From Small Town to CEO: How Janelle Duray Scaled Influence and Impact

[0:00]  this is a big role um there's a lot going on in the country right now I feel um I feel the responsibility of leading this organization but you can't take yourself too seriously and uh sometimes I think teenage Chanel maybe took herself a little bit too seriously she put a lot of pressure on herself so maybe that one I'm still working on all right guys welcome back to a brand new episode of the heart and hustle podcast I'm sitting across this digital table with another amazing leader today and we're going to learn all about her heart and hustle today I'm joined by Janelle dur who is the CEO of Jag

[0:49]  Janelle welcome to the show thank you Kenan I'm pump to be here oh my gosh I'm so excited to share your story you know one of the things that you've accomplished um that we have to talk about is at a very young age right you identified Washington DC as being kind of like a precipice of power and influence now you grew up in a small town so why did you think that you needed to move from that small town to the epicenter of the American society right from the outside's view to have an impact on the people who you wanted to impact uh well I think that I did grow up in a small town I actually grew up outside of a small town so Viking Minnesota I think we're at 80 maybe 90 population now so I grew up about 10 miles people total yeah okay I

[1:36]  know um and I grew up maybe about 10 miles outside of Viking on a farm and I love where I grew up I appreciate where I grew up but I I just I uh I love to learn I love to learn and I had this insatiable hunger to meet people from different parts of the world who who spoke different languages than me who had different experiences than me and I felt like I would maybe need to leave Viking to experience that and I also um when I was a teenager when I was in high school I just had this burning desire to um have access have access cuz it I felt at the time whether it was warranted or not you

[2:25]  know it's up to whoever wants to debate it but I I felt at the time that I I didn't have a seat at the table and my voice wasn't heard and perhaps others around the country felt similarly and it felt I had heard the term fly over country right which is how we refer to the Midwest sometime and that really I didn't like that because I lived in that area and other people did and we made up America so I felt it was extraordinarily important that our voices were heard and we were represented and uh my old my mentor and my my predecessor my old boss would always say all roads lead to Washington and when I was in high school I had a teacher who nominated me for a national youth leadership conference I don't even think I realized he was nominating me so I was fortunate to go with eight other minnesotans to DC and I was

[3:14]  17 and met from met students from all across the country and I just I could feel it it was palpable that DC is a place where power and influence come together and I am one who firmly believes power is important and you must use power for good and therefore I was like I got to get to DC this is where this is where I belong I'm I'm really interested in kind of like that self-awareness at such a young age is so impressive so when you were a young girl were you were your parents influential in the part of like Hey we're from a small town but you need to go out and spread your wings or like what was that kind of like early influence like well I learned how to work at a young age if you're on a farm you work uh so I have a very strong work ethic

[4:02]  that they instilled in me and we always you know books were always in the house I remember um when I was really little the back then they would the encyclopedia salesmen would come around right and they'd come to your door and try to sell you all these encyclopedias before the internet and all that and um and and for people like my parents who also I think have this this curiosity and this desire to learn it was they were in our house it was obviously it's going to happen and it's not like we had a lot of extra money for these resources but something like that absolutely we needed to have my mom brought home a computer from from her job um and we got the internet probably in like 95 996 which I think is wow pretty early yeah and um even in my school um back then

[4:51]  there was an internet Bowl I don't know if that's still a thing but my tiny little school went to State for the internet Bowl when it was when it was new um when we were just learning how to surf the web and both of my parents ran for local office my mom was on the school board my dad was on the township um Council so there was this this thorough desire for Learning and curiosity um a really deep appreciation for different perspectives and a um commitment to civil service to to giving back when when you were a kid this is going to sound like a weird question did you have any weird type of Hobbies or did you do anything weird that you wouldn't normally tell your friends about as a young kid or maybe seemed like it was going against the grain compared to what everybody else is doing

[5:39]  I I don't know if I wouldn't call it a hobby but I would always when I would think which I do a lot I would always wonder is anyone else thinking these thoughts and I would I I I self-reflect almost too much um but I I would always I remember in like first second grade like is anyone else thinking these thoughts and I was a very empathetic person um so I could get into deep philosophical conversations if there were bullying and things like that um how would you feel if someone else did that to you um so I think I was very um empathetic and um and just thought a lot it was very self-reflective I also play piano I'm big in music um got that from my family as well I love to go exploring

[6:27]  so I grew up in the country so in the winter time we would leave for hours on end and go into the woods and dig snow tunnels and um in some ways I'm a millennial but when I read those memes about gen xers and they leave the home and they're like we'll see you when we see you I I kind of grew up like that no I I grew up like that as well the reason I asked you that question is because you know I was listening to a podcast not too long ago and they were talking about the topic of agency now agency is your ability to impact the world around you that perceived likelihood that you can do so and they said some of the people who have the most agency were the young kids who were doing things that none of their other friends were doing they were having different kinds of conversations they were having different types of thought and that influences how we perceive and have the ability to I would say impact the world around us when we're older and I hear a lot of that in

[7:14]  like the younger version of you that you were doing things that a lot of people weren't doing and that might have given you the confidence at a young age to say I need to get to Washington although you came from a town of 80 or 90 people yeah it was 100 back then I think okay I'm sorry sorry I didn't mean to to cut the population by 10% of where you're coming from oh I love that and it it right now in my role in my work I I find myself consciously I'm I'm seeking to reconnect with teenage Janelle uh because she's the reason that I think I'm here and has pushed me to this and I'm I'm making a very conscious effort to reconnect with her how do you do that uh I'm playing piano again um which I I hadn't really done for probably about 10 years and that was what I wanted to do up until I

[8:03]  discovered um my drive for policy when I was about 15 or 16 uh I'm playing piano I'm reading uh voraciously again I've always been an Avid Reader my grandma would get after me and she'd be like you need to talk to me I get your nose out of that book and uh um and and just chilling again you know like uh it's this is a big role um there's a lot going on in the country right now I feel um I feel the responsibility of leading this organization but you can't take yourself too seriously and uh sometimes I think teenage Chanel maybe took herself a little bit too seriously she put a lot of pressure on herself so maybe that one I'm still working on yeah I mean that's a that's a process that often a lot of high Achievers have I listen to um a keynote speaker by a guy named Jason

[8:52]  freed who's the CEO of a company called 37 signals and they created base camp if you ever heard of it's like a slack kind of alternative right mhm and he was like you know as I get older I start to recognize that it's really important to loosen the grip he said I'll give you kind of a story about loosening the grip when I started playing drums I would grab the drumstick so tight and I'd try and hit all the notes the best that I could but as I got more skilled I recognized that in order to hit all the ghost notes and to be more fluid and be able to make adjustments I had to loosen the grip on my drumsticks and now when I think about how I approach work when I approach life in general loosening the grip gives me the ability to be more flexible and do the things that I need to rather than being so white knuckled about the entire process so I completely commend you for trying to loosen the grip a little bit super important oh

[9:39]  well so first of all I love that you're also a musician I think that that it just translates so well into other areas of life right not not to mention just the the mental release that it gives you um and I'm I'm working on that right now because I'm a site reader so I read music and I uh tended to be a little bit of a perfectionist right and now I'm I'm trying to challenge myself to get more into improvisation um uh reading cords and it's I'm not good at it but it's important because you have to loosen the grip right and it's it's important to continue working at things that you're not good at so um yeah I'm working on that I'm still working on that Kenan well I commend you for it so I want to I want to transition a little bit and talk

[10:26]  about the process of you know leaving the small Town moving to Washington there were some unique elements with that so why don't you kind of talk tell about the story of like taking that big leap across the chasm for us sure well I my sister and I are the first in our uh in our family to go to and complete college and I told my parents I'm like the closest the closest I will go is Minneapolis because I was like I got to get out of here and Minneapolis is about 6 hours from where I grew up uh I'm very close to the Canadian border and I ended up going to the University of Minnesota and then I still couldn't get rid of this itch so I did a student exchange program and went to the university in north Texas for a year so I was in Texas for a year came back finished my degree in

[11:14]  Minnesota and always knew I was going to go on to grad school and I I worked throughout all this um bartending working in the industry uh because I needed I needed the money and um and then I was actually at the time thinking of doing the Peace Corp because I had my my ra at the University of Minnesota had went so I talked to her and I applied for it and I was all gung-ho and I was going to do it and it was it was um a program I don't think it exists anymore but you do a year at your school two years in the Peace Corp and come back and finish up your grad program and there were three schools in the country I believe that had the particular one in Global Studies which I was one of of those students that didn't necessarily

[12:02]  align my degree to a career and I will advise everyone to think about that and don't just go for what sounds fun but actually align your passion to a career and study what aligns to that what will support you in that I was just I I need I want to meet people from around the world I want to learn from them I don't want to learn different cultures and different languages so I was like Global Studies it is and there are only three programs in the country that had this this uh program with the Peace Corp and I got into one school and it was George Mason University their their their MPA program and this is kind of embarrassing so when you're not from DC and when you're from the middle of nowhere uh you think of DC

[12:52]  as DC you don't think of it as Virginia or Maryland so I get this acceptance letter and it's in Fairfax Virginia and I was telling one of my customers at the bar I was like guess what I got into grad school I'm so excited he's like where are you going and I said George Mason he's like you're going to DC and I said I am I was just so focused on getting like checking the boxes I went home and I looked at a map I was like oh my God I'm realizing my dream I am moving to DC uh so that's grad school brought me out here a little bit um of a surprise it wasn't as intentional as we probably would have the listeners think based on the opening of this podcast and um yeah it just came full circle and I came out here I started my program and my MPA

[13:41]  program I started working for an internship I couldn't afford to live out here so I went back to bartending um even though I said I was done with the industry not because I didn't like it I was just I was ready to be in my field that I wanted to be in um and then I didn't have a lot of money I had about 50 bucks to my name when I moved out here uh because I I I did make money while I worked but I spent it on experiences um didn't really have a cushion came out here with 50 bucks and worked worked worked went to school um my internship during the day bartending at night and a full-time grad student and did that for a few years before I found where I am now I'm a my father had a saying when I was younger he said you know everything

[14:27]  happens for a reason and ever since I've been a little bit older I've had these little moments where I think things happen at random right but it seems like when we're on the right path God or the universe whatever you believe in right seems to conspire with you to open up doors to put you in the position of where you can make the most impact and I don't think it was by mistake right that the one school that you got into actually took you to where you've been kind of manifesting the entire time I agree and you know this is probably I I remember saying to my mom as it as it continued you know my path kind of continued laying out in a way that really aligned to my dreams I remember saying to my mom man I'm I'm so lucky and she's like you have

[15:14]  worked hard for this like this is very intentional and you know that it's a little bit of impostor syndrome like do I deserve this and all all those elements but I remember being like I am so lucky and she's like no you worked intentionally for this so one of the things that I know that you do so now as the CEO of Jag right you are kind of filling big shoes right you're succeeding a 43-year founder and you're the new blood of this organization so kind of talk about some of the opportunities that come along with you know succeeding such a ingrained long I would say long stake founder in an organization like what you guys have done well I feel very fortunate because I I I uh started working with him back in 2010

[16:01]  so I I kind of fell into Jag looking for a job when I was fing finishing up grad school I wanted wanted to find something pretty quick because it was 2010 so most most of my friends who were looking for work were moving back home with their parents because it was 2010 was not a year that a lot of people were hiring um so I was looking for anything and I uh found uh this organization through one of my best customer she was awesome she's like you need to go work uh meet this guy named Ken Smith and I went there and found Jag on accident honestly because he Ken um Ken is an extraordinary leader and has so many relationships and um I remember chatting with him and not really quite knowing

[16:50]  what I was getting into right and then I he asked if I would help with a policy event that was that was GS it was a what we call the thought leader event back then and I said sure I'd love to help and it was there were no students there but there were Governors bipartisan from both parties uh uh corporate leaders uh Community leaders um our Jag affiliate State leaders who I I didn't know yet and I was like I really like this program because you you bring together public and private stakeholders you intend Ally seek to find the students who might not feel like they belong anywhere else so you can see how this is resonating with young Janelle and and they go through this program and they

[17:41]  they have 90% plus graduation rates and their employment rate is higher than all young people not just you know their um their peers who would be eligible for the program because we intentionally go to find those students who have the highest need and can most benefit from the program and I was like I really like this I want to stay involved and then a couple months later was the national student Leadership Academy in DC and this is where hundreds of J students come together and they tour the capital they do leadership workshops they um they have a dance together um and they get to meet with uh leaders in DC kind of the thing that I did when I was 17 and I remember it's just it's like four or five back then it was like four

[18:30]  or five days of non-stop meetings and by Saturday you're just beat and I remember checking out of the hotel and Ken and his wife Nora who also had a a heavy influence in the program when it was designed um I looked at him and I said this is the best thing that's ever happened to me and you're stuck with me I'm staying here I did not realize it would turn into me following Ken's footsteps years later over 10 years later um but I guess I didn't realize a lot of these things I just keep going I just keep going on my path and let it happen um so it's it's great uh I've learned so much from him and I'm also doing things differently you know one of my favorite saying to kind of think about you as a 17-year-old and the impact That Jag is

[19:18]  having on I would say helping people visualize what they can become is you lead others by letting you know letting them know what you expect of them which may often exceed what they expect of them themselves give them a reputation to live up to and it sounds like you guys are doing that but also that happened for you and it's just like a full cycle right of just inspiration and hard work and the things you can accomplish it's just such a cool inspiring story because like you said there's so many connections to your personal story and I understand why you're so passionate about this work in this organization well thank you thank you yeah it's um I I've learned a lot of lessons along the way too I've learned a lot of lessons along the way the way that I did it when I was at that National student Leadership Academy um is different than how I do it now but there is clearly theough lines of of why so you you

[20:07]  mentioned that you're doing things differently so what does that mean what how are you leaving your mark on this org well I mean some of the the things that we're doing differently at Jag to honor the work that Ken and so many have put in over the last 40 some years is we my first year as president we immediately laed strategic planning immediately because I'd been here for 14 years and those 14 years I'm a I'm a firm believer that leaders listen more than they talk and I have listened I have listened listen listen I've listened to our young people I've listened to our affiliate leaders I've listened to our board of directors I've listened to funders I've listened to organizations that aren't funders and what I found was this this not just the universal belief but this

[20:58]  unrel relenting passion that it would only be a good thing if we did a lot more of Jag if Jag had more influence if it had more impact and we've always felt that way but yet growing and scaling and evolving was so difficult it was and our Affiliates are doing amazing job at this and it's in it's incremental and it's not necessarily scaling sustainably and when I say scaling like large scaling not incremental scale so we started this and then we said we if we're going to if we want different outcomes we're going to have to do things differently we are going to have to challenge ourselves we are going have to have to honor honor this organization and the

[21:46]  reason it was created but we are going to have to go about our work and how we show up each and every day differently so we have this new strategic plan uh the board approved it we had to work hard for this it was unanimously approved but we had to work hard and I'm proud of the fact that we worked hard because if they would have just rubber stamped it I would have said it's not big enough it's not it's not enough change um so I'll give you one example the the adults in this organization are incredible we wouldn't be here without them they came together they created it Governors um Business Leaders School leaders they are absolutely incredible but this is about about the young people so I am extraordinarily passionate about sharing the stage and

[22:34]  sharing the platform we talked about agency earlier in this and and helping young people find their agency by being the the flagship of this Jag organization so we are intentionally lifting up the youth voice and not just for them to help share their stories and say how Jag has impacted them but also to develop them as Leaders so that they can go on and change the world in whatever career pathway whatever um personal pathway that they have and I love the adults that support our organization but the young people are are a little bit more inspiring and this is why we exist so I really appreciate the board of directors for getting

[23:21]  behind this it's it's about lifting the youth voice and also integrating their feedback across allev of this organization so if we want to evolve the Jag program for scale I mean we think about Ai and the impact that it has on education on young people on the workplace and they need to be informing us on they're digital natives they're Savvy in this they're they're way more savvy than we are um and they need to be informing us at all levels so that's one of the the changes that we've made and I'm very proud of it that takes a lot of one trust but it also takes a lot of selflessness right to listen first and then react based on what the marketplace is telling you and this is something

[24:09]  that I wish more leaders would do is I wish they would listen more to the people in which they serve right often we create Solutions and ideas in a vacuum we take them out to the marketplace and it doesn't work right so what was the did you have any challenges in kind of trying to push the organization in this direction right because you've been in the organization for quite some time but you guys have been doing a lot of the same things for a long time and being a change agent especially as a leader can be really challenging when you come into an organization so did you face any type of resistance in the process of saying hey we're going to implement this strategic plan what's going on yeah and of course right because there's changes but what we what we intentionally did upfront is we cast a wide net a very wide net uh and we we worked with an organization a firm to support us in this work uh

[24:55]  leadar they're terrific and they went out there and I said I want the unabashed truth what did we love about Jag what do we not love about Jag what do we do well what do we not do well and we asked all stakeholder groups and I was not in the room Jag staff were not in the room and we got the answers back anonymously and we went through them and we spent a year doing that so it wasn't just we're coming in and we're going to do this strategic plan and we're going to change everything and I had I'm not going to lie I've listened for 14 years I had an instinct and I felt pretty good about where we were going to need to go but we had to include and listen to stakeholders to not make any assumptions and also so people felt and not just feel but they

[25:44]  were a part of the process they absolutely were a part of the process it was and great the the younger generation in themselves need to be seen they need to be heard they need to be validated for them to feel like they're truly going to be a part of something right and that's something that I feel like is a skill set if you will of new leaders that we have to be able to hone which is the ability to make people be be feel seen heard and valid it's those soft skills As Leaders today have you really kind of concentrated on those soft skills The Compassion the empathy the Curiosity type things yeah vulnerability which is not easy for me um absolutely and it's it it's so interesting because you said it that it's it's it's a new leadership style right I I mean you

[26:34]  think of I was in an Airbnb years ago and it was it was one of those bubble escapes from covid right so it had a game room in the basement and in the game room there was a poster of John Wayne and it said never apologize and never never um asked for guidance or I don't know but I remember never apologizing and I just looked at it and I said to my mom I was like how unfortunate is it that I mean I was calling on my mom too I was like that your generation grew up with this with this idea that this is this is leadership cuz it's not cuz how on Earth can you make decisions that will best support the people that you are meant to lead if you don't know how

[27:23]  they feel and if you don't apologize when you screw up we're humans and so when I'm with my senior leadership team I I try to speak last I say I cannot make the best decision unless I know how you all feel including if that is in disagreement with me and I really impress upon our young people that leadership is listening and we have done a bad job in demonstrating through popular culture and and previous assumptions about leadership and how we how we taught about it that the leader does all the Talking that it's the first the leader does the most listening the leader lifts up and empowers I love to push decision making as deep into the organization as possible and and it it it works it works and you

[28:12]  it see it takes longer but if you don't it takes longer upfront but if you don't you will deal with it on the back end on trying to remind people or Justify why you're making these changes because they weren't a part of the process and they didn't have a voice they didn't have their agency pouring into it on the front end so it feels like it takes longer but it will it's going to take longer if you do it the other way I mean and the at the end of the day we're not playing this game to just last till the end of 2025 right we're playing this game for as long as we possibly can and that is sustainable action over a long term um there's an interesting perspective that I have in 2022 the Surgeon General came onto a national broadcast the first time since the 60s and said the biggest threat to the American society is not another viral pmic but an epidemic of isolation and

[29:00]  loneliness I want to take that a step further I grew up um I was born in the late 80s early 90s I grew up in metro Detroit so I saw a community that was based on the privilege of being able to work for a large organization like GM and Ford and Chrysler right and literally grandmothers Aunts Uncles would say hey if you're lucky enough one day you're going to graduate from high school you're not going to need to go to college you're going to be able to join one of these factories make $140 an hour and have a pension that's going to take care of your family for the rest of your life you'll be a part of this family now when the everything happened in 2009 2010 2008 right everything was sucked out of our city and I saw a generation of people who felt for the first time felt betrayed by the organization in which they work for that I experienced in my lifetime now recognizing that

[29:49]  we've had a couple of those instances In Our Lifetime we also see the the headlines of Amazon Cuts 12,000 jobs right all this different type of stuff negativity at the big macro level I feel like deep down inside of our soul we are yearning for an organization to be that sense of connection that we're not getting in our personal lives anymore Instagram's not doing it for people double clicking on on pictures people's pictures and liking stuff is not giving us that social connection so why shouldn't the leaders of the future like you Janelle start formulating these organizations that can fill some of those gaps of connection by making people feel involved in the process of life because work is a huge part of our life why should it be different and I just think that you are the future and leaders like you are the future to bring our communities back together and give us that sense of connection that we're

[30:36]  yearning for wow well um I couldn't agree more and no pressure right but you're 100% right I I so one of the other things that we did and it started with um when I was Chief Operating Officer at Jag and Ken was still president Ken Smith and when Co hit we we I mean we were terrified right because we here we have nearly 80,000 young people at the time coming into school many of them saying the reason I come here is because of Jag and Jag is more than just a class to me it's a family and we did not have online content and now we are going to take away that Lifeline in many ways for our

[31:25]  young people because um because schools were closing because of Co and so we and we understood why right so we were like okay what are we going to do and we had had this best practice and it was a part of Jag since Inception so not only when you go to Jag are you in this class where you learn essential employability skills uh that are relevant to any industry you go into but um and this is a uh credit to to Ken and and Nora when they created the program and from my understanding it was really um and I got to give a shout out to Governor Pete deont too who took the assignment to say we can do better as a state of of Delaware for our young people in this in this state and then ask Ken to create this program um it was uh called the career Association so if

[32:14]  you're in Jag not only are in the class but how do we get you involved how do you develop your leadership how do you develop your your agency and um and your just who you are as an active citizen and the career association means if you're in J you can run for local chapter office president vice president uh secretary vice president of communication I mean there's so many different vice president titles right and and then some of our higher capacity Affiliates had established state chapters we had never had a national chapter and after 40 Years of debate we were like we have to keep our young people engaged we have to give them something to engage so Jag National pulled the the trigger um on the national career Association so we are now on our third

[33:06]  slate of national officers and when I after covid when I went around and started meeting with going into the classrooms and meeting with students you know before they'd say my Jag specialist who are Educators who are the most phenomenal people in the world um my Jag specialist supports me they listen to me and they're helping me develop a plan based on what I love to do and aligning that to jobs in the community um now when I go there they're still doing that but they're saying I'm going to run for national office I'm going to compete a national office I should I compete in our in the competition or should I be a voting delegate because I learned more about the Electoral College and how this country elects presidents through our students and how we set this up um because they're voting delegates and

[33:53]  then they'll go and caucus um when we're at the event a new annual event that we have every year um to elect the officers who are running and so I have the privilege of working with some of our officers I have monthly calls with our national president I had my today in fact um with uh Freda and I tell her and I tell our students um from stage I was like you all are better at being adults right now than adults because we implore them to they only have a year of working together so you have to listen you have to seek to understand and be curious about different perspectives and different ideas and it's okay to disagree but you have this top level goal for your year

[34:42]  how are you going to work together to get that done and they are patient they are listening they are they are respectful of different opinions and I told Freda in a call last month I said you know we're in an era right now in America where we we have forgotten how to think for ourselves and we consume way too much and we often don't seek to educate ourselves we'll just consume whatever comes in front of us and it's a lot so I recognize why you don't always have time to go read a 30-page report or what what have it but um but we are in an era where we need one-on-one conversations in nass because guess what if you if you share a meme that was generated by something else you're changing no one's

[35:30]  mind you're only reinforcing your own beliefs and people who might not agree with it are making judgments about you it's how humans work we need one-on-one conversations in math and this is the long game in order to come together as a nation and do great things so be patient and be curious and seek to understand and know it's okay to disagree and this will never end you have to consistently work at it year over year over year over year and I tell them I'm like do not share any of these memes on Instagram and think you're going to change anyone's mind that's not helping it's just adding to there there's so many places that I want to go with that little segment um number one 2036 Janelle for president because we need a mindset like you right who can be

[36:19]  a story from a small town come to Washington influence and then have an impact across our country so that's just my put yeah um you know I I completely agree though I mean we're in a completely different time you know I there was a couple times when we were talking about how tapped in is the language that I use um when we talk about our younger generation of people right they're more knowledgeable about the systems that we interact with every single day they have fresh perspectives because they have so much knowledge coming at them yeah but also we're in a place where social media and things like that have a huge influence on us and they've changed during our lifetime I like to bring this into the conversation to remind people where we came from when I graduated from high school and went to college I hopped on Facebook for the first time and it was a chronological documentation of the

[37:06]  entire day somebody hopped on the morning made a post people commented on it and it went like that through the entire day it's not like that anymore there are algorithms that show us information that is completely outside of our control it's like pulling the the slot machine and then figuring out what we're going to get having conversations at scale is the pendulum swinging back in the opposite direction of instant gratification from from my perspective and hearing how tapped in you are to understanding that is so exciting for me to know that there are organizations and leaders like you who are pushing Us in the right direction the human connection is never going to be replaced but let's be very transparent in order for us to have scale today right and impact that we're looking for in all the communities and lives that we impact we have to use technology so how are you being kind of curious about things like automation artificial intelligence that can help

[37:54]  kind of the Jag Mission be fulfilled by helping scale out from where you guys are at now well I'll start by saying I think as leaders and I was having this conversation yesterday with our with a our the person I work with That Jag works with that really lead he's like a fractional CIO CTO we're not quite at the point where we can have a full-time one um and you know he said and I agree that leaders are going to have to make a decision on how they want to leverage this technology and are you going to leverage it to replace humans or are you going to leverage it to empower humans and I am a full believer that this technology can be used to enable us to spend more time

[38:47]  with our passion with each other and take away some of the the mundane pieces that might not be fun in our job jobs and and actually be frustrating to us and if we can leverage it for that to say this is not a good use of my brain this makes me a human doing instead of a human being then then I then AI help help me out help me out and then how that can Elevate our thinking and our creativity and our collaboration and humanity and just working together um that is that's where I stand on the thing um in terms of how we're using it um we're just we're just starting and if

[39:35]  you you know if you have a nonprofit or business and you don't allow it people are using it I mean we all know that students are using it we all know that I I mean we need to stop fighting it and just recognize it's happening and then determine what are the policies you need to put in place in your organization to protect your employees and your people and your your data your pii all that stuff um and and then how do you bring to get each other together to talk about what you're learning and how you're collaborating because you can learn about how to use AI from humans right yeah so it creates another way for us to learn and collaborate together by discussing what we've learned and helping train each other how to use it and support each other in day-to-day so that's not something that we're actively

[40:23]  doing right now um I know that I have team members who are using it for some of the more mundane things I mean I do um but in 2025 this is the year that we're going to start uh moving forward in that space because we serve young people and we support them to be competitive in the labor market if we are not using Ai and understanding how technology is going to impact their workplace and their job opportunities in the future then we're not doing our job so I personally feel like it's a a prerogative for 100% I totally agree and I'm glad that you're going into this with the the lens of curiosity right because we have to be curious we don't know all the answers this reminds me of the earth like when you said you got internet in your house

[41:09]  in '96 97 or 95 whenever that was you never could have imagined that layers on top of it was going to be clicking two buttons on your cell phone that also connects to that system and now a person's going to pull up outside of your house and be ready to take you wherever they want to and all you don't have to talk to them you can pay them through the internet it's just like the Evol ution of this technology is going to get crazy um so one of the things that we have here Janelle on the podcast is a random question from our previous guest they would love to ask you a blind question and we will see what your answer is so the question that came from our last guest was what does courage mean to you in 2025 courage to me means it is a chaotic time in in America and there's just a lot coming I

[42:02]  mean if you watch the news is a lot it's a lot you can't keep up so by nature of the amount of information that is coming at you each and every day it's chaotic and that can throw people off in their Rhythm and their day-to-day so to me to be courageous in 2025 means to find calm and lead with calmness I think the country needs calm leadership right now and that's what I intend to give them and work on and I would encourage everyone else to find out what is it that can help you find calm and control in your own daytoday and your work personally and and lean into that because I don't I I said this to the team I was like when

[42:49]  there's chaos we goes Z and yeah it's as simple as that well guys I just want to thank everybody who's tuning in watching and listening today to the heart and hustle podcast Janelle once again an amazing guest you are the definition of heart and hustle and I'm so glad to know that we have amazing leaders out there who are doing the important work to push our communities forward Ken thank you enough for coming on the show thank you this was a blast I loved it all right guys we'll catch you in the next one