Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Speaker A: Opinions expressed in this episode are personal. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this streaming platform.
[00:00:14] 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. I talk a lot about leading and leadership, but I also like the thought of innovation. So when I think of innovation, I was talking to somebody the other day, and I feel like innovation is very important, especially in an organization, because I feel if we can't be innovative, and when I think innovative, meaning that you can't have the free will to create ideas, then that's when you, you're worried about failure, and people get upset when mistakes are made. So I feel like in order to be innovative, you need to make those errors in order to figure out what worked and then continue on from that. So today I wanted to talk about, which was something I've been wanting to talk about for a while, is leading innovation. And I kind of thought, okay, well, who am I going to get to talk about this with? Me. And I think I found the best possible guest that I could have to talk about this. So her name is Corey Logitis. Now, Corey helps women in the workforce become confident leaders and entrepreneurs by identifying and addressing their overwhelm culprit. As an inspirational keynote speaker, coach, and facilitator, Corey has been featured in major media outlets such as TEDx, Girl, Boss, Business Insider, thrive global, and the mighty out, or through her keynotes, workshops, and coaching programs, she shows women how to transform, overwhelm extraordinary action, no matter their circumstances, and validate that they can confidently step into rules that allow them to have a lasting impact. Corey, her husband, and her four children and two cats live 45 minutes from midtown Manhattan, ten minutes from the beach on Long Island, New York. Now, the first time I met Corey was so inspired by this individual. I just found her to be like the words that she spoke. I just resonated with her, and I just wanted to listen to every word that she says. She mentioned Ted talk. The first Ted talk I watched, I think I watched it about two, three times. I'm not joking because I just wanted to get everything in from what she was saying, and I probably could have watched it a few more times. So what I'm trying to say is I could listen to her over and over again. Her insights and her clarity are second to none. So I'm so honored to have her on today. Welcome to the show, Corey. As I mentioned, I am so thrilled to have you on today.
[00:02:53] Speaker A: I am so excited to be here, Andrew.
[00:02:55] Speaker B: I can't explain the excitement that I have. Like I said, when I first connected with you, I seen this individual on TEd talks and doing all kinds of stuff on LinkedIn, and I thought, okay, well, I'm going to take a shot in the dark. I'm going to send a connection to her and see if we can have a conversation. And she connected, like, instantly. We had a conversation back and forth on messenger, and then we had a phone conversation. I hung up the phone. I was like, wow, this person is an absolute dynamo. I really gotta get her on the podcast. I don't know how I'm gonna do it, but I gotta get her on, so I'm so happy, and you made it happen. I made it happen. So how were things with you in your world? What's going on? What's new? Give us the deets. What's going on?
[00:03:38] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness. Today was a wild day because we had a snow day, and we haven't had a snow day here in New York in a while, so I had all of my kids home while trying to work, and it was just chaos. So I'm sure a lot of the parents out there can. Can relate. So it's been a day, but I'm so happy to be here. This has been the highlight. I've been kind of, like, waiting for, like, soon. I'm gonna get to go on the show, and it's gonna be great.
[00:04:03] Speaker B: Have some adult conversation.
[00:04:05] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:04:08] Speaker B: Well, I'm glad you made it through today. Today. I can understand that those days are difficult, because, you know, as a mom, there's demands. Kids are wanting to, you know, get mom's attention. They want to do this, they want to do that. And I could just figure, especially snow day, you know, playing something. Five minutes, and then I'm bored. Let's do something else, and then five minutes later, I'm bored. So I could just imagine how your day went, but you made it through. So kudos to you on that one.
[00:04:35] Speaker A: We all survived.
[00:04:36] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely. So I'm glad to hear. Like I said, the day went well. Before we begin, as I mentioned to you before we started recording, I always have a fun question to ask my guests to get things going. Are you ready for yours?
[00:04:50] Speaker A: I'm ready. My curiosity is killing me.
[00:04:54] Speaker B: So, Corey, my question to you is, if you were hired to be the host of a late night talk show, who would you invite as your first guest and why?
[00:05:04] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness. This is a great question. I love this.
You know, honestly, the first person that came to mind. I'm a big proponent of going intuitively and going with the first thought that pops into your head. It would probably be Simon Sinek, because, number one, I'm a huge fan of his work. A lot of the stuff that he speaks on, in terms of starting with why, is really at the core not only of how I work as an individual in both my personal life and my business, but also in how I coach people. So just being able to bring him on to talk about that concept, starting with why and why it's so important, I think would be a great way to kick off a show like that, that's pretty awesome.
[00:05:42] Speaker B: I love that. I've heard a lot about him, and I do understand why you say that you'd be, I think, an interesting individual, and I think the conversation would be excellent, would be, I think people would resonate with it, and I think they probably want more because obviously in those shows, you only get like a 1520 minutes window or conversation. So I'm sure they would probably be like, oh, what? You know, is he going already? Like, can you stay a little bit longer? So I could kind of see. I could kind of see how that would go. So great answer off the top of your head. That's pretty good. That's pretty quick. I'm impressed.
Thanks so much for having fun with me. I really appreciate you and your great answer. That's super fun. What I want to do is I want to kick off this great conversation. I would love for you to tell us a little bit about you, your story, and you mentioned why. So I'd like to know your why as well.
[00:06:32] Speaker A: You got it. All right. So my story actually starts off with a really expensive piece of paper that says I could draw well. So I graduated with a fine arts degree, so I basically couldn't get a job coming out of college. And that really ticked my father off at the time. So my father is the second generation running my family's business. And he had said to me, he's like, you know what? Instead of waiting tables, no shade on waiting tables, by the way, it was great for me at that point in my life, but he's like, instead of doing that, why don't you come work for the family business, see how you like it. At least you're in a more, you know, secure, standard, kind of nine to five environment. Kind of see where it takes you from there. So I take this job just expecting to be an entry level graphic designer, you know, and just do that and basically blink and all of a sudden, it's 15 years later, and I'm running it as senior vice president. Never, ever in a million years expected that to be my career trajectory. But truth was, I really loved it. So entrepreneurship is in my blood, you know, so I was the third generation actually, out of four total generations in my family that have owned some sort of businesses. So I really, really love what I did. I love being with my family. That's a huge, important value for me. I really enjoyed the work that we're doing. We worked in wholesale distribution. I should say we work because the business exists. We work in wholesale distribution. So we work with large Fortune 200 vendors as well as small mom and pop retailers. And I'm sharing this. It is entirely relevant. I promise to stick with me, because the reason that my fine arts background really came into handy with this was I was basically tasked with teaching these small mom and pops how to advertise, not using the Fortune 200 budgets that their vendors had. Right. They had these very small budgets. So how exactly do you get creative and think of other solutions to be able to get the word out there and get people to call Bob's tv store instead of calling the 800 number? So I love that it was totally in my element. And things started to get a little dicey when I got older, you know, as I moved up into leadership, I became a mother. And while that happened behind the scenes, no one had any idea that I actually had realized I was in an abusive marriage shortly after my son was born. That kind of brought a magnifying glass I could, you could say, to the situation, and literally left with my son one day, took him to work and never went back, and found myself homeless, penniless, absolutely no idea where to start, and no one at my job had any idea what was happening. I ended up moving it with my parents for a bit. Had to kind of kick and scratch to build up, you know, savings again. My divorce literally took me for everything I had. I was the sole breadwinner, just with legal fees and everything. And I managed to do all of that, still lead the company successfully. We had, you know, great campaign successes. Things were on the up and up. I eventually bought a home in a great school district. My son, you know, I got him, like, live in childcare to make it work. I was commuting over 20 hours a week at that point to get to my job from where I was living in Long island into the city. And this really kind of ate away at me for years because the most I ever got to see my son was through my home security camera systems. When you play with my au pair, I used to check in during lunch. So even though I love what I did, just the act of getting up, going to work, having to spread myself so thin, and never being there for my kid really started to wear on me. And that alone wasn't enough to motivate any kind of a change in me. What it really took was when I had finally, really rebuilt my life. I had been in a new relationship for quite some time with a man I loved. Our kids were best friends. We were talking about getting married. I was the one to find he had died by suicide. So once again, I was starting from scratch all over again. What I thought was my reality that morning was completely different that afternoon. And the one thing that I kind of remembered in that moment was, Corey, you and everybody, you know, could be gone in an instant. Like, stop missing out on your life. What are you doing? So I made this really big, bold decision that I was no longer going to not be available for my kid. Like, that was, like, the biggest priority for me. And I stepped down from my very safe and secure 15 year career, decided to start my own business. I wasn't sure exactly what it was I was going to do at that time, but I figured I was going to figure it out and use my emergency savings to do it. And within the first couple of weeks, I had landed my first paying clients as a business coach. Within the first couple of months, I had multiple different press mentions, and I had built an audience of close to 30,000 people online through various social media, email, that kind of thing. And in less than a year, I was sharing my story on TEDx, which you had referred to earlier. So now I teach other women, and either in leadership or who want to be entrepreneurs and make the same move as I did, how to continue to take action regardless of whatever overwhelming circumstances that we're going through. Because truth is, women right now are more overwhelmed than ever. You know, between the child care crisis and, you know, the gender pay gap, there's so many different things going on that it's a really, really difficult time to especially be a mother and be a leader. So through my work today, that's like, really my why? Because especially after becoming a mother of a daughter, you know, silver lining in the whole story is after six months, after my partner passed away, I met my now husband. And during the pandemic, I went from being a single mom of one to a married mom of four in a year. So complete opposite end of it. But with that said, the arrival of my daughter in particular, because we had three boys and our girl is our youngest, it really made me think, like, I don't want my daughter to have to grow up dealing with the same stuff I had to deal with. What can I do to help? And that's really the entire foundation of all the work that I'm doing today.
[00:12:37] Speaker B: So, so much I want to pack in here. So first off, what I'm so impressed with, and I talk about this a lot, is that the ability to take things from different careers and transforming them into different careers. So you went from fine arts to marketing. Now you're a business coach. So for me, I'm a firm believer that you took whatever you learned from fine arts and you took it to marketing, and whatever you learned from fine arts and marketing, you're now using it as a business coach. So kudos to you to figure that out because there's a lot of people that have not figured that out yet because they feel like they don't know that they can't do something because they don't have certain things. You figured it out, so kudos to you on that one. The other thing that I want to mention is that just your. Why, like, how important it was for you to spend time with your children. I just, I feel like that is super admirable of you and super important. We joked a little bit about your day before we started taping today, but you would not change, but you would not change it for anything, right?
[00:13:54] Speaker A: I wouldn't. I wanted this. I didn't have the opportunity to stay home with my kids all day.
[00:13:58] Speaker B: Right.
[00:13:59] Speaker A: So as much as they drove me up the wall today, you know, I was so grateful to be able to have the choice, to be able to.
[00:14:05] Speaker B: Stay here with, you have the, you created the opportunity to have a choice in a matter, so you created your own narrative, which is super impressive to me that you figured it out. And I'm sure we're going to be talking about innovation today. So I'm sure that there were some things that you kind of had to kind of figure out and change some stuff. There were some things I'm sure, that didn't work in the beginning that you had to kind of figure out. But that's all part of being a leader, a business owner, workforce is figuring out the adaptability, so. Or being adaptable. Those things are super impressive to me. So, like I said, kudos to you that you figured it out. And here you are where you are today. Mm hmm.
[00:14:49] Speaker A: No, thank you. I appreciate that.
[00:14:51] Speaker B: You're very welcome. And now, as you can see, as people are listening, I'm sure they're already starting to see what I was saying earlier, that your story is just so impressive, you just want to hear more from you. So. And that's just how I feel. And I'm sure everybody else is listening is going to feel the same way. So why don't we get into this here? What I want to know is, I'd love for you to explain in your mind innovation and how it fits into leadership.
[00:15:21] Speaker A: Sure. And I love this question. So thank you so much for phrasing it this way. So for me, and I think this actually really comes from my creative background. But when I think about innovation, especially when it comes to leadership, it's about figuring out ways to work with what you've got. Right. And so many people are so quick to either turn down an idea or throw it out the window because they don't, quote unquote, have what they need to do it instead of looking at all the resources that they do have access to and figure out a way to make that work for them. So, you know, the examples that you gave before, it's like, yeah, so I walked into this business world with a fine arts degree, or I later became a marketer and then later became a business coach. Everything that you do in life prepares you for how you're meant to help and serve others. Next is my full belief. So by figuring out, and again, it's using the resources, the time, the money on certifications and degrees that you got, the time invested, the experiences that you've had, whether it's been, you know, personal and traumatic like mine, or even experiences, you know, professionally and different things. Everything you've done shares value for other people. You have to figure out ways to be able to take all the resources around you and create a game plan to get you where you want to go, using what you have. I believe the most resourceful leaders and the most impactful ones are the ones that are masters of this.
[00:16:58] Speaker B: I love when you said figuring out ways to do things with what you got. I talk about this a lot, and I'm very firm believer in diversity of thought. So a lot of people feel like there's a certain way. And you get into conversations with people that like, no, I don't think it's this. I think it's that there are so many different ways of looking at things. And when you do that, you just open up your world to so many different ways of looking at things. And different opportunities. So I think, like, talking about your story a little bit, you kind of did that because you opened up. If you were to just say, I'm not gonna figure out any ways to do anything differently. I'm just gonna do. I'm gonna be. I'm gonna work in fine arts. That's gonna be it. I'm not gonna change my career, because that's what I studied, and I'm just gonna do that whether I'm happy or not. That's what I'm gonna do for the rest of my life, for eternity, until I retire. And would you have been happy doing that? Who knows, right? It's hard to say, but. But you don't know. But one thing I could say is that you, you know, you felt like, you know, you wanted to have a little bit of clarity with what you're doing, and now you do. You have more clarity. You're more clear on what you're going, what you want to do, what your direction is, and how you want to, you know, how you want to help people.
[00:18:17] Speaker A: Well, I think you touched on a really important point, because for a lot of folks, you know, you think clarity is just kind of thinking stuff through. But a lot of what clarity is, is trying things and determining. Hey, that ain't for me.
There's a lot of action in clarity. It's not very passive. So, you know, it's one thing. You could think on it all day long, but until you actually experience it or try it and decide and then check it off, then you really don't know.
[00:18:45] Speaker B: Right?
[00:18:46] Speaker A: Right.
[00:18:47] Speaker B: For sure. So, I mean, like you said, you went to school, so. And you studied fine arts, so you said your dad was mad. So what? You know, I thought about that, and, you know, that was back in the day, right? You did your thing, so, okay, you know, you're finishing high school. What do you want to do? I'm gonna go to college. We want to study in college. I want to study this. And then you studied it, and, yeah, you did your thing, you finished your school, you got your job, you got the house, you got the car, you got everything, right? And you did it. Whether you were miserable, you know, whether you're happy or whether you're miserable, you did it, right? So I feel like people today are being a little bit more vocal and taking the time to think about, hey, like, this is not, you know, I have everything, but I'm just not happy doing what I'm doing. Doesn't matter what promotions I get or whatever or how many car you know, what. What kind of car I get or the cell phone, or I'm not happy. Something is just not, you know, it's ordered. It's in order for the person to figure that out instead of just sticking with it and being, like I said, miserable.
[00:19:56] Speaker A: Well, and. Exactly. And to speak to that point, you know, for me, I loved my career. I love being with my family. I like doing what I was doing. But still, at a certain point, something felt off, and I couldn't quite determine what it was. And I actually, at that point, had decided to go sign myself back up for therapy with a therapist that had helped me with my divorce. And we started kind of chipping away at it. And she had suggested that there might be some underlying depression there. And I was like, no way. Like, things are great. I've got the house. I got the white picket fence. I have everything but the husband at this point. I've got the kid. I've got the great paying job. I'm running the business. Like, these are all the things I said I wanted. So, no, I can't be unhappy. And it wasn't until I lost my post divorce partner, you know, that he was suddenly gone, that I figured out that clarity that we're talking about. Because when I looked at what my values were, you know, for me the most, two of the most important things for me, obviously, are time, which I referred to before, and also my family. And I was working in the family business. So in my mind, there was nothing wrong, because it's like, oh, you know, values checked. The time one, however, was way off. And what disrupted that whole thing was the addition of my son. So by spending time with one part of the family, I was completely ignoring this other brand new being in my family. But by having that, and I often say, too, when I speak, and I keynote on this all the time, that there are two ways to be motivated to make a major change. Right. The very first one is doing what we're doing right now. It's by talking about it. It's by gaining the clarity. It's figuring out the next steps. It's by taking action. Right. The second way is through a pivotal life moment. So, pivotal life moments are any kind of event that happens in your life where no matter what you do, you can't go back to the way life was before it. So in my case, it was the divorce, the suicide loss. I had multiple different ones. Probably the most relatable one for the audience out there is the pandemic. You know, there was no going back. Things ain't ever going to be the same as it was before the pandemic. Right. That's a pivotal life moment. But you would have no idea how many people I worked with during the pandemic who are now entrepreneurs on their third year because they chose that as their time. Hey, I got furloughed. I ain't doing this again. This is the time for me to try and go out and do my own thing that they never, ever would have done it had it not been for that event.
Right. But if we don't have those events, then sometimes we don't have the clarity to see what we're risking by not trying.
[00:22:24] Speaker B: So, Corey, what role does innovation play in organizations today, in your mind?
[00:22:36] Speaker A: You know, organizationally, I think it's really important that leadership is the one that obviously is doing the innovating. But I also do believe it's important for them to provide some level of autonomy for people within the organization to contribute to that innovation, especially when it comes to the day to day stuff that they are the masters of doing. Right. Because you have folks in leadership, and they're not the doers. Right? They're the visionaries. They're the dreamers, the masterminds. They're thinking about what needs to happen moving forward, where folks at the bottom of the division, they're the ones that are actually putting the pedal to the metal and making things move.
Some of the most golden resources that you have in your organization are those people that are taking the everyday actions to have different ideas on ways that you might be able to do things to increase efficiencies, right. To provide better customer service, to provide an overall better experience, and ultimately get you to where you want to go faster. But you have to provide your teams some level of autonomy to have that type of a process, to be able to even submit ideas or proposals for ways that they might be able to innovate the processes that they're doing.
[00:23:57] Speaker B: And I love what you. What you said there. It, what it makes me think of is, when we saw a lot of leaders, what they'll do is they will, they'll hire somebody that they think is going to be a good fit for the organization and for their team and their job. And then they, then you find that the man, the leader, is micromanaging them. So my mind is, if you're gonna hire that person, well, again, we're talking about innovation. Let them be innovative, let them be creative. Let them figure stuff out. They're gonna figure out things, they're gonna make mistakes, but let them figure that out and let them come, like you said, let them come up with ideas, because if they're not gonna let them do it, then why are they there? They might as well just let the leader do everything, and we know they can't do everything.
[00:24:48] Speaker A: Well, here's one thing I think that's kind of interesting, and I'm glad you mentioned micromanagement. Micromanagement, I believe, is a symptom of a leader who is not confident in the vision of the company. Or maybe it wasn't communicated. They're middle management. The vision of the company and the mission wasn't necessarily communicated down to middle management. So because they're not clear on what they're actually working towards, they're kind of, you know, covering their butts by micromanaging what everybody else has to do, where if it's very clearly communicated, what the expectations are across the board and what markers everybody needs to meet. You could walk into a conversation like that with your teammates with a lot more confidence, because it's like, hey, this is your part of it. This is what we need to do. Who cares how you go from a to b? What we care about is that we get to be, what are your ideas on how to make it happen? You know? And, of course, using the resources that we have. Right. Because that's where I believe the innovation part comes in.
[00:25:43] Speaker B: Oh, for sure. For sure.
I agree with you 100%. Like, we have to let people. We have to let people do their job, and we have to let them make their mistakes. And like you, I love when you mention it, when you said right from the get go, so I would say right from the hiring day, probably in the orientation part, on the onboarding your, before they even go off to do their training, these are your. These are the expectations. This is what I'm expecting from you. If you have any questions or if you've done something, come and see me or go see your direct leader, but at least giving them the expectations right from the get go, so they're not, like, walking in blind. They know exactly what they're expecting. They know what they're going into, and they can make an informed decision right there and say, okay, maybe I applied for this job, but. And I thought maybe it was the organization for me or the job for me, but maybe it's not. But at least they know, like, right from the get go, what they're going into. I think that's super important. And I feel like communication is. I feel like we can't communicate enough. In my mind.
[00:26:58] Speaker A: That's such a great point. And I'd actually take it a step further. Within my own organization and organizations I've led in the past, we would do it within the hiring process. So while we would be interviewing people, we would be saying, like, okay, well, these are the metrics we're looking at. This is, you know, what we're expecting. I remember at one point, it's actually kind of a funny story at my old career, where one of the qualifying questions we would ask people is, are you adverse to color coding? Because our team was just so into color coding. Everything was color coded because it's like, if that drives you up the wall, you are not going to like it here and you're not going to follow our system. So we would much rather get those conversations out of the way with and hire for, you know, culture and fit, you know, in values and train the right person on the skill set. What's most important is that the person displays some kind of confidence or intention to learn and believes that they're able to accomplish what it is that you're clearly defining for them as part of the role.
[00:27:54] Speaker B: Right. I love that, because when you are, you know, when you said your color code. So if I've talked to people and they say, well, I don't really like my jobs, I want to apply for a new job. So the first thing I tell them is say, okay, if you're looking for a new job, this is what the first thing that you should do is. Take a piece of paper, think about the job that you have now or the job that you've left, write down the things in one column, the things that you like to do, and then the other column, write down the things that you don't like to do.
So now you know the things that you don't like to do. So when you are looking for a new job, you're not gonna look for a job with the things that you don't like to do. You're gonna look for stuff that you like to do. So I love that you talk about color coding, because if that was on my list and you said, oh, do you like color coding? Well, if I don't like it, then I'm gonna be like, oh, no, it's not one of my favorite things. I'll be honest and I'll say, it's not one of my favorite things to do. So then you know right away, like, if there's an offer or whatever, you're like, okay, well, there's a lot of color coding there. Maybe it's not for me, but it's super important, for sure. So I love that you asked that because I really feel that that gives people a good indication of what the job is and whether they're going to enjoy it or not.
[00:29:11] Speaker A: Right.
[00:29:13] Speaker B: So how do you lead innovation and adapt to change?
[00:29:21] Speaker A: Well, the only thing constant in life is change.
So it has to always be changing. So it's kind of just an overall expectation, but really understanding how to work with what you have, I think is the biggest, the biggest game changer, you know, for that, when you really build that as a skill and a challenge that, like, you're willing to take on, really, it doesn't matter what changes, because you already have everything in your wheelhouse to be able to continue to move forward so long as you are making it a point to lead from that place of, okay, we're utilizing every single thing we have available to us and not banking on something that's going to come our way six months from now. Right. You're making decisions with what you have in the now. And anytime that you are functioning in the now, it's much easier to deal with change because you're not so far in the future and you're not dwelling on the past that you can make decisions based on right here, right now. What do you have available? What do we need to move forward?
[00:30:24] Speaker B: It makes me think what you just said that you are, you know, we are. We can control what we can control and the things that we can't control, there's nothing that we can do about it. So I just love when you said, work with what you have, because those are the things that are in your control. So use those things and the things that you can't control. We don't ignore them, but we just say, I can't control that. So there's nothing that I can do about it. So I'm just gonna concentrate on what I have in front of me and what I can control. So I love that.
[00:30:54] Speaker A: I mean, a great, great example of this would be the folks I was talking about before that decided, you know, during the pandemic, after they got furloughed, that they're going to try something else, right? They're not going to, because the big fear was that they were going to get another job and they were going to get laid off because things were so kind of up in the air with the pandemic in general. No one knew when things were going to open back up, who, no one knew where things was going to go, you know, back to normal. So for a lot of folks, especially the ones that I worked with, you know, they're still doing the same stuff that they were doing when they were working in their job, right. It's the same skill sets, it's the same talents, it's the same experience that they're bringing into it. The way that they changed and pivoted in that change is their delivery. So instead of it being with an employer who more or less functions like a, you know, kind of like a middleman between them and the client or whoever it is, because they're their employer, is paying them to deliver on a set, you know, set of work. Instead, these people, what they did is they learned how to market and sell themselves, and they cut out the employer and they were doing the exact same thing, but they were packaging it and delivering it differently. Whether it be online, maybe they weren't doing it in person, but that's how they were able to adapt and use what they still had access to because they had access to the Internet they had access to, whether it be their own warm network of people who could refer them, so on and so forth. There's so much that you have access to that we don't utilize, you know, out of fear. But when you're able to get creative, you don't think outside of the box. That really allows you to be able to innovate, you know, and change.
[00:32:36] Speaker B: Do you think leaders have trouble with this?
[00:32:38] Speaker A: You know, it's interesting, I, coming into this call today, I really, really thought about this topic a lot. And when you think of the folks who would really be considered like some of the most dynamic leaders, you know, in history, like the Steve Jobs, you know, the folks like that, they are some of the most innovative people on the planet, nevermind just leaders. And it's because their way of thinking is so different than the status quo. Because they don't just, you know, think of things one way, the same way everybody else does because they see the opportunity to change, you know, and maybe address a problem from a different way.
They build loyal, huge followings, whether that be through their clients, you know, through their brand or also through their organizations. So I think it's a huge factor, you know, when it comes to that.
[00:33:31] Speaker B: Yeah, I would definitely agree for sure.
So how do you think your hometown city molded you into the individual that you are today?
[00:33:44] Speaker A: I love this. I'm from the city that never sleeps.
So for me, I mean, it's I for many years, and this is something especially as I've gotten older, you know, now that I'm a mom, I have difficulty stopping. I am always moving. I am always, I'm very motivated, as evident by my story. You know, just keep pushing, keep pushing, keep going. Doesn't matter what the circumstances are. I do believe that a huge part of that is from where I'm from, because I'm surrounded by people on a regular basis, that it's just the pace of the way that we do life. We're on the move, and anytime that I travel outside of New York, the pace is very, very different, and it feels kind of slow. And we're moving backwards, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. But I do think that the pace at which I'm able to achieve certain successes is definitely a result of where I'm from, because if that wasn't the normal lifestyle, I don't know if I ever would have known it was an option.
[00:34:43] Speaker B: It's funny that you say that. I totally agree with you because I've lived in so in Canada, I've lived in Montreal, which is a very busy city, very, very much on the go. Nightlife is happening. There's always stuff open late, so you just have to go, go, go. And then I came out west and western part of Canada, and I found it wasn't the same. I found it was very like, oh, we'll get to that tomorrow. Well, very, very laid back. And then, like said, when you talk about New York, that was the time that I've. When I visited there, that's the first thing I noticed was that everybody was walking and they were walking at fast speed. Like, if they. Nobody was coming, that's slow for them. Yeah, nobody's leisurely walking.
[00:35:32] Speaker A: Everyone's like, it's a power walk everywhere.
[00:35:34] Speaker B: I got to get somewhere. I got to get here. I got to get there. Full speed ahead. Whether they were meeting somebody for supper or they're going to work or going home, everything is full speed. So it was amazing to me to see the different cities and how people are, how they interact, even how they talk. I find that people, you know, some, you know, in the two places, the speed of how they're talking because they feel like they got to get everything out in a certain amount of time, because, you know, time is limited. So I got to get everything in before time's up. Right. So I feel like I can kind of agree with you that the pace of life is, you know, is fast paced, for sure.
[00:36:15] Speaker A: And let me tell you that fast talking, that's a struggle, especially. I'm a professional keynote so it's like, there are times where I'm like, slow it down, Cory. We don't have to get that wound up. But, yeah, no, it's definitely a way life here, for sure.
[00:36:30] Speaker B: This has been such an amazing conversation. I've totally enjoyed it. I loved having you on. Any final thoughts today?
[00:36:39] Speaker A: No, I really enjoyed tackling this subject of innovation head on. You know, it's interesting. I get asked to come on a lot of podcasts and usually we're talking about things like motivation or inspiration and stuff like that. I think innovation is a really, really important topic because without innovation, then making those changes that we're talking about, making those pivots, taking those chances, it doesn't happen, you know, without it, it's really important. So great topic.
[00:37:07] Speaker B: Andrew, thank you so much. I appreciate that. I want to take time to thank you. I feel like you are an absolute dynamo. I feel like I could listen to you. I said it earlier and I'll say it again. I could listen to you speak for, like, the longest time. Like, I just feel like everything that comes out of your words or your mouth is so inspirational. So inspiring. Like, it's almost like getting ready for.
To play a sport or. Or coming out of a meeting and getting ready to go and do what you were learnt in that meeting to do. Like, it's just, you know, I don't know if anybody's ever told you this before, but in your job, like, yes, you're a keynote speaker. You know, you're marketing, you're in fine arts.
For me, you are a very much an inspirational and innovative leader just by the way that you handle yourself, just by the way you speak. And you're so inspiring that I just feel like people just. I can see why people just gravitate to you and just want to work with you and do stuff with you. I could just see that for sure. So thank you very much for coming on again. I really appreciate it.
[00:38:19] Speaker A: Thank you so much, Andrew. It's an absolute pleasure.
[00:38:22] Speaker B: Thank you so much. So, on behalf of myself and my guest Corey, I would like to thank you all for listening today. And until next time, be safe. And remember, remember, everyone, that if we all work together, we can accomplish anything.
[00:38:53] Speaker A: You have been listening to let's be diverse with Andrew Stout. To stay up to date with future content, hit subscribe.
