So often, as leaders, we are running around reacting to things that are happening in the moment. Or, thinking ahead to what's next. In this episode, Laurel Rutledge and I talk about cancel culture, toxic positivity, making decisions and modeling behaviour.
Today's guest, Laurel Rutledge is a Career and Leadership Transformation Expert and HR Strategist. She has global, multi-industry experience, has built teams and departments, led large-scale human capital projects, and coached individuals from the plant floor to the board room.
This episode is full of truth bombs--things that will really make you stop and think, and help you grow. We talk about cancel culture and toxic positivity, self-leadership vs people leadership, how to make the best decisions and modeling leadership behaviour.
I love Laurel and could talk to her forever about all the things! Do yourself a favor and listen to this episode ASAP. It is that good! ;)
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To learn more about Laurel Rutledge you can find her online at https://laurelrutledge.com/. She is also on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurel-k-rutledge/), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/therutledgeperspective) Instagram, and Twitter (search Laurel K Rutledge).
- I'm Celine Williams and welcome to the Leading Through Crisis podcast, a conversation series exploring resiliency and leadership in challenging times. My guest today is Laurel Rutledge who is the CEO of LKR Group, a company dedicated to improving the lives of Texans and people around the world through career and leadership transformation. And I am extremely excited about this because Laurel is one of my favorite people to talk to. So Laurel, welcome to the show.
- Oh my gosh, I'm so excited to be here. We just hit it off the first time we had a conversation that was supposed to be what, 20 minutes. And it ended up being like an hour and a half.
- Yep, yep.
- So I am thrilled, thrilled to be a guest on your show.
- Thank you, I'm really excited because that's literally the truth. I was like: I could talk to you for... I think I ended that call with like: Can we be friends? Are we friends now because I need to be your friend?
- Right, right, I feel the same way. We're best friends now.
- Best friends, 100%. So like, I'm really excited to have you on not only because it brings me so much joy 'cause I adore you, but you're so insightful. And your background is so interesting. I think it's super valuable to the people who are watching and listening. So I thank you for agreeing to come on this and not only to chat with me but chat with my listeners. So I always like to start sort of big and broad and ask the question. When you hear the idea, the language of leading through crisis, what does that mean to you? What comes up for you inside of that?
- You know, when I hear that, there's a couple of things that come up. One, just breathe. Just breathe. Because we're all just human and we're all just trying to make it. So just breathe. The second thing that comes up for me, especially when I'm working with clients, is people will listen to what you say but they will believe what you do. And so they'll remember how you treat them during times of crisis. So those are the two things that really resonate for me when we're talking about how you lead, how you show up during crisis times.
- So I wanna start with the second one first 'cause why not? But that idea of people hear what you say but they'll believe what you do, right. I feel like there are a lot of people, especially in times of crisis, change, when things are challenging who say all the right things and then do not have the actions to back that up. And feel free to, you can share a little bit more about your history. 'Cause, obviously, I didn't do a ton there. But based on your experience personally, professionally, whatever the case may be, how can people recognize in themselves that gap? Because I think it's really easy when you're on the outside to be like, I'm picking on you, Laurel, but to be like: "Laurel is saying all the things "that she's meant to be saying to lead this team "but she's not doing any." But you, Laurel, might be like: "Well, I'm saying all the things, so therefore..." Your recognition of it could be entirely different, so.
- Yeah. You know, that is such a great question because it's really hard. And what it starts with is a willingness to leave your ego at the door and be self-aware, right. Because real leadership is not about you. It's about the people you're leading. And so, often, what I've found in my history... So I've been in leadership for a long time and I have worked with people from the plant floor to the C-suite, right. And what I've found is people who've had the hardest time, who are just willing to say the right words and they wanna be the cheerleader and they're gonna always say the right thing have been trained to say the right thing. Because they're supposed to be the person who speaks for the company. They're supposed to be the representative. They're supposed to cheerlead people. But they're focused on the words they say, not what they're communicating. And so they want if anybody comes and says, "Well, what did you say?" If it's recorded, you know what you say if it's gonna wind up on the front page of the paper, they wanna make sure they said the right thing. And that's about ego. That's about fear. And that's about protecting yourself. That's not about serving and leadership. So if you really want to figure out how you bridge that gap between what you say and what you do, because people will believe what you do, is yes listen to the words but watch the body language and listen actively. And actively means listening not just to respond but to understand, listening and watching how people respond, body language, what they say and what they don't say. So if you really, really want to be aware and have people believe who you are and have your actions align with your words, you need to understand how to communicate, not just how to speak to people 'cause there is a difference.
- So two things immediately come to mind. I love that, by the way. But two things immediately come to mind when you say that which is one, how much has this idea of cancel culture made that worse where it's really about the words that you say, not what you're communicating? Because I imagine that that is probably, corporate world or not, made it worse in general.
- Yes, right.
- So first and foremost, and the second thing that comes to mind is the idea of toxic positivity which I feel like a lot of people have... My big pet peeve is when you ask someone how they are and they're like, "I'm fine," or "I'm great," no matter what. I mean, it's the most simple, basic pervasive form of toxic positivity we have and it's everywhere. And so given one, our commitment to toxic positivity in many ways and cancel culture, how can people, like how do you... And I'm not saying: Laurel, give us the answer that's gonna solve all the world's problems. I mean, if you have it, please give us the answer to solve all the world's problems. But assuming that none of us has the answer that's gonna solve all the problems, how can people be aware of not of not just saying the words? How can they be aware of where that cancel culture might be influencing them to just say the words?
- Right. You know, and that is such an interesting thing. I actually did a podcast about canceling. Because I listened to this woman. So her name is, I think it was Loretta Ross. She's a professor and she talked about canceling. And then I read another article that talked about consequences versus canceling. And I'm a big consequence girl. And here's the problem with cancel culture is that if you immediately cancel somebody when they misstep or misspeak or even intentionally do something, what you miss is the connection to consequences which means you don't get the opportunity to change behavior. And that's the problem with cancel culture. Now don't get me wrong. There are people who immediately need to be canceled. Done and done. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be severe ramifications for egregious behavior. There absolutely should be. Sometimes though, there is a difference in egregious behavior and ignorance, or behavior that is just inappropriate that no one has called someone on. So if they've never been called on that behavior, how would they know? They probably do know. But how would they know that they're gonna have to change the behavior if they're gonna be successful if there are no consequences, right? And so, if you immediately cancel somebody, you immediately fire them, you immediately push them out, what they get to say is, "Ah, we're just being politically correct. "See, I just had a difference of opinion. "So therefore I got punished." That's not connecting their behavior to the consequences. So my first thing is if you're going to be speaking to someone, if you're going to be saying something to someone about anything, number one: Is it true? Number two: Is it kind, right? That whole mantra that you see sometimes: Is it kind? But three: Is it authentic? And is it connected to the issue at hand? So if someone digs deeper and starts asking you questions, can you back up what you're saying through your experience, through your actions, through behavior, through social proof? People will see immediately when you're just a talking head and you're just speaking the language, right. You're just saying, towing the company line. People are not stupid. They're not stupid. So if you decide you're gonna tow the company line, that is a choice you can make, but choices have consequences. And we are free to make the choice, but we are not free from the consequences of the choice we make. So the first thing to think about in cancellation culture is stop being afraid of speaking the truth. Stop being afraid of saying: I don't know. Stop being afraid of saying: I'm afraid, right. I am confused in this situation. I don't how to respond. And I'm afraid that the way I respond is going to get me in trouble. Just say that. Just say that. And so, there are gonna be people who get it. There are gonna be people who don't. But at the end of the day, most people are kind of in the middle just trying to do the best they can. And the best thing you can do as a leader to build trust and to have people believe what you do and therefore understandably what you say is by your actions saying: I'm willing to be vulnerable. I'm willing to learn. I'm willing to speak the truth. And I am willing to suffer the consequences of what I say because I stand by what I say. And if I'm wrong, I'm gonna apologize and make it right. To me, it seems pretty simple. What makes it difficult is it gets at that personal piece. It gets at fear and it gets at ego. And fear drives a lot of behavior. So it's really important to understand that people a lot of times are acting out of fear: fear of litigation, fear of consequences, not necessarily out of where their heart is. And so that gives us all grace, right. I can't remember what we talked about the second question.
- It's fine. I wanna pick up on something you said there, so we can come back to it. I mean, I could not agree with you more that fear is a huge driver of these things. And I think there for leaders especially the fear of not having the answer or the fear of having to go and say... Okay, I'm gonna fully own my bias inside of this. I think one of the most toxic things we do for leaders is say: You have to solve the problem and you have to make a decision and then stick to that decision. No, that does not let anyone learn. It doesn't let anyone get better information. And so, that's why I'm like I'm gonna fully own my bias inside of this. This is something I'm very passionate about. But that fear of making a mistake, that fear of having to go and say: "Actually, I was wrong and here's better information." I think that is so pervasive. And it prevents leaders from being able to, and I don't care if you're a business owner. I don't care if you're leading a company of 25,000 people. It's you're a leader no matter what. But it prevents you from being vulnerable enough to say: "Hey, I'm doing the best I can right now. "I might do better tomorrow when I have better information, "but here's what I got right now."
- Yeah, yeah. I agree completely. And this is why we're so aligned. Because leadership is not about position. Leadership is about behavior.
- Yes.
- And we all know that because we all know people who are in C-suites who really should not be because they are not leaders. Leadership is about behavior. You can lead from the back. In fact, most exceptional leaders lead from the back. They don't lead from the front, right. And so to your point about this whole idea of being afraid to be vulnerable, being afraid to say: "Hey, I got new information," being afraid to change a decision, that's a command-and-control culture. It is more about... And I worked for an organization that was like a big project, right. We had a big project, we'd set a date. We were moving towards this date and I'm thinking: Okay, this is like basic project management. We are not ready. And this is like a big thing. There's gonna be money. There's gonna be clients. There's gonna be all of this stuff that's gonna be messed up if we don't pause and either change the scope or change the timing. Oh my gosh, we can't change the time if we wrote it down. Okay, so which is the worst failure: the fact that we changed a date or the fact that we screw it up? I vote for screw it up, so let's change the dang date. And I remember sitting in that meeting and I listened to this for 45 minutes. I listened to people asking these questions that were very clearly indicating that we were not ready to meet the date that we'd set out. And so finally, I said: "Okay guys, we've been sitting here 45 minutes. "Here are the things we've been talking about. "And here's our date. "If we don't know the answers to those questions today, "we will not be ready at that date. "Why are we moving to this date? "Who told us this date? "If we set it, then we can change it. "And if somebody else set it "who doesn't have the same skin in the game, "why are we moving to their day?" Crickets, crickets. Then finally, one of my colleagues said, "Oh, thank God you said something. "I'm so glad somebody said something." And I wasn't saying it to be: Look at me, I'm willing to call it out. No, no, no. We collectively had something we were going to do. We had a goal in mind and the goal was not the date. The goal was the successful implementation. And in order to have a successful implementation, we needed to make sure we have everything outlined including an appropriate date. So we could either change the scope or change the date. And either one of those would have helped the success. But that unwillingness as leaders to say: Something's not working. We have options to change. And if we get the data and say why we're changing it, then we don't have to worry about people saying, "Oh my gosh, you guys can't meet a date. "You always put a date, you never meet it." No, no, no. We got additional information. And because we got this information, but the goal has not changed, that means we have to change the date. But that takes courage. And it also takes humility. And it takes a willingness to understand that none of us knows everything all the time and having a culture that says: It's okay to change a decision. Because that, to your point, that whole idea of we're not gonna change, we're not gonna change, we're not gonna change, not only does it create that toxic culture, that toxic positivity, that lack of trust, that willingness to fail at all costs. Because clearly, that's what you're willing to do if you're not willing to change a date. It also creates this culture of stifling innovation.
- Yes.
- Because if people can't change a date or make a change in decision, they can't be innovative 'cause they get punished. So if you want innovation, you need flexibility. If you want innovation, you need to understand after-acquired information may change what you thought. If you want innovation, you've gotta give people freedom and flexibility. And that takes courage.
- Well, I mean, yes. Yes. And you can't have innovation without iteration. Part and parcel of innovation is failure. Baked into anything innovative is failure. So you're going to fail, and then you're gonna learn, and then you're gonna iterate. So you can't have both at the same time. You can't say: "We don't let you make mistakes or fail. "We don't have room for that, "and we wanna innovate in some way." And I think there are a lot of leaders that are in organizations that are trying to do both of those things. And I don't think either one is being done super successfully quite often. Even if a leader is, and, you know, I would ask you this question as well, for a leader who is in an organization or who is willing to say like: "Hey, I made a mistake. "I've learned. "Let's do this better." And this organization wants to innovate. But the culture or the people around them when they see that, the language is like: "Oh, you know, you can't really trust that person "'cause they don't stick to their decisions. "They're really wishy washy "'cause they'll change their mind "when they get new information." 'Cause that, I think that unfortunately happens quite often as well. How can someone navigate that? 'Cause I always really feel for leaders that find themselves in those situations.
- Absolutely. I would say number one, first and foremost, you gotta be true to you. And if you know information that is critical to a project or a process or any kind of decision that is being made that'll impact that outcome, it is incumbent upon you as a leader to bring that up. It is also incumbent upon you to be savvy enough, politically and culturally savvy enough, to know when and how and where to bring that up. So from a personal perspective, you gotta know all that stuff. From a cultural perspective, I would say this. You gotta know where you are. And if you're in a culture that would sooner punish someone for speaking the truth than make adjustments, then you just need to know that. And you've got a choice to make, because you always have a choice. Even if they tell you you don't or they act like you don't, you always have a choice. And if it is truly that toxic, if it is truly that kind of situation where they simply do not have the intestinal fortitude for mistakes, then my suggestion to people that I've coached in the past is for them to say: "You know what, if that's the culture." And cultures do not change overnight. If you can find allies, if you can find supporters, if you can find sponsors and mentors that can help you navigate that, do that. Especially if you love the organization and love what they do, do that. But keep your mind and eye open to the possibility that it just may be a place that you are not long-term because it is absolutely contrary to what you believe in and how you believe business should be done. And that's okay. That is not a failure on your part. That is a disconnect of fit and value. That's what it is simply. It's not a reflection on your worth.
- No, and I think that can be really hard for people, right, to disconnect their quote performance from their worth, their production for whatever you want to put it. I think that can be really challenging. And, you know, this goes back inside of what just said. This goes back to something you said prior which is this all takes a lot of courage. It takes a lot of courage to even do the work to say internally for me that this might be the truth.
- Yeah, it does. It does. Courage is not easy, right. Courage is not easy. Leadership is not easy, right. Because leadership is not about you. And you have to be willing to be courageous and vulnerable at the same time. Because it takes courage to be vulnerable especially because we've been trained, right. Leadership is up. And the higher you get up, the more responsibility you have. The more accountability you have. And it's true, accountability rolls up. Accountability rolls up. You are accountable for all of the things that happen to you, through you, by you, below you. You are accountable as a leader. Responsibility is at all levels of everyone who has participated in whatever the thing is. And so as a leader, when you talk about how you're going to stand in your courage, how you can disconnect your worth from your performance, one of those things is you demonstrating that behavior. So when you're talking to other people about their performance, getting rid of that word, you, because it's not about the person. And every time you use you did, you thought, you said, you didn't, it becomes personal. It becomes a character attack. If you use things like: "The behavior that I saw "created this outcome which had this impact, "and that impact is contrary "to the goal that we have at hand," you are not making any kind of statement on their personal character, their personal beliefs, their capability, their intellect. I observed a behavior that led to an outcome that led to an impact that's unacceptable. So how do we fix that? You should do the same thing for you when you're having your own conversations. Okay, I know I'm a good person. I know I'm capable. I know I'm intelligent. I know I saw something that didn't feel right. And I was afraid to say something. That doesn't make me weak. There is something in the situation that I need to understand for me so that I can shore up my courage and figure out a way to navigate, right? So just as you give grace to others, you've gotta give yourself some grace so that you can show up as the strong leader, confident leader that you are. Because confident doesn't mean you always have the answer. In fact, the more confident you are, the more capable you are of saying: "You know what, I don't know. "But we're gonna figure it out." Or: "That's a great idea; I hadn't thought about that. "And that is important information "'cause I was all the way down this other road. "But what you told me just made me say: "That doesn't make any sense." That's confidence and courage and competence, because it's not about you. It's about the people you're serving and the goals the organization is trying to meet. Plain and simple, plain and simple.
- I love that. It makes me think. So there's two things that come up for me. One, it makes me think about that idea I think we often contrast, is maybe the right word, self-leadership with people leadership. Like, you need to lead yourself in order to do this. But they're really different. They're really, really different. So like, you know, just separate them out. And the truth is that they're not that different. And they're both, listen, they're both super important, but it's not like they happen in isolation.
- Yes, they don't.
- Right, and inside of what you just said, what I heard is like if we give grace to other people, if we approach these other people, if we approach these situations with other people in this way, then how do we also think about doing that for ourselves? How do we actually bring self-leadership and people leadership closer together instead of these isolated pockets, the way they've been spoken about.
- Exactly. And I think, you know, there's so much going on now about people leadership, right, and especially with the DE&I space. Because the diversity and the equity, that's the easy part. It's the inclusion that's the problem, right? That's the hard part. 'Cause that gets right at those biases. And so, because there's so much work in that space, there is a lot of focus on recognizing that you don't know what race someone's run before they got to that building. You don't know what battle people are fighting. You don't know necessarily what's going on, even people that you're really close to, right? You may not know everything that's happening that they're battling when they show up every day. And so we talk a lot in that DE&I space about understanding that and having compassion for that so that when we interact with people, we can keep that in mind. It doesn't necessarily form our opinion, but it can help us modify behaviors so that we can be heard and communicate appropriately in a way that the other person can understand. Because we're focused on that in our interaction with others, I would say I always tell people that same lens that you have of thinking about that, be really aware and mindful of what you're going through. Because especially with COVID, we are all going through something: kids homeschooling, technology that may or may not work, like we just had that conversation earlier, people working remotely. If you were a bad manager before, and I'm just gonna call it out, you're gonna be a worse manager in COVID. 'Cause if you didn't wanna talk to people before, now you really don't have to. And that's a problem. 'Cause now it's really disconnecting people, right. So having that understanding that turning that lens of how you include people means how do you include all of you in how you show up. It's turning the mirror around, because you got stuff too. You got concerns, you got fears, you got worries, you got desires, you got all of this stuff that you are bringing with you everyday too when you show up as a leader. Be mindful of that, own it, own your own stuff. Understand how it manifests for you under stress, under boredom, under normal circumstances. Be very mindful of how you show up as a leader and give yourself some grace to be able to say: "You know what, this is one of those days." And I say this because I've done this. I have a way that I generally show up. I tend to be fairly energetic. I tend to be fairly candid. I tend to be fairly self-deprecating because I don't believe that you have to be ugly to be candid. And I'm always about the issue, right. It's never personal for me. It's always about the issue. But there are also times when there's a lot. And the higher you go up in an organization, the more that a lot gets to be a whole lot, and especially if you're in something like HR 'cause there's so much you know that you just can't tell people. Or if you're in finance because there's integrations that are going on. There may be acquisitions. There's so much you know that you can't talk about. And so you're carrying a lot. And what I realized because, again, I try to be very self-aware because when you're self-aware, you recognize how you're showing up. There were times when I finally said, I would go into my team and say: "Guys, I know I'm coming in and I don't have "the same level of energy or the same level of patience. "I recognize that. "There is a lot going on that I am not at liberty "to share right now, "because I'm standing between you and some madness. "So just understand that if I'm a little shorter today "or if I'm trying to get you to get to the point, "it's not because I don't love you anymore. "It's not because I don't care. "It's not because of any of that. "I need to put some things in context "and there's a lot going on. But I just said it up front. And said, "I just need you to give me some grace today. "Tomorrow will be better. "I'm still here. "I am present. "I'm 100% with you. "There's just a lot going on, "so my interaction may be different "than you normally expect." And what that does, when it took all the pressure away from my team in thinking: What did I do? Did I say something wrong? What does she know? Because that's what we do. We take it personally. If somebody acts differently with us: What did we do? What's going on, especially during these times? Are they about to tell me I'm losing my job? Are they about to tell me I'm not getting a raise? It's all of this stuff we start imagining. As a leader, call it out. "I am not myself today." If you have someone on your team that you're seeing behavior that's different, this is what leaders do, we pay attention, you don't have to get in their business. But there's nothing wrong with saying: "You know what, I'm just calling to check on you." Don't ask about the project. Don't ask about the deadline. "I'm just calling to check on you." And when they start down that road, "Nope, that's good, we have plenty of time. "We've got a meeting on the calendar. "I just wanted to make sure you're good. "If there's anything I can do to support you further, "let me know." You're not asking details that can get you in trouble from a litigation perspective. But you are demonstrating honestly, cause you need to do this when you really feel it, you're demonstrating honestly that you've noticed something and that you were concerned and you were willing to help. That's really important. And it doesn't have to be a long conversation. I had somebody tell me the other day: People don't want posts, they want tweets, 240 characters. "I'm good, you're good. "It's all good." Or "I need help. "Here's what I need. "I just need somebody to know that I'm still here." So being self-aware enables you to give yourself some grace, to show up with compassion for yourself. Because you can't show up fully if you're not taking care of you. "You have to be a little selfish in order to be selfless," as my friend, Holly Dally, would say.
- Yes, I love that. And it makes me think that when you are self-aware and you're selfish and you know those things, and you're upfront about them in whatever way is you, right. It's not about being someone else but you are upfront about them in the way that works for you, you're preventing people from filling in their own blanks and making assumptions. And to go back where this started, a lot of the challenges, from my perspective, that I have seen around the DE&I space is that people are running from assumptions and filling in blanks about other people, other groups, other situations, whatever the case may be, and there's no space for people to show up as who they are to fill in those blanks, actually them filling in the blanks and breaking down those assumptions. And if you are self-aware and modeling that for other people, it makes it safe and it makes inclusion possible when you look at a bigger scale. Because then, it's okay for other people to show up as themselves. Then it's okay for them to talk about what's going on with them.
- You nailed it. You nailed it. Modeling the behavior because it gives everybody else permission. That's it. That's it. End scene, right?
- I mean, I think we just solved all the world's problems. So there we go.
- We did; of course, we did. That's absolutely it, right. Giving people permission. Giving people permission to fail. Giving people permission to be, you know, emotional within reason, right. Giving people an opportunity to just be who they are. Because I also tell people it's still a company, right? It's still not the backyard barbecue. There's still a level of decorum. But you gotta give people space to be. And you gotta give people support to ask for help, to ask for help, to say, "I need a mental health day." Or, "You know what, I'm really not feeling today. "I just need a minute. "I just need a minute. "I promise I'll be back with you, "but I need a minute to gather myself." And then give them space to do that.
- One of my mantras is I feel like I'm a broken record when I talk to people. It's like: All emotions are good. You're meant to feel all your emotions. They're all great. How you express all those emotions may not always be ideal, right? So all of those emotions are welcome in the office. You can be angry. You can be hurt. You can be sad. You may not want to use anger to go and scream at the CEO of your company. But is there a way that you can express that anger appropriately? Probably, right. So they're all good. How you express them is that decorum piece to what you said.
- Exactly, exactly. And that's, you know, some of that is experience, right. Some of that is learning. Some of that is the further you go in your career, number one, you know which battles to pick, right. You just decide. And sometimes, you know, they say, "Never burn a bridge." I'm telling you there are some bridges that need to go down in flames.
- Amen.
- Just know that that's not one you ever intend to cross again, right. There are some things, just some relationships that don't need to continue. There are some things that are simply toxic and you need to remove them, and that's okay. But even then, you need to do that in a way that still enables you to show up authentically as who you are, and recognizes that you're making a choice that has consequences: some intended, some unintended. And just be prepared for those, whatever they are, whatever they are.
- I love talking to you. And I could talk to you for 1,000 hours. And I will have you back on the show for sure. I'm telling you this right now. But I wanna be very respectful of your time. And so, I'm gonna ask this question to wrap it up. And that is: Is there anything that we didn't get to that you would like to mention or that we spoke about that you wanna emphasize before we wrap this up?
- I think the only thing I'd like to emphasize because we do not do it well is just breathe. Just breathe. I want everybody to just give themselves a minute. This is a lot. This is a lot for all of us. And none of us is perfect. All of us have battles. And it's okay even if you're the CEO of a Fortune 1 company if you need a minute, you need a minute. Give yourself some grace. Take a few deep breaths. Take the time you need and then show up stronger. But it is okay to need a minute. Just breathe. Just breathe.
- I'm going to recommend that every person who is listening or watching this needs to go check you out online.
- Thank you.
- It's laurelrutledge.com. Is that correct?
- Yes.
- The link will be in the show notes, but it is laurelrutledge.com. If you're listening to this, Laurel is even more phenomenal than the taste of what you got here today. So check her out. It's worthwhile. And Laurel, thank you. I'm very happy you're my best friend.
- Yes, thank you so much. I'm like yay, a kindred spirit. This is awesome. And when COVID is over and we can actually travel, we you know.
- Oh, it'll be happening.
- We'll do something really like amazing, right. Thank you so much for having me. It has been my pleasure. I am honored to have shared this time with you.
- It is my pleasure, trust me. Thanks for joining me today on the Leading Through Crisis podcast. If you enjoyed this conversation, please take a minute to rate and review us on your podcast app. If you're interested in learning more about any of our guests, you can find us online at www.leadingthroughcrisis.ca.