Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Opinions expressed in this episode are personal. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this streaming platform.
[00:00:13] Speaker B: Good day, everyone, and welcome to another edition of let's be diverse. I am your host, Andrew Stout. This episode is dedicated to all my loved ones who supported me through this journey. There's lots of learning techniques that companies are doing now. People are going on one on one, getting one on one training. But something that caught my eye this week was something called adult learning. And my guest today, Carrie Graham, is going to help us to delve into this a little bit more and further, and she's going to explain to us a little bit more of what she does and what this means to her now. Doctor Carrie Graham is is an adult learning strategist and training consultant who helps businesses improve employee engagement in learning, information retention, and long term skills applications by developing a customized learning journey for employees and clients.
She collaborates with executives to establish strategies that improve employee training outcomes, offering immediate solutions and 50% long term improvement. Doctor Cary Graham has never fit in the box of traditional expectations in school and at work. Despite often feeling restrained and overlooked, she learned how to use her natural skills to open doors for herself and others. Doctor Graham has leveraged her curiosity to help women tap into their potential. Now, when I first met Carrie, I had a nice conversation with her on the phone, and when I messaged her, said, we're going to schedule something. And I just knew that we were going to have a great conversation. We're going hit it off. And I don't know if she'll remember, but I told her right at the beginning of the conversation, I'm going to make your day and I'm going to make it memorable. And when you hang up the phone, you're going to go, oh my God, what a fantastic call. And I think I accomplished that. We had laughs, we had fun. We had an engaging conversation, and this is why I wanted to have her on, so you could see the engaging conversation that her and I had. Welcome to the show, Carrie. I am so happy to have you on as a guest today.
[00:02:24] Speaker A: Oh my goodness. Andrew, thank you so much for having me. It truly is an honor. It's a long time in the making and I do, in fact, remember our conversation. And I did walk away from it, like saying to myself, oh my goodness, I feel so great after that. And so it is. I'm absolutely delighted to be here and to see where our conversation goes today and in the process, share some insights with your audience.
[00:02:55] Speaker B: I'm so excited for it. When we picked this topic, a couple of weeks ago, I was truly excited about it. It's interesting to me. I always learn something when I do these episodes. So I always take one, have one takeaway. So I feel like I'm gonna have maybe one or two or maybe three takeaways from this. This is so, so interesting to me. But before we get things going here, I want to know, how are things with you? What's new? What's exciting in your world? Give us the deets, Carrie. What's going on?
[00:03:22] Speaker A: Okay, the deets. So, you know, I think sometimes people want to know the personal stuff, so I will share. My husband retired after 30 years, so I am learning how to live with a retiree, which. It's fun. Like, it's. We're a month in. We're actually 27 days, to be exact, in. And every day is an adventure. Every day is an adventure. So for all of those people who are living with new retirees, I'm with you. I'm with you for work. And in the world of my consulting, I'm excited to say that I finally launched a training assessment at the end of last year. And I know that it is a great starting point for many businesses, whether, you know, small to mid sized businesses, who are my focus, and they usually have limited resources, it's a great way to get them started. And for larger organizations, it's an awesome opportunity to do a deeper dive into their training programs.
[00:04:32] Speaker B: I love that. And kudos to your husband. I mean, we all want to get there one day that we all want to retire, so.
And kudos to you that it sounds like things are going so far so well. We will check in with you in the next. In, like, six months from now and see if you're still thinking the same way.
[00:04:49] Speaker A: Yes, please do. Please check in on me. Please check in on me.
I don't know if it's. I don't know if it's a check in on me or check in on him, but, yeah, I think it would.
[00:05:00] Speaker B: Be check in on both of you, because it, you know, might be something where you're like, oh, my God, you got to find something to do, because you're like. You're driving me. You're driving me crazy.
[00:05:12] Speaker A: Yeah. One of us. One of us.
[00:05:14] Speaker B: Yes, exactly. Exactly. So I always like to have fun with my guests before we get in depth into the conversation. So before we begin, I always have a fun, thought provoking question to ask my guest to start off the podcast. Are you ready for yours today, Carrie?
[00:05:32] Speaker A: I am absolutely ready for it. I love a good surprise that makes me think so give it to me.
[00:05:37] Speaker B: Awesome. So your question today, Carrie, is if you were only allowed to eat one meal for the rest of your life, what would that meal be?
[00:05:47] Speaker A: Hands down, it would be a sandwich.
[00:05:51] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:05:54] Speaker A: Well, that's the. That's the beauty. You said the question was, what meal? And the meal is a sandwich, and with a sandwich, it has so many variations, and so, yes, two slices of bread with things in the middle. I could eat that every day because it's. I might want something hot. I might want something cold. I might want to meet. I might not want to meet. I mean, I could take little, you know, make little sandwiches, larger sandwiches. It's. I love food that you can have, but you can have it with variation. And I think that really reflects the work that I do, is it's. Yes, it's a thing. It's a singular meal, but you can customize it to fit your needs, the days, the feeling, whatever it is.
[00:06:50] Speaker B: Wow. I did not expect that. Answers. That is a super answer. I'm so impressed with you not knowing what this question was going to be ahead of time.
That was such a great answer, and I totally agree with you 100%. When you said sandwich, I thought, okay, sandwich. But then you said, there's so many variations. That is awesome. And then you tied it into what you do. Wow, Carrie, I'm super. I'm super, super impressed with you. Thanks for. Thank you so much for having fun with me, and I just love that answers. I just, I can't say enough about how great that answer was. Why don't we start off with you telling us a little bit about you, your story, and, of course, your why.
[00:07:35] Speaker A: I'll start with my why. And so my why do I do the work that I do?
Because I've struggled in the past, and when I say that I struggled in the past, I was a long story short, incredibly shy child, and it has stayed with me, you know, most of my upbringing, and I never fit in. And I say that I never fit in because from an education perspective, k through my doctorate work, actually, I often was the only woman of color or the only person of color.
I wasn't a straight a student, so getting average grades was the norm for me. And I didn't come from the same upbringing as many of my classmates. And then that transitioned into the workforce as well. I was, again, the only woman of color, the only person of color in pretty much a male dominated field.
But throughout all of that, I found myself in these training experiences or educational experiences, and so often they weren't meeting my needs. So as a child, I didn't see myself or people that look like me in that learning experience.
As a healthcare provider, I would go to these annual conferences and various types of trainings, and the more seasons I got in my craft, the less impactful the trainings were. And so it got to the point where I was constantly looking at my watch like, why am I here? I can't get this time back. And when I started having more and more of those experiences, I started to have conversations with other people who had the same experience I would look around at. How is this training or workshop being facilitated?
What is the purpose behind it? How are other people who are also in attendance responding to it? And consistently over the years, I found that training, as an umbrella term, it wasn't being done well. You know, it was either unengaging, people were unmotivated to attend, they weren't participating in it, being an active participant in it. The content was not well developed and presented in a way that made sense for the learner. And then lastly, people would walk away saying, I don't know how to use that information, or it's not practical. And that's, you know, having too many of those experiences and being frustrated, being left frustrated are the reason why I do this, because no one, you're sacrificing time and sometimes money to attend a workshop, and so why should you sit through it and invest in it and you're not getting the absolute most that you can out of it.
[00:10:54] Speaker B: So many things I want to dive into here. So first off, I kind of a little bit in your realm, as far as, you know, being a child and of course a child of color and also not doing well in school. School was not my thing. I don't know if mentioned it to you, but I mentioned on a few of my episodes that I have adhd. I didn't know that I had it when I was a child, and I was one of those kids where you be an exam, and I knew to be three weeks before the exam, and I had to start studying three weeks before. And I study, study, study, and I would pass, but I, you know, we get like the, you know, high 60, 70. And my, and I had friends of mine who'd study like two days before and you'd get eighties and nineties and I would never understand. I'd be like, how come you gotta study? And then of course they would be doing stuff in that three week span. They'd be going out to the movies, or doing this or doing that. I'd say, no, sorry, I gotta study. And they'd be like, I can understand why you gotta study, like, three weeks before, like, the exams. Like, in three weeks, like, study, like, a couple of days before, you're gonna be good. And they just never understood. They're like, hey, I studied two days before and I got a 90. How come? You know, they just didn't get it. So, yeah, I totally, I, I won't say I fully understand, but I sympathize with what, what you, what you went through. And the other thing I wanted to delve into is that training, I've been through a lot of training sessions, and I could see what you're saying as far as engagement, because there's been some really good trainings that I've been in, and there's been some that I've kind of like, oh, my God, like, when is this going to be over? Just because they didn't engage. And I found that the ones that were really good were the ones that were engaging, the ones that you were involved in a lot. They asked you questions, they got you involved in it. They put you in groups. Those are the ones that were, that I found were the most engaging. The ones where you sat there for, like, 2 hours or an hour and a half, and it was nothing like that then. Yes. You know, the hour mark or 45 minutes mark. You probably lost me. Right? Yeah. You say, okay, well, what did you learn from it? Like, I don't, you know, you have to kind of script in your brain and be like, whoa, you know, I.
[00:13:12] Speaker A: Remember they showed a picture.
[00:13:13] Speaker B: Yeah, I remembered it. I remember they said, you know, so you're kind of thinking of something quickly. You're like, well, I remember they mentioned engagement. I remember that. Like, that's, you know, so you're kind of, like, grasping at straws and try to figure that out. So I totally get what you're saying there, and I'm sure that yours are a little bit more, you know, on the engagement part, involving people and making sure that they get more out of it rather than sitting there for the longest time and not getting anything out of it.
[00:13:46] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, Andrew, you know, it's, I don't know, but for some reason, when you, when you said the word engagement, I had the thought of someone probably listening, thinking, well, yeah, that's all about the learner. It's all about the attendee. And while, yes, there are some elements of the person coming to the learning experience, they have a responsibility, but most of the responsibility falls on the lap of the person who has either built the training or facilitating the training. And you can have someone, and I've done this. I've had facilitated trainings where people literally have gotten a flat tire on the way to the training with their children in the backseat, and they still showed up. Now, granted, they were flustered and frustrated. They were late, but there's still a way that you can support them and helping them transition to the moment, to their learning experience and keep them engaged, even though they've got these other things going on. And so I firmly argue it is at the responsibility of the person who's developed the training or facilitated it. And that's where my passion lies, is, yes, I'm concerned about the attendee, but let's do this thing. Let's work on construction and presentation to support that. Support the attendee.
[00:15:23] Speaker B: You just pretty much describe leadership in a nutshell. They're right there. So that leads me into my next question that I want to delve into, which is, are there common misconceptions about adult learning that you often find yourself addressing in your consulting work?
[00:15:41] Speaker A: Yeah, it's the. Well, a couple of things. One, well, I use, you know, this is what someone will tell me, well, I saw this trend or this hack online, and so I am implementing it and it's not working.
That's one I've also seen, where people, they use methods that they've experienced or that they've seen, but those, like those methods are not working. And oftentimes it's because it's a poor method to use or it doesn't meet the needs presently.
But now what I'm starting to see is, you know, people are really talking about AI and the role of using artificial intelligence to build your training. And while there is a place for that, I think that the discussion right now is too heavily on, rests on letting artificial intelligence do the work for you. And that's the danger. The danger is in that you, you know, the AI doesn't know the audience you do. The AI is not able to see in the moment how they're responding. Is there an inability to comprehend the information that's being presented? And that's where I think. I think that's an upcoming danger that's going to happen is or pitfall that's going to happen, as many people are going to rely too heavily on AI and with these high expectations and it's going to fail them.
[00:17:27] Speaker B: I'm thinking of when you say that, first off, is that when you are writing something, there's two things that are gonna come out of that. And this is all about, you know, when you're doing your learning and your adult learning and from the adult learning is that, first off, I speak two languages. I speak English and French. So I would say if you are, what that tells me is that if you're trying to translate something from English to French or French to English, that would be like putting it completely into your, your full thing that you're wanting to say, throwing it into the Internet and translating it from English or French or French to English, the translation is going to be way off. So you can't do that. There's wording, there's understanding. There's all kinds of things that come into play there, so you can't do that. Yeah, and the second thing I'm thinking of is when we're writing stuff or when we're learning stuff, the thing that makes me think of that is that you want to say what you are. You know, if you're copying something from AI, it's not, you're not getting the full story or the full heart and compassion of what you're trying to comprehend or get out there in the universe. So it's gonna be pretty well written, granted, but it's not gonna give your whole, you know, if you're going to use AI to do your mission, vision and values and put it on the, on your website, that's not going to be a good thing. Because if you are a heart centered, family orientated, compassionate company and you want to let people know that using AI is not the answer, it's not.
[00:19:16] Speaker A: And, you know, one of the, I wanted to circle back to your question about, well, you know, what, you know, touching on what is adult learning. One of the focuses of adult learning is it's truly supporting the adult where they are presently and giving consideration to their motivation for learning. Part of the reason, well, first we have to consider that or acknowledge that all adults have rich life experiences. Children don't have, that children have not seen, you know, decades worth of life experiences that they can draw on to help either enrich their learning or support their learning. That's a critical part of adult learning. And we also have our own biases as it relates to a particular piece of information.
And so when we think about supporting the adult learner, it's acknowledging that part of it, not only in the development, but also in the engagement piece as well.
And you cannot. Well, I suppose you can. It's not effective. It's completely ineffective to approach educating and informing adults in the same way in which you do children.
[00:20:43] Speaker B: So, Kerry, you specialize in developing customized learning journeys for employees and clients. Could you elaborate on what this entails and why it's crucial for effective learning outcomes?
[00:20:55] Speaker A: Absolutely. So when we think about contributions of employees, you know, sometimes we need to provide new skills, sometimes we need to correct skills. And one of the reasons why we do or why employers do that is because they're trying to achieve a business goal. And in order to do that, you have to provide this information to your employees in some capacity, whether it's through a workshop, whether it's through a seminar, or, you know, there's just so many ways that you can train someone on, you know, one on one mentoring, but nevertheless, there's a goal that you're working to achieve ultimately. And on the other side of that goal is revenue generation. So if business, from a business perspective with employees training directly impacts revenue generation or losses, the same holds true with clients. So those people who are coaches and consultants, their clients have hired them because they are trying to achieve some goal, some goal of some capacity. And so as a consultant or as a coach, they're looking to you for your expertise, to inform, educate them, help them develop skills, and that is to benefit their life in some way, whether it's to help them generate revenue, live a peaceful life, solve some type of problem. And so at the end of the day, money becomes a factor, time becomes a factor, and there's always a goal. There's always a goal on the other side. That's why training, effective trainings are so important.
[00:22:51] Speaker B: Carrie, do you find that companies contact you for training because they feel is a need, or do you find that there's a lot of companies that contact you because they are in dire straits and something terrible has happened and they feel like they like, oh, my God, we need to get the training in. And do you find that there's a difference with the two? Like, do, are they, we talked about engagement before. Are they as engaged with one compared to the other? Do you find that they're engaged, both sides?
[00:23:26] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great question, Andrew. And actually, I would say it's both. I've had businesses contact me from a reactive perspective. As you mentioned, they're in dire straits or they see the dire straights coming, and so they want to work with me. And in those instances, they want a quick fix.
And so there is some, I find there's some level of resistance to taking a new perspective on training and development because they want it. They want it immediately for those businesses that approach me, that are trying to get ahead, right, they have a sense that something's off, but they're exploring options and they're being proactive. Those are the individuals who come to me with an open mind. We have a lot of exploratory, open, candid conversations where they truly are receptive to thinking about their training from a different, different angle. And those individuals and those businesses are the ones that receive, not receive, but they have the biggest gain from working with me because I, again, I go back to one size does not fit all, and I am not going to make a recommendation to one company that I've recommended to every other company or business. It might, two people might get the same recommendation, but how we integrate it will be different because it's truly based on need.
[00:25:13] Speaker B: Oh, I love that. And I love that you said that, that it's two companies are different. That is exactly. Again, a leader needs to look at their individual, look at their company, look at what the needs are. But again, the needs might be different in different times of the year or different areas. But also if they have to look at their individuals on their team and they need to, you know, what might, somebody might have, everybody, I think, will benefit from the training, but some might benefit from it a little bit more depending on what's going on with them compared to somebody else. And then that will help them to deal with these individuals a little bit differently because one person, you, I'm different than you, Carrie, so what's going to motivate me is not going to be the same that may motivate you. So I think that that is something that, you know, you learn, you know, through these trainings as well.
[00:26:11] Speaker A: Absolutely, Andrew. And, you know, that's, I've had someone once say to me, well, Carrie, I feel like I need to separate my people who have, like, let's just say, ten years experience or more versus people with less experience on this particular topic. And I said, well, why? And their response was, because they have different experiences with it. And I said, well, that's all that made more reasons they should be together. One, it's an opportunity for them to share information, share experiences and learn from one another. But to your point, Andrew, it's an opportunity with a well constructed training of the content, you can inform someone who has no prior knowledge of something. You can, in the same session, refine the knowledge of or skills of someone who is more seasoned. So there's, it really is taking a critical look at what is the purpose of this training. Who are the people that will be there and what do they need? And let's find the perfect match in the middle. And that's where I step in to say, let's. Let's take this approach.
[00:27:33] Speaker B: You may never fully understand what an individual, how they learn or what they're going through or what have you, but you can sympathize with somebody a little bit differently or understand them a little bit better by doing stuff together, and that makes it cool. And that, for me, will make a cohesive unit for sure.
[00:27:57] Speaker A: Period. Yeah, period. Absolutely. And when you do that, it takes the training out. It makes it more realistic because it moves it from this educational bound time period to in the workforce or in the community where people can together practice what they've learned.
[00:28:20] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:28:21] Speaker A: And that's where the out, like, that's when people achieve the outcomes, when they're actually applying it.
[00:28:28] Speaker B: So I'm interested to know, how do you approach tailoring learning experiences to meet the specific needs of both the individuals and the organizations?
[00:28:41] Speaker A: Yeah. This, Andrew, goes back to my upbringing or my younger self as a really shy child. I listen really well. So when prospective clients are meeting with me, I'm truly listening to everything that they say.
I'm listening for tone, pitch, emotion of the words that they're using. I listen to. I'm also listening for what they're not saying. Right. So it would be an example of, you can tell when someone's frustrated with something just by either their word choice, tone or pitch. But you can also tell when people are avoiding.
If you ask them a question and you ask them that question more than once, but each time they're avoiding it or they're giving you information all around it. That's what I listen for as well, because there's something there. There's an opportunity there to support them. And so when people actually commit to working with me, we have lengthy conversations about who their learners are, who their audience is. And I. I go beyond the basic demographic information, but I ask them questions about what stage in their career is this? Are these groups of people, what, when they come to you, what prior experience do they have? If they have a tendency to leave, what are they, why are they leaving? Is it to, from a professional perspective, is it they're leaving because they're retiring, or are they leaving because they're advancing their career? What education do they have? So I ask a lot of deep rooted questions, and that becomes our starting point for building an effective and impactful, engaging training program. You can't build something that's engaging if you don't know who you're going to be engaging with.
[00:30:46] Speaker B: So when you said your younger self, I love that because I truly believe that we, in steps of our lives, we take a little piece of what we learned from our life and we take it to the next step. And it sounds like in your trainings, you were able to take little pieces of your upbringing, your schooling, your career, what you've done and looked at it and go, and then when you started to do your trainings and in your business, you went back, and how would I do this? How would I, you know, I learned, I saw this when I was in this situation. How would I handle it now? Or how would I do this training? Or someone asked me this question, how would I respond to that thinking back of what I was looking at way back in time? So I love when you said looking at your younger self because I think a lot of people don't do that enough. I think we look at our present, but we forget.
I was telling somebody the other day, you know, we learn to be leaders at a very young age. We just forget about it. So I remember as a kid, I'm going to probably age myself here, but I remember playing as a kid, follow the leader.
[00:32:06] Speaker A: Yes, I'm with you. I'm with you.
[00:32:09] Speaker B: And, you know, you think back about it like, what is follow the leader? You're following what that person is telling you to do and they're leading. That person is leading you through the game. And you think back about it and you go, wow, we, we learn at such a young age, but we forget what we've learned and take that with you. And I think that's super important when you, that just jumped out at me when you said you looked at your younger self.
[00:32:38] Speaker A: Yeah. And the thing is, and, you know, some of the people that I work with are, for some, it's their first time developing a program, a training program of some sort. And so they're very nervous about facilitating and presenting. And those are the people that really touch my heart because, you know, again, thinking back to my younger self, and so when I work with trainers to refine their skills, I always tell them, start with your strengths. Don't try to change who you are or try to use methods that don't feel natural, rather. And for me, because I listened my entire life of being a shy child, and then in school, I didn't look like everyone else, so I was quiet. I didn't want to try to hide. I was always listening. And one of the ways that I do that now in my work is, yes, I listen, but I know how to ask a thought provoking question question.
And when if I'm asking a thought provoking question, all eyes are not on me, and I can learn more about the other person or the situation. And so that's just an example of one of the recommendations I offer. People who are really nervous about facilitating either their first training experience or a larger scaled training experience start with what your strengths are, and you really have to think about what you were saying, andrew, is all the skills that we've developed over our life, some of them we forget that we have. You know, we really have to be reflective of what do I do well?
[00:34:31] Speaker B: And I love you said, I love when you said, do what you're good at. We're not good at everything. No, I know that there's things. I know that there's things that I, I'm not great at, but I don't profess to say that I'm great at those things and the things that I'm not good at, I always seek out advice or help from the people who I think will be able to aid me in those areas.
So I think that is super important to do that because you, you know, you don't want to be answering questions. You don't want to be saying something that you don't know.
You want to get that advice so that you can help yourself or others better.
[00:35:14] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely, absolutely. And I've said publicly and on other podcasts that I, I don't like technology.
And I, if I, if something goes wrong with my computer, I'm in a panic. I, my world has turned upside down when really all I need to do is x out of something. But it's the same, you know, the same holds true with training program, developing training programs. It can seem like such an overwhelming task that, you know, causes anxiety and stress and overwhelm not only for the developer, but also for the individual who's attending. And I don't want that for anyone. And so I, I am delighted to step in in those moments and say, hold on. Let's all take a nice deep breath and know that there is a solution to this.
[00:36:10] Speaker B: Yeah, there's always a solution. You're absolutely right.
So, Carrie, if you could choose one word to describe yourself, what word would that be?
[00:36:21] Speaker A: Now, that's a hard question, Andrew.
I love food, so that's never hard. But one word, I would say kind.
[00:36:33] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:36:34] Speaker A: I, you know, not to pat myself on the back, but I am a kind person. I try to be a kind person. And to me, when I think of kindness in all parts of my life, it expands or it's bigger than those four letters. And so in kindness, there's grace. In kindness, there's thoughtfulness. In kindness, there's being empathetic, inspiring being someone else's cheerleader.
So it's a low, it's a. It's a small world word, but I think it's packed with. When I think of it, it's packed with a lot of other great things. And I really, every day I work to be better than the day before or even somewhat, sometimes the hour before in my interactions with other people and myself included.
[00:37:33] Speaker B: I love that word for you. That is, you're absolutely right. It's a word that's packed with a lot of punch. It has so many different meanings to it. And I definitely would say that you are one of the most kind, compassionate and empathetic people that I have met. So I definitely would go with you on, on that one.
[00:37:53] Speaker A: Thank you. Andrew, thank you so much for not, like, hitting pause on the recording and, like, beating yourself on the head saying, she's delusional.
Thank you so much for the. For the affirmation. I appreciate that.
[00:38:10] Speaker B: You're very, very welcome. Any final thoughts today?
[00:38:14] Speaker A: Yeah, I hope. I want your audience, listeners to walk away knowing that it's a new era. And I say a new era because e stands for engagement. When you're thinking about your training, it's a new era for training.
We have engagement. You can focus on that. You can focus on retention. So building your content so that people actually remember it. And then the last thing is application, building your content and facilitating it in a way that helps people apply it. So I would say for, if there's one takeaway from our conversations is, remember, it's a new era for your training.
[00:39:03] Speaker B: I love that. I love the new era thing. I think that is amazing.
Firmly believe that we can do all we can, or we can put all the processes and all the training and everything and do the good things, talk to people. But if we don't actually apply what we're learning, then what are we doing it for? Like, what's the reason for it? What are we. We're just going like a mouse in a, you know, in a wheel, just spinning and spinning and spinning. So we need to apply it. We need to do two things. It's almost like company saying, you know what? We're going to put this process in and have a huge meeting and say, we're going to do this guys, this is what we're going to do. It's something great for the employees and then six months later, you know, you know, you know, we're sitting, we're coworker like Kerry, remember that? They said they, we had a meeting six months ago. We said they're going to have this process and where the heck is it? Like what happened? We haven't heard anything about it. So that is a huge part. I love that the engagement, the retention and the application. And I am a firm believer in communication. So I think that that fits in there tremendously. We need to have great communication which will create engagement, need that great communication, have retention and communicating so that we are applying all the things that we learned. I love that. I, I just love that.
Kerry, I want to take time to thank you for coming on today. I knew when we spoke that this was going to be this type of podcast, this type of episode. And I'm going to truly say that it exceeded my expectation. It was way better than I thought it was going to be. And I am so excited for all the listeners, people that are listening today and who are going to tell people to listen to it because I think that this was a truly, you use the word engagement a lot. I felt that this was a truly engaging conversation. So thank you so much.
[00:41:11] Speaker A: Oh, Andrew, you are so kind. Thank you for having me. It has truly been an honor. And the testament to your hosting skills is that you can ask a question, an unexpected question, and I was able to answer it quickly. A sandwich?
[00:41:31] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:41:31] Speaker A: But then you were able to ask a question that I feel like I should have known was coming, but it stumped me. And so I just appreciate that about speaking with. This is yet another opportunity or another situation where I leave our conversation feeling good. And so thank you so much, Andrew. And I wish you all the best on your podcast and just sending you such wishes of success.
[00:42:01] Speaker B: I appreciate that. Well, on behalf of myself and my guest carrier, I would like to thank you all for listening and joining us today. Until next time, be safe and remember, everyone, that if we all work together, we can accomplish anything.
[00:42:23] Speaker A: You have been listening to. Let's be diverse with Andrew Stout. To stay up to date with future content, hit subscribe.
