The Ultimate Guide to a People-First Workplace with Liz Ryan

The Ultimate Guide to a People-First Workplace with Liz Ryan

Kelly Kennedy: Welcome to Episode 148 of the Business Development Podcast. And today we are chatting with the founder and CEO of Human Workplace, Liz Ryan. We are talking about personal empowerment, reinvention, And humanizing the future workplace, you are not going to want to miss this episode.

Intro: The Great Mark Cuban once said, Business happens over years and years.

Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal. And we couldn't agree more. This is the business development podcast based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and broadcasting to the world. You'll get expert business development, advice, tips, and experiences, and you'll hear interviews with business owners.

CEOs and business development reps, you'll get actionable advice on how to grow business. Brought to you by capital business development, Capitalbd.ca. Let's do it. Welcome to the business development podcast, and now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly Kennedy: Hello, welcome to episode 148 of the business development podcast. And my gosh, this has been a challenging one to record.

This is actually our second time over and I have to deeply, deeply thank our amazing, legit rockstar guests. We're coming back a second time and helping me fix my mistake. Before we get into it though, let me introduce her. Today, we are chatting with Liz Ryan. Liz is the dynamic CEO and founder of Human Workplace, a trailblazing coaching and consulting firm.

Thanks Dedicated to transforming traditional work paradigms into human centered environments with a distinguished career that includes serving as a senior VP of human resources at a fortune 500 company. Liz brings unparalleled expertise in leadership, organizational strategy. and career development.

She engages a global audience of over 3 million LinkedIn subscribers on a weekly basis, sharing insights that empower individuals to navigate their careers with confidence and authenticity. Liz is a celebrated author of influential books like Reinvention Roadmap, Break the Rules to Get the Job You Want and A Career You Deserve, and a renowned columnist.

Who has contributed thought provoking insights to publications such as Forbes and the Denver Post. An accomplished speaker and an operatic soprano, Liz Ryan embodies innovation and empowerment in every facet of her career, inspiring millions to embrace new possibilities in work and life. Through her pioneering work at Human Workplace, Liz Ryan continues to redefine success by empowering individuals to unlock their full potential and seize the careers that they deserve.

Her commitment to reshaping the workplace narratives resonates globally, making Liz a beacon of change and a catalyst for personal and professional transformation. Liz, once again, it's an honor to have you on the show.

Liz Ryan: Thank you so much for having me, Kelly. That's all very nice.

Kelly Kennedy: Oh boy. I yeah, like I said, I, I really apologize.

I have to just say it because, you know, at this point I've recorded 148 episodes and I have never had a mix up quite like the one we just had. I, guys, I blew out my audio messing with some mic settings and Liz, the angel she is, is so kind to come back and do this show a second time. So, graciously, thank you so much for coming back and doing this again.

Liz Ryan: No, no, no. Once, once I saw that little, that cute little tyke. On the bedspread. I said, okay, whatever. It's fine.

Kelly Kennedy: Oh my gosh. He was posing that morning. We had him on the bed and I had your book out because I just finished reading it the day before and I'd had him on the bed and he, I kid you not, I walked over and he's sitting there playing with the cover of your book.

He loved the art and I know you, you self illustrated the book so it was your picture and he absolutely loved it. And so I was like, He was posing. He wanted to be on the, on the cover page that day.

Liz Ryan: And he's photogenic. He's, he's a doll.

Kelly Kennedy: Liz, you are amazing. You've done so much with regards to humanizing the workplace.

And we're going to get into that today. But, you know, I want you to take us through the journey. I, like I said, we call all of our listeners on this show. Rockstars. We got, you know, rockstar experts, rockstar listeners, but we don't always get an actual rockstar guest. I started there last time and I wanted to do it again.

You started out as a punk rock singer.

Liz Ryan: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I was a classical, I, I, from high school, I went to conservatory to sing opera and I still sing opera now, but. At the time, you know, in New York, I was at school in New York and I met a friend through my roommate who was in a woodwind quintet and he had a punk rock band and I started singing with them and One thing led to another and and that's actually how I became an hr person too Is because I went to chicago when I was 19 to do music and I worked at a waiting table.

So I made great money and then to my Shock and horror the next time I tried to apply for a job You Which I had to do because I was working for an outdoor cafe and they closed for the winter. I found out you couldn't, I had to be 21 in the state of Illinois to serve alcohol. I couldn't make any money.

So I went inside and did office work and that's how I became an HR person.

Kelly Kennedy: And then, you know, you've done so much obviously in the HR field, you know, walk us through, walk us through what happened next.

Liz Ryan: Well, I, I, I happen to work for a little company that was growing. We didn't even use the word startup then, but it was, but not, not technology.

It was, it was a greeting card company and they were growing like crazy. And so being in the, on the inside of that first customer service and then operations and all that stuff, and they, they knew they were going to grow really fast and our VP of operations said, Hey, I want you to run HR. And make and hire tons of people and, and do that really well.

And also make it a great place to work so that we can keep growing. Well, what better assignment could there be than that? You know, and I had a negative reaction. I said, you're putting me in HR. What did I do to offend you? That I've been involved with our salespeople and our customers and in the real business, and you're like, no, go in HR.

It feels like a punishment. And what did I do to deserve that? You know? I was 24 and he said, no, he said, don't be dumb. You know, do it the way it should be done rather than maybe just the way you've seen it done or the, the reputation that HR has wasn't even HR back now as personnel. I said, okay, that's a good point.

That's a challenge. And so, so that's what I did. And I saw the correlation was like complete. You take care of the employees, you make good energy, make the place about good energy, where the products and the services that you offer are completely Cool. But they're secondary because people don't get excited about making, in this case, greeting cards, although there's cool aspects, some of them are very cute and the artists are fun and the customers are really into them and stuff, but that doesn't get people out of bed in the morning.

Let me go make greeting cards or buttons or anything else. It's like, what does it do for me? Oh, what is the energy like? Am I learning? Am I growing? Am I recognized? Do I have a group, good group of folks over there who support me? And that's, that's everything. And so I really knew even back then, like, I wonder if I'm going to write and speak about this, because this is the decisive fact.

This is everything, the culture and, and, and the way people are communicated with them, the way we deal with problems when they come up is everything. There's nothing else who cares, you know, strategy. We have this new financing partner. Yeah. None of that's going to make any difference. If you don't have a forward, really good community energy, that's just growing all the time.

And so that's what I did. And I only left there like nine years later. I started when I was 19. I left when I was 28. Because I figured, you know, if I'm going to be in like the business world didn't accept that I should go get like a, you know I don't know. It was a great company. I had grown actually from 1 million in sales when I started there to like 200 million when I left nine years later, huge growth.

So I was hiring like crazy and our entire company was growing. But I wanted to do something more in like the sort of business world. If I'm going to do it at all, I might as well rock it. And also I was dating a guy at my current employer. So that wasn't ideal running HR. And I figured, well, maybe I'll just move on and do something else.

And I did, I went to a tech company, U S robotics, a data communications company, and I could tell right away like, oh yeah, this is exactly the energetically the place to be because people like to work here. So. My, my job becomes very easy bringing people in and keeping that really good energy as the company grows.

And it did, it became, you know, multi billion dollar company. And then I knew when I left there I wanted to speak and write and consult, teach people how to, how to get stronger corporations of organizations, of course, but teaching people individually. As people and as working people and as leaders had to get stronger and use more of their power.

Kelly Kennedy: Well, and it sounds like you were really ahead of your time on this. Like, I feel like the feedback that I've gotten is that most workplaces, HR was run considerably differently. And you know, obviously I'm not from an HR background, I'm from a business development background. So I haven't spent a lot of time in that world, but can you speak to maybe like, What are some of the challenges that large HR companies are facing?

Liz Ryan: Well, it's funny because when I was put in HR and I said, Okay, I'll give this a try. I said, you know, I said to my boss, the VP of operations for the company, I don't know anything about HR. I mean, I know as much as a normal supervisor or manager knows, but that's not much. And I don't know all the laws and all that.

And he said, I have a feeling that's secondary. To good HR, which is absolutely true. And he said, you'll find all that out. Sign up for any workshops, seminars, sign up for everything. We have an employment lawyer. We, we talked to seldom talk to him, you know, immerse yourself. And I said, okay, cool. What's not to like?

And I went to all these workshops and trainings and it was, it was eye opening. I went in there, somebody said, oh, you're new. What are you interested in learning? Or I said, oh, I'm interested in. I'm interested in how to create like a incredibly vibrant culture. I'm interested in gender issues and how those play out at work.

Cause I see a lot of stuff, gender issues. What are you talking about? It's been illegal to discriminate against women on the basis of gender since 1968. Don't you know your employment laws? No, I don't. But also just because something's illegal, doesn't mean it doesn't have been. How are we going to deal with these issues?

How are we going to communicate around sticky topics? We're not, we're going to pretend they're not happening. And I was turned off. I was like, what would be the point of pursuing? Like I will lockstep, learn the HR canon. If it doesn't help me and help the people that I'm here to help. That's my whole job.

And then, you know, the AIDS crisis came and my colleagues are getting sick and dying. And I said, you know what? This is what this we're human first, second, third, fourth, fifth. And we're employees like number. 16 or something, but this as companies, this is really what the conversations we should be having all of the human stuff and how do we deal with it and how do we merge that with, you know, what we want out of a workforce and what we want out of our quarterly results and all that.

And if we won't have those conversations, then we have to take down all the posters on the wall that say our employees are our greatest asset. We care about people and talent because it can't, you can't, those two, those two things don't go together. So I don't mean to end on a grim note. I love, I love the message and I love what we, what we are doing, but there are HR people who are very locked in to this human workplace mindset and methodology and doing it in their companies and leaders, and that's, you know, that's of course the greatest thing in the world, but still we have a long way to go to shift away from.

It's just the numbers and the policies toward really making work as human as it could and should be for everybody's sake, for customers sake, for shareholders sake. Nobody, nobody doesn't benefit when working for a human.

Kelly Kennedy: Well, agreed. And I think, like, for me, the big change that I saw came after COVID, or even during COVID, when it kind of felt like maybe employers had no choice.

Like, the power was really taken away from them and given to the employee. Exactly. I think that a lot of companies, you know, I'm in Canada, but I think across North America are still playing catch up. Like how do we work in this new paradigm? But the funny thing is, like you said, we should have been treating our employees with more respect and more power to begin with.

Liz Ryan: It's, it's, it's kind of like this. There's two ways to, to manage Kelly, as you know, but for your listeners that, that haven't heard about this before, and they're not, they don't, they don't intersect. They don't play together. Well, one is through fear and the other is through trust. Through fear, you say, I will.

Make it my life's mission as a manager, as a CEO, or any kind of supervisor to make sure nothing bad happens. That would be the worst thing in the world is something bad happens, something unexpected, something we didn't want. So everybody's going to have very strict daily goals and metrics. We're going to have a million policies that constrain people from getting outside of their little part of the ice cube tray, and we're going to try to prevent bad things from happening.

And all you can do in that scenario. Sometimes prevent bad things from happening, but you cut off the ceiling and you say nothing great will happen.

Nothing good can even happen because people are so crunched down and fearful and afraid of messing up or getting a bad performance review or an infraction report or whatever that they can't.

And then they get sick and they burn out. It's crazy. The other way, what I've been fortunate enough to, to experience myself and also to help other employers and leaders bring in is to lead through trust. And that's where you say. Here's what the job is. Here's what you need to know how to do the job. And of course, I'm here to support you anytime you need more help or guidance, but otherwise do it your way, you know, unless there's a regulatory issue or a safety issue, you're going to, you know, figure it out.

And that's where you get to use your brain. And that's, what's fun about the job. And so go for it, put your art out and put your stamp on the job. That's beautiful thing. And I want this job to give you more always than a paycheck. Because if it were just a paycheck, it wouldn't be fun for either of us or the people who rely on your, your good work.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, exactly. And I think the other side to this too is if you're an employer and you are, you know, standing over your employee's shoulder and you're holding them to these KPIs or these unrealistic KPIs on a daily basis, and you're sitting there and micromanaging, How is your life? Is that the kind of?

Liz Ryan: So much more expensive, it's old fashioned supervision. It's so much more expensive. It's so much more tedious. And also one thing I noticed as an HR person, just like it's shocking. This stuff doesn't sort of get studied at the PhD level is maybe it does. And I'm just not aware of it. Any policy that's enacted in a department, in a company requires administration and upkeep.

Just like you put down sidewalk, you have to keep the sidewalk up or driveway. And nobody wants to do the upkeep, but they want, they still want to enforce policies that people are not aware of. There's very little communication. When I got out on my own doing consulting and speaking, and when we started our company, I did some expert witness stuff as an HR expert witness for, for legal matters.

And It was, I was shocked. I mean, it was like, there's this idea, we create a policy and we put the policy in place and everybody's magically supposed to know about it. And so then when you end up in a legal battle and it's a lawsuit and you say well, this employee should have known how to report this terrible incident of sexual harassment, because there was a policy that was distributed.

And it was in 1990, employees started in. Whatever, 2015, I was never communicated. I'm not laughing about sexual harassment, obviously, but this is the mindset. There was a policy. It was physically stuck with attack onto the cork board in the break room. It was there. It was physically there. She could have seen it was all curled up and dark, you know, this is the mindset.

And so it's, we, you said it earlier, Kelly, we have to get to here. Employees are part of the team. They're integral. Not employers are big and employees. Much less job candidates are insignificant.

Kelly Kennedy: Well, and I would say, you know, you have 3 million people on LinkedIn alone who completely agree with you. And I think, you know, speaking to my employers today, if you are running an organization, if you are just thinking about getting into an organization, empower your people, right?

Empowering your people is what people want. People, they don't want to disappoint you. People do not start a job looking to fail at that job or do crappy at that job. Like, I want you to understand that. Every single person wants to do meaningful work. I think that that's a fair statement to say. Nobody starts a job thinking, I can't wait to do horrible at this job, right?

So empower them, help them. If you have employees who maybe are not doing what you need them to do, maybe sit down with them and have a conversation, have an open two way conversation and ask them, how can I help you? Because they want to succeed.

Liz Ryan: I couldn't agree more. I mean, most of the time. With any reasonable level of support, just even, even support in the form of being available when folks need help people will thrive given.

You know, a task and a, an assignment, a mission, they innovate and they collaborate and they create great stuff when they just are free to do that. And when we don't see collaboration, innovation, teamwork, it's because there's something in the environment that is crushing down the energy. And so the minute that I saw that, I'm like, well, let's, Operationalize it.

I started writing articles and, and courses and, and, and books and, and, you know, it, it's very easy to do. It just takes a shift in mindset that we don't have to nail everything right down to the floorboards. There's lots of room for lots of good things to come up when we just give space for that and really make people feel like they are not just a number and a job description and a title and a you know, that's it. A cog in a machine.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah. It's, it's funny because, you know, I, I actually interviewed Lou Adler a while ago and one of the things that me and him had talked about was that the HR system, in his mind, the way that we're doing it today is a broken system. Would you, would you agree with that?

Liz Ryan: Oh, goodness gracious. Yes. I mean, especially recruiting. Yeah. And HR people write to me every single day and say, you know, my job is very hard, much harder than it needs to be because of this mindset of we have to be, we have to be above, you know, the employees have to be kept under control versus set free to make art and do great things.

It's a, it's a really old school fear based. I mean, that's literally fear based management. You know, what people forget is that fear based management is not just people using fear and threats and intimidation to get employees to do what they say, but also it's people in fear that practice that in fear themselves.

And we have a hard time talking about fear and trust at work and the difference between them. But I couldn't agree with you more. Recruiting is broken. HR is broken. Leadership in general, our concept of it is super broken. One could make the argument work is just broken in general. It needs to be really, it really needs to be examined and re imagined.

It's funny, Kelly, because when, when I was a young HR person, it was the age of. Re engineering, total quality, all this stuff. They were reinventing processes everywhere, but never recruiting. Recruiting always just stayed slow and opaque, very little information coming out, very much like, just wait until you hear from us, could be weeks, very weird and quasi insulting, and just, you just don't see that.

I mean, I'm out here, but you just don't see this being discussed as Why do you think it's so hard to hire people? Treat candidates like dirt in the interview pipeline, the hiring pipeline. Of course, they're going to be gone. You're not going to get them. And if you do get them, they're going to still keep looking for a better jobs as well.

They should. So, you know, we have some work to do.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Well, you know, like I really enjoyed reinvention roadmap. We talked about that before. What, what reinvention roadmap meant to me, it really felt like a book on personal empowerment. It is a book really written for job seekers and people that are looking to start their own, you know, consulting business or, or, or organization of some type.

Bye. It really is about you have power as an individual, you have, you know, things that you're great at, purpose, all of these things, and you kind of packed it all into one really great book, and so we're going to get into that, obviously, Reinvention Roadmap, it's amazing, you should definitely get it, we'll get into that later in the book, and we'll have links and stuff, but The point is, is that you did make a point in the book that kind of shocked me a little bit.

And it was that the idea of you are going to work 30 years at a company and get a retirement package and a retirement party is dead. And it's funny because we talked about it briefly in the last conversation, but. My dad grew up in that and so he worked for a company for I think it was like damn near 40 years and retired and did all those things.

And I think for me, I felt like, and you know, my dad is a boomer, so it's a little bit of a different generation gap, but I felt like Well, is that potentially going to be my life too? And so when I got into business development, I was at a company I really loved. I worked there for 10 years, right up till COVID.

COVID came, my job was like, okay, well, I hope you have something else because this may not exist for you. And so for me, that was the launchpad into my own business, capital business development, but. I, there was a part of me that thought, like, maybe, maybe I will just work here, like, I enjoyed the place I worked, I liked the work, and I'd been there a long time, and I think there was a part of me that kind of believed, maybe, maybe I could be here forever, but that time, you know, for me, was a rude awakening, and, and in the book, you were talking about, like, that time is dead.

Liz Ryan: Dead, yeah. You, you might have stuck it out there, if you had wanted to, you might have been there, you might have, have, have left, have retired, but you would have been like the last, you know, the last guest. That, that era's gone. The, the jobs that used to be the most secure almost put People in them at more risk now because they're not in your proximity to the real world, the transactions, the talent market where services and, and, and talents are bought and sold or rented.

That's your power, your knowledge, your, your, your visceral knowledge that you are marketable. You have something to contribute and you can get paid for it. That is your power. Literally. It's not, you have some lofty title in some big corporation. You could lose the title tomorrow. It could be gone without an income and without.

A sense of how to get back. And it's terrifying that we would even let ourselves be in that position, but we've been brainwashed to think it's perfectly fine, get in with a good company and stay there. That's what we were all taught. I don't know when people stop teaching their kids that I hope they have, but that is bad advice.

Now that is bad advice. Go to sleep on your career and not know how you make a difference, how you've helped your companies make money or grow what, whatever their mission is. That is terrifying. My readers and followers outside of the U. S. say, how do you guys sleep at night? It's better in Canada, but it's not perfect, obviously, but they say, how do you go to sleep?

Right. Thank you for asking that question. How do we, but in Canada and everywhere in the, in the industrialized world, In the non industrialized world, we have to know how to sustain ourselves. It's essentially adulthood. And, and, and we get that when we test what we have and how we talk about it and how we look around and put that periscope up and see how this world all fits together and how we could play in it.

That's when we step into our power and more as you did, and your listeners did by starting their own business, small subset of the population, you know, In part, because we were taught since early childhood, only Mavericks and big risk takers, Elon Musk, you know, and Steve jobs. There's only people that have their own business.

Most of you guys just go get a job and stick with it. That's the safe way. That's not safe. How's that safe. Could be laid off tomorrow. No severance. What?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, I agree. Like, to me, the safety felt, well, it's my business. It's on my back. Like, that, to me, felt safe.

Liz Ryan: That's safe. That's, that is safety. That is literal safety because you control what happens next.

And there's still this narrative going around that, like, if you do a good job, you'll keep your job. Well, it has literally nothing to do with individual performance. They just look at a spreadsheet and say, this division, go, yeah, get rid of it. Meaning, we have to be able to navigate in that, Ecosystem. And that means growing our muscles, knowing what kind of pain we solve.

Who has that pain? What is it costing them? How do I start a conversation with them?

Kelly Kennedy: Wow. Wow. And so the, the big takeaway from this was people have been living in this false safety environment for a very long time.

Liz Ryan: Bubble post war baby boom bubble burst whenever some historian will put a date on it, 15, 20 years ago, and we're still kind of during, but you know what?

I don't blame, this is not on the working public. Corporations still are taking 6, 8, 10, 12 weeks to interview and hire people. Like it's la la la, like it's 1991. But it's not, but they could have a change in, you know, strategy and, and you're laid off in six months. So we, we have to adjust in general, but before we can adjust, we have to start telling the truth about it, which is what I'm trying to do and help other people do, we have to talk about it.

We have to not pretend that it's still cradle to grave employment. And HR friend of mine told me she was leading a new employee orientation onboarding, and she said to them, now take out your booklet there on the website. Desk, this is our 401k, our retirement plan. And they all burst out laughing, you know, they, they're clear eyed.

They don't expect to retire from there. So so good to retirement plan, but we're all reorienting and it's jarring, but the, we need to step into this new ecosystem, you know, decisively. Cause that's how we get stronger and things become less scary.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, it like, like I said, like you, you focus so much on personal branding, right?

Personal branding. Has been around forever, but it's not something that I think has really entered the business ecosystem in a major way until recently. I honestly, I see this last year, like 2023 2024 as this like grand awakening that personal branding is actually really important. Can you spend some time on personal branding?

Liz Ryan: Sure, of course. Well, I'm an HR person, so I've looked at, I don't know how many. Tens of thousands of resumes. And I was just immediately horrified. You know, I told you I became an HR person a little bit against my will when I was 24, but it was a great outsider's view. Why do these resumes all look the same?

Results oriented professional with a bottom line orientation. What is the fake language? Who taught it to us? Where did it come from? Why do we use it? Why would anybody ever write about themselves in a way that seems like their intention is to blend in with everyone else? Well, we were taught this is the correct way to write business correspondence.

Like your results are into motivated self starter. You're literally taking yourself off the page. Receding into what? We were never given permission. I, you know, started writing 20 years ago about, yeah, you know, I am a IT project manager who specializes in large, you know, financial software implementations for banks, baby.

That's what I do. And if you want somebody who does that, then let's talk, but I'm not going to retreat and say, is this language acceptable to your majesty? Not going to happen. The more power, the reason personal branding is so hard, It's two things. One, we're taught to write nonsense, corporate gobbledygook like that.

And it's hard to shake your mind from, but isn't that what they want? Who's they? There's no, they you're talking to individual hiring managers. That's a very different proposition than sort of using some universal language that everyone will appreciate. They won't, but also. If you're literally not even visible through the page, why would they, why would they interview you?

But the other reason is because anybody who can read is a human being and they are taking in impressions. It's not their choice. That's just what hits you when you see a page or a screen. And so when you say I'm an IT project manager focused on big software implementations for banks, they're like, dang, that's exactly what I'm doing.

That's what I do. Let's talk to this person. That human voice. allows you to connect to other people in a way that, you know, the traditional branding doesn't. But the reason branding is so hard for folks is you have to take away sort of like the hard candy shell and get to the mushy chocolate inside. You have to decide.

What you care about and what you want to do. The biggest problem in every single resume no, the biggest problem across the board in resumes, which is in like 95 percent of resumes is you can't tell what the person wants to do. You can't tell from their resume. They say, I did this. I did that. And the other thing I understand that because as a young HR person, I get a literal paper envelope, this whole stack of them, slit them open with my little slitter thingy and read them.

And then I would compare the resume to the job ads that we had running. Cause how would they know? So I'd match, they don't match anymore. No, one's going to match. You have to know, you have to decide I'm going to do this and then declare it. And then the whole rest of your resume lines up behind that goal.

And supports that goal. That's branding. That's real personal branding. Throwing a bunch of adjectives. I'm smart, savvy, strategic. No, no one cares. And also that's a fear based strategy because anybody could literally say that we don't, we would, we want to hear your real story. And then the rest of your resume kind of bolsters that, that first premise that, that first statement.

Kelly Kennedy: You need a good sales pitch.

Liz Ryan: That's a sales pitch. And the reason it's a sales pitch is because you've already researched the employer, the specific hiring manager you're reaching out to so that you know that there's, there's, there's likely to be resonance. Otherwise they wouldn't be on your list.

Kelly Kennedy: Wow.

It's so funny because in business development, we do the same thing, right? We've been doing it that way for years, but it's literally what you're saying to people is, look, you need to business develop yourself.

Liz Ryan: You do. I went to some Sandler esque sales training, Kelly, you know, Sandler And I, my first reaction was like, when I saw your gorgeous little baby, I was like, why were we talking about business?

Should've been talking about baby And when I went to the Sandler sales training, I felt very bad that as an HR person, 20 plus years, I didn't take advantage of the sales training available in, in my companies, because I was like, Oh, sales training, you know, Hey, what do I care? Oh, no, we all care because this is all of us.

Who you're trying to reach, what's their pain, how do you fit into that? How can we not be teaching this to every little kid since they're six years old? It's basic human communication and empathy and taking someone else's perspective, and that's what we teach job seekers as well as obviously entrepreneurs, get, get their glasses on, get their view of the world.

And then you could speak to them in a way they're going to care about.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah. You know, we're talking so much about about individuals, right? I want to speak to the broader scope because we're actually talking this to a lot of entrepreneurs right now, you know, small, medium, large business owners.

Great. Who have their own 50 percent in this pie to play. Yes. Right. How can, how can business owners do better? How can, how can they make it easier for themselves to get the best possible candidates?

Liz Ryan: Yes. Great question, Kelly. That's a beautiful question. Small businesses have a huge recruiting and retention advantage.

Huge. Most people do not want to work for massive corporations if they can help it because of the rigidity. So as an entrepreneur, the degree to which you can soften, soften, Not just throw, you know, your hands up and say, you guys do what you want, but work through what latitude can I give to folks? What flexibility and time and place I can give them?

What, how can I bring them more tightly into the business? And the decision making is huge. It's huge. Big corporations can't, won't, they don't. But you can't, it doesn't cost anything. It doesn't cost anything access to you, access to customers. It feels scary. Like I'm leaning on this person and then I'm becoming more reliant.

Yeah. But people like to be relied upon. That's what keeps people feeling like part of something. And you know, you don't, you don't lose sight of things. You, you keep an overview of what's going on, obviously, but you have a huge advantage as a small business, the job ads as a small business, you have no need to sound like Like Deloitte, when you write a job ad, we have an immediate opening for it.

You say, I'm James and I'm the CEO of this company. We've done this and that. We're super excited to finally have a distribution deal with these guys. And we're doing this and we need somebody to come in and kind of run the e commerce sites. They wouldn't be excited about that. And, and you, and you say, you know, send me an email, tell me, you know what you've done that was similar or what makes this feel like a good fit for you.

That's it. Now they're not filling out some tedious thing. Don't be corporate before you need to. And maybe best case you never need to.

Kelly Kennedy: It's so funny because i've heard people make the argument that like That like a family style business can be a negative thing and yet, you know in almost every single experience that i've worked at an organization That felt like a family style or heck even my own company has felt like a family style because that's the way we've run it To me that personal connection is what makes it so powerful that like You That caringness, that openness, that transparency, that access is what gives us power.

I don't know. I'm not sure that I see the negatives. I guess maybe if you are the size of Deloitte and you're running, you know, 18 divisions around the world.

Liz Ryan: Well, what people fear about a family business is they fear like, you know plumbing and heating business. Grandpa started it in 1970 and then dad is semi retired and there's two boys who kind of run it and two girls who do this and that and going into a situation like that indeed can be, can be fraught because it's all family and there's family dynamics and you're not in the family and we can see how that goes.

Could be very entrenched and old things from when they were in sixth and eighth grade that you'll never figure out. And, you know, it's, it's going to be very complex and not always super fun to be the outsider, you know, but but in general, like what you're talking about, the really entrepreneurial company where someone comes in and they are revered and esteemed and respected for their outsider view and maybe process that they bring or a different viewpoint that they bring.

I think it can be great, but you know, In recruiting and in job hunting and in consulting and entrepreneurship, not everybody is our perfect client or our perfect candidate. So we're not out here sort of like trying to just attract people in general. There's a demographic piece. There's a psychographic piece.

Not everyone is going to be, you know, a great fit for your company or any company and vice versa. And it's matching. It's a matching exercise. We're not as employers. We don't want to be vetting. We don't, that went that vetting energy. I'm checking you out to see whether you're good enough to join my team.

It's you haven't sold me yet, babes. How white it has to be. Let's just see, let's have coffee and see whether what we're doing is any. of any interest to you. And if you, you know, if we feel like, let's just figure it out. It's not like the, to the exact degree that we say you little peon aunt, nothing, we're going to check you out that the best people will be gone.

They're they're out. They don't have time. They're gone. And so this is what we're fighting is this old training that it has to be a certain way.

Kelly Kennedy: In your opinion, Liz, like how many How many interviews should, should you have with an employee before, like before you know, right? Is it, is one hour enough time?

Liz Ryan: Oh, that's such a great question. It depends so much on the job and the situation. You know, it just, there's, it's so contextual. If it's a retail jobs, right? And a lot of restaurant jobs, there's one interview, maybe, maybe, maybe there's two because that turnover is incredibly high and they're used to that.

And unfortunately I built that in and it's just like this churn thing. Many, many companies will do two, one with some kind of screener type person and a second with the hiring manager. If it's a position considered more responsible lofty or whatever, then there's probably another interview with a VP or director or somebody higher up.

And sometimes there's an interview with teammates, but you know, the thing is for, for an employer to lay it out and say, here's what, here's how this hiring process works, that's so comforting and so responsible and appropriate to just tell candidates, look at. We're going to talk, we're going to have a zoom call short, like half an hour, just to check off some items, make sure it even makes sense to keep talking right.

In terms of what this job is and the hours and what you're looking for. And I don't want to waste your time. And then if that seems like it's a match and you have some of those with five, six, eight candidates, and you say, wow, there's three people we'd like to talk to in more depth, then you immediately go to the other.

Four or five people and say, thank you so much this time. It's not a great match, but you know, let's stay in touch. And three people have the second interview. Then you're going to get more in depth and you're going to lay out in detail. What is the job? What do I actually be doing? What's important who are internal, external customers?

What do they need from me? You're going to really lay it out. What is their career path? What does that look like? You just give them the vision and enroll them basically in the vision and and get their thoughts. How would you look at this job? How would you approach it? And I'd just love to, you know, brainstorm with you, not looking for free consulting, but you're saying, how would you, as a person walking into this job, how would you, yeah.

And you're going to get such a strong sense. And then the thing that I always recommend at the end of interviews is to say, so Janie, I don't expect you to make a decision right now. Is this job? of interest because you're going to mull things over, but it feels like it is as you, as you process our conversation today, I would love to have, you know, just an email from you, just a quick email that says kind of what you heard today, what you heard that we're doing, that the challenges and, and then we sync up on that.

A lot of people won't do it. And unfortunately, a lot of people who do do it. Fill up the assignment and say, I think you should hire me. I'm a great employee and a hard worker. And then wow, it becomes actually extremely easy to say, well, the number one thing I heard Kelly is that you're trying to grow this way.

You're using this strategy. I love this idea. I might do this differently, but it sounds like you're trying to do X, Y, Z. And I would come in and do bing the bing and a bang. And, you know, I think it sounds like a really solid plan. And you're like, Oh, the angels are singing.

Kelly Kennedy: It sounds so funny because, you know, like you were saying, we based so much of it based on, you know, what they wrote on their resume, but that those critical thinking skills on how they would solve your problems is really why you're hiring.

Liz Ryan: Your job Is to get them thinking, get their brain moving. Their job as a candidate is to get your brain moving and to get everybody's brain working. That's when you come out of an interview and saying, I'd like to get that job. But if I don't get that job, I still rock. I still rock. And you say, I'd like to get that candidate, but if I don't, this is so awesome.

They really validated what we're trying to do here.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes. Yes. Oh man. Yeah. Like hiring is just one of those things that I think so many small and medium sized companies struggle with because most of the time they don't have, you know, a high level HR person.

Liz Ryan: Don't need, don't need, don't need, right. You have to, you have to know.

The, the laws, they're a little different in Canada, but you have, they have to know a little bit, although hopefully they're not veering close to the net. You know, since we're talking about, you got your NHL.

Kelly Kennedy: I got the Oilers Jersey on today. It is a, it is playoff day today. It is game seven Stanley cup finals Oilers versus Panthers.

And my gosh, our city is electric.

Liz Ryan: A flame. It's a flame. Wow. I, I almost wore oilers. You're close. You're going to work. That's good. Well, well, good luck to the good old Edmonton Oilers. That's so beautiful. I'll be cheering for them, that's fantasic!

Kelly Kennedy: Canada hasn't won a cup since 1993. So we are,

Liz Ryan: I am old enough to remember my parents going to hockey games as like a date and, you know, with numerous kids and dressing up.

They dressed up. My mom wore like pearls to go to a hockey game. Did you ever see old old films of that from like the 60s? No, no. It was like, yeah, we're going to hockey game.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. It's like, I've never seen so many Oilers fans, like I grew up in the city. I've never seen, like everywhere you look, there's, there's someone wearing an Oilers jersey and Oilers t shirt.

All of our boys are in school today in their Oilers t shirt. That's so great. Aww, that's so great. We went, we went downtown for the last game, like really the Oilers should have been out. Like we've, we've, lost the first three games in a row, so the Panthers only needed to win one. We just won three games in a row.

And that last win was like the whole city. All you could hear was horns and people yelling. Like I've never seen downtown.

Liz Ryan: So its an underdog story?

Kelly Kennedy: It really is. It really is. It's game seven tonight. Yeah.

Liz Ryan: Have you ever been a Kelly to see the cup? Like sometimes they'll put it on display.

Kelly Kennedy: I have never seen it, but I imagine that if they win, it'll be in Edmonton.

And I've already told the boys we're going to go.

Liz Ryan: That is so great. Well when the, this podcast is finished. And you send me the whatever you send me a link send me a photo, you know, and it will.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, well, by then I probably will have one. So I will have one. Yeah. Oh, I think that's magnificent.

That is so great. It is. Thank you so much. Yeah, it is. It's, it's honestly, it's a win for Canada. Like at this point, there's not a whole lot that unites our country. The country is, you know, very split East and West, just like the U. S. is in a lot of ways. But. You know, this is really, you got people in Toronto cheering for Western Canada.

That's a win. That's the real win of this sport. I think. If you can get these happy about Western Canada, then we're doing something right.

Liz Ryan: I love it. I love it. That is awesome. That is awesome. We moved to the East coast a couple of years ago, and I'm just like tickled that you could get on a train in New York and go to Montreal, like, or you could go to Canada on a train.

It's so great. So cool.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. It's very, very cool. I'd never been to Eastern Canada until last year. We went to Halifax and I, my family originally actually is from Halifax. And I remember being there and just thinking like, wow, like it's, you don't, we have the mountains out here in the west and like don't, Rocky Mountains are beautiful.

Anyone who's been to Banff or Jasper, like they know it's a worldwide tourist destination, but There's something really magical about Atlantic Canada, the, like, you know, the East side where you're really on the ocean and so much history, right? Like that's where our country was founded. Right. It's just, it's amazing.

Liz Ryan: Yeah. Oh, I'd like to go up there sometime. I don't think it's, I, I don't know. You could drive. It's a, it's a bit of a trek.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, I would highly recommend making like a weekend trip to Halifax. You would not be disappointed.

Liz Ryan: That's a good idea. That's a good idea. Yeah. That's awesome.

Kelly Kennedy: Liz, you know, while I got you here, you are a total rock star.

You, you, on like, on the personal branding stage, on a personal branding level, you have done it better than probably 90 percent of the world. And I really mean that. And I know we have lots of people listening right now who are in this space where they're a little bit afraid. They're a little bit afraid to be out there in the world at a 3 million follower level, right?

Like that. That comes with its own set of criticisms and fears. You know, talk to me a little bit about, about what it has been like essentially to have a following like that. And maybe how can we encourage people? Is it important? Do people need to start to focus on their, on their social media followings?

Liz Ryan: Honestly, my advice here, Kelly, is really corny. But I believe it. And that is say what you feel and the people will show up. I've never sought out followers. Somebody said, you should write a column for LinkedIn. I said, okay, I will, but that's dumb. No, one's going to read it. And then they did, you know, 3 million people.

So. You say what you feel, you know, a lot of us are very muffled. We're very afraid to say what we think because there's messages that come down when we're kids and saying, who cares what you think? You don't have anything to say. I, I got so much, whatever the opposite of affirmation is. I really got so much when I was a little kid that I just decided like, well, I guess, okay, adult approval is cool in some ways, but.

In other words, you got to trudge on without it. And, you know, finally, you know, started to get that more for singing and, and other things performing, but, and, and then eventually HR. But you have to follow your own heart. You have to say what you think and assume if it's really that wacky and nobody else.

Resonates at your frequency. That's just the way it's supposed to be. And it's the same way in life. It's the same with your friends. It's the same way with dating and relationships. You are not out here to please everyone. And the more you try to please everyone, the worse you feel because it doesn't work.

It doesn't work. You're only the people who get you deserve you. And not everyone is going to get you no matter who you are, no matter what you talk about. So I just keep, I just started a Tik TOK channel. It's like 500 followers. It's great. You know, let's just start. I would not say that your entrepreneurial listeners and followers and fans need to drop everything and, and build some huge social media engine.

But I do think dripping out your thoughts, your observations is very important because you're opening up a channel bigger and bigger and bigger channel of that kind of. Thinking and ideas to come down. And it's also a confidence builder. Even when people leave you, I, my little fledgling tic tac channel has a few like, ah, this is dumb or whatever.

And, and they're just encircled with love by the other followers, you know? It's completely fine. And so it's the idea of stepping into your own voice. It's so important. It's your voice and the world deserves to hear that. You deserve to have it come out. No pressure. No, like I will post three times a week on these topics.

That shuts. It's just like what I said about work. When fear shuts down the creativity, we do it to ourselves. I must make another social media post. No, you don't wait until inspiration strikes.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, oh man, that resonates so much because you know, I look back to when I started this show, right? Like, I started this show in February of 2023.

And I remember it was 2022 when I was writing down my things I wanted to do in the next year and one of them was to be more More outward facing was to do something, whether it be a YouTube channel, a podcast, whatever it was. And I've settled on podcasts more so because I love listening to podcasts. And I, you know, I mean, I just thought I love listening to these.

I listen to them on a daily basis already. Why don't I just come on and speak to business development and eventually entrepreneurship is kind of what it became is a little bit of both. But I remember recording, you know, my first couple episodes, Liz, and just feeling like, who am I to do this? What, who, who, who allowed Kelly Kennedy to sit here and speak to the wall about business development?

What gave him the authority to sit here and do this? But it was just like, just like self sabotage talk. You know what I mean? Like, I think at the time I was feeling like a big imposter, even though I'd already had like over a decade of business development experience. Like, it's like, of course I can speak to that.

But there was a huge part of me that was really like, You know, don't do this, Kelly, like, what are you doing? I remember, I almost didn't release episode 3, and I talk about it a lot on this show. Episode 3 almost never came, there's nothing wrong with episode 3. It was me, I was just really struggling with my own self confidence in that moment.

Right.

Liz Ryan: No, Kelly, listen, you saying that, you doing that, and getting through that, that's 3 episodes a week, man, is that what you do?

Kelly Kennedy: We do two a week, but yeah, it works out to be on average about nine a month.

Liz Ryan: Wow. That is a lot. Good for you. It's stepping through that over and over and over again is absolutely what grows your muscles and makes you stronger.

You know that just stepping through that. Who am I to do this, but who am I not to?

Am I to get this job, but why shouldn't they? Who am I to start this podcast? Yeah, but what's the downside? Who am I to be an expert, a guru around business development with gazillions of followers and listeners all over the world?

Well, who says I shouldn't, where's the rule? Where's the sign on the door? Becoming a thought leader around business development, forbidden. There's no sign posted. Like I'm allowed to step out. And if I feel called to do it and I have the energy to put into it. All you can do is approve, disapprove and live a good life without Kelly in it, or, or just come on board and be part of the good energy.

There's, it's not hard. It's not complicated. And I, and I think it's fantastic, Kelly, that you're sharing wisdom and information you share with folks all over. It's brilliant. It's fantastic entrepreneurs, man. It's isolating and they need, you know, that community.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, I guess, you know, I think we're just all struggling with our own imposter syndrome.

All of us have that in us. And it's, you know, I mean, I don't want to say that I have it all worked out because I don't, I still have days where I, where I'm, where I struggle or I feel meeting anxiety or feeling like the imposter, right? Like it never goes away. I think ultimately you just get better and better and better at saying, okay, I feel this way, but I'm going to do it anyway.

Liz Ryan: That's it, Kelly. Somebody said to me, as you go higher up in the Himalayas, the peaks get sharper. In other words, you, you're going to keep testing yourself because of who you are. You're not going to say, Oh, I got over that hurdle. So I guess that's the end of my hurdle jumping. No, you're going to look for bigger and bigger and bigger challenges.

You can't help it. Because there's something beyond that hurdle that feels good and exciting and you deserve it, which is your vision for yourself and your followers and, and business development and the understanding of that and the practice of that it's voltage. You can feel that voltage and you follow it.

And, and, and when people follow that voltage, good things happen, even if there's hardship, you know, along the way, there's going to be, but you see that reason why you're doing it. And that makes it. You know, sometimes people say, well, I started my business and it was just nothing but hard work. And it's like, sweetheart, come on.

It wasn't nothing but hard work. Yeah, it's been some satisfaction. You would have done something else now.

And it's, it's, it's, it's every day is a new day. Every day is somewhat scary. Every day is a little bit boring. Every day is fun and exciting. And then you turn around and there's this little dumpling to pick up and play with and throw in the air.

You know, it's it's, It's, it's real life and I think stepping up to that every day and dealing with the reality of that is the hardest thing to do and the most important thing to do.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes, yes. And there's never going to be a lack of challenges for you to overcome, right? So you need to get resilient.

You need to, you need to start to take on the things that scare you. I think the older that I get, the more I realize that what I actually need to do is put myself in these such situations that make me very uncomfortable because what I realize is most of that uncomfort is only a couple minutes long and then you've accomplished it.

Liz Ryan: Yeah, that's the great thing. That's the great thing. I I, I, I remember in fifth grade, I was in a new school and I ran for student council. And I was like, why did I do that? I don't even know anyone in this school. And I get up there to make my little student council speech. And I was like, this is the stupidest decision I've ever made in my life.

Why am I here? I have nothing to say to these guys. I just said some stuff, blah, blah, blah, string some. Words together. And then I came down off the stage and said, I'm going to get like nine votes, but I'm so glad I did it, you know, so glad just like a thing to do and say, well, that, that little gut muscle activated.

So I've got that going for me and we have, you said it, we have opportunities every single day to just test ourselves and try stuff.

Kelly Kennedy: It's so funny. It's like, at this point, I, I, I think before I had my head down, I had my head down and my eyes closed and I wasn't recognizing the challenges that were being presented to me as opportunities to grow.

I don't know what it was about taking that leap into entrepreneurship, but it really opened my eyes to those as opportunities, not just something to be afraid of.

Liz Ryan: That's, that's genius. I mean, that's it. If you can twist that dial, you know, let the crystal, let the light in and say, and now I see it. Even some of the people I've worked with that were difficult and so hard.

And I've held on to some anger towards them. It's like, no, you were a great teacher because you taught me how to deal with this stuff. And now that snake cannot bite me again. I know what to look for. And it's it's tough. It's a lot of you know, it's a lot of conflicting emotions mixed, but we do get stronger through our experiences.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Liz Ryan: Not just more knowledgeable. I see a lot of people putting all their energy into like professional development. I'm going to learn skills. I'm going to learn how to deal with the software. I'm going to learn something about. Negotiation or finance or whatever. And that's all really good. We need all that knowledge, but we really, most of all need to get stronger in ourselves and speak our truth and have a vision and set boundaries and surround ourselves with the right people and make decisions and all the things that can be personally hard.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes, yes. And obviously, we're on this, you know, self strength moment. I want to just lead right into Reinvention Roadmap. Oh, okay. I had the pleasure of reading that book. I like to, I like to read the book ahead of the interviews. And I really love the book, Liz. I really did. It's very well written. And I remember looking after and thinking, Oh, she definitely wrote this after COVID or during COVID.

No, you wrote that book in 2016. I couldn't even believe it because your ideas and the way that you phrase your thoughts are so ahead of their time. You, you were seeing the future. Are you sure you didn't cause it?

Liz Ryan: That my DeLorean. Thank you, Kelly. It was a lot of fun to write the idea. Behind that book is that the world has changed.

It's not going back. And we are all entrepreneurs now, and we have to step into that. You can get a regular job. You can be a legit entrepreneur or even in between, but we have to have that understanding of how this world works, how we can fit into it. And we have to drive our own careers. We have to like the CEO of your career and your life.

There's no other opportunity. Going to sleep is dangerous. It's very, very bad for us. It weakens our skills, weakens our muscles, and it gets us out of the exact energy field we need to be in knowing how, how we can help other people and get paid for it. So Yeah, I had a lot of fun writing. I'm rewriting that book now.

So it's going to be gone for a while because it's okay to make room. So, but it's in, it's in libraries, but it's, I I'm writing a more sort of, I'll tell you when it comes out, but but, but this idea is, is really what got me to start writing for publications back in like 1998. I think we have to take charge.

The old working world is gone, gone, gone. Mad men era. It's not coming back and we have to run our own careers knowing who we're going to work for. If it's not this place, where is it, how we're going to monetize our wisdom and our talents, how to brand ourselves as we talked about, and how to have the mindset that I can stride out into these new spaces and not really worry about whether I'm a hundred percent accepted or not, because nobody's ever a hundred percent accepted by everyone anyway.

And i'm gonna get stronger and learn more about myself and have more value and more marketability all the time. That's That's not even that's not something we talk about or teach in school. And even companies that have big elaborate career development programs, they usually don't talk about you actually can get stronger too.

So if you decided to leave here, it'd be very easy for you to do that. I'm happy to see that conversation kind of starting again. But this is my number one My number one mission is to empower people and strengthen people to be able to deal with this world and thrive in it.

Kelly Kennedy: Well, I think what it, what it was for me was an awakening.

There were concepts in there that I hadn't really questioned before. Like, you know, why couldn't somebody work at a company for 20 or 30 years or, you know, like, Why do I why can't I fall asleep? I think it's kind of like one of those things. It's like being asleep and having your head in the sand is sometimes a nice feeling, but it can be a very rude awakening, which a lot of people are figuring out the hard way.

Liz Ryan: Yeah, and it's not even the sheer awakening of getting dropped off a cliff and your job goes away. That's very extreme. It could be a much smaller thing where there's a shift at the job changes constant. And you don't like the job so well anymore. And it just isn't working for you anymore. It's that idea of as an entrepreneur, you're constantly against the bed of nails and as a sleep working person, you're not.

And that becomes the goal. Just keep everything the same. Well, we know that's not going to happen. Not in this, in this tumultuous world. And so getting out there and dealing with that and confronting it, just like if you, if you were thinking about managing your finances, you wouldn't say, you know what?

I'll think about my finances when I'm totally out of money. Till then I got a few bucks. I'm not going to worry about it. No one would do that. No one would do that because that's too risky. Same thing with your career and your working life. And one of the reasons a lot of people my age have gone into consulting in particular and coaching that type of entrepreneurism is because it's the best way to monetize their talents and also do the work they want to do and not feel.

Pushed into a little box in a corporate job that maybe is not going to suit them and maybe not even. Give them any security.

Kelly Kennedy: You know, Liz, one of the questions that I have for a lot of my, you know, executives and my CEOs on this channel is when people do come to that realization that they want to go out on their own, there's an immediate fear, right?

There's an immediate fear that's like, don't do that. Don't you dare go out on your own, right? Like you're safe here in your little career. Like, let's just do this. What type of words of motivation might you give to somebody like that? Who maybe could do a great job as a consultant. Maybe could, has this great company idea and could do something amazing, but they're afraid, they're afraid to take that leap from their comfortable career.

Liz Ryan: Well, here's the funny thing about fear. That fear, I'm afraid to step out there is dwarfed by the fear, the real fear, the visceral fear, the existential fear that hits when. Something bad happens, right? And it could be as, like we said, as concrete as you lose your job, it could be a political shift that makes you think it could be, you have a meeting with HR and they say, actually, your red lines, you're at the top of your pay grade.

You're not going to get from now on. So assistance raises one and a half percent a year. And you're like, Whoa, that's got to mean something. They see me as this highly paid, you know, there's a lot of things that could cause a person to, to drive home or get on the train or leave work and say, wow, okay, wait a second.

Something has shifted. That's the motivation. I cannot motivate you to take a step into fear, into your fear. How could I, right? Cause fear is the strongest emotion there is. I can't get you to say, do it. You'll be fine. Right. I lead a program, a small group for folks who want to become coaches. Career coaches, executive coaches, and so on.

A lot of them also consult. And what we tell our coaches is you should feel half afraid, half excited to start this. Because if you are not a little bit afraid, you may not understand the gravity of stepping into this. And if you are not a little bit excited, then it will be fun and you shouldn't do it.

Half and half is a really good balance for people who are afraid to step out of the corporate world. Of course, I sympathize. I was the worst. I literally told people, stop talking to me about consulting. I don't want to talk about that. I don't want to do that. Stop telling me that you think I should be a consultant because I'm getting sick of hearing it.

I was afraid. I was just plain old afraid. I thought I'd embarrass myself, make an idiot out of myself. You know, I've done before. Why shouldn't I do it again? And, and I, it was because I, You know, it's a long story, but I'd left my corporate job and I had little kids and I'm like, I'm not going to, I had four little boys, I'm not, no, I didn't, I had one daughter and three little boys and I'm not going to back to a corporate job.

How could I possibly do it? And, and also I just did that for 20 some years, I don't want to do it again, and started consulting. One fear overcame the other fear, that's what I'm trying to say. The fear of, Oh no, I have to do something. And it, it worked. You get through it, you get through stuff.

Necessity is the mother of invention. If you're comfortable and the fear has not, because your body knows when you lay your head on the pillow, like this is not secure and maybe these people might get rid of me and that might be the end of my income. When that becomes overwhelming and you wake up in the morning and your jaw is sore because you've been grinding your teeth all night, then you'll probably take a step.

Kelly Kennedy: Well, and I think I want people to remember, like, entrepreneurship is not necessarily secure either. But the difference is, is that when things are, when you are sitting there at night with your jaw grinding, which is going to happen, You are also going to recognize that you can get up tomorrow and do something about it.

You don't have to wait for someone else to make that decision. You can get up and make that decision. And that's the power that that's the power that you have as an individual.

Liz Ryan: And you can shift. You can change. You can morph. You can go back through your, your address list and reach out to some people.

You can go have coffee with someone. You have an un, limited supply of ideas of what to do or pull back and think about it and get your board together and talk about direction. Everything is available to you. All the levers that a pilot would have when they're flying the plane, all the instruments are yours.

And that is the security that you're in charge and the real world is changing and you can change along with it versus sitting in your cubicle virtually or actually in a company and hoping that meetings happening in Philadelphia and Hong Kong right now are not going to put you out of work a month from now.

One is power and one is no, no power.

Kelly Kennedy: My gosh, you know what this, this has me worried about the future of companies, Liz.

Liz Ryan: It's not something I actually, they'll be fine. Look, we have things that have to happen on the earth. People have to be fed, clothed. They need a place to sleep. We need health care. We need education.

We don't need that much. We can figure out how to do that without this idea that like, I, we got to take care of general modal. It's an apple and make sure they're fine. I mean, that, you know, I'm not saying that, obviously you're saying that, but it's, it's like, we'll, we'll figure out how to organize in a way that, that you know, makes sense.

Hopefully that's our, that's our mission. That's our challenge.

Kelly Kennedy: Either way, it feels like we're in the middle of a tectonic shift of what work means.

Liz Ryan: Totally, totally, totally. And, and you know, I remember when I mentioned I was all eyes and ears open because I was a new HR person. I went to every workshop and symposium and they were talking about work is going to dramatically shift.

They called it. The social contract is fraying, it's going away. The social contract was this idea, your dad, my dad, get a job, keep the job, 40 years, retire, gold watch, everything is beautiful, company health care, it's all wonderful. They said that's all going away and we're going to have to deal with it.

It's going to require us to radically shift the way we think about recruiting, about engagement, about everything. And I'm like, yeah, I'm up for that. Well, that didn't happen. That didn't happen. The world did shift, but right now there's a lot of like, don't look at the man behind the curtain and everything is fine.

Just fill out the application. Like nothing has changed. And COVID in the United States, a million people dead and several million more debilitated by long COVID. But how can we have it? It's like, we don't talk about it. Maybe it won't be real. Starbucks unionizing. Nobody expected that used to be the best part time job there was.

And, and people are saying now something we have to ship the energy back. Something is not, is not right.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. Well, we bury a lot of things we don't want to talk about. That's right. Oh, Liz, this has been amazing. I do want you to take me into human workplace, though. You know, we're talking to a lot of people.

I know that you do offer services. Can we chat about human workplace?

Liz Ryan: Oh, sure. For sure, Kelly. Okay. Well, we create content. Courses and books, you know, I've written books and gazillions of articles and all that, but we create content for job seekers and entrepreneurs and working people. And we sell them you know, to our mailing lists and our followers and all that kind of stuff.

And then we have a coaching crew, a coaching squad of folks who trained with me to use our methodology and mindset in their coaching, and they're on a directory on our site. Human workplace. com. And then of course I teach folks how to be coaches and consultants in my my private group. And I do a lot of speaking and writing and, you know, drawing and singing and whatnot.

And so basically it's a content and a curriculum. Thought leadership, organization, all based around the idea that work is better when it's more human.

Kelly Kennedy: I think most of our listeners agree with that. And if they want some help, because I think that's the challenge, right? I think most people, they agree with that statement.

They, they recognize that they want their workplace to be a human workplace. I think where the challenge comes is, We don't know how to do it or we're not sure what steps to take, which is where, you know, a company like Human Workplace really comes in and can shake things up. If people are listening to this and they want to get ahold of you, Liz, they potentially want to hire you for some of your services or your team for some of their services, what's the best way for them to reach Human Workplace?

Liz Ryan: Oh, thanks, Kelly. They can just reach us at support at humanworkplace. com or there's a contact form on our site, humanworkplace. com. Yeah. Do you want a couple of quick tips? We have time how to make your workplace a little more human for no money. Just a little bit of time, your opportunities to make your workplace more human Are boundless so you won't be able to jump on all of them But you can start with maybe five or ten simple simple things that will warm up the energy at work and get from one end of the spectrum the Unfortunate and we are a corporation and and you will obey us at a return Where people are just shut down and in fear all the way over to we're just all figuring this out together Just what you were saying earlier we're just all kind of trying to muddle through the woods and figure it out and you know, and Get the Staley Cup, if we possibly can.

That's right. So, so some of the easy ways to get there is, first of all, look at your job ads. And how they're written you can use a human voice. You can use I I this manager I the ceo or we but we a little bit royal we you know, it's up to you But you don't want to say something like the selected candidate will have this and that someone's reading this You're talking right past them and the third person the selected candidate not your sorry ass, right?

We don't want no. No. No, you say hey if you're interested in this and that here's what we're trying to do This could be cool like come and talk to us That's how I hired my teammates side. 10, 000 people at us products. It was just. Talk to them about what we're doing. It's a cool project. Are you interested when people come in for interviews?

Same thing. Don't give them a list of questions. What is your greatest weakness?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Liz Ryan: So, so, so, so Kelly, here's what we're doing. Just a little bit of overview. And of course, at any point, stop me with your questions. This is what we're trying to do. And this is why we have this job because we're trying to do this.

And it works like this. Let's talk about it. I want to hear your questions. I'll answer your questions. I'll tell you what a day is like You know, let's just get into this and talk about what you think maybe what you've done before that's relevant total like coffee conversation And you're going to get so much more out of that interview.

Both parties are going to get so much more because it's going to be a real conversation about what you're doing. Not this stiff. I we do it like oral exam in school. Very bad, very bad. You know, people practice their answers and then we complain, Oh, they have rehearsed answers. Well, of course they do.

Right. So, so you can change your interview process orientation on boarding. Look, here's, here's what the job is. Here's what to do. If there's a problem, we're always just trying to figure this stuff out. So let us know your ideas. Find me, find Sally, find James in in your salary processes, make it transparent.

Here's the salary surveys. We. Consults and we do it twice a year and we look at what has changed and we come up with these salary ranges and you know, it's never perfect, but we're always trying to stay current with the market because we don't want you working here to be at a disadvantage financially compared to someone who.

It basically, at every step of your communications roadmap, you have an opportunity, your CEO, their speeches, their talks, I've, I've, I've, you know, consulted with CEOs who said, well, what do you think so far, you know, about our culture? And I said, well, No offense, but we just walked through the equivalent of like four city blocks through your office.

No one looked at you or spoke to you and you didn't speak to anyone either. And so,

let's talk about that. You know, so, so we're just saying we can be normal at work and just be regular people at work. It'll be really good if we did.

Kelly Kennedy: So essentially humanize the workplace at any possible opportunity.

Liz Ryan: I would say, you know, and it pays dividends for me. People say, how did you have, how did you do HR for 10, 000 people? And you didn't have like sexual harassment claims and this kind of claims and discrimination. I said, because we were in touch with our employees and we'd listen to them. So things didn't rise to that level.

Very, very, very, very. Vanishingly rarely, because we're, we have ears on the ground, not to snoop on anybody, but to say, we're here, we're here, we're here. What, what can we help you with?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Liz Ryan: And my job walking around, how are you? How's the job going so far? Is it okay? Does everything make sense? Everything cool.

You have to do that. That's our job in HR. Keep the energy light and moving forward and get problems resolved. Just take away roadblocks, roadblocks to energy.

Kelly Kennedy: And it's so funny because I don't think any time in my entire career, after I was hired, did I have an HR person come and check in and make sure that I enjoyed my job.

I'm so

Liz Ryan: sorry, Kelly. I know a lot of people could probably say that. I don't know what,

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah

Liz Ryan: You know, it's, it's organic and when it's, when it's in the culture and it's, what would get you out of the bed every morning to do HR? Enforcing policies or running payroll? No offense to payroll. It's important, but no, it's gotta be the, it's gotta be the, the pixie dust in the air.

Kelly Kennedy: Either way, you know what, you're paving the way, Liz. You're paving the way to a much better world.

Liz Ryan: And so are you, Kelly. Do you want that parenting tip now?

Kelly Kennedy: Absolutely, I do. I've been, I've been dotting it on my paper. I need it.

Liz Ryan: I don't mean to be heavy handed. I don't mean to be heavy handed with my parenting tip.

It's just that, given that I have five kids and only one parenting tip, better pass it on at every opportunity. Okay, here it is. We had twins first. Boy, girl, twins. And so I had time to think about, you know, what would happen after they were born, of course. And I ordered birth announcements. We ordered birth announcements from like a stationery store.

They were printed up with the baby's names. After that, I just went to the drugstore and grabbed some birth announcements. But the first time, and, and so I had them printed up and they came in sets of a hundred or quantities of a hundred. I, I, I had, 150 names in my address book got 200. So we sent out the 150.

I still had 50 left personal, you know, with the baby's names and little tartan, whatever ribbons. And so I told my husband to go to the bookstore and get the world almanac, which is a book that's published every year with a lot of facts and. Data and sporting records and all this stuff. And in the back of the almanac are the names and addresses, street addresses of heads of state.

So we sent the extra 50 birth announcements by mail to 50 heads of state, King of St. of Jordan. And at the time. Princess Di in the UK and Francois Mitterrand in France. And who was, who was in the nineties? Was it Trudeau's dad? Who was it?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Oh, goodness. That's a really good question. I think it was Jean Chrétien.

Liz Ryan: I think it was Chrétien. And so I sent out 50 of them and like, 27 of them sent back letters, say congratulations on the birth of the babies, and we're so excited to that. And we have them Framed and then the baby grows up and they're like, dang, my parents, there's some people we don't know, but they have social secretaries and they write these letters.

King's saying of Jordan has commanded me to write to you to express his kind wishes upon the birth of your child. And you have these things unofficial stationary. That's my parenting tip.

Kelly Kennedy: That's a great parenting tip. I know Shelby likes to do the same things and she, but not like that.

That is a whole nother level, but she wanted to have a whole bunch of stuff from 2023 because Jett was born on December 3rd. So, she wanted to like get like the, the, the Canadian minted coin for the year and all this shoebox full, so we have that too.

Liz Ryan: Of course, geez. Woman after my own heart.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. .

Liz Ryan: That is the way you gotta memorialize and lift it up because you got this. Yeah. The party started.

Kelly Kennedy: My win is just that every time it's my birthday, I now get to celebrate my birthday with my son because we share the exact same birthday, which is

Liz Ryan: So beautiful. That is so beautiful.

Kelly Kennedy: I can't wait to put on my little party hat with my boy and and celebrate his first birthday,

Oh, that is too precious.

Liz Ryan: That is so awesome, Kelly. I'm so happy for you guys.

Kelly Kennedy: Liz, this has been an absolute honor. Let me just say like, thank you so much. This is, this is the second time we are having this conversation and, and let me say it is just as good, if not better than the first one.

And I'm just thankful that we got to have this conversation.

Liz Ryan: It's really fun for me too, Kelly. And you're awesome. And you know, here's to you and here's to your followers.

Kelly Kennedy: Thank you so much, Liz. And, and vice versa. Until next time, this has been episode 148 of the business development podcast. And we'll catch you on the flip side.

Outro: This has been the business development podcast with Kelly Kennedy. Kelly has 15 years in. Sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry and founded his own business development firm in 2020. His passion and his specialization is in customer relationship generation and business development.

The show is brought to you by Capital Business Development, your business development specialists. For more, we invite you to the website at www.capitalbd.ca See you next time on the business development podcast.

The Ultimate Guide to a People-First Workplace with Liz Ryan

Kelly Kennedy: Welcome to Episode 148 of the Business Development Podcast. And today we are chatting with the founder and CEO of Human Workplace, Liz Ryan. We are talking about personal empowerment, reinvention, And humanizing the future workplace, you are not going to want to miss this episode.

Intro: The Great Mark Cuban once said, Business happens over years and years.

Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal. And we couldn't agree more. This is the business development podcast based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and broadcasting to the world. You'll get expert business development, advice, tips, and experiences, and you'll hear interviews with business owners.

CEOs and business development reps, you'll get actionable advice on how to grow business. Brought to you by capital business development, Capitalbd.ca. Let's do it. Welcome to the business development podcast, and now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly Kennedy: Hello, welcome to episode 148 of the business development podcast. And my gosh, this has been a challenging one to record.

This is actually our second time over and I have to deeply, deeply thank our amazing, legit rockstar guests. We're coming back a second time and helping me fix my mistake. Before we get into it though, let me introduce her. Today, we are chatting with Liz Ryan. Liz is the dynamic CEO and founder of Human Workplace, a trailblazing coaching and consulting firm.

Thanks Dedicated to transforming traditional work paradigms into human centered environments with a distinguished career that includes serving as a senior VP of human resources at a fortune 500 company. Liz brings unparalleled expertise in leadership, organizational strategy. and career development.

She engages a global audience of over 3 million LinkedIn subscribers on a weekly basis, sharing insights that empower individuals to navigate their careers with confidence and authenticity. Liz is a celebrated author of influential books like Reinvention Roadmap, Break the Rules to Get the Job You Want and A Career You Deserve, and a renowned columnist.

Who has contributed thought provoking insights to publications such as Forbes and the Denver Post. An accomplished speaker and an operatic soprano, Liz Ryan embodies innovation and empowerment in every facet of her career, inspiring millions to embrace new possibilities in work and life. Through her pioneering work at Human Workplace, Liz Ryan continues to redefine success by empowering individuals to unlock their full potential and seize the careers that they deserve.

Her commitment to reshaping the workplace narratives resonates globally, making Liz a beacon of change and a catalyst for personal and professional transformation. Liz, once again, it's an honor to have you on the show.

Liz Ryan: Thank you so much for having me, Kelly. That's all very nice.

Kelly Kennedy: Oh boy. I yeah, like I said, I, I really apologize.

I have to just say it because, you know, at this point I've recorded 148 episodes and I have never had a mix up quite like the one we just had. I, guys, I blew out my audio messing with some mic settings and Liz, the angel she is, is so kind to come back and do this show a second time. So, graciously, thank you so much for coming back and doing this again.

Liz Ryan: No, no, no. Once, once I saw that little, that cute little tyke. On the bedspread. I said, okay, whatever. It's fine.

Kelly Kennedy: Oh my gosh. He was posing that morning. We had him on the bed and I had your book out because I just finished reading it the day before and I'd had him on the bed and he, I kid you not, I walked over and he's sitting there playing with the cover of your book.

He loved the art and I know you, you self illustrated the book so it was your picture and he absolutely loved it. And so I was like, He was posing. He wanted to be on the, on the cover page that day.

Liz Ryan: And he's photogenic. He's, he's a doll.

Kelly Kennedy: Liz, you are amazing. You've done so much with regards to humanizing the workplace.

And we're going to get into that today. But, you know, I want you to take us through the journey. I, like I said, we call all of our listeners on this show. Rockstars. We got, you know, rockstar experts, rockstar listeners, but we don't always get an actual rockstar guest. I started there last time and I wanted to do it again.

You started out as a punk rock singer.

Liz Ryan: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I was a classical, I, I, from high school, I went to conservatory to sing opera and I still sing opera now, but. At the time, you know, in New York, I was at school in New York and I met a friend through my roommate who was in a woodwind quintet and he had a punk rock band and I started singing with them and One thing led to another and and that's actually how I became an hr person too Is because I went to chicago when I was 19 to do music and I worked at a waiting table.

So I made great money and then to my Shock and horror the next time I tried to apply for a job You Which I had to do because I was working for an outdoor cafe and they closed for the winter. I found out you couldn't, I had to be 21 in the state of Illinois to serve alcohol. I couldn't make any money.

So I went inside and did office work and that's how I became an HR person.

Kelly Kennedy: And then, you know, you've done so much obviously in the HR field, you know, walk us through, walk us through what happened next.

Liz Ryan: Well, I, I, I happen to work for a little company that was growing. We didn't even use the word startup then, but it was, but not, not technology.

It was, it was a greeting card company and they were growing like crazy. And so being in the, on the inside of that first customer service and then operations and all that stuff, and they, they knew they were going to grow really fast and our VP of operations said, Hey, I want you to run HR. And make and hire tons of people and, and do that really well.

And also make it a great place to work so that we can keep growing. Well, what better assignment could there be than that? You know, and I had a negative reaction. I said, you're putting me in HR. What did I do to offend you? That I've been involved with our salespeople and our customers and in the real business, and you're like, no, go in HR.

It feels like a punishment. And what did I do to deserve that? You know? I was 24 and he said, no, he said, don't be dumb. You know, do it the way it should be done rather than maybe just the way you've seen it done or the, the reputation that HR has wasn't even HR back now as personnel. I said, okay, that's a good point.

That's a challenge. And so, so that's what I did. And I saw the correlation was like complete. You take care of the employees, you make good energy, make the place about good energy, where the products and the services that you offer are completely Cool. But they're secondary because people don't get excited about making, in this case, greeting cards, although there's cool aspects, some of them are very cute and the artists are fun and the customers are really into them and stuff, but that doesn't get people out of bed in the morning.

Let me go make greeting cards or buttons or anything else. It's like, what does it do for me? Oh, what is the energy like? Am I learning? Am I growing? Am I recognized? Do I have a group, good group of folks over there who support me? And that's, that's everything. And so I really knew even back then, like, I wonder if I'm going to write and speak about this, because this is the decisive fact.

This is everything, the culture and, and, and the way people are communicated with them, the way we deal with problems when they come up is everything. There's nothing else who cares, you know, strategy. We have this new financing partner. Yeah. None of that's going to make any difference. If you don't have a forward, really good community energy, that's just growing all the time.

And so that's what I did. And I only left there like nine years later. I started when I was 19. I left when I was 28. Because I figured, you know, if I'm going to be in like the business world didn't accept that I should go get like a, you know I don't know. It was a great company. I had grown actually from 1 million in sales when I started there to like 200 million when I left nine years later, huge growth.

So I was hiring like crazy and our entire company was growing. But I wanted to do something more in like the sort of business world. If I'm going to do it at all, I might as well rock it. And also I was dating a guy at my current employer. So that wasn't ideal running HR. And I figured, well, maybe I'll just move on and do something else.

And I did, I went to a tech company, U S robotics, a data communications company, and I could tell right away like, oh yeah, this is exactly the energetically the place to be because people like to work here. So. My, my job becomes very easy bringing people in and keeping that really good energy as the company grows.

And it did, it became, you know, multi billion dollar company. And then I knew when I left there I wanted to speak and write and consult, teach people how to, how to get stronger corporations of organizations, of course, but teaching people individually. As people and as working people and as leaders had to get stronger and use more of their power.

Kelly Kennedy: Well, and it sounds like you were really ahead of your time on this. Like, I feel like the feedback that I've gotten is that most workplaces, HR was run considerably differently. And you know, obviously I'm not from an HR background, I'm from a business development background. So I haven't spent a lot of time in that world, but can you speak to maybe like, What are some of the challenges that large HR companies are facing?

Liz Ryan: Well, it's funny because when I was put in HR and I said, Okay, I'll give this a try. I said, you know, I said to my boss, the VP of operations for the company, I don't know anything about HR. I mean, I know as much as a normal supervisor or manager knows, but that's not much. And I don't know all the laws and all that.

And he said, I have a feeling that's secondary. To good HR, which is absolutely true. And he said, you'll find all that out. Sign up for any workshops, seminars, sign up for everything. We have an employment lawyer. We, we talked to seldom talk to him, you know, immerse yourself. And I said, okay, cool. What's not to like?

And I went to all these workshops and trainings and it was, it was eye opening. I went in there, somebody said, oh, you're new. What are you interested in learning? Or I said, oh, I'm interested in. I'm interested in how to create like a incredibly vibrant culture. I'm interested in gender issues and how those play out at work.

Cause I see a lot of stuff, gender issues. What are you talking about? It's been illegal to discriminate against women on the basis of gender since 1968. Don't you know your employment laws? No, I don't. But also just because something's illegal, doesn't mean it doesn't have been. How are we going to deal with these issues?

How are we going to communicate around sticky topics? We're not, we're going to pretend they're not happening. And I was turned off. I was like, what would be the point of pursuing? Like I will lockstep, learn the HR canon. If it doesn't help me and help the people that I'm here to help. That's my whole job.

And then, you know, the AIDS crisis came and my colleagues are getting sick and dying. And I said, you know what? This is what this we're human first, second, third, fourth, fifth. And we're employees like number. 16 or something, but this as companies, this is really what the conversations we should be having all of the human stuff and how do we deal with it and how do we merge that with, you know, what we want out of a workforce and what we want out of our quarterly results and all that.

And if we won't have those conversations, then we have to take down all the posters on the wall that say our employees are our greatest asset. We care about people and talent because it can't, you can't, those two, those two things don't go together. So I don't mean to end on a grim note. I love, I love the message and I love what we, what we are doing, but there are HR people who are very locked in to this human workplace mindset and methodology and doing it in their companies and leaders, and that's, you know, that's of course the greatest thing in the world, but still we have a long way to go to shift away from.

It's just the numbers and the policies toward really making work as human as it could and should be for everybody's sake, for customers sake, for shareholders sake. Nobody, nobody doesn't benefit when working for a human.

Kelly Kennedy: Well, agreed. And I think, like, for me, the big change that I saw came after COVID, or even during COVID, when it kind of felt like maybe employers had no choice.

Like, the power was really taken away from them and given to the employee. Exactly. I think that a lot of companies, you know, I'm in Canada, but I think across North America are still playing catch up. Like how do we work in this new paradigm? But the funny thing is, like you said, we should have been treating our employees with more respect and more power to begin with.

Liz Ryan: It's, it's, it's kind of like this. There's two ways to, to manage Kelly, as you know, but for your listeners that, that haven't heard about this before, and they're not, they don't, they don't intersect. They don't play together. Well, one is through fear and the other is through trust. Through fear, you say, I will.

Make it my life's mission as a manager, as a CEO, or any kind of supervisor to make sure nothing bad happens. That would be the worst thing in the world is something bad happens, something unexpected, something we didn't want. So everybody's going to have very strict daily goals and metrics. We're going to have a million policies that constrain people from getting outside of their little part of the ice cube tray, and we're going to try to prevent bad things from happening.

And all you can do in that scenario. Sometimes prevent bad things from happening, but you cut off the ceiling and you say nothing great will happen.

Nothing good can even happen because people are so crunched down and fearful and afraid of messing up or getting a bad performance review or an infraction report or whatever that they can't.

And then they get sick and they burn out. It's crazy. The other way, what I've been fortunate enough to, to experience myself and also to help other employers and leaders bring in is to lead through trust. And that's where you say. Here's what the job is. Here's what you need to know how to do the job. And of course, I'm here to support you anytime you need more help or guidance, but otherwise do it your way, you know, unless there's a regulatory issue or a safety issue, you're going to, you know, figure it out.

And that's where you get to use your brain. And that's, what's fun about the job. And so go for it, put your art out and put your stamp on the job. That's beautiful thing. And I want this job to give you more always than a paycheck. Because if it were just a paycheck, it wouldn't be fun for either of us or the people who rely on your, your good work.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, exactly. And I think the other side to this too is if you're an employer and you are, you know, standing over your employee's shoulder and you're holding them to these KPIs or these unrealistic KPIs on a daily basis, and you're sitting there and micromanaging, How is your life? Is that the kind of?

Liz Ryan: So much more expensive, it's old fashioned supervision. It's so much more expensive. It's so much more tedious. And also one thing I noticed as an HR person, just like it's shocking. This stuff doesn't sort of get studied at the PhD level is maybe it does. And I'm just not aware of it. Any policy that's enacted in a department, in a company requires administration and upkeep.

Just like you put down sidewalk, you have to keep the sidewalk up or driveway. And nobody wants to do the upkeep, but they want, they still want to enforce policies that people are not aware of. There's very little communication. When I got out on my own doing consulting and speaking, and when we started our company, I did some expert witness stuff as an HR expert witness for, for legal matters.

And It was, I was shocked. I mean, it was like, there's this idea, we create a policy and we put the policy in place and everybody's magically supposed to know about it. And so then when you end up in a legal battle and it's a lawsuit and you say well, this employee should have known how to report this terrible incident of sexual harassment, because there was a policy that was distributed.

And it was in 1990, employees started in. Whatever, 2015, I was never communicated. I'm not laughing about sexual harassment, obviously, but this is the mindset. There was a policy. It was physically stuck with attack onto the cork board in the break room. It was there. It was physically there. She could have seen it was all curled up and dark, you know, this is the mindset.

And so it's, we, you said it earlier, Kelly, we have to get to here. Employees are part of the team. They're integral. Not employers are big and employees. Much less job candidates are insignificant.

Kelly Kennedy: Well, and I would say, you know, you have 3 million people on LinkedIn alone who completely agree with you. And I think, you know, speaking to my employers today, if you are running an organization, if you are just thinking about getting into an organization, empower your people, right?

Empowering your people is what people want. People, they don't want to disappoint you. People do not start a job looking to fail at that job or do crappy at that job. Like, I want you to understand that. Every single person wants to do meaningful work. I think that that's a fair statement to say. Nobody starts a job thinking, I can't wait to do horrible at this job, right?

So empower them, help them. If you have employees who maybe are not doing what you need them to do, maybe sit down with them and have a conversation, have an open two way conversation and ask them, how can I help you? Because they want to succeed.

Liz Ryan: I couldn't agree more. I mean, most of the time. With any reasonable level of support, just even, even support in the form of being available when folks need help people will thrive given.

You know, a task and a, an assignment, a mission, they innovate and they collaborate and they create great stuff when they just are free to do that. And when we don't see collaboration, innovation, teamwork, it's because there's something in the environment that is crushing down the energy. And so the minute that I saw that, I'm like, well, let's, Operationalize it.

I started writing articles and, and courses and, and, and books and, and, you know, it, it's very easy to do. It just takes a shift in mindset that we don't have to nail everything right down to the floorboards. There's lots of room for lots of good things to come up when we just give space for that and really make people feel like they are not just a number and a job description and a title and a you know, that's it. A cog in a machine.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah. It's, it's funny because, you know, I, I actually interviewed Lou Adler a while ago and one of the things that me and him had talked about was that the HR system, in his mind, the way that we're doing it today is a broken system. Would you, would you agree with that?

Liz Ryan: Oh, goodness gracious. Yes. I mean, especially recruiting. Yeah. And HR people write to me every single day and say, you know, my job is very hard, much harder than it needs to be because of this mindset of we have to be, we have to be above, you know, the employees have to be kept under control versus set free to make art and do great things.

It's a, it's a really old school fear based. I mean, that's literally fear based management. You know, what people forget is that fear based management is not just people using fear and threats and intimidation to get employees to do what they say, but also it's people in fear that practice that in fear themselves.

And we have a hard time talking about fear and trust at work and the difference between them. But I couldn't agree with you more. Recruiting is broken. HR is broken. Leadership in general, our concept of it is super broken. One could make the argument work is just broken in general. It needs to be really, it really needs to be examined and re imagined.

It's funny, Kelly, because when, when I was a young HR person, it was the age of. Re engineering, total quality, all this stuff. They were reinventing processes everywhere, but never recruiting. Recruiting always just stayed slow and opaque, very little information coming out, very much like, just wait until you hear from us, could be weeks, very weird and quasi insulting, and just, you just don't see that.

I mean, I'm out here, but you just don't see this being discussed as Why do you think it's so hard to hire people? Treat candidates like dirt in the interview pipeline, the hiring pipeline. Of course, they're going to be gone. You're not going to get them. And if you do get them, they're going to still keep looking for a better jobs as well.

They should. So, you know, we have some work to do.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Well, you know, like I really enjoyed reinvention roadmap. We talked about that before. What, what reinvention roadmap meant to me, it really felt like a book on personal empowerment. It is a book really written for job seekers and people that are looking to start their own, you know, consulting business or, or, or organization of some type.

Bye. It really is about you have power as an individual, you have, you know, things that you're great at, purpose, all of these things, and you kind of packed it all into one really great book, and so we're going to get into that, obviously, Reinvention Roadmap, it's amazing, you should definitely get it, we'll get into that later in the book, and we'll have links and stuff, but The point is, is that you did make a point in the book that kind of shocked me a little bit.

And it was that the idea of you are going to work 30 years at a company and get a retirement package and a retirement party is dead. And it's funny because we talked about it briefly in the last conversation, but. My dad grew up in that and so he worked for a company for I think it was like damn near 40 years and retired and did all those things.

And I think for me, I felt like, and you know, my dad is a boomer, so it's a little bit of a different generation gap, but I felt like Well, is that potentially going to be my life too? And so when I got into business development, I was at a company I really loved. I worked there for 10 years, right up till COVID.

COVID came, my job was like, okay, well, I hope you have something else because this may not exist for you. And so for me, that was the launchpad into my own business, capital business development, but. I, there was a part of me that thought, like, maybe, maybe I will just work here, like, I enjoyed the place I worked, I liked the work, and I'd been there a long time, and I think there was a part of me that kind of believed, maybe, maybe I could be here forever, but that time, you know, for me, was a rude awakening, and, and in the book, you were talking about, like, that time is dead.

Liz Ryan: Dead, yeah. You, you might have stuck it out there, if you had wanted to, you might have been there, you might have, have, have left, have retired, but you would have been like the last, you know, the last guest. That, that era's gone. The, the jobs that used to be the most secure almost put People in them at more risk now because they're not in your proximity to the real world, the transactions, the talent market where services and, and, and talents are bought and sold or rented.

That's your power, your knowledge, your, your, your visceral knowledge that you are marketable. You have something to contribute and you can get paid for it. That is your power. Literally. It's not, you have some lofty title in some big corporation. You could lose the title tomorrow. It could be gone without an income and without.

A sense of how to get back. And it's terrifying that we would even let ourselves be in that position, but we've been brainwashed to think it's perfectly fine, get in with a good company and stay there. That's what we were all taught. I don't know when people stop teaching their kids that I hope they have, but that is bad advice.

Now that is bad advice. Go to sleep on your career and not know how you make a difference, how you've helped your companies make money or grow what, whatever their mission is. That is terrifying. My readers and followers outside of the U. S. say, how do you guys sleep at night? It's better in Canada, but it's not perfect, obviously, but they say, how do you go to sleep?

Right. Thank you for asking that question. How do we, but in Canada and everywhere in the, in the industrialized world, In the non industrialized world, we have to know how to sustain ourselves. It's essentially adulthood. And, and, and we get that when we test what we have and how we talk about it and how we look around and put that periscope up and see how this world all fits together and how we could play in it.

That's when we step into our power and more as you did, and your listeners did by starting their own business, small subset of the population, you know, In part, because we were taught since early childhood, only Mavericks and big risk takers, Elon Musk, you know, and Steve jobs. There's only people that have their own business.

Most of you guys just go get a job and stick with it. That's the safe way. That's not safe. How's that safe. Could be laid off tomorrow. No severance. What?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, I agree. Like, to me, the safety felt, well, it's my business. It's on my back. Like, that, to me, felt safe.

Liz Ryan: That's safe. That's, that is safety. That is literal safety because you control what happens next.

And there's still this narrative going around that, like, if you do a good job, you'll keep your job. Well, it has literally nothing to do with individual performance. They just look at a spreadsheet and say, this division, go, yeah, get rid of it. Meaning, we have to be able to navigate in that, Ecosystem. And that means growing our muscles, knowing what kind of pain we solve.

Who has that pain? What is it costing them? How do I start a conversation with them?

Kelly Kennedy: Wow. Wow. And so the, the big takeaway from this was people have been living in this false safety environment for a very long time.

Liz Ryan: Bubble post war baby boom bubble burst whenever some historian will put a date on it, 15, 20 years ago, and we're still kind of during, but you know what?

I don't blame, this is not on the working public. Corporations still are taking 6, 8, 10, 12 weeks to interview and hire people. Like it's la la la, like it's 1991. But it's not, but they could have a change in, you know, strategy and, and you're laid off in six months. So we, we have to adjust in general, but before we can adjust, we have to start telling the truth about it, which is what I'm trying to do and help other people do, we have to talk about it.

We have to not pretend that it's still cradle to grave employment. And HR friend of mine told me she was leading a new employee orientation onboarding, and she said to them, now take out your booklet there on the website. Desk, this is our 401k, our retirement plan. And they all burst out laughing, you know, they, they're clear eyed.

They don't expect to retire from there. So so good to retirement plan, but we're all reorienting and it's jarring, but the, we need to step into this new ecosystem, you know, decisively. Cause that's how we get stronger and things become less scary.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, it like, like I said, like you, you focus so much on personal branding, right?

Personal branding. Has been around forever, but it's not something that I think has really entered the business ecosystem in a major way until recently. I honestly, I see this last year, like 2023 2024 as this like grand awakening that personal branding is actually really important. Can you spend some time on personal branding?

Liz Ryan: Sure, of course. Well, I'm an HR person, so I've looked at, I don't know how many. Tens of thousands of resumes. And I was just immediately horrified. You know, I told you I became an HR person a little bit against my will when I was 24, but it was a great outsider's view. Why do these resumes all look the same?

Results oriented professional with a bottom line orientation. What is the fake language? Who taught it to us? Where did it come from? Why do we use it? Why would anybody ever write about themselves in a way that seems like their intention is to blend in with everyone else? Well, we were taught this is the correct way to write business correspondence.

Like your results are into motivated self starter. You're literally taking yourself off the page. Receding into what? We were never given permission. I, you know, started writing 20 years ago about, yeah, you know, I am a IT project manager who specializes in large, you know, financial software implementations for banks, baby.

That's what I do. And if you want somebody who does that, then let's talk, but I'm not going to retreat and say, is this language acceptable to your majesty? Not going to happen. The more power, the reason personal branding is so hard, It's two things. One, we're taught to write nonsense, corporate gobbledygook like that.

And it's hard to shake your mind from, but isn't that what they want? Who's they? There's no, they you're talking to individual hiring managers. That's a very different proposition than sort of using some universal language that everyone will appreciate. They won't, but also. If you're literally not even visible through the page, why would they, why would they interview you?

But the other reason is because anybody who can read is a human being and they are taking in impressions. It's not their choice. That's just what hits you when you see a page or a screen. And so when you say I'm an IT project manager focused on big software implementations for banks, they're like, dang, that's exactly what I'm doing.

That's what I do. Let's talk to this person. That human voice. allows you to connect to other people in a way that, you know, the traditional branding doesn't. But the reason branding is so hard for folks is you have to take away sort of like the hard candy shell and get to the mushy chocolate inside. You have to decide.

What you care about and what you want to do. The biggest problem in every single resume no, the biggest problem across the board in resumes, which is in like 95 percent of resumes is you can't tell what the person wants to do. You can't tell from their resume. They say, I did this. I did that. And the other thing I understand that because as a young HR person, I get a literal paper envelope, this whole stack of them, slit them open with my little slitter thingy and read them.

And then I would compare the resume to the job ads that we had running. Cause how would they know? So I'd match, they don't match anymore. No, one's going to match. You have to know, you have to decide I'm going to do this and then declare it. And then the whole rest of your resume lines up behind that goal.

And supports that goal. That's branding. That's real personal branding. Throwing a bunch of adjectives. I'm smart, savvy, strategic. No, no one cares. And also that's a fear based strategy because anybody could literally say that we don't, we would, we want to hear your real story. And then the rest of your resume kind of bolsters that, that first premise that, that first statement.

Kelly Kennedy: You need a good sales pitch.

Liz Ryan: That's a sales pitch. And the reason it's a sales pitch is because you've already researched the employer, the specific hiring manager you're reaching out to so that you know that there's, there's, there's likely to be resonance. Otherwise they wouldn't be on your list.

Kelly Kennedy: Wow.

It's so funny because in business development, we do the same thing, right? We've been doing it that way for years, but it's literally what you're saying to people is, look, you need to business develop yourself.

Liz Ryan: You do. I went to some Sandler esque sales training, Kelly, you know, Sandler And I, my first reaction was like, when I saw your gorgeous little baby, I was like, why were we talking about business?

Should've been talking about baby And when I went to the Sandler sales training, I felt very bad that as an HR person, 20 plus years, I didn't take advantage of the sales training available in, in my companies, because I was like, Oh, sales training, you know, Hey, what do I care? Oh, no, we all care because this is all of us.

Who you're trying to reach, what's their pain, how do you fit into that? How can we not be teaching this to every little kid since they're six years old? It's basic human communication and empathy and taking someone else's perspective, and that's what we teach job seekers as well as obviously entrepreneurs, get, get their glasses on, get their view of the world.

And then you could speak to them in a way they're going to care about.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah. You know, we're talking so much about about individuals, right? I want to speak to the broader scope because we're actually talking this to a lot of entrepreneurs right now, you know, small, medium, large business owners.

Great. Who have their own 50 percent in this pie to play. Yes. Right. How can, how can business owners do better? How can, how can they make it easier for themselves to get the best possible candidates?

Liz Ryan: Yes. Great question, Kelly. That's a beautiful question. Small businesses have a huge recruiting and retention advantage.

Huge. Most people do not want to work for massive corporations if they can help it because of the rigidity. So as an entrepreneur, the degree to which you can soften, soften, Not just throw, you know, your hands up and say, you guys do what you want, but work through what latitude can I give to folks? What flexibility and time and place I can give them?

What, how can I bring them more tightly into the business? And the decision making is huge. It's huge. Big corporations can't, won't, they don't. But you can't, it doesn't cost anything. It doesn't cost anything access to you, access to customers. It feels scary. Like I'm leaning on this person and then I'm becoming more reliant.

Yeah. But people like to be relied upon. That's what keeps people feeling like part of something. And you know, you don't, you don't lose sight of things. You, you keep an overview of what's going on, obviously, but you have a huge advantage as a small business, the job ads as a small business, you have no need to sound like Like Deloitte, when you write a job ad, we have an immediate opening for it.

You say, I'm James and I'm the CEO of this company. We've done this and that. We're super excited to finally have a distribution deal with these guys. And we're doing this and we need somebody to come in and kind of run the e commerce sites. They wouldn't be excited about that. And, and you, and you say, you know, send me an email, tell me, you know what you've done that was similar or what makes this feel like a good fit for you.

That's it. Now they're not filling out some tedious thing. Don't be corporate before you need to. And maybe best case you never need to.

Kelly Kennedy: It's so funny because i've heard people make the argument that like That like a family style business can be a negative thing and yet, you know in almost every single experience that i've worked at an organization That felt like a family style or heck even my own company has felt like a family style because that's the way we've run it To me that personal connection is what makes it so powerful that like You That caringness, that openness, that transparency, that access is what gives us power.

I don't know. I'm not sure that I see the negatives. I guess maybe if you are the size of Deloitte and you're running, you know, 18 divisions around the world.

Liz Ryan: Well, what people fear about a family business is they fear like, you know plumbing and heating business. Grandpa started it in 1970 and then dad is semi retired and there's two boys who kind of run it and two girls who do this and that and going into a situation like that indeed can be, can be fraught because it's all family and there's family dynamics and you're not in the family and we can see how that goes.

Could be very entrenched and old things from when they were in sixth and eighth grade that you'll never figure out. And, you know, it's, it's going to be very complex and not always super fun to be the outsider, you know, but but in general, like what you're talking about, the really entrepreneurial company where someone comes in and they are revered and esteemed and respected for their outsider view and maybe process that they bring or a different viewpoint that they bring.

I think it can be great, but you know, In recruiting and in job hunting and in consulting and entrepreneurship, not everybody is our perfect client or our perfect candidate. So we're not out here sort of like trying to just attract people in general. There's a demographic piece. There's a psychographic piece.

Not everyone is going to be, you know, a great fit for your company or any company and vice versa. And it's matching. It's a matching exercise. We're not as employers. We don't want to be vetting. We don't, that went that vetting energy. I'm checking you out to see whether you're good enough to join my team.

It's you haven't sold me yet, babes. How white it has to be. Let's just see, let's have coffee and see whether what we're doing is any. of any interest to you. And if you, you know, if we feel like, let's just figure it out. It's not like the, to the exact degree that we say you little peon aunt, nothing, we're going to check you out that the best people will be gone.

They're they're out. They don't have time. They're gone. And so this is what we're fighting is this old training that it has to be a certain way.

Kelly Kennedy: In your opinion, Liz, like how many How many interviews should, should you have with an employee before, like before you know, right? Is it, is one hour enough time?

Liz Ryan: Oh, that's such a great question. It depends so much on the job and the situation. You know, it just, there's, it's so contextual. If it's a retail jobs, right? And a lot of restaurant jobs, there's one interview, maybe, maybe, maybe there's two because that turnover is incredibly high and they're used to that.

And unfortunately I built that in and it's just like this churn thing. Many, many companies will do two, one with some kind of screener type person and a second with the hiring manager. If it's a position considered more responsible lofty or whatever, then there's probably another interview with a VP or director or somebody higher up.

And sometimes there's an interview with teammates, but you know, the thing is for, for an employer to lay it out and say, here's what, here's how this hiring process works, that's so comforting and so responsible and appropriate to just tell candidates, look at. We're going to talk, we're going to have a zoom call short, like half an hour, just to check off some items, make sure it even makes sense to keep talking right.

In terms of what this job is and the hours and what you're looking for. And I don't want to waste your time. And then if that seems like it's a match and you have some of those with five, six, eight candidates, and you say, wow, there's three people we'd like to talk to in more depth, then you immediately go to the other.

Four or five people and say, thank you so much this time. It's not a great match, but you know, let's stay in touch. And three people have the second interview. Then you're going to get more in depth and you're going to lay out in detail. What is the job? What do I actually be doing? What's important who are internal, external customers?

What do they need from me? You're going to really lay it out. What is their career path? What does that look like? You just give them the vision and enroll them basically in the vision and and get their thoughts. How would you look at this job? How would you approach it? And I'd just love to, you know, brainstorm with you, not looking for free consulting, but you're saying, how would you, as a person walking into this job, how would you, yeah.

And you're going to get such a strong sense. And then the thing that I always recommend at the end of interviews is to say, so Janie, I don't expect you to make a decision right now. Is this job? of interest because you're going to mull things over, but it feels like it is as you, as you process our conversation today, I would love to have, you know, just an email from you, just a quick email that says kind of what you heard today, what you heard that we're doing, that the challenges and, and then we sync up on that.

A lot of people won't do it. And unfortunately, a lot of people who do do it. Fill up the assignment and say, I think you should hire me. I'm a great employee and a hard worker. And then wow, it becomes actually extremely easy to say, well, the number one thing I heard Kelly is that you're trying to grow this way.

You're using this strategy. I love this idea. I might do this differently, but it sounds like you're trying to do X, Y, Z. And I would come in and do bing the bing and a bang. And, you know, I think it sounds like a really solid plan. And you're like, Oh, the angels are singing.

Kelly Kennedy: It sounds so funny because, you know, like you were saying, we based so much of it based on, you know, what they wrote on their resume, but that those critical thinking skills on how they would solve your problems is really why you're hiring.

Liz Ryan: Your job Is to get them thinking, get their brain moving. Their job as a candidate is to get your brain moving and to get everybody's brain working. That's when you come out of an interview and saying, I'd like to get that job. But if I don't get that job, I still rock. I still rock. And you say, I'd like to get that candidate, but if I don't, this is so awesome.

They really validated what we're trying to do here.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes. Yes. Oh man. Yeah. Like hiring is just one of those things that I think so many small and medium sized companies struggle with because most of the time they don't have, you know, a high level HR person.

Liz Ryan: Don't need, don't need, don't need, right. You have to, you have to know.

The, the laws, they're a little different in Canada, but you have, they have to know a little bit, although hopefully they're not veering close to the net. You know, since we're talking about, you got your NHL.

Kelly Kennedy: I got the Oilers Jersey on today. It is a, it is playoff day today. It is game seven Stanley cup finals Oilers versus Panthers.

And my gosh, our city is electric.

Liz Ryan: A flame. It's a flame. Wow. I, I almost wore oilers. You're close. You're going to work. That's good. Well, well, good luck to the good old Edmonton Oilers. That's so beautiful. I'll be cheering for them, that's fantasic!

Kelly Kennedy: Canada hasn't won a cup since 1993. So we are,

Liz Ryan: I am old enough to remember my parents going to hockey games as like a date and, you know, with numerous kids and dressing up.

They dressed up. My mom wore like pearls to go to a hockey game. Did you ever see old old films of that from like the 60s? No, no. It was like, yeah, we're going to hockey game.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. It's like, I've never seen so many Oilers fans, like I grew up in the city. I've never seen, like everywhere you look, there's, there's someone wearing an Oilers jersey and Oilers t shirt.

All of our boys are in school today in their Oilers t shirt. That's so great. Aww, that's so great. We went, we went downtown for the last game, like really the Oilers should have been out. Like we've, we've, lost the first three games in a row, so the Panthers only needed to win one. We just won three games in a row.

And that last win was like the whole city. All you could hear was horns and people yelling. Like I've never seen downtown.

Liz Ryan: So its an underdog story?

Kelly Kennedy: It really is. It really is. It's game seven tonight. Yeah.

Liz Ryan: Have you ever been a Kelly to see the cup? Like sometimes they'll put it on display.

Kelly Kennedy: I have never seen it, but I imagine that if they win, it'll be in Edmonton.

And I've already told the boys we're going to go.

Liz Ryan: That is so great. Well when the, this podcast is finished. And you send me the whatever you send me a link send me a photo, you know, and it will.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, well, by then I probably will have one. So I will have one. Yeah. Oh, I think that's magnificent.

That is so great. It is. Thank you so much. Yeah, it is. It's, it's honestly, it's a win for Canada. Like at this point, there's not a whole lot that unites our country. The country is, you know, very split East and West, just like the U. S. is in a lot of ways. But. You know, this is really, you got people in Toronto cheering for Western Canada.

That's a win. That's the real win of this sport. I think. If you can get these happy about Western Canada, then we're doing something right.

Liz Ryan: I love it. I love it. That is awesome. That is awesome. We moved to the East coast a couple of years ago, and I'm just like tickled that you could get on a train in New York and go to Montreal, like, or you could go to Canada on a train.

It's so great. So cool.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. It's very, very cool. I'd never been to Eastern Canada until last year. We went to Halifax and I, my family originally actually is from Halifax. And I remember being there and just thinking like, wow, like it's, you don't, we have the mountains out here in the west and like don't, Rocky Mountains are beautiful.

Anyone who's been to Banff or Jasper, like they know it's a worldwide tourist destination, but There's something really magical about Atlantic Canada, the, like, you know, the East side where you're really on the ocean and so much history, right? Like that's where our country was founded. Right. It's just, it's amazing.

Liz Ryan: Yeah. Oh, I'd like to go up there sometime. I don't think it's, I, I don't know. You could drive. It's a, it's a bit of a trek.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, I would highly recommend making like a weekend trip to Halifax. You would not be disappointed.

Liz Ryan: That's a good idea. That's a good idea. Yeah. That's awesome.

Kelly Kennedy: Liz, you know, while I got you here, you are a total rock star.

You, you, on like, on the personal branding stage, on a personal branding level, you have done it better than probably 90 percent of the world. And I really mean that. And I know we have lots of people listening right now who are in this space where they're a little bit afraid. They're a little bit afraid to be out there in the world at a 3 million follower level, right?

Like that. That comes with its own set of criticisms and fears. You know, talk to me a little bit about, about what it has been like essentially to have a following like that. And maybe how can we encourage people? Is it important? Do people need to start to focus on their, on their social media followings?

Liz Ryan: Honestly, my advice here, Kelly, is really corny. But I believe it. And that is say what you feel and the people will show up. I've never sought out followers. Somebody said, you should write a column for LinkedIn. I said, okay, I will, but that's dumb. No, one's going to read it. And then they did, you know, 3 million people.

So. You say what you feel, you know, a lot of us are very muffled. We're very afraid to say what we think because there's messages that come down when we're kids and saying, who cares what you think? You don't have anything to say. I, I got so much, whatever the opposite of affirmation is. I really got so much when I was a little kid that I just decided like, well, I guess, okay, adult approval is cool in some ways, but.

In other words, you got to trudge on without it. And, you know, finally, you know, started to get that more for singing and, and other things performing, but, and, and then eventually HR. But you have to follow your own heart. You have to say what you think and assume if it's really that wacky and nobody else.

Resonates at your frequency. That's just the way it's supposed to be. And it's the same way in life. It's the same with your friends. It's the same way with dating and relationships. You are not out here to please everyone. And the more you try to please everyone, the worse you feel because it doesn't work.

It doesn't work. You're only the people who get you deserve you. And not everyone is going to get you no matter who you are, no matter what you talk about. So I just keep, I just started a Tik TOK channel. It's like 500 followers. It's great. You know, let's just start. I would not say that your entrepreneurial listeners and followers and fans need to drop everything and, and build some huge social media engine.

But I do think dripping out your thoughts, your observations is very important because you're opening up a channel bigger and bigger and bigger channel of that kind of. Thinking and ideas to come down. And it's also a confidence builder. Even when people leave you, I, my little fledgling tic tac channel has a few like, ah, this is dumb or whatever.

And, and they're just encircled with love by the other followers, you know? It's completely fine. And so it's the idea of stepping into your own voice. It's so important. It's your voice and the world deserves to hear that. You deserve to have it come out. No pressure. No, like I will post three times a week on these topics.

That shuts. It's just like what I said about work. When fear shuts down the creativity, we do it to ourselves. I must make another social media post. No, you don't wait until inspiration strikes.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, oh man, that resonates so much because you know, I look back to when I started this show, right? Like, I started this show in February of 2023.

And I remember it was 2022 when I was writing down my things I wanted to do in the next year and one of them was to be more More outward facing was to do something, whether it be a YouTube channel, a podcast, whatever it was. And I've settled on podcasts more so because I love listening to podcasts. And I, you know, I mean, I just thought I love listening to these.

I listen to them on a daily basis already. Why don't I just come on and speak to business development and eventually entrepreneurship is kind of what it became is a little bit of both. But I remember recording, you know, my first couple episodes, Liz, and just feeling like, who am I to do this? What, who, who, who allowed Kelly Kennedy to sit here and speak to the wall about business development?

What gave him the authority to sit here and do this? But it was just like, just like self sabotage talk. You know what I mean? Like, I think at the time I was feeling like a big imposter, even though I'd already had like over a decade of business development experience. Like, it's like, of course I can speak to that.

But there was a huge part of me that was really like, You know, don't do this, Kelly, like, what are you doing? I remember, I almost didn't release episode 3, and I talk about it a lot on this show. Episode 3 almost never came, there's nothing wrong with episode 3. It was me, I was just really struggling with my own self confidence in that moment.

Right.

Liz Ryan: No, Kelly, listen, you saying that, you doing that, and getting through that, that's 3 episodes a week, man, is that what you do?

Kelly Kennedy: We do two a week, but yeah, it works out to be on average about nine a month.

Liz Ryan: Wow. That is a lot. Good for you. It's stepping through that over and over and over again is absolutely what grows your muscles and makes you stronger.

You know that just stepping through that. Who am I to do this, but who am I not to?

Am I to get this job, but why shouldn't they? Who am I to start this podcast? Yeah, but what's the downside? Who am I to be an expert, a guru around business development with gazillions of followers and listeners all over the world?

Well, who says I shouldn't, where's the rule? Where's the sign on the door? Becoming a thought leader around business development, forbidden. There's no sign posted. Like I'm allowed to step out. And if I feel called to do it and I have the energy to put into it. All you can do is approve, disapprove and live a good life without Kelly in it, or, or just come on board and be part of the good energy.

There's, it's not hard. It's not complicated. And I, and I think it's fantastic, Kelly, that you're sharing wisdom and information you share with folks all over. It's brilliant. It's fantastic entrepreneurs, man. It's isolating and they need, you know, that community.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, I guess, you know, I think we're just all struggling with our own imposter syndrome.

All of us have that in us. And it's, you know, I mean, I don't want to say that I have it all worked out because I don't, I still have days where I, where I'm, where I struggle or I feel meeting anxiety or feeling like the imposter, right? Like it never goes away. I think ultimately you just get better and better and better at saying, okay, I feel this way, but I'm going to do it anyway.

Liz Ryan: That's it, Kelly. Somebody said to me, as you go higher up in the Himalayas, the peaks get sharper. In other words, you, you're going to keep testing yourself because of who you are. You're not going to say, Oh, I got over that hurdle. So I guess that's the end of my hurdle jumping. No, you're going to look for bigger and bigger and bigger challenges.

You can't help it. Because there's something beyond that hurdle that feels good and exciting and you deserve it, which is your vision for yourself and your followers and, and business development and the understanding of that and the practice of that it's voltage. You can feel that voltage and you follow it.

And, and, and when people follow that voltage, good things happen, even if there's hardship, you know, along the way, there's going to be, but you see that reason why you're doing it. And that makes it. You know, sometimes people say, well, I started my business and it was just nothing but hard work. And it's like, sweetheart, come on.

It wasn't nothing but hard work. Yeah, it's been some satisfaction. You would have done something else now.

And it's, it's, it's, it's every day is a new day. Every day is somewhat scary. Every day is a little bit boring. Every day is fun and exciting. And then you turn around and there's this little dumpling to pick up and play with and throw in the air.

You know, it's it's, It's, it's real life and I think stepping up to that every day and dealing with the reality of that is the hardest thing to do and the most important thing to do.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes, yes. And there's never going to be a lack of challenges for you to overcome, right? So you need to get resilient.

You need to, you need to start to take on the things that scare you. I think the older that I get, the more I realize that what I actually need to do is put myself in these such situations that make me very uncomfortable because what I realize is most of that uncomfort is only a couple minutes long and then you've accomplished it.

Liz Ryan: Yeah, that's the great thing. That's the great thing. I I, I, I remember in fifth grade, I was in a new school and I ran for student council. And I was like, why did I do that? I don't even know anyone in this school. And I get up there to make my little student council speech. And I was like, this is the stupidest decision I've ever made in my life.

Why am I here? I have nothing to say to these guys. I just said some stuff, blah, blah, blah, string some. Words together. And then I came down off the stage and said, I'm going to get like nine votes, but I'm so glad I did it, you know, so glad just like a thing to do and say, well, that, that little gut muscle activated.

So I've got that going for me and we have, you said it, we have opportunities every single day to just test ourselves and try stuff.

Kelly Kennedy: It's so funny. It's like, at this point, I, I, I think before I had my head down, I had my head down and my eyes closed and I wasn't recognizing the challenges that were being presented to me as opportunities to grow.

I don't know what it was about taking that leap into entrepreneurship, but it really opened my eyes to those as opportunities, not just something to be afraid of.

Liz Ryan: That's, that's genius. I mean, that's it. If you can twist that dial, you know, let the crystal, let the light in and say, and now I see it. Even some of the people I've worked with that were difficult and so hard.

And I've held on to some anger towards them. It's like, no, you were a great teacher because you taught me how to deal with this stuff. And now that snake cannot bite me again. I know what to look for. And it's it's tough. It's a lot of you know, it's a lot of conflicting emotions mixed, but we do get stronger through our experiences.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Liz Ryan: Not just more knowledgeable. I see a lot of people putting all their energy into like professional development. I'm going to learn skills. I'm going to learn how to deal with the software. I'm going to learn something about. Negotiation or finance or whatever. And that's all really good. We need all that knowledge, but we really, most of all need to get stronger in ourselves and speak our truth and have a vision and set boundaries and surround ourselves with the right people and make decisions and all the things that can be personally hard.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes, yes. And obviously, we're on this, you know, self strength moment. I want to just lead right into Reinvention Roadmap. Oh, okay. I had the pleasure of reading that book. I like to, I like to read the book ahead of the interviews. And I really love the book, Liz. I really did. It's very well written. And I remember looking after and thinking, Oh, she definitely wrote this after COVID or during COVID.

No, you wrote that book in 2016. I couldn't even believe it because your ideas and the way that you phrase your thoughts are so ahead of their time. You, you were seeing the future. Are you sure you didn't cause it?

Liz Ryan: That my DeLorean. Thank you, Kelly. It was a lot of fun to write the idea. Behind that book is that the world has changed.

It's not going back. And we are all entrepreneurs now, and we have to step into that. You can get a regular job. You can be a legit entrepreneur or even in between, but we have to have that understanding of how this world works, how we can fit into it. And we have to drive our own careers. We have to like the CEO of your career and your life.

There's no other opportunity. Going to sleep is dangerous. It's very, very bad for us. It weakens our skills, weakens our muscles, and it gets us out of the exact energy field we need to be in knowing how, how we can help other people and get paid for it. So Yeah, I had a lot of fun writing. I'm rewriting that book now.

So it's going to be gone for a while because it's okay to make room. So, but it's in, it's in libraries, but it's, I I'm writing a more sort of, I'll tell you when it comes out, but but, but this idea is, is really what got me to start writing for publications back in like 1998. I think we have to take charge.

The old working world is gone, gone, gone. Mad men era. It's not coming back and we have to run our own careers knowing who we're going to work for. If it's not this place, where is it, how we're going to monetize our wisdom and our talents, how to brand ourselves as we talked about, and how to have the mindset that I can stride out into these new spaces and not really worry about whether I'm a hundred percent accepted or not, because nobody's ever a hundred percent accepted by everyone anyway.

And i'm gonna get stronger and learn more about myself and have more value and more marketability all the time. That's That's not even that's not something we talk about or teach in school. And even companies that have big elaborate career development programs, they usually don't talk about you actually can get stronger too.

So if you decided to leave here, it'd be very easy for you to do that. I'm happy to see that conversation kind of starting again. But this is my number one My number one mission is to empower people and strengthen people to be able to deal with this world and thrive in it.

Kelly Kennedy: Well, I think what it, what it was for me was an awakening.

There were concepts in there that I hadn't really questioned before. Like, you know, why couldn't somebody work at a company for 20 or 30 years or, you know, like, Why do I why can't I fall asleep? I think it's kind of like one of those things. It's like being asleep and having your head in the sand is sometimes a nice feeling, but it can be a very rude awakening, which a lot of people are figuring out the hard way.

Liz Ryan: Yeah, and it's not even the sheer awakening of getting dropped off a cliff and your job goes away. That's very extreme. It could be a much smaller thing where there's a shift at the job changes constant. And you don't like the job so well anymore. And it just isn't working for you anymore. It's that idea of as an entrepreneur, you're constantly against the bed of nails and as a sleep working person, you're not.

And that becomes the goal. Just keep everything the same. Well, we know that's not going to happen. Not in this, in this tumultuous world. And so getting out there and dealing with that and confronting it, just like if you, if you were thinking about managing your finances, you wouldn't say, you know what?

I'll think about my finances when I'm totally out of money. Till then I got a few bucks. I'm not going to worry about it. No one would do that. No one would do that because that's too risky. Same thing with your career and your working life. And one of the reasons a lot of people my age have gone into consulting in particular and coaching that type of entrepreneurism is because it's the best way to monetize their talents and also do the work they want to do and not feel.

Pushed into a little box in a corporate job that maybe is not going to suit them and maybe not even. Give them any security.

Kelly Kennedy: You know, Liz, one of the questions that I have for a lot of my, you know, executives and my CEOs on this channel is when people do come to that realization that they want to go out on their own, there's an immediate fear, right?

There's an immediate fear that's like, don't do that. Don't you dare go out on your own, right? Like you're safe here in your little career. Like, let's just do this. What type of words of motivation might you give to somebody like that? Who maybe could do a great job as a consultant. Maybe could, has this great company idea and could do something amazing, but they're afraid, they're afraid to take that leap from their comfortable career.

Liz Ryan: Well, here's the funny thing about fear. That fear, I'm afraid to step out there is dwarfed by the fear, the real fear, the visceral fear, the existential fear that hits when. Something bad happens, right? And it could be as, like we said, as concrete as you lose your job, it could be a political shift that makes you think it could be, you have a meeting with HR and they say, actually, your red lines, you're at the top of your pay grade.

You're not going to get from now on. So assistance raises one and a half percent a year. And you're like, Whoa, that's got to mean something. They see me as this highly paid, you know, there's a lot of things that could cause a person to, to drive home or get on the train or leave work and say, wow, okay, wait a second.

Something has shifted. That's the motivation. I cannot motivate you to take a step into fear, into your fear. How could I, right? Cause fear is the strongest emotion there is. I can't get you to say, do it. You'll be fine. Right. I lead a program, a small group for folks who want to become coaches. Career coaches, executive coaches, and so on.

A lot of them also consult. And what we tell our coaches is you should feel half afraid, half excited to start this. Because if you are not a little bit afraid, you may not understand the gravity of stepping into this. And if you are not a little bit excited, then it will be fun and you shouldn't do it.

Half and half is a really good balance for people who are afraid to step out of the corporate world. Of course, I sympathize. I was the worst. I literally told people, stop talking to me about consulting. I don't want to talk about that. I don't want to do that. Stop telling me that you think I should be a consultant because I'm getting sick of hearing it.

I was afraid. I was just plain old afraid. I thought I'd embarrass myself, make an idiot out of myself. You know, I've done before. Why shouldn't I do it again? And, and I, it was because I, You know, it's a long story, but I'd left my corporate job and I had little kids and I'm like, I'm not going to, I had four little boys, I'm not, no, I didn't, I had one daughter and three little boys and I'm not going to back to a corporate job.

How could I possibly do it? And, and also I just did that for 20 some years, I don't want to do it again, and started consulting. One fear overcame the other fear, that's what I'm trying to say. The fear of, Oh no, I have to do something. And it, it worked. You get through it, you get through stuff.

Necessity is the mother of invention. If you're comfortable and the fear has not, because your body knows when you lay your head on the pillow, like this is not secure and maybe these people might get rid of me and that might be the end of my income. When that becomes overwhelming and you wake up in the morning and your jaw is sore because you've been grinding your teeth all night, then you'll probably take a step.

Kelly Kennedy: Well, and I think I want people to remember, like, entrepreneurship is not necessarily secure either. But the difference is, is that when things are, when you are sitting there at night with your jaw grinding, which is going to happen, You are also going to recognize that you can get up tomorrow and do something about it.

You don't have to wait for someone else to make that decision. You can get up and make that decision. And that's the power that that's the power that you have as an individual.

Liz Ryan: And you can shift. You can change. You can morph. You can go back through your, your address list and reach out to some people.

You can go have coffee with someone. You have an un, limited supply of ideas of what to do or pull back and think about it and get your board together and talk about direction. Everything is available to you. All the levers that a pilot would have when they're flying the plane, all the instruments are yours.

And that is the security that you're in charge and the real world is changing and you can change along with it versus sitting in your cubicle virtually or actually in a company and hoping that meetings happening in Philadelphia and Hong Kong right now are not going to put you out of work a month from now.

One is power and one is no, no power.

Kelly Kennedy: My gosh, you know what this, this has me worried about the future of companies, Liz.

Liz Ryan: It's not something I actually, they'll be fine. Look, we have things that have to happen on the earth. People have to be fed, clothed. They need a place to sleep. We need health care. We need education.

We don't need that much. We can figure out how to do that without this idea that like, I, we got to take care of general modal. It's an apple and make sure they're fine. I mean, that, you know, I'm not saying that, obviously you're saying that, but it's, it's like, we'll, we'll figure out how to organize in a way that, that you know, makes sense.

Hopefully that's our, that's our mission. That's our challenge.

Kelly Kennedy: Either way, it feels like we're in the middle of a tectonic shift of what work means.

Liz Ryan: Totally, totally, totally. And, and you know, I remember when I mentioned I was all eyes and ears open because I was a new HR person. I went to every workshop and symposium and they were talking about work is going to dramatically shift.

They called it. The social contract is fraying, it's going away. The social contract was this idea, your dad, my dad, get a job, keep the job, 40 years, retire, gold watch, everything is beautiful, company health care, it's all wonderful. They said that's all going away and we're going to have to deal with it.

It's going to require us to radically shift the way we think about recruiting, about engagement, about everything. And I'm like, yeah, I'm up for that. Well, that didn't happen. That didn't happen. The world did shift, but right now there's a lot of like, don't look at the man behind the curtain and everything is fine.

Just fill out the application. Like nothing has changed. And COVID in the United States, a million people dead and several million more debilitated by long COVID. But how can we have it? It's like, we don't talk about it. Maybe it won't be real. Starbucks unionizing. Nobody expected that used to be the best part time job there was.

And, and people are saying now something we have to ship the energy back. Something is not, is not right.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. Well, we bury a lot of things we don't want to talk about. That's right. Oh, Liz, this has been amazing. I do want you to take me into human workplace, though. You know, we're talking to a lot of people.

I know that you do offer services. Can we chat about human workplace?

Liz Ryan: Oh, sure. For sure, Kelly. Okay. Well, we create content. Courses and books, you know, I've written books and gazillions of articles and all that, but we create content for job seekers and entrepreneurs and working people. And we sell them you know, to our mailing lists and our followers and all that kind of stuff.

And then we have a coaching crew, a coaching squad of folks who trained with me to use our methodology and mindset in their coaching, and they're on a directory on our site. Human workplace. com. And then of course I teach folks how to be coaches and consultants in my my private group. And I do a lot of speaking and writing and, you know, drawing and singing and whatnot.

And so basically it's a content and a curriculum. Thought leadership, organization, all based around the idea that work is better when it's more human.

Kelly Kennedy: I think most of our listeners agree with that. And if they want some help, because I think that's the challenge, right? I think most people, they agree with that statement.

They, they recognize that they want their workplace to be a human workplace. I think where the challenge comes is, We don't know how to do it or we're not sure what steps to take, which is where, you know, a company like Human Workplace really comes in and can shake things up. If people are listening to this and they want to get ahold of you, Liz, they potentially want to hire you for some of your services or your team for some of their services, what's the best way for them to reach Human Workplace?

Liz Ryan: Oh, thanks, Kelly. They can just reach us at support at humanworkplace. com or there's a contact form on our site, humanworkplace. com. Yeah. Do you want a couple of quick tips? We have time how to make your workplace a little more human for no money. Just a little bit of time, your opportunities to make your workplace more human Are boundless so you won't be able to jump on all of them But you can start with maybe five or ten simple simple things that will warm up the energy at work and get from one end of the spectrum the Unfortunate and we are a corporation and and you will obey us at a return Where people are just shut down and in fear all the way over to we're just all figuring this out together Just what you were saying earlier we're just all kind of trying to muddle through the woods and figure it out and you know, and Get the Staley Cup, if we possibly can.

That's right. So, so some of the easy ways to get there is, first of all, look at your job ads. And how they're written you can use a human voice. You can use I I this manager I the ceo or we but we a little bit royal we you know, it's up to you But you don't want to say something like the selected candidate will have this and that someone's reading this You're talking right past them and the third person the selected candidate not your sorry ass, right?

We don't want no. No. No, you say hey if you're interested in this and that here's what we're trying to do This could be cool like come and talk to us That's how I hired my teammates side. 10, 000 people at us products. It was just. Talk to them about what we're doing. It's a cool project. Are you interested when people come in for interviews?

Same thing. Don't give them a list of questions. What is your greatest weakness?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Liz Ryan: So, so, so, so Kelly, here's what we're doing. Just a little bit of overview. And of course, at any point, stop me with your questions. This is what we're trying to do. And this is why we have this job because we're trying to do this.

And it works like this. Let's talk about it. I want to hear your questions. I'll answer your questions. I'll tell you what a day is like You know, let's just get into this and talk about what you think maybe what you've done before that's relevant total like coffee conversation And you're going to get so much more out of that interview.

Both parties are going to get so much more because it's going to be a real conversation about what you're doing. Not this stiff. I we do it like oral exam in school. Very bad, very bad. You know, people practice their answers and then we complain, Oh, they have rehearsed answers. Well, of course they do.

Right. So, so you can change your interview process orientation on boarding. Look, here's, here's what the job is. Here's what to do. If there's a problem, we're always just trying to figure this stuff out. So let us know your ideas. Find me, find Sally, find James in in your salary processes, make it transparent.

Here's the salary surveys. We. Consults and we do it twice a year and we look at what has changed and we come up with these salary ranges and you know, it's never perfect, but we're always trying to stay current with the market because we don't want you working here to be at a disadvantage financially compared to someone who.

It basically, at every step of your communications roadmap, you have an opportunity, your CEO, their speeches, their talks, I've, I've, I've, you know, consulted with CEOs who said, well, what do you think so far, you know, about our culture? And I said, well, No offense, but we just walked through the equivalent of like four city blocks through your office.

No one looked at you or spoke to you and you didn't speak to anyone either. And so,

let's talk about that. You know, so, so we're just saying we can be normal at work and just be regular people at work. It'll be really good if we did.

Kelly Kennedy: So essentially humanize the workplace at any possible opportunity.

Liz Ryan: I would say, you know, and it pays dividends for me. People say, how did you have, how did you do HR for 10, 000 people? And you didn't have like sexual harassment claims and this kind of claims and discrimination. I said, because we were in touch with our employees and we'd listen to them. So things didn't rise to that level.

Very, very, very, very. Vanishingly rarely, because we're, we have ears on the ground, not to snoop on anybody, but to say, we're here, we're here, we're here. What, what can we help you with?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Liz Ryan: And my job walking around, how are you? How's the job going so far? Is it okay? Does everything make sense? Everything cool.

You have to do that. That's our job in HR. Keep the energy light and moving forward and get problems resolved. Just take away roadblocks, roadblocks to energy.

Kelly Kennedy: And it's so funny because I don't think any time in my entire career, after I was hired, did I have an HR person come and check in and make sure that I enjoyed my job.

I'm so

Liz Ryan: sorry, Kelly. I know a lot of people could probably say that. I don't know what,

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah

Liz Ryan: You know, it's, it's organic and when it's, when it's in the culture and it's, what would get you out of the bed every morning to do HR? Enforcing policies or running payroll? No offense to payroll. It's important, but no, it's gotta be the, it's gotta be the, the pixie dust in the air.

Kelly Kennedy: Either way, you know what, you're paving the way, Liz. You're paving the way to a much better world.

Liz Ryan: And so are you, Kelly. Do you want that parenting tip now?

Kelly Kennedy: Absolutely, I do. I've been, I've been dotting it on my paper. I need it.

Liz Ryan: I don't mean to be heavy handed. I don't mean to be heavy handed with my parenting tip.

It's just that, given that I have five kids and only one parenting tip, better pass it on at every opportunity. Okay, here it is. We had twins first. Boy, girl, twins. And so I had time to think about, you know, what would happen after they were born, of course. And I ordered birth announcements. We ordered birth announcements from like a stationery store.

They were printed up with the baby's names. After that, I just went to the drugstore and grabbed some birth announcements. But the first time, and, and so I had them printed up and they came in sets of a hundred or quantities of a hundred. I, I, I had, 150 names in my address book got 200. So we sent out the 150.

I still had 50 left personal, you know, with the baby's names and little tartan, whatever ribbons. And so I told my husband to go to the bookstore and get the world almanac, which is a book that's published every year with a lot of facts and. Data and sporting records and all this stuff. And in the back of the almanac are the names and addresses, street addresses of heads of state.

So we sent the extra 50 birth announcements by mail to 50 heads of state, King of St. of Jordan. And at the time. Princess Di in the UK and Francois Mitterrand in France. And who was, who was in the nineties? Was it Trudeau's dad? Who was it?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Oh, goodness. That's a really good question. I think it was Jean Chrétien.

Liz Ryan: I think it was Chrétien. And so I sent out 50 of them and like, 27 of them sent back letters, say congratulations on the birth of the babies, and we're so excited to that. And we have them Framed and then the baby grows up and they're like, dang, my parents, there's some people we don't know, but they have social secretaries and they write these letters.

King's saying of Jordan has commanded me to write to you to express his kind wishes upon the birth of your child. And you have these things unofficial stationary. That's my parenting tip.

Kelly Kennedy: That's a great parenting tip. I know Shelby likes to do the same things and she, but not like that.

That is a whole nother level, but she wanted to have a whole bunch of stuff from 2023 because Jett was born on December 3rd. So, she wanted to like get like the, the, the Canadian minted coin for the year and all this shoebox full, so we have that too.

Liz Ryan: Of course, geez. Woman after my own heart.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. .

Liz Ryan: That is the way you gotta memorialize and lift it up because you got this. Yeah. The party started.

Kelly Kennedy: My win is just that every time it's my birthday, I now get to celebrate my birthday with my son because we share the exact same birthday, which is

Liz Ryan: So beautiful. That is so beautiful.

Kelly Kennedy: I can't wait to put on my little party hat with my boy and and celebrate his first birthday,

Oh, that is too precious.

Liz Ryan: That is so awesome, Kelly. I'm so happy for you guys.

Kelly Kennedy: Liz, this has been an absolute honor. Let me just say like, thank you so much. This is, this is the second time we are having this conversation and, and let me say it is just as good, if not better than the first one.

And I'm just thankful that we got to have this conversation.

Liz Ryan: It's really fun for me too, Kelly. And you're awesome. And you know, here's to you and here's to your followers.

Kelly Kennedy: Thank you so much, Liz. And, and vice versa. Until next time, this has been episode 148 of the business development podcast. And we'll catch you on the flip side.

Outro: This has been the business development podcast with Kelly Kennedy. Kelly has 15 years in. Sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry and founded his own business development firm in 2020. His passion and his specialization is in customer relationship generation and business development.

The show is brought to you by Capital Business Development, your business development specialists. For more, we invite you to the website at www.capitalbd.ca See you next time on the business development podcast.