angishields, Author at Business RadioX ® Page

BRX Pro Tip: What Diet and Productivity Advice Have in Common

July 24, 2024 by angishields

BRX Pro Tips

BRX Pro Tip: What Diet and Productivity Advice Have in Common

00:00 /

BRX Pro Tip: What Diet and Productivity Advice Have in Common

Stone Payton: And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, you’ve recently discovered a connection between diet and productivity advice.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. I’ve spent my whole working life, you know, kind of in the wellness diet place of business and also, obviously, in running Business RadioX, and I read a lot of books about both things. And I kind of figured out, after decades of studying these things, that each of those kind of things that people strive to do, they strive to lose weight and they strive to be more productive, they all can be boiled down to just a few basic tenets that if you just do those couple of things, then everything’s going to be fine.

Lee Kantor: But then, you know, there’s libraries filled with books and systems about each of those that have their own kind of little jazz hands and nuances that dress it up. But, really, the bottom line is both of them can be boiled down to just a couple of things.

Lee Kantor: And to lose weight, if you just eat less non-nutritious food and exercise more, you’re going to lose weight. And it doesn’t matter what all the books say. You can follow all the books, any of the books, some of the books, but that’s usually at the heart of all of this, you have to eat less and then move more.

Lee Kantor: And then, to be more productive, again, you can read all the books and they all have a variety of ways to get to this end point. But the endpoint always is identify the activities that are most important to you and then actually do them. And if you do those things, then you’re going to be more productive, get more done, and be more successful.

Lee Kantor: So, both of those cases, the advice is simple but not easy. And there’s been a lot of wealth created on dressing up those core tenants in each of those areas, but those are kind of the bottom line things you have to do in order to lose weight and be successful.

Hawaii WBE Feature: Leadership Coaching

July 23, 2024 by angishields

Women in Motion

Hawaii WBE Feature: Leadership Coaching

00:00 /

In this episode of Women in Motion, host Lee Kantor interviews Sarah Kalicki-Nakamura, owner of TH!NK, a learning and development company. Sarah shares the origins of TH!NK, which began during a challenging period in her life, and discusses the company’s growth from modest beginnings to expanding beyond Hawaii. She details the services TH!NK offers, such as executive coaching and leadership development, and highlights the importance of these services at all organizational levels. Sarah also shares success stories, including the impactful “Growing Leaders” program, and emphasizes the benefits of being certified as a women-owned business.

Sarah Kalicki-Nakamura, co-owner of TH!NK, is more than just a leadership coach and consultant – she is on a mission. Her goal is to inspire and empower managers and executives to create workplaces where people are excited to come to work. With over 20 years of experience in executive coaching and hands-on workshops, Sarah has been helping people thrive at work.

Sarah holds a BA in Broadcast Journalism from Arizona State University and a master’s degree in organizational management from the University of Phoenix. Additionally, she is an Everything DiSC® Certified Facilitator and a Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team Certified Facilitator.

Based in Las Vegas, Nevada, Sarah lives with her husband Malcolm, sons Trey and Wyatt, and their fur baby Ikaika. Outside of work, she enjoys yoga, CrossFit, and finding the next most delicious dessert.

Follow TH!NK on LinkedIn.

Music Provided by M PATH MUSIC

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios, it’s time for Women In Motion. Brought to you by WBEC-West. Join forces. Succeed together. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Women In Motion and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, WBEC-West. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Women In Motion, we have Sarah Kalicki Nakamura with Th!nk. Welcome.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: Well, good morning!

Lee Kantor: I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about Th!nk.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: So Th!nk is a learning and development company where we really help leaders and teams to reach their full potential and help people get along at work. We do it through executive coaching, team building, as well as leadership training.

Lee Kantor: So, what’s your back story? How’d you get involved in this line of work?

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: Well, like every story, it starts – you know, the seed is planted kind of way before the business even flourishes. I moved to Hawaii back in 1994, and when I moved to Hawaii, I was super excited about the change and moving there, but it ended up being somewhat of a difficult transition for me, just kind of finding my footing in the state and finding what do I do and who am I when I’m there.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: So, I worked in the hospitality industry at the time, and I was working with Hilton Hawaiian Village. I just started my job and I read a book about transitions. And when you’re having a difficult transition, it’s called your neutral zone. The exercise was to just list down as many things as you would ever want to do and start doing them. Get in forward motion to get yourself through this awkward period of time.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: And on my list was to actually go get a master’s degree, and I didn’t want to do it by myself. Just started this new job. I’m in a new state and there was a girl sitting next to me, I guess a woman sitting next to me, looked about my age, and I just introduced myself. I said, “Hey, I’m Sarah, I’m new to Hilton,” and she was new to Hilton too. And I said, “I’m thinking about getting a master’s degree. Have you ever thought about it?” She said, “Yep.” So I said, “Here’s the admission officer, give them a call. We’re going to start the program in a couple of weeks.” She signed up and we did the program together.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: Fast forward a year and a half later, at the end of our program, we were asked to write a capstone project and a business plan, and we decided to do it on learning and development since that was our field, got a great grade on it, put it away. Intention was just to go back and work in hospitality and stay on track that way.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: And then I had my first son, and I realized I didn’t want to work the same way throughout that time when he was young and I needed to not commute as much. I wanted to have more time with him. So I dusted off. The business plan was written as a partnership, and so I went to my business partner, Cindy, and I said, “Hey, I’m going to do this and work differently while my children are young and wanted to see if you wanted to do it with me or give me permission to do it on my own.” She said, “You know what? I’ll quit my job too.” And we started the business. So we always laugh. We’re actually accidental businesswomen or business owners. It was all centered around a choice for how we wanted to raise our kids and run our family and have an income at the same time.

Lee Kantor: So, how did you make that transition to go from this concept and saying, okay, how do I – did you ease into it? Did you keep your job and then start trying to get clients on the side? Like, how did that transition occur?

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: Yeah, we went cold turkey. We did all the wrong things based on the business books, I think. So we literally quit our jobs. We set a goal for how much money we needed to make, which was very little. We just needed to pay, like, certain bills. So I always tell people, like, aim higher because we kept making the little bit of money that we were wishing for until we started setting stretch goals, and we just sought out our first client. We just started telling people what we were doing and we, you know, delivered our first, I think it was a customer service program for a hospital. And, you know, our belief system has always been just do great work each time. And the more people we help, the more business will follow. And I never thought we would be here about 24 years later under this identity.

Lee Kantor: So, how did you go about getting those early clients? You know, going from kind of a corporate setting, I don’t know if your job was sales, but when you’re an entrepreneur, everyone’s job sales. So, how did that take place that, you know, now I have to sell something?

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: You know, we were in human resources, actually, so we weren’t sale – I mean, everybody does sales, but we were in human resources. We were specifically in leadership development training, and we had made connections out in the community and people we’d worked with. And like a lot of things, I’m sure everywhere but for sure in Hawaii, it’s just good relationships. So we just started calling people in and letting them know what we were doing and asking them if they needed any help with that. And one client turned into another client that turned into another client. One of the things we’re most proud of is that many of our clients from day one will still use our services over this period of time.

Lee Kantor: So, was your business primarily at the time Hawaii-based?

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: Yes, our business is primarily Hawaii-based. Still is. So most of our clients are still in Hawaii, although we’ve expanded to Las Vegas recently and we’ve had some mainland clients over the years, and so we’ve been able to service them more. And our hope and our wish is that we’re going to be able to grow more in this area as well.

Lee Kantor: So, what is usually your point of entry with a company?

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: You know, it’s been interesting. It’s just meeting people. Usually – well, our entry would be at the director or vice president or CEO level. And it’s typically through some sort of either volunteer project or community meeting where we’re able to start making these connections, or that somebody has heard about our work that we’ve done for other people and they’ve given us, you know, a reference or a lead saying that hey, you know what? They’ve helped things up, helped us. Maybe they can help you, too.

Lee Kantor: So, are you going in to do, like, a project, like, hey, do this, you know, workshop, or we need this kind of teaching happening because we had an issue, so we need someone to teach this thing?

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: Yeah. So, they’re usually calling because maybe an executive needs some coaching to take it from this level to the next level, and they just need some guidance in that. So executive coaching would be one entry point.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: Strategic planning would be another entry point. An executive body needs to think about the next three years out and where the organization wants to go. They need somebody to facilitate that conversation to help them map that path. In our construction and military environment, we do a lot of partnering meetings. So when the military and a construction group get together before they kick off a project, they need to form a partnering meeting where they, you know, learn how to work together. They learn about each other’s strengths, weaknesses, build some trusting relationships so that they can have a successful project.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: And then it could be in leadership development. They have a group of people that they know that they want to invest in, to help them have those interpersonal skills and strategic skills to go ahead and lead the organization as they build a succession plan or a bench.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: And then also when people need to just get along at work, maybe there’s some conflict or some difficulties, some pain spots on a team, it’s just not working so well, we can come in and we often will help them get unstuck and find ways to, you know, really value each other’s differences and thrive.

Lee Kantor: Now, how have you seen coaching evolve in the business world? At one point, it was just for either senior, you know, the most senior of people and/or somebody there trying to fix that has a problem that needs some, you know, help. Are you seeing it kind of being disseminated throughout the entire organization nowadays?

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: Oh, it’s everywhere. It’s such a funny thing. When we started over 20 years ago, it was kind of unheard of. You know, maybe the highest-level executive had it. And you’re right. Maybe somebody needed to fix something. Or maybe oftentimes, you know, once you get to that, that CEO level, you just need somebody to bounce ideas off of because, really, it is lonely at the top, right? You don’t have a lot of peers you can talk about what you’re thinking about strategy for your company, and then you can’t talk to your direct reports. So it was a very unique, small niche kind of business.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: Nowadays, everybody’s involved in it. So we do some long-term leadership training programs and embedded in that. By long-term, I mean we work with companies for three to 12 months where a cohort of people go together to experience leadership lessons and to develop their skills at a certain level so that they can help propel the organization built into those programs. Now, it’s supportive coaching after each session for every person. And this would go from a senior-level person all the way down to a high performer or a high-potential performer. So we’re seeing it go all the way through the organization from highest level to maybe C-suite to directors, managers, all the way to supervisors and somebody maybe in the succession planning pipeline that they’re helping, they’re trying to grow to get to the next level.

Lee Kantor: Are you also seeing it as kind of things that must be there to attract younger talent like that? Younger talent wants to see some sort of coaching or some sort of training that’s going to help upskill them so they’re going to get that out of the experience.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: Yeah, I would say with the younger talent where we’re seeing it be a talent attractor or a magnet of sorts, a recruiting tool, is when they have set programs in place and clear learning steps. So if an organization in their organizational development plan, they can show somebody, when you enter here, here’s the pathway to learning all the way through your career as well as here’s some potential succession steps that you can take. So that’s really valuable to them when it’s already embedded.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: And I’d also say that our younger or newer in their career steps are also looking for mentoring, not just coaching. And I would say the difference would be is coaching is they’re working on something that they personally want to develop and is very specific and we’re going to grow that skill set. Mentoring is that trusted person that they can go for advice inside and outside of the organization. It may not be specifically to develop a skill set but to just develop that relationship and just that tacit knowledge, that knowledge that can only happen by working with somebody who’s been through something.

Lee Kantor: What are some symptoms that an organization is going through, that they may not connect the dots where, hey, maybe we should bring somebody on to help us in this area when it comes to coaching or leadership development?

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: Oh, that’s a great one. A more high turnover is an obvious one, right? If you have a high turnover, we have to drill down to the root cause of that. And the root cause could be maybe the supervisor is not fully developed. Maybe the manager is not clarifying what the job is. Well, maybe when they’re onboarding, there’s not a system in set to train somebody and build their confidence and competence really directly. So that would be a reason that you would want to call us.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: You might also be having a team that’s working together and you know they’re just not reaching their full potential. It’s a little sticky. There’s a bit of infighting. People is competing for individual success, not collective success, and there’s just not that openness and transparency of sharing information. In those team issues, we put people together and we just assume everything’s going to work perfectly. But there are actually systems that need to be put in place, both interpersonal and structural systems that we need to do when we assemble any team.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: And then maybe you’re also finding out that you’re not able to attract top talent. Or when it’s time to promote people, you realize you don’t have anybody internally to promote, which is a misstep, right? If somebody is hired by us, our belief system is they should actually be prepared to grow their career with us. And if we’re not developing them for the next level, then maybe we didn’t do our job well, and you might want to call in somebody like us to make sure that you have those growth opportunities and people are growing in your organization, not just staying stagnant.

Lee Kantor: Now, have you ever worked with a high-level executive and that person didn’t notice that there was friction or silos and there were, you know, problem people in the organization because to them everything seemed fine and the reports they’re getting everything seemed fine. But you dig a layer too deep and you’re like, “Dude, there’s some problems here. Like, this is – you have -things are on fire.”

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: Yeah. Of course. Right. That happens frequently. Because there’s a certain level where you may not be completely in touch or the people who are reporting to you, you know, perceive everything as going well. But if you dig down deeper and you look at certain things happening, you can get a sense that we need to figure out more here. So you may have a sense that your engagement scores are down. That’s a symptom that you may have some troublesome leadership inside the organization.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: Maybe even your customer service scores are down and they’ll call us and say, “We have to do customer service training.” You’re like, “Well, what do you want to talk about?” They said, “Well, you know, our customers are saying that people don’t smile. They don’t have a nice tone of voice. They’re not saying hello right away.” And our question would be is, do you think your people really don’t know how to smile, don’t really know how to use the right tone of voice? It’s possible. Or is it that they’re not wanting to do that? You know, it doesn’t feel good. They don’t feel good being here, and therefore they’re not feeling in a way that they can communicate that to others. And oftentimes that’s the case. And so that would be a case where we’d say, we got to dig into this, right? We have to figure out exactly what’s going on to create that culture.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: Gossiping is another symptom that we can hear, if there’s certain gossiping or if people won’t just speak up in a meeting. When meetings are quiet and silent, sometimes leaders view that as agreeing, being agreeable to whatever they’re saying. But oftentimes that’s just people being fearful or not willing to say what’s on their mind because the trust level is low. And then we have to put in some systems to make sure that we can open that up in the environment.

Lee Kantor: How important are kind of regular assessments when it comes to engagement and the things that you mentioned?

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: Well, we’re a big believer in self-assessments and 360 assessments where we love data and a different way of asking questions so that we can get actually tangible information of what to start working on. So we really love the Everything DiSC Workplace Profile to help people understand what their preferences and tendencies are for communicating with others and how others want to communicate to them and just build that environment of understanding that we all bring strengths to the team and how do we best use them.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: We also love the Five Behaviors product for team development, so they can take time to assess where are they at in trust. Are they engaging in conflict productively? Are they committing to ideas and moving forward? How well are they holding each other accountable? And are they pursuing collective or individual results?

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: And we also believe in the PXT Checkpoint 360. That’s a 360 assessment where people can actually go out and ask people for feedback about their leadership and give them tangible skills that they need to work on so they can be even a more effective leader. And when things are down, rooted in data and there’s other profiles and assessments we like, but that rooting in data allows us to disconnect from our feelings and really look at what is and take that time to kind of look at ourselves through a different lens and really reflect on how is this working for us. And then from there, the strategies begin.

Lee Kantor: So what’s kind of the rhythm of those types of assessments? Because so many organizations and sometimes when you have dysfunctional organizations that have trust issues, they – you know, the people see this coming and they’re like, “Oh, here we go. We’re going to do this thing. We do it one time. And then, you know, I’m a yellow and you’re a blue, and then it sits on the shelf. And then, you know, we don’t talk about it anymore.”

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: Yeah, yeah. The problem is we don’t talk about it anymore. That’s the problem, part of it, because, you know, that self-assessment part that’s always valuable as you look at it. I’m going to break this down in a couple of ways. So let’s take the yellow-blue and the color. I’m going to reflect on myself. I think that’s where organizations make the mistake. They share the content like, “Hey, look about this key information. Isn’t it cool?” And it is cool to look at yourself through another lens. And then we end and we just have a label but we don’t have so what. Like, so what do I do with this now? And I think we’re super committed to the so-what part of it. Now that you know this information, so what can you do with it? How can you apply it to make your life easier and other people more comfortable working with you and that practice component and embedding it into operations?

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: So one of the things we do before we work with a company is first, make sure they’re really ready for the long-term development of it, right? Not just only short-term impact. While that has its place when we’re they’re looking for culture change, we have to really make sure that they’re going to be in it for the long haul. And then we help them look at their operations, like, where can you take this information and embed it in something you’re already doing? So we’re using the language throughout the organization.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: Now on the other side, you said you were talking about the trust like the team trust or if trust is low and then it’s the oh, no, we’re going to do this survey. Is anybody going to really listen or do anything with it? In those cases, we spend some time priming the organization, meaning we have one-to-one meetings with the participants before they do it, usually sitting at the team level. We talk to them about what the assessment is, what they want to get out of it, why they would want to participate what we’re trying to do, and we make that one-to-one connection first and really get to know a little bit more about the person. And then we invite them to take the survey and we show them in that process our commitment to that we’ve set up with their executive to actually carry it all the way through until there’s some sort of resolution that’s satisfying to the team.

Lee Kantor: Now, why was it important for your firm to become part of WBEC-West?

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: It’s a funny thing. So, we’ve been around for 24 years, technically with the name Th!nk a little less than that. And we’re a women-owned business. Me and my best friend own it, although that was another rule we broke. I think somebody told us the only ship that doesn’t sail is a partnership, but we do. We sail well. And as a women-owned business, it was to us for a long time, like, isn’t it obvious? We’re two women and we own it, so we are one.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: And then, we would try to do the designation and it just – life would get away from us and we wouldn’t do it. And we finally met somebody named Monica Coburn here in Las Vegas, Nevada, and she’s a business consultant who helped us really see the importance of it and navigate the process. Once we got our designation, I just realized probably something I didn’t even notice is just this whole world of opportunity opened up to us.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: WBEC-West keeps us in the loop of future opportunities. There’s educational opportunities. Just even having the logo on our site and in our signature line has helped us even secure more business for people who are really interested in working with women business enterprises. And I’d say we’re probably just scratching the surface of all the goodness. We’ve only had it for about a year. We’ve recertified, and we’re excited to keep getting deeper and deeper and give back to, right, find our ways to give back as well as be supported by the organization.

Lee Kantor: Now, can you share a story about a company that went to you with a challenge and how you were able to help them kind of overcome that and get to a new level? And obviously don’t name the name of the company but maybe share what challenge they had and how you were able to help them.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: Yeah. Gosh. There’s so many ones. I’m trying to figure out which one would be most satisfying. Would you prefer a team conversation?

Lee Kantor: Well, whatever you think may be the most rewarding, where you’re like, oh, I made an impact that this really helped.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: We do this series called Growing Leaders, and it’s a six-month program that we bring inside organizations, and it’s really a leadership development program that focuses on interpersonal skills. And embedded in that is the content, a cohort goes to work together, and then they also are able to apply the lessons afterward. And we’ve recently been working with a healthcare company and we’re working at actually supervisory level. So these are early leaders. And at the end of this program, we do a graduation. And in that graduation, people talk about the most valuable lesson they learned or how it impacted them. And over and over again, what we hear is, I wish I would have known this earlier. It would have helped me so much. I’m now able to handle difficult conversations. I have the confidence and competence to speak up like I hadn’t been able to do before. I’m able to lead my team better, and now I’m willing to apply for jobs that I wasn’t actually thinking that I was qualified before. And it’s making a difference in terms of how we’re managing our budget, how we’re managing turnover, and how we’re growing our leaders.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: And we’ve now started with one cohort in that organization. They’re now on their I think they’re going to be on their fifth cohort because the organization is really seeing trust, just grow amongst all of their management team who have been going through it. They’re seeing that people are handling situations more directly. They’re able to – where they’re able to understand the business at hand and give innovative ideas to making sure that they meet their business demands.

Lee Kantor: Wow. So what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: Oh, gosh. We need people who would love our help. So if there’s organizations out there who have a team that they feel they’re just not working to their fullest potential and they just need a little help, we’d love a call to see if we can help out with that.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: If you have a leadership group and you just know that you want to put in a leadership program and you want to support your future and current leaders by giving them a common language and easy-to-apply strategies that will make a difference in their business and in the world that they live in, we’d love to be able to do that. And then if there’s somebody out there who just needs some one-on-one support, maybe there’s a business need that they have that they would like to just get a little bit better at in terms of a skill set, we’d love to be able to help them with that too.

Lee Kantor: Now, do you specialize in certain industries or are you industry agnostic?

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: We are industry agnostic. Our philosophy is if you have people, we’re probably – we’re a good fit for your industry. But the perfect client for us is somebody who really believes in personal development and growth and that it really makes a difference.

Lee Kantor: Good stuff. Well, Sarah, congratulations on all the growth and all the success. And thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Sarah Kalicki Nakamura: Thank you very much, Lee.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Women In Motion.

BRX Pro Tip: How to do More A-Level Work

July 23, 2024 by angishields

BRX Pro Tips

BRX Pro Tip: How to do More A-Level Work

00:00 /

BRX Pro Tip: How to do More A-Level Work

Stone Payton: [00:00:00] And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, what insider perspective do you have on trying to get more A-level work done?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:12] Yeah. I think the easiest way to get more A-level work done is to stop doing C, D, and F work. And if you can eliminate doing work that you’re not proud of, that’s mediocre, and just focus in on the stuff that you do the best and that’s within your wheelhouse and is your superpower, then you’re going to raise the quality of all of your work.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:37] So, typically, most people do some A-work, but they also do some C and D work as well. And that’s the stuff they’re like, “Oh. That’s a necessary evil. Or that stuff has to be done and no one else can do it.” If you just kind of cut that out and just focus in on the stuff that is your superpower and just get that done to the best of your ability, you will find that, over time, you’re going to have a portfolio that’s filled only with A-work. And that you’re not going to invest time in stuff that you can’t do well or you’re not proud of at the end of the day.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:12] But, ultimately, you get to decide, if you want to do more A-work, then do more work and stop doing the work that you’re not as proud of as maybe you should be.

How Do You Measure Progress?

July 23, 2024 by angishields

Please log in to view this content

3 Ways to Network Strategically

July 23, 2024 by angishields

Please log in to view this content

The Greatest Journey: Anike Mlemchukwu’s Mission to Empower Families Through Lapapoe

July 22, 2024 by angishields

Sandy Springs Business Radio

The Greatest Journey: Anike Mlemchukwu's Mission to Empower Families Through Lapapoe

00:00 /

In this episode of Sandy Springs Business Radio, host Erik Boemanns interviews Anike Mlemchukwu, founder of Lapapoe. Anike discusses her background as a special needs teacher and the inspiration behind Lapapoe, a startup connecting families with special needs children to respite care and nutrition resources. She shares the challenges and growth of her entrepreneurial journey, emphasizing the importance of community support and a clear vision. Nick also offers advice for aspiring entrepreneurs, highlighting the significance of understanding their purpose. The episode underscores the impact of passion and collaboration in creating meaningful change.

Anike Mlemchukwu’s passion is caring for children with special needs. Her experience spans volunteering at an orphanage in Peru, gaining a Postgraduate Certificate in Education from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, a role as Secretary of the Cambridge Nigerian Society, and co-founding the Tech for disAbility working group.

After gaining her degree, she went to work in a special needs school where she taught children with autism, down syndrome, cerebral palsy and OCD. Her desire to do more to help parents of children with additional needs led her to develop Lapapoe.

Connect with Anike on LinkedIn.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Sandy Springs, Georgia, it’s time for Sandy Springs Business Radio. Now, here’s your host. This episode of Sandy Springs Business Radio is brought to you by Mirability providing unique IT solutions, leveraging cloud, AI and more to solve business problems. Here’s your host Erik Boemanns.

Erik Boemanns: Thanks. And hi, this is Eric. And today we’ve got a very special guest with us today. Her name is Anike Mlemchukwu and she is a founder of the startup Lapapoe. And we’re excited to have you here today and a little bit more information about yourself and tell you about your story and your journey. So maybe if we kick things off, just introduce yourself to the audience.

Anike Mlemchukwu : Yeah, I’m going to say first, congratulations, because you said my name perfectly. Thank you. Very impressed with that. Um, so my name is Anike Mlemchukwu , founder of Lapapoe. My passion has always been working with children and families. Um, specifically making it easier for family to take care of their child that has special needs. I worked as a teacher for a few years, and just observing the challenges that those families face led to the development of the paper. Um, so yeah, that’s kind of a bit about me and my background.

Erik Boemanns: Awesome. So maybe tell us a little bit about Lapapoe. What is what is your startup?

Anike Mlemchukwu : Yeah, Lapapoe is focused on connecting families to respite care and nutrition commerce. So really focusing on the whole child. So if a family is overwhelmed they’re just tired. They need someone to come and support them with their child at home. Their child’s not eating their everyday normal meals. We support that sort of family, whether they’ve received a diagnosis or they’re just about to receive a diagnosis. We connect them to those resources through technology.

Erik Boemanns: I see no, that’s a that’s amazing. And so I’m curious I know it’s totally special needs, but are there particular conditions or does it not matter?

Anike Mlemchukwu : Yeah, I see it less as a label and more as a characteristic. So for example, a child that might have autism and a child that has cerebral palsy. Both those children might have that might be nonverbal. Both those children might have toileting needs. So focusing it more on the needs of a child. I see a child more as a individual that just certain things are just more exaggerated for certain children with different needs. So we don’t specify by specific category. We specify according to the characteristics that the child has.

Erik Boemanns: Yeah, that makes sense. I can understand that. I am curious, though. One of the things that I find out more about the name of the Papa. Where did that come from?

Anike Mlemchukwu : I love that question. That is Semi-virtual Nigerian and that word in Yoruba, which is a tribe that’s in Nigeria, means all together. So it’s this view of people coming together to support the child. So whether that’s the family, the provider, the whatever is coming together under one roof to support that child and that family.

Erik Boemanns: I like that now. That’s great. It’s actually kind of brings me to the next question who is the primary audience of your application of your company? Is it the parents and the families fighters? How does that work?

Anike Mlemchukwu : Yeah. So essentially it is a two sided marketplace. Um, so the families are one side, the providers are the other side. So providers come from a range of skills, whether it is a student that’s studying health and nursing at university or, uh, someone that’s graduated or someone that’s retired and they just kind of want to get back into working. Um, so there’s that side. And then the other side are the families. Um, future aspirations to go directly to Medicaid and health insurance and employers. Um, so that would be another kind of audience.

Erik Boemanns: Makes sense. Okay, that’s that’s helpful. Um, I want to take a step back, though, from kind of the day to day, what’s happening now with the the application and the company. What led you yourself to become a founder?

Anike Mlemchukwu : That is another great question. I love, um, I would say it was a it was like this internal pull, like some people might call it a calling, some people might call it intuition or whatever the kind of word people want to use for it. Um, but I was working as a special needs teacher, and I absolutely loved my job. Um, and I was working in it for about four years, and I just kept meeting parents that were like, I don’t know about this, and my child’s doing this, and this is a child. And so many parents were saying the same thing. Um, and that was when I was in London, moved to Atlanta, and it still experienced the same thing. Um, so many challenges around these parents trying to find the support that they need for their child. Um, in Nigeria, it was the same thing. And like, internally, I just felt like there has it shouldn’t be this hard. It caring for a child. They shouldn’t be this difficult. Um, and it was kind of a thing where. I was just kind of pulled into it, and I at first I was like, I’ll just do this and do this thing on the side. Um, but I eventually just stepped all in and. Yeah.

Erik Boemanns: Here we are.

Anike Mlemchukwu : Here we are. Yeah.

Erik Boemanns: But that is awesome. And and you mentioned you went from doing it on the side to stepping all in, which is some be a very difficult path. Right. So what keeps you going? What keeps you on?

Anike Mlemchukwu : Yeah. Um, I have a very clear vision of the world I want to see. Um, when I was a child myself, I had a lot of healthcare conditions. Um, I actually died when I was a baby and came back. And just being in that kind of environment where my mom was a single parent taking care of four children, it just seeing all these challenges and all this stigma. As I started working in this, um, industry with these families and these children, my view is a world where the stigma doesn’t exist, where this isolation doesn’t exist, where people don’t look at children with special needs and say, oh, I’m sorry, we’re parents. Don’t feel lost. So the vision is to really have a kind of go to place where family knows once they receive a diagnosis or before when they just have those questions, they know exactly where to go to find the support and the help that they need. Um, yeah. So that’s kind of where I’m going with it.

Erik Boemanns: Gotcha. So where are you today? What what’s the status of the the company and the product that you’re building?

Speaker5: Um.

Anike Mlemchukwu : In terms of, I think, I guess people say Pre-seed seed series, that kind of language. Um, still pre-seed I originally started in 2019, um, pivoted within the last year and a half. So it is still kind of like a new baby company. Um, although I, I’ve been on this journey for quite a few years now. Um, but it’s just right now we’re building up the directory of providers or building up the trust and the name brand within the families. I sit on a couple of organizations that are connected to families within Georgia. Um, I’m connected with a few universities that have students within Georgia as well. Um, so really just kind of building up that pipeline, um, and making those making those connections. Okay.

Erik Boemanns: I know that, um, healthcare companies, child related companies, they each have their own unique challenges. You’re doing both together in some regards. And then on top of that, you’re focused on a very specific group which has its own set of unique challenges. Are there specific ones in your journey that you’ve seen that you’ve encountered, and how did you solve them, or are you still working on them?

Anike Mlemchukwu : I think everything is a. Everything is something to be uncovered. I would put it that way. It’s like, I don’t know what I don’t know until I don’t know it. Would that make sense? Because there’s so many. For example, when I first started, I’m like, how am I going to find providers? Like how what does that even look like? Discovered universities discovered, CCNa skills discovered. There’s all these different avenues to get to provider. Okay, well, I know that part now. Then it was. How do I even connect to families? Okay. Discover these organizations that have families that need these. Okay. Got that piece now. Now I’m really looking at, um, the kind of reimbursement financial modeling type of piece, so it’s. Okay. So I figured that out, and I figured that out. What does this look like? And it’s it’s almost like a they call it like Pandora’s box type of thing where it’s like, okay, you uncovered that and there’s something else within it. Okay. You uncovered that there’s something else within it. And I feel like there’s going to be that constant, evolving journey of discovering unknowns.

Erik Boemanns: Yeah. No, I think that makes sense. It makes me curious. Maybe you have a different definition of challenge, right? What’s your definition of challenge?

Anike Mlemchukwu : Yeah, I definitely do have a different definition of challenge. Um, for me, I see challenge as learning opportunities. I if you don’t have challenge, you don’t have growth. Like there’s that whole view isn’t there? Where it’s like, this is your comfort zone just outside of your comfort zone. It’s your growth zone. Like there’s those zones and you only get to those zones with challenge. So the challenge is really a stretching opportunity. It’s an opportunity to pull, grow, expand where you currently are. Um, you don’t have growth without challenge.

Erik Boemanns: Yep. I think that makes complete sense. And, um, I’m curious if you have any particular ways that you overcome those. How do you approach that growth for yourself and for your business?

Anike Mlemchukwu : Yeah, I that’s a good question. Um. I, I do a lot. I’m very spiritual. First of all, I have a very strong faith and connection with God because I would not be able to do anything if I didn’t. Um, but on top of that, I do a lot of kind of like meditation. I do a lot of journaling, I do a lot of yoga. I do a lot of mindfulness work to clear my mind when there is a challenge, and to be able to figure out what my next steps are, because otherwise I would just sit and I would ruminate and I would just think and I would. So a lot of what for me is speaking to God, seeking divine guidance, meditating, clearing my mind, yoga, whatever I need to do, and then relooking at it instead of sitting there and pounding on figuring out.

Erik Boemanns: Okay, I can yeah, I can see the I can see that that makes sense. Um, I think one of the things, actually, you mentioned earlier that you started in London and then you came to Atlanta, and of course, you and I met at a startup event here in Atlanta. As you’re thinking about, as you’re growing your business, as you’re overcoming some of these challenges, how supportive is the Atlanta community for startups? Where are you finding success there? Or or even things that could be better, perhaps.

Anike Mlemchukwu : I think Atlanta is amazing. Um, I think coming from London, because I’d already kind of built my connections in London, and I really knew people. I knew what the organizations were. I didn’t know what it would be like coming into Atlanta. I didn’t know who I was going to meet. But I very quickly and very easily built her a supportive network around me. There’s so many different organizations in Atlanta, whether it’s the Tech Village, Atdc Women’s Entrepreneurship Initiative, uh, the black community, there’s so many different areas that are there to support founders. Um, so when you’re just kind of getting up and getting started and getting off the ground, there’s a lot of things around to support with that. Um, I’m not too sure about what the invest Make community is like. I’ve not yet kind of gone out and sought investment within Atlanta. Um, I do hear in terms of like B2C is not the best state for that, but I’ve not seen that for myself. That’s kind of just hearsay, right? Um, but yeah, apart from that, I think Atlanta is amazing.

Erik Boemanns: Yeah. I been here 20 years or been back 20 years. Yeah. And I’ve seen the same thing. Um, are there particular areas of support that you’re still looking for? Are there areas I mean, you mentioned you haven’t looked for investors yet, but other knowledge domains that you’re still looking to gain?

Anike Mlemchukwu : Yeah, I’m really trying to, um, get around the selling to health insurance and selling to employers. Um, selling to that kind of area. So that’s, that’s kind of the focus right now on covering that.

Erik Boemanns: Yeah okay. Which Atlanta’s got a great health tech space. So that that should be something to. To reach out into. Um, one of the other things I’m curious about that I always ask founders on on this is engineers are still really relatively early in your journey, but along that path. What’s some advice that you would give to other founders who may be thinking about starting something, or maybe in a similar spot? Just what are some lessons that you’ve learned along the way?

Anike Mlemchukwu : Oh, that is a great question. Um, I would say the first one is you have to know why you’re doing what you’re doing. Like deep at the core, you really have to have a strong. Why? Because life is going to throw and hit and push and twist and do all the things. Um, so if you’re really clear on why it is that you want to do what it is that you want to do, then when these snakes and stirs and all this comes in, you’ll still be able to remain anchored in what you’re doing. You’ll still be able to keep going and keep focused. Um, so I think at first it’s very easy to get caught up in the glitz and the glamor and the coolness and starting something, um, but to sustain and to remain in it, you have to have a you have to be anchored in your. Why? Um, so no, no. The what’s the North star where you’re going. Know why you’re going there. And that will keep you, keep you going.

Erik Boemanns: I think that’s a great advice, especially considering to your point, you’re thinking about a startup and you’re thinking about all the excitement that’s going to happen later, maybe forgetting about the journey that’s between here and there. Right?

Anike Mlemchukwu : Yeah, I hear a lot of people say it’s a it’s a marathon. It’s not a sprint. And people get confused with the images that they see because it’s not that. And and it takes time and it takes perseverance and it takes dedication and resilience and all the things. Um, so. Yeah.

Erik Boemanns: Absolutely. Uh, so for people who are interested in Limpopo and want to learn more, do you have a website? Where can they go to learn more about it?

Anike Mlemchukwu : Yeah. Leopard. Com lapa p o e com.

Erik Boemanns: Okay. That’s great. And that’s for providers or parents or anyone that’s interested in learning more about the business.

Anike Mlemchukwu : Yeah. Providers. Connectors, relationships, families, anyone that’s interested. Awesome.

Erik Boemanns: Um, before we close out, I am curious, is there anything that you want to make sure people are aware of that they know about the paper and is there?

Speaker5: Um.

Anike Mlemchukwu : I wouldn’t say to know about La Papa. I would just say, for anyone that’s thinking about starting a business, do it because the world needs a lot of change. So especially if you’re thinking of doing something that can benefit the world in one way or another. Get out there, pull your boots up and go and do it.

Erik Boemanns: That’s awesome. Yeah. Recently restarted my business, that I’ve heard that advice from others. And I think it is great advice and it is something that we, um, I appreciate that. And any other kind of closing thoughts that you want to share?

Speaker5: Um.

Anike Mlemchukwu : I just keep going, I love it, I love the entrepreneurship journey. It’s like a roller coaster, right? Ups and downs and then outs, twists and turns. Enjoy all of it. Celebrate all of it.

Erik Boemanns: Awesome. Well, I appreciate you coming on today. I appreciate you sharing your journey. That and that of Limpopo and where it’s headed. And so, uh, thank you. And I hope to see you around in the Atlanta events.

Anike Mlemchukwu : Thank you for having me.

About Your Host

Erik Boemanns is a technology executive and lawyer. His background covers many aspects of technology, from infrastructure to software development.

He combines this with a “second career” as a lawyer into a world of cybersecurity, governance, risk, compliance, and privacy (GRC-P).

His time in a variety of companies, industries, and careers brings a unique perspective on leadership, helping, technology problem solving and implementing compliance.

Connect with Erik on LinkedIn, Substack and Medium.

BRX Pro Tip: 1.6X Podcast Speed

July 22, 2024 by angishields

BRX Pro Tips

BRX Pro Tip: 1.6X Podcast Speed

00:00 /

BRX Pro Tip: 1.6X Podcast Speed

Stone Payton : And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Stone Payton, Lee Kantor here with you. Lee, you listen to our radio programming here at Business RadioX and podcasts from all over a little differently than some of us do. Say a little bit about that.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, I listen to all my podcasts at 1.6x, at the speed of 1.6x. I don’t listen to it at the normal speed as people talk. And this lets me listen to more podcasts in less time. Right now, I use Spotify as my main way to listen to podcasts and music, but when I listen to podcasts, I use Spotify. And we as a family pay for the premium family plan so we don’t have to listen to commercials so that’s important to me as well.

Lee Kantor: So, what I do with podcasts is I adjust the speed and I try different speeds, and I like 1.6x, which is just right for me. And that allows me to listen to a 60-minute podcast in 37.5 minutes so I can listen to more podcasts in less time and still get the idea of what’s happening. And it still allows me to pause it and take notes and things like that if something interesting comes up. But it just gets rid of all of the kind of the gaps and time and pauses and things like that, and it goes at a speed where I can still understand what they’re saying, I can still listen and comprehend what they’re saying, but it just gets rid of all kind of the extra time. And so, I get more information in less time.

BRX Pro Tip: 1 Way to Get More Reviews

July 19, 2024 by angishields

BRX Pro Tips

BRX Pro Tip: 1 Way to Get More Reviews

00:00 /

BRX Pro Tip: 1 Way to Get More Reviews

Stone Payton: Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor, Stone Payton here with you. Lee, we’ve come to learn just how powerful and important reviews can be for a business. What’s the best way to get more reviews?

Lee Kantor: Yeah, I think as the algorithms on search engines change, one of the things that stay the same is the importance of social proof, and reviews and ratings are one of the key ways that these search engines kind of monitor social proof to say if you are who you say you are and you are delivering value the way that you say you are.

Lee Kantor: So, getting more and more reviews and ratings is important. Whether it’s your website, whether it’s your blog, whether it’s your podcast, no matter what you’re doing, getting more reviews and ratings is a good thing to have. And the best way to get more of them is to simply ask people.

Lee Kantor: And somebody told me one time, and I think it’s very true that ask. If you don’t ask, you don’t get it. And so it’s important if you want more reviews, then you better be asking your guests and your listeners to review whatever you want them to. And ideally, you make it as easy as possible for them. Share the link to the review source. Don’t leave it up to them. They won’t do it. If you just hope that you’re going to get reviews, it’s not going to happen.

Lee Kantor: If you want more reviews, you have to start asking people to review and rate whatever it is you’re doing and make it as easy as possible for them to do that you have – if you want more of anything, your first move has to be to ask for it.

Hawaii WBE Feature: Family Business Insight & Beach Services

July 18, 2024 by angishields

Women in Motion

Hawaii WBE Feature: Family Business Insight & Beach Services

00:00 /

In this episode of Women in Motion, host Lee Kantor interviews Traci Bush, owner of Waikīkī Beach Services. Traci shares the history of the company, founded in 1955 by Caroline Granelli, and later taken over by her father in the 1970s. Traci discusses her unexpected journey from the corporate world to leading the family business, the challenges of earning respect in a male-dominated field, and the complexities of succession planning. She emphasizes the importance of building a support network and fostering an inclusive company culture.

Traci Bush, owner and President of Waikīkī Beach Services (WBS), began her career at WBS in 2008. However, her ties to Waikiki Beach go back to her childhood.

Born in Honolulu and raised in the vibrant surroundings of Waikīkī, Traci’s childhood was deeply intertwined with the beach and its culture, largely thanks to her father, Ted Bush. Ted, a revered figure among the Waikīkī Beachboys, introduced Traci to the beach’s traditions and the exhilarating world of outrigger canoe paddling and surfing at an early age.

These formative experiences ignited Traci’s lifelong passion for Waikīkī and its storied history, particularly the legacy of the Waikīkī Beachboys—a group of local watermen known for their surfing prowess and for imparting the spirit of aloha to visitors.

This passion led Traci to play a significant role in co-founding the annual May Day Waikīkī event. The event is a heartfelt homage to the Waikīkī Beachboys, celebrating both the historical and contemporary contributions of these iconic figures to Waikīkī’s culture.

Beyond her contributions to cultural preservation, Traci has been a proactive member of the local business and tourism community. She serves on the boards of the Waikīkī Beach Special Improvement District, the Waikīkī Improvement Association, and the Waikīkī Advisory Committee.

In these roles, she ensures that Waikīkī continues to thrive as a global destination while retaining its unique cultural heritage. Traci’s journey from a young girl absorbing the traditions of Waikīkī to becoming a co-owner of Waikīkī Beach Services and a respected community leader is a testament to her dedication and love for her home.

Through her work, she not only preserves the legacy of the Waikīkī Beachboys but also ensures that the spirit of Waikīkī is shared with the world.

Connect with Traci on LinkedIn and follow Waikīkī Beach Services on Facebook.

Music Provided by M PATH MUSIC

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios, it’s time for Women In Motion. Brought to you by WBEC-West. Join forces. Succeed together. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Women In Motion and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, WBEC-West. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. This month we are spotlighting WBEs from Hawaii, and we’re so excited to have Traci Bush with Waikiki Beach Services. Welcome.

Traci Bush: Aloha. Thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about your company.

Traci Bush: Okay. So, we’ve been around since 1955. It was actually started by a woman named Caroline Granelli. So, that was already ahead of her time in the ’50s, but she started a beach service in Waikiki Beach, and they taught surfing lessons, they did canoe rides, they rented boards to tourists. My dad ended up joining at a young age, wanting to be a Beachboy and loved surfing in the canoe, so he ended up taking over the business from her in the 1970s. And it’s been, you know, part of his legacy for so long. And I joined him in about 2008, loved it, couldn’t get away from it. It’s part of my blood and my heritage. And now, I’m the leader and CEO and owner of the company. So, that’s kind of been my journey with Waikiki Beach Services.

Lee Kantor: What was it like as a young person seeing your father in that role? Did you kind of aspire to follow in his footsteps or was that something at some point you had a choice to make and you chose this path?

Traci Bush: It wasn’t something that I thought I was going to be doing. I definitely, actually didn’t even see myself back in Hawaii. I went away for school. I went to University of Washington in Seattle. I traveled a bit. And something kept calling me back to Hawaii, especially Waikiki Beach. And I’ve had just a lot of memories of growing up on the beach with my dad, of being out on the canoe with him, or being on a surfboard with him, and something kept just leading me back there.

Traci Bush: I fought it for a long time. I worked in corporate with Starbucks and was part of that whole arena for a while. And around 2008, I asked my dad, “Hey, can I help you do some marketing?” And I just noticed he wasn’t really doing anything online, and that’s about when all the online reservation systems were coming up, websites, Facebook. And I thought I could maybe bring Waikiki Beach Services into the 21st century a little bit more. So, I just kind of did some independent contractor work for him.

Traci Bush: And then, as I worked more and more down there, I met more people, I just knew this is where I belonged. It just felt right. So, he made me start from the bottom. I had to carry surfboards. I had to do all the grunt work. It wasn’t just, “Hey, you get to lead the company.” I definitely had to work my way up, which was a good thing because now I know all the aspects of the business.

Lee Kantor: Was it a difficult transition to go from that, you know, corporate world that you were in to this more family-run business and probably kind of less structured, less corporate environment?

Traci Bush: Yes. It’s definitely challenging, but it has its rewards too. So, going from having millions of dollars in a budget and definitely a lot of structure, definitely a lot of different departments who know what they’re doing to you wear all the hats and you have to be accountable for every single cent, not just dollar but cent that’s being spent was definitely different. And then, just working with your family, there’s unique challenges there with that father-daughter dynamic and working through that. There was plenty of tears through the years and being frustrated.

Traci Bush: But at the end of the day, it’s been an incredible experience to work with him. I’ve had the flexibility of raising my daughter and bringing her to work, and having her around, and being able to be part of her life because I’m part of the family business. So, there’s nothing else I’d rather be doing.

Lee Kantor: Now, you said you started at the bottom and you worked your way up, did that help kind of as you grew into your leadership position for the other members of the team to see that you weren’t just kind of anointed, you had to kind of earn your stripes each step of the way?

Traci Bush: Oh. You know, no. I think in the back of everyone’s mind, it was still we know that she’s probably being positioned to take over. So, you still have to work through a lot of those feelings of it being maybe unfair or nepotism. And I could work three times as hard as everybody, but there’s still that block. And I knew it. It was hard sometimes.

Traci Bush: And it’s a very male dominated field. I won’t lie. I would say 80 to 90 percent of my staff is typically male. It’s a lot of manual labor too. Especially for the guys who’ve been around for 15, 20, 30 years, seeing this 25, 30 year old girl in their eyes, who some have watched me grow up, it was hard for them to kind of wrap their heads around maybe one day she’s going to be our boss. And that’s been the ongoing challenge, I think, for the last, maybe ten years of working there.

Lee Kantor: And having the male-female dynamic, that’s a challenge by itself. But also in a family-owned business that it’s kind of an understanding that, you know, it’s going to be handed down to another member of the family. In Hawaii, is that something that occurs a lot? Are there are a lot of family-owned businesses where this dynamic comes into play? Or is this a unique thing, especially handing it down to the daughter?

Traci Bush: I do see quite a few more family-owned businesses, and I don’t know if that’s because of the groups I’m in with YWCA. I do see a lot more small businesses are definitely family-owned in Hawaii, and they’re definitely kept in the family, passed down. So, I do think that there’s more of a network of us here for us to reach out and ask for help or talk to each other about the challenges. So, that’s a great thing to have.

Traci Bush: But, yeah, I think no matter what industry you’re in, it’s always going to be challenging if you’re the daughter or the son of the CEO. And it’s just always going to be hard to show people that you deserve to be here.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, I’ve hosted a show of family-owned businesses, so I got an insight into it. I wasn’t aware of all of the dynamics that people, I don’t think, that aren’t part of a family-owned business understand. I mean, there’s unique challenges to being part of a family-owned business that just from within your own family, with siblings and things like that or succession and things like that, that people that are not in family-owned business really don’t understand kind of the nuances to that.

Traci Bush: Right. And I am fortunate in a way that I don’t have siblings, so we’re not fighting amongst ourselves of who’s going to take over. My dad didn’t have to make a hard decision. But at the same time, I’m also alone in this. And part of the reason why I took over at this point in my career, I didn’t think I would be leading the company right now. I knew that our succession plan was eventually I would. But during COVID it became apparent that my dad was developing dementia. So, we transitioned the business quickly before, you know, he couldn’t write his name or he couldn’t understand what was happening. So, I was really thrust into this role during a terrible time in our history just to be in business, so it’s really been a sink or swim endeavor for me. And it would have been wonderful to have a sibling or two to kind of bounce ideas off of or talk to about all of this.

Lee Kantor: So, where do you go for kind of advice and support?

Traci Bush: That’s been people like the YWCA. I mean, it’s led me to so many different people, networks, women in business. I’ve taken advantage of almost every single free opportunity that they’ve had to pick the brains of people who are in finance or marketing and social media. And that’s where I’ve been turning to.

Traci Bush: It’s not always been easy for me to ask for help, but as I’ve gone along on this journey, I realized that’s the only way I’m going to be successful. And there’s this wealth of information out there and women that I just admire, and they’re happy to share their experiences and happy to help another woman in business.

Lee Kantor: And that’s a great lesson for other entrepreneurs out there, especially first time entrepreneurs, that there are networks out there and there are people that want to help. It’s just a matter of being proactive in reaching out to some folks.

Traci Bush: Right. And I don’t know if it was more just my role and feeling that if I was asking for help too much, people would think she’s not meant to lead and she doesn’t know what she’s doing, because I always felt like my dad knew what he was doing. He was the man in charge. And now I’ve taken over and I have to ask for help.

Traci Bush: But I’ve totally changed that way of thinking, and it’s this group of women, this network of intelligent, well-rounded, successful women that I’ve built around me, I can’t say enough good things about just reaching out and asking for help and it does not make you weak. It doesn’t mean that you don’t deserve to be a leader. It means that you’re doing the right thing for yourself and your business and you’re growing.

Lee Kantor: Now, how do you think that this way of going about your business has impacted the company and the culture of the company? Is there slowly a change?

Traci Bush: Definitely. When I look back to 2020, when I had the first make the announcement to everyone that my dad wasn’t coming back and that I would be taking over, it was rough the first year-and-a-half. And not just with COVID, but them getting used to a different leadership style. I know through – we call it – the coconut wireless, the gossip people were thinking about leaving. They weren’t sure about me as a leader.

Traci Bush: And it did take me a while to find my footing. I didn’t know what kind of leader I wanted to be, because I’d always just kind of followed my dad’s example. But now it was time to be myself. And the difference, I think, is that I tend to lead with more empathy. I tend to lead with more openness. I’m a little bit more vulnerable.

Traci Bush: And what I’ve noticed in especially the managers who I have that have been there for many years, who are both male, I feel like they are so onboard. They’re just willing to just work and do the work with me and be a partner with me. And part of that is, you know, leading first as a person, making sure that I treat them as people, that they’re more than this job, that I ask them their opinions, I bring them into the conversation. And that’s just the difference. And it feels really good at work now. It’s taken a few years, but it feels really good all around.

Lee Kantor: Right. I think that’s a great learning experience for a lot of young people thrust in this role is to not confuse vulnerability with weakness. I mean, vulnerability is a strength, and it shows your humanness. And that your ability to listen and empathize, I mean, those aren’t weaknesses, those are strengths.

Traci Bush: Right. But it’s absent, I think, in a lot of work environments. And so, people aren’t used to that. And it’s actually something you have to practice with your staff, if that’s how you’re going to lead, because it’s not something people are used to seeing. And it should be. It really should be.

Lee Kantor: Right. But I think some of that comes from fear that they’re afraid, that I’m in a position that I’m supposed to be the boss so I’m supposed to have all the answers. When one of the ways to get the answers is to ask your people, because they probably know the answer.

Traci Bush: Oh, 100 percent. They’re actually the experts more than I am. There’s no doubt that they know a lot more about certain things in this business than I do. So, I’m not going to sit there in my office and dictate to them something I’m 50 percent sure about when I know they absolutely know the answer to this. So, yeah, it’s not a weakness to ask for help, opinions, be vulnerable, say you don’t know. And I’ve gotten really comfortable with that phrase, “Hmm. I don’t know. Let me get back to you.” Whereas before, I never wanted to be seen as not knowing the answer.

Lee Kantor: Right. Yeah. I think that was one of the biggest lessons I had is, “I don’t know. What do you think? What do you think?” and then get their input. It’s one of those things where when you’re new or it’s new to you and you don’t have kind of that support system built in, it just you feel a lot of pressure and you put it on yourself. And that’s probably one of the big changes also going from corporate to this role is just not having that kind of infrastructure that you’re kind of making it up as you go, which, I mean, that’s what you’re forced to do.

Traci Bush: Oh, yeah. It’s definitely tough because you are making it as you go, like you said. And sometimes it’s kind of lonely. If you’re wearing all the hats, there’s no other director of marketing or director of HR that you’re going to go talk to and run some ideas off of, and you feel lonely at the top sometimes.

Lee Kantor: So, how did you find that support group that you’re working with now? Just kind of word of mouth, just from friends of friends?

Traci Bush: Goodness. I want to just say it was just some email. I think it might have been from the SBA kind of during the COVID recovery period and they had a list of classes and workshops locally. And one of them was for the YWCA, it was social media and marketing. And I thought, yes, I’m doing this. So, that’s how I kind of got started. I met a lot of people there and did some things with the YWCA here. And then, I got told about women and small business and getting certified, and one thing led to another.

Lee Kantor: And that’s where you heard about WBEC-West and got involved there.

Traci Bush: Yeah.

Lee Kantor: And what have you gotten out of the WBEC-West relationship thus far and the WBEC-West community?

Traci Bush: Oh, goodness. Where do I start? I mean, there’s so much. There’s just a wealth of information. I think I could spend, you know, days just even on the website reading through things, going through all the different connections, reaching out to people. But I mean, anything you want to know as a small business owner, as a woman business owner, it’s at your fingertips there. And I think the support you feel and not being alone, and knowing there’s a huge community, not just locally but nationwide that you can tap into, is so valuable and it adds to my confidence.

Lee Kantor: Now, when it comes to Waikiki Beach Services, what kind of is your secret sauce there? What is the qualities that make your offering different than maybe some of the others?

Traci Bush: I think it’s our our heart. We’ve really made an effort, one, to put our people first. So, they love being there. They enjoy being there. They’re proud to wear their shirt to work. And I see them all over social media and talking about work, posting photos of work. And so, there’s a sense of pride and ownership. So, they want to do well. They want to create a good experience for the people, our guests and our customers. And I think that’s really a unique thing for our place in particular.

Traci Bush: I try very hard to also honor our history and our past because that’s a huge story to tell. We’re coming up on our – what? – 70 something anniversary. And the Waikiki Beachboys, in general, are a hugely romanticized and talked about part of the culture in Hawaii. And we’re part of that history, and I want to make sure that the people working for me understand the legacy that they get to continue about spreading aloha, about teaching the arts of Hawaiian surfing and canoe surfing to visitors and people from around the world. So, yeah, I just think our heart and our pride is different and what sets us apart.

Lee Kantor: So, what do you need more of? How can we help you? Do you need more employees? Do you need more clients? Do you need more people using your services?

Traci Bush: Well, I do think labor, employees, all of that’s been a real challenge lately. So, yeah, if you have ideas or thoughts about employment and getting more people, I would love that.

Lee Kantor: And how does someone connect with you and learn more about your company? What’s a website?

Traci Bush: waikikibeachservices.com or @wbshawaii on Instagram.

Lee Kantor: And I’m sure all the socials have a lot of videos and photos of people enjoying their time there.

Traci Bush: Yes. Definitely. I mean, we sell fun. Like, how could you not be happy working in the water and the ocean and surfing all day?

Lee Kantor: Yeah. That’s it. And it sounds like you’re really enjoying your time there. And you’re really leaning into this leadership opportunity and really trying to help your community.

Traci Bush: Right. That’s number one priority, definitely.

Lee Kantor: Well, Traci, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Traci Bush: Thank you so much for having me. This has been a pleasure.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Women In Motion.