at conferences and and meeting new other leaders in the nonprofit space and so to have not heard of an organization was surprising to me um and and then when I did go in and dig into the Uso it was even that much more surprising to me like how could I not have heard of this place um I I didn't have a huge military history in my family uh the closest at the time the closest uh relative to me that had served in the military was my grandfather who had served in World War II and had had passed when I was very young um so I didn't have that connection with him um since I've had a a cousin who's joined and enlisted in the Navy but I didn't have that deep military

[17:38]  connection so there's a potential that that's one of the reasons that I hadn't heard of The Uso but when I dug into it and started having some initial conversations about the Uso an 80 plus year old organization I was moved by the fact that there was this historic really powerful well-known in it space organization especially with the linkage to Bob Hope the historic entertainment component of the organization that wasn't widely known because when I started asking some of my closest Network and honestly my my age demographic about the Uso they were like yeah no we've not heard of that um and then you would you know kind of go on Google and everyone would have the same reaction like huh okay yeah know I kind of know what this organization does and

[18:27]  so given my career path and where I was and all the many organizations that I had helped I thought it was an amazing opportunity for an organization that had historically and culturally framed so much of American society at a certain era uh to be able to be part of that future and ultimately in my role and in some of my team's roles really shaped the awareness component that was missing potentially in some of the major markets that I had lived in for the US so and bring some more awareness to the brand and not only the historic aspect of the brand but what the organization was doing now and what our Hope was to do in the future with a very different demographic of military constituents than we had had to serve back in the

[19:15]  World War II time frame so that to me was an opportunity to build and to grow um a new era of a very historic and important organization I feel like your story is so beautiful because you didn't come from a family of military background now you're exposed to this organization and you're saying okay now we have a huge opportunity to enhance awareness right across the regions that we serve but also among populations of people who are very similar to your family upbringing I think it's interesting to me how when you live in a region of the country that has military bases Air Force Navy Army XYZ you're aware of these things but when you're not in these regions often they're out of sight out of mind is that kind of like the realization that had when you saw like your opportunity in front of you I'm guessing that you had some

[20:02]  conversations with family members about hey I'm going to go work for this organization and they said what is that and you said I can take all of my experiences and kind of rally them into this opportunity to create a better message for the organization absolutely I think certainly if you live in places like Texas and North Carolina and Norfolk Virginia San Diego California you know there are communities where when those members of the community are going to their target or gross store you're seeing people coming to and from base Starbucks before and after work um and when I travel around and I'm nearby a a larger military base I see that you know at the local Starbucks or the local you know Dunkin Donuts whatever that may be you start to realize like I'm close to this location because I'm starting to see that activity you know here in Boston or walking down the streets of

[20:49]  Manhattan or you have to know where to see different you know people in uniform um and if I see someone in uniform you know walking down in the seaport in Boston or in Midtown Manhattan my eyes now draw to that because I'm like where are they going you know where are they coming from because it's so unique to see that in one of those cities you know now at a train station you see in New York the Empire Shield guard but you're that's you're that's they're sort of embedded in the framework of that and so you're used to seeing that but where you're not used to seeing it I'm now surprised and before I might have not even noticed so now I'm starting to notice it because I'm part of the community and I do think that you know there is a big role that the Uso um can play in helping Bridge the civilian

[21:38]  military divide and bring more attention to the American public who are in many ways fortunate to have kind of that out of sight out of mind mindset and don't even know how fortunate they are to feel that because of all those individuals and their families who have volunteered to serve in the American armed forces so that freedom and the ability to feel that more people I believe should understand and appreciate that there's a reason that they're able to feel that way um and that because they're able to feel that way they should give back they should think about a way to give back whether that's through volunteering with the Uso or being part of another organization in in this space um I I do think that there is a Freedom offered by

[22:29]  having that ability to feel that way um that everyone should start thinking about more and it's individuals like you who have a heart for this work that really kind of transition into why the hustle is so necessary to spread these messages I want to talk a little bit about the the hustle that's involved in the work that you do to be able to spread the message about the Uso but also create more awareness now in the world today often there's a misrepresentation or misunderstanding that nonprofits in general right are helping cultures right These are nice people who are just here to be able to take out you know opportunities that come to them we're going to go out we're going to try and spread the message but often people don't understand the hustle that's behind this work so what does hustle mean to you and the work that you do specifically in spreading this message about the Uso I mean I think for me

[23:17]  hustle can mean you know both small and large things you know I mean daytoday the hustle is that you know we are always working to engage New companies participants volunteers the military leadership in ensuring that the Uso Mission continues um and so that's really the day-to-day I think when you think about it in a different way I think for us the hustle is also just a a a curiosity um and a curiosity around why you know I always ask myself why isn't someone involved in our organization today and I get curious about that want to understand why what has made them so that they're not interested to learn more what has made it so that they're

[24:04]  not interested to maybe take a phone call and so that Curiosity almost drives the persistence um of trying to find out you know hey I think this organization's great so many others think that the organization's great we've had a lot of historic Partners like coca colola and you know Delta Airlines American Airlines so there are some really big companies who believe in our mission and so my you know the large hustle is why isn't everyone why isn't every single person living in America today supporting the Uso and I think that drives the hustle because it drives the Curiosity of why not and then you start to look at okay well we want to get all of our sports teams involved so why isn't every major and minor league sports team doing something in the salute to service or troops for you know

[24:53]  seats for troops nights across the country I think they should I think every single sports team should be supporting the Uso at least one day a year so why aren't they and then that drives your hustle I mean I think first of all curiosity is one of my cornerstones if we are not curious right we cannot search for meaning and we cannot search for understanding which gives us the opportunity to hustle after an opportunity when you think about hustle often over the last couple years there's been so much negative I would say headlines and narratives about hustling and we've really kind of leaned towards work life balance and we shouldn't be working that hard XYZ but when we're talking about meaningful work is there a time where we can go into a season of hustle to accomplish that meaningful work rather than searching for balance what's kind of your two cents on that I I I agree I think hustle and work life

[25:42]  balance have unfortunately become this conflicting topic that everyone is trying to figure out and remote work which I do and a lot of our employees in fact our our remote employees I think that that's added to that conversation and confused it in in in some ways the wrong way it used to be that when we were in offices hustle was defined by how many hours you sat in an office um and I think people have tried to take that and say Well it still is hustle is how much how many hours you work you know I've been working for 15 hours today my answer to that is I really don't care if if that's if that's really what it took for you to get everything done that you thought you needed to get done today okay but just because it's the length of hours doesn't

[26:31]  Define that you hustled and it also doesn't Define that you really worked smart um and so I am very much a person about accountability we know what we're looking to get done we know the outcomes that we want to achieve it is unrealistic that you're doing that 247 so you figure that out what does that mean for you if it means that you need to take a walk in the morning to get your head straight and then you work seven hours straight great if it means that you need to work in 20 minute increments and in between those increments you need to do something that gives you a mental pause fine it and so I think that we've had to put some more self-accountability on people to say you figure out your balance you set your boundaries but you

[27:21]  got to get your job done and here are the things that I'm going to use to measure that and you figure out how to make those two things coexist so I am a huge proponent of that I practice that um I am not on you know emails all night um I don't send people emails at midnight thinking that they're GNA read them and expecting a response so I I just it is like one of my biggest beliefs and I really we talk as a team my leadership team and my whole team about this about kind of setting your own boundary if you have a doctor's appointment St so don't you know just say I have to go to the doctor's today okay go to the doctor um hours I think no longer Define hustle and I think that that's used to be the case and I think

[28:10]  we've proved that wrong as a societ it reminds me it reminds me of being like in high school right and then being asked to make sure you're attending class and getting all your work done XYZ and then you go to college and for the first time in your life you're said go get your work done on your own right and a lot of people struggle in that element of accountability I think we need to to have a bigger conversation about accountability because in the world today if you work remotely or you work hybrid whatever it looks like you are an adult and you are expected to get your work done but that also means from a leadership perspective we really have to trust our team members to get their work done and I feel like a lot of leaders especially as we came out of the pandemic really struggled with that trust element into their teams because if we couldn't see them we couldn't understand what they were doing and could we really trust that they were getting their work done which is a

[28:57]  really Dynamic of would say skill set leaders had to develop over the last couple years but it seems like you're leaning into it really heavily yeah I think it's so important I mean I remember um back going way back to my real estate days um we had there was a culture where you stayed until your boss left the office you just sat there and I remember we would just be S we would literally be sitting there um not doing anything just waiting to see if there was anything remaining for him to ask us to help with and then he would walk out and we would 30 seconds later make sure the ele Vader was down and and we would leave and I think that how ridiculous was that it was not productive for anyone involved um he probably knew that we were leaving right when he did so why didn't we just walk down with him and say good night and be on our merry way

[29:44]  but we you know there was this kind of purposeful waiting for him to leave for us to leave and I think I think that's of the past you know I don't think that that's coming back and because of that it means that that outcomes-based accountability has to drive our businesses forward whether that's a for-profit or a nonprofit business and that could be Revenue um it could be different kpis related to your mission deliverables um and I think staying focused on those things help everyone and making sure that everyone involved realizes what their role is in driving those forward then allows people to have that breath of I am an adult I can have my balance I can manage this myself and I'm still going to stay

[30:31]  focused on these key drivers what are some of the biggest lessons you've learned in being a team leader outside of the athletic space if you could go back let's say 10 years and have a conversation with Rebecca you have 5 minutes of uninterrupted time where you can sit down and really Hammer some lessons into your younger version of yourself to help them navigate the time until they meet me here today in this recording what conversation would you really kind of lean into with that younger version of yourself so I mean there's two things one is kind of the first lesson I had in in kind of more management than leadership and I think there's you know there's a component where there's overlap in both but in management you're responsible for the work of of the people you manage um and I don't think I fully understood and appreciated what

[31:20]  that meant for quite a long time um I in theory I understood right I oh yes I'm responsible for them I manage them I super supervise them um I lead them even because you know I think innately I wanted to help these people but I think there is a part of management and Leadership where you also have to make sure the right people are on the ship that you know you have the right crew on the boat in order to meet those objectives and the hardest part I have found is realizing when you don't and then what do you do then um and I had a great leader um about that time frame 10 years ago maybe a little bit more where I was having some challenges with some of the people on my team um and sometimes the teams that you have aren't necessarily

[32:09]  the teams you choose it's by virtue of different you know Department Shuffle and you inherit a new team or something like that and I remember probably after a few times coming into that person's office for my one-on-one and saying you know I'm having challenges with so and so they're they're still not meeting their obje Ives and they looked at me very kind of sternly and said if you can't manage them I will have to manage you and that was a very harsh way of basically saying it's your responsibility and ultimately at some point their lack of performance turns into your lack of performance and you have to address it and there's a couple of ways of addressing it you can manage manage them up to perform better or make the

[32:57]  realization that they're not the right person for the the team they're not able to do their job and we have processes in place that address that and I I think that that has still been the hardest thing for me as a leader is figuring out the timing and the the processes of which come to a place where you realize I might not have the right people on this team for what we need to get done and and then having to address that that conversation with your leader did it come across in the moment as dismissive or did it come across as more empowering when we can look at it back now with a little bit of perspective I think I think I was in shock honestly um I don't know that it was dismissive it was probably

[33:45]  empowering because it has been one of those things that I have honestly never forgotten throughout my entire career when I think about managing people and even helping my team leaders manage people um it has been something that has stuck with me because there is some hard truth to it so at the moment I think I was just surprised and taken back and probably went back into my office and thought okay well what do I do because I don't want this to become my problem um but it was my problem because they were my team and it goes back to the sports analogy right of and I I have an eight-year-old playing sports now and I watch these you know 8-year-old worlds play sports and they they start to blame each other very quickly your fault you

[34:32]  let the goal in I you know you didn't score or whatever that may be and I was a goalie um so you know I had a I had a lot put on my shoulders of blame of myself when we would lose a game because I led in more goals than we were able to score um but at the end of the day when you you know you have to realize this is a team we win and we lose as a team and so that whole aspect of what that means in the in the work setting and in the professional space I think is really important because I do see that sometimes when there is an underperformer um if if you have team members who have a colleague who is an underperformer it impacts all of them and so as a leader it is it is your responsibility for those hardworking High performers on your team to address

[35:22]  that underperformance and so that is also something that I've learned over time that while it Fe feels like in the moment you know you're changing the course of someone's life by by dealing with that underperformance you're also changing the course of your entire team and you know it's the same thing that a coach would have to deal with if they have someone who's on the field and they're not performing at their best they're going to have to move to the bench for a little bit um and then when tryy outs come you know if that person still hasn't improved they may not make the team again and so I think that there is a hard truth to that but I think it's what ultimately really successful organizations do well they make sure that they have the best people on the team in the right roles um and with the right leaders and sometimes

[36:10]  being a leader is all about finding that stretch right in our team members there's an amazing quote um from an author named Kevin Kelly and he says in his book you lead by letting others know what you expect of them which may exceed what they expect of themselves provide them a reputation that they can live up to what do you think about that yeah I I love that quote um and you know I think that there's a lot of different aspects in that quote that you know we've kind of been talking about in in different shapes and forms I think the the other piece to that is I also think that you know if for someone who has a high expectation of performance um and sometimes with that comes pace so we you know I always talk a lot about Pace um and there was another quote and I don't

[36:59]  have it in front of me um it might have been a gif even that was just talking about that at some point you can outpace people you can outpace your competition too um doesn't have to be outsmart them but it does have to mean outpace them and I think curiosity and um all of those different things persistence and being persuasive and doing that in a very methodical but fast pace and not letting failure hold you back that that ultimately is also what drives drives organizations to out outperform you know competition how is your relationship with failure knowing that you come from a sports background right recognizing that failure is a way for us to learn quickly Implement new changes and then see the results after that how have you

[37:45]  been able to shape your relationship with failure outside of your sports world into your professional life yeah I mean I didn't like to lose um and I don't think any any really any you know any no athlete likes to lose right you know we we're we're driven to win um you do lose though right you you there are no matter you know you look at any of the professional sports teams right you know Kansas City chief they just lost um so you do lose and I think you know losing with Grace and losing with good sportsmanship and using loss or failure to learn lessons I think is something that we all have to to come to terms with over time um I still don't like it I so it's it makes me uncomfortable uh

[38:35]  and I think that uncomfort is what ultimately lets me reflect upon things it lets me want to improve um and so I have a I have a strong desire where if something doesn't go right I want to make it better the next time and I'm not going to sit there and let sit on it for a while um because again going back to the sports analogy like the next game is three days away you know you got to get back back on the practice field you got to figure out what went wrong watch tape you know again if something you know even sometimes I've looked at different email exchanges in the professional world you know if something didn't go quote unquote in the way that I wanted to or expected it to an outcome was there something in the email exchange that caused that you know what are the little details as long as well as the big details that might have caused a certain outcome and can we learn from

[39:22]  that so I think it's you know again uncomfortable it's not fun but you do have to move on quickly and learn from it and hope that you know if you're if you get a no in sales hopefully it's not not a no it's a not now um and you can keep trying at some point in time and come back you know everyone's the cycle changes right people's M people's values change over time right in different life phases so I always look at people when they've said no to something or don't respond that it's really them saying not now um but you can come back to me and I'm always happy for people to come back to me as well you know because there are times where you know I've said no or not now to something and I actually appreciate when someone comes back around and says hey have you ever thought about reconsidering this how do

[40:10]  you separate the results from your professional life to the identity of Rebecca one of the things I know a lot of leaders struggle with when things aren't going well business-wise we look at that as a personal reflection upon ourselves and some of my favorite leaders like this guy Gary vaynerchuk here goes by Gary V social media talks a lot about I am completely separate from who I am compared to the results that I get in business and I've always been envious of that because I really struggle with that have you been able to make that separation between your professional results and the value that you see in yourself I mean yes and no um I I don't know that I sometimes I feel like it's okay to not have that complete separation because I also I believe in authenticity and I think who I am in

[40:59]  business it's not exactly how I am kind of when I'm off but I am I try to be authentic and bring my authentic self to to different situations and so in that case I wouldn't say that they're completely separate but I do I do take that separation and that break from work um whatever it may be doing you know again you know having having an eight-year-old who's very involved in their own things on the weekends you know that helps um I have a dog you know he needs to go for walks and we go for walks and I listen to podcasts that I enjoy some of those are business related some of those are completely not related to anything related to business and so I do try to take those times to just kind of be myself without having that haton

[41:48]  of outcomes and you know moving something forward and and my kind of day-to-day job um but I'm sure just you know like right it's like one of those things where I think we could all probably continue to improve on that um do better you know try to really take those times where you're not thinking about you know things that work but at the same time I would say you know I I love what I do um and I don't find it necessarily to be considered working when I'm reading an article that might you know help with something that you know in my case moves the Uso's Mission forward so I think there's a a love that I have and that's when I talk about like the passion and the purpose of being in this space I think it allows you some of that freedom of this is work but I do love it and um sometimes it doesn't feel

[42:38]  like work when I'm you know reading an article I mean and we are some of the lucky ones because I feel the same way I love the work that I do I love being able to show up have these type of conversations but also just share stories and I feel like when you can find that beautiful mix of the work that you do but also the passion that's behind it and then you also get compensated for that and you can provide for your family and everybody else what a beautiful place to be and I hope that so many more people can kind of you know find that passion at one point in time in their life so Rebecca one of the traditions we have here on the podcast as we kind of put the wheels down is our previous guest wanted to ask you a blind question now this is an amazing leader who's been doing some amazing work in the Southeast region of the country working with um Youth and empowering youth through different after school programs her question came with a little bit of context she said you know often

[43:27]  very early in life we have things figured out but we have a important conversation with somebody who we admire a loved one a grandparent where they Inspire us to kind of take on the challenges of life so if you could go back to have a conversation with your 5-year-old self what would you two talk about oh that's a good question um what would we talk about to my five-year-old self I you know what I think I would tell myself I I wish I found authenticity earlier and I think I would tell my 5-year-old self that all of the things that you're doing you know again I I was a I mean I was like a tomboy you know really into sports and you get you just get a lot of pressure from a lot of

[44:14]  different angles and I wish I could tell myself that you can be your authentic self this whole time and that will be okay um and all of the things and the different pressures and the different people that are going to put pressure on you to to not be that or to challenge that you don't have to worry about them don't listen to them because I think that that takes up for people a lot of wasted mental space um people's opinions of us which happens from age five all the way through adulthood and on you know people have their opinions and I think I wish I learned earlier that you just do you and keep going do you boo I feel like that is a beautiful place for us to put a rapper on today's episode Rebecca it's easy to understand for

[45:01]  everybody who's been tuning in watching and listening to today's episode that you are the definition of heart and hustle from your early days and being a sports leader a captain going to work at the YMCA going overseas and having Consulting experience then coming back and pouring so much of your passion into the work that you do at the Uso is an amazing story and I just want to say thank you so much for coming on the podcast I really appreciate it well thank you so much for having me and um I know you know obviously the heart comes from from your name but I love that you've kind of combined the heart and the hustle um I think it's so important and really appreciate joining you today guys we'll catch you in the next one that's a wrap