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Leadership, Creativity, and Inclusive Branding, Celebrating Women of Color Business Owners
In this episode of Women in Motion, host Lee Kantor interviews Crystal Whiteaker, founder of Crystal Lily Creative. Crystal discusses her journey from a corporate background to becoming an inclusive branding and leadership development consultant and photographer. She explains how her business helps brands and organizations create inclusive environments through brand messaging, photography, coaching, and training.
Crystal shares insights into the challenges her clients face, the importance of core values, and her aligned values framework. She also introduces her book, “Brave Leadership is a Choice,” as a resource for inclusive leadership.
Crystal Whiteaker (she/her) is the Founder and CEO of Crystal Lily Creative, and Author of Brave Leadership is a Choice: An Inclusive Guide to Creating Belonging.
Crystal is a photographer by trade and an Inclusive Branding and Leadership Development Consultant who helps mission driven brands and leaders create values-aligned human-focused environments.
Crystal brings 20 years of practical, creative, relational, process driven experience across multiple industries. She is a self-described “corporate trained, creative hippie” who puts a strong focus on core values to help people connect, communicate and lead with belonging in mind.
Recognized as the 2024 Empowerment Leader of the Year by BRA Network, Crystal cares deeply about diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging and is an advocate for leaders and organizations that provide resources and support for healing.
Beyond her work, Crystal enjoys spending time at the beach, connecting with people, and exploring new places.
Connect with Crystal on LinkedIn and follow Crystal Lily Creative on Instagram.
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 Crystal Whiteaker with Crystal Lily Creative. Welcome.
Crystal Whiteaker: Thank you. Hello.
Lee Kantor: I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about Crystal Lily Creative. How are you serving folks?
Crystal Whiteaker: So, I am an L.A.-based inclusive branding and leadership development consultant, photographer by trade, and what I do is help brands, leaders, and organizations create inclusive, values aligned, human-focused environments through their brand messaging, photography, coaching, consulting, and training.
Lee Kantor: And what’s your backstory? How’d you get involved in this line of work?
Crystal Whiteaker: So, I have a corporate background, as many entrepreneurs tend to do, and I originally started a photography business. I had spent about a decade in corporate and decided that I really wanted to pursue more of a creative passion and built a very inclusive photography business, and initially worked in the wedding and event space.
Crystal Whiteaker: And people started asking me questions about how I was able to cultivate such a diverse representative photo business and I started working with other business owners and leaders to help them cultivate inclusive businesses as well. And I started getting invited to speak and host workshops, and it kind of snowballed from there. And given my intersectional identity, it really felt like the most aligned work that I had ever done, so I bundled everything together to create my consulting business.
Lee Kantor: Now, when folks come to you, what is kind of the challenge they’re having where you’re kind of the right person to help them?
Crystal Whiteaker: The number one reason that people usually come to me is because they want to make sure that they are creating an inclusive business, or if they work for organizations, that they’re creating inclusive environments that are aligned with their core values and really create space for everyone to find that sense of belonging.
Crystal Whiteaker: And there’s two reasons that folks will come to me. One reason will be because they’re wanting to be proactive and making sure that they are doing that from the outset. And then, the other reason is usually because something has happened where someone has been harmed or offended in a way, and it is detrimental to the reputation of the leader of the organization and they are looking to course correct.
Lee Kantor: So, what are some examples of an inclusive environment?
Crystal Whiteaker: Examples of an inclusive environment are environments where people are seen, heard, and understood. Their humanity is honored. They are able to be whole in their humanity and their diverse lived experiences are recognized.
Crystal Whiteaker: And especially when we think about within workplaces and organizations also accounting for accessibility. So, what does accessibility for people with disabilities look like? Is your organization inclusive and accepting of the LGBTQ+ community? Is there a zero tolerance policy for things like bigotry and racism? So, really being mindful that most organizations are usually a melting pot, and making sure that everyone is able to bring their whole selves to work without worrying about how they’re going to be treated because of how they present.
Lee Kantor: So, if somebody comes up to you and says, “Crystal, we need some help in this area,” what does that first kind of meeting look like? What are some of the questions you’re asking them and what are some of the questions they’re asking you?
Crystal Whiteaker: Sure. So, the questions that I am asking them is, first and foremost, what is the reasons that you’re wanting to bring someone in to do this work together? What work has been done up to this point? You know, even if it’s as simple as reading books or reading articles, things of that nature. I will ask about the demographics of the organization. What does the leadership look like? What is the leadership team comprised of? I will also ask about values. What are the organization’s values?
Crystal Whiteaker: Because the way in which I work with people is helping to cultivate inclusive environments and experience through the lens of core values, because that tends to click with people a little easier, because it should be something that is intrinsic to the organization, not just an add-on, a box that has been checked of we have diverse hires, we have diverse leadership in place. But, really, how is inclusion showing up through the overall values of the organization? Meaning, is inclusivity embedded in your systems and your processes, not just the front facing checkbox items that people typically go to first.
Crystal Whiteaker: And people usually ask me what my approach is, what they can expect in terms of time commitment, and how they need to prepare themselves or their team if they have a team, and we go from there. It’s usually an initial conversation of about half-an-hour, and I’ll send them a proposal, they’ll get time to review it. And we usually have a follow up conversation to answer any clarifying questions and determine if it’s a good fit.
Lee Kantor: And what would a deliverable be?
Crystal Whiteaker: It varies. It depends on the organization. So, if I were to work on a longer term consulting project with a client, the deliverable could be as in-depth as reviewing and refining all of their messaging and their processes from things on their website, what’s happening on their social media accounts if they use social media, what messaging happens even down to their newsletter communications, internal processes, organizational structure. What processes are in place for your overall operations and management? And what is the process for my client’s clients from start to finish, what does that look like? And how can we make sure that’s being done with an inclusive lens? That’s for a larger scale full scope project.
Crystal Whiteaker: And because of the photography component that clients are able to add-on if they want to also take it a step further to ensure that their visuals are also inclusive, then they have the option to include custom brand photography.
Lee Kantor: Is there a story you can share maybe that illustrates how you came in and helped an organization? You don’t have to name the name of the organization, but maybe share the challenge that they were going through and how you were able to help them get to a new level.
Crystal Whiteaker: Sure. So, actually, I’m in the process of wrapping up a project right now with a client who they came to me in more dire circumstances. I want to make sure I’m not identifying the client, being respectful of them. They were in a situation where they had made some decisions that ultimately ended up being perceived as blatant disregard for people in the Black community and were perceived to be racist.
Crystal Whiteaker: And they needed support to really review their overall practices, their decision making, refining their values, and really doing a deeper examination of their leadership and how they were making decisions, and their overall awareness of harmful belief systems and policies really disrupting and identifying implicit biases so that they could ensure that who they were at the core, they were not a racist organization. They made some really poor decisions that reflected as such.
Crystal Whiteaker: So, really helping them to make sure that the decisions and the messaging that they are putting out moving forward is reflective of who they are at their core, and that they can take space to pause and really evaluate the decisions that they make before choosing to move forward with certain events or activities.
Lee Kantor: Now, why was it important for you and your organization to become part of WBEC-West?
Crystal Whiteaker: For me, I wanted to be a part of an organization where women business owners are uplifted and supported, and there are opportunities across a range of areas from support with funding to expanding business, and being able to connect and network with other like-minded folks. Because business ownership is hard enough, and being a very values-centric, more human-focused business owner, it breaks a little bit from the traditional norms of business. So, wanting to connect with people who may have those same like-minded ideals.
Lee Kantor: Now, you mentioned values, can you explain your Aligned Values Framework?
Crystal Whiteaker: Sure. So, this is a framework that I developed to support clients, and I use at least a component of it in all of the services that I offer. And this framework is really designed to take clients through six core steps.
Crystal Whiteaker: So, the first step is to help folks really clarify inclusion around language messaging and help them identify shared language in their own businesses if they want to make sure they are being mindful of through that inclusive lens. Then, really helping them to connect to who they are as leaders and how they expect others to connect in the environments that they are participating in, help them get rooted in their core values so that they can not only lead through their values, but also build relationships that are in alignment with their values, so that as their businesses and their brands grow, they’re in a space where they’re not expected to sacrifice their boundaries or anyone else’s, and really get them to a space where they can manage discomfort as they examine and identify any implicit biases. And we work on bias in three different levels, personal, professional, and community bias.
Crystal Whiteaker: And then, the last two steps are embody, so how can they embody a leadership style that is reflective of their core values. And then, the last piece is create, how can they create messaging and environments that are reflective of their core values through written, verbal, visual, and behavioral.
Lee Kantor: Now, is there an ideal client profile you have? Is there a niche that you serve?
Crystal Whiteaker: Not so much a niche, but what I do know is that the clients who work best with me and my framework and my approach are people who are detail-oriented. They often identify as highly empathetic and they sometimes identify as neurodivergent clients as well. And they want to make sure that they are cultivating spaces that are inclusive and trauma informed.
Crystal Whiteaker: So, a lot of the spaces that my clients work in are people who are creatives. They’re empathetic, curious creatives themselves. They work in mindfulness spaces. So, I’ve worked with a lot of therapists, florists – which is really interesting – and other coaches, specifically coaches who lead through a trauma informed holistic lens. And, also – I’m trying to think. There’s one other area – planners, people in the events space, and also people who work in other diversity, equity, inclusion spaces.
Lee Kantor: And what was the impetus to write your book, Brave Leadership is a Choice: An Inclusive Guide to Creating Belonging?
Crystal Whiteaker: People asked, and I also wanted to create an accessible, digestible way for people to be able to utilize and apply my frameworks and teachings for those folks who maybe couldn’t work with me directly.
Lee Kantor: So, is that a good place to start when they’re learning about you and your firm to go to the book and maybe buy the book and read that to understand a little more?
Crystal Whiteaker: Yeah. I would say that’s definitely a good place to start.
Lee Kantor: So, if somebody wanted to learn more and have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what is the website? What is the best way to connect with you?
Crystal Whiteaker: You can visit the website, which is crystallily.co, and that’s C-R-Y-S-T-A-L-L-I-L-Y.C-O.
Lee Kantor: Well, Crystal, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.
Crystal Whiteaker: Thank you for having me.
Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Women In Motion.
BRX Pro Tip: 6 Strategies to Market Your Podcast
BRX Pro Tip: 6 Strategies to Market Your Podcast
Stone Payton: Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, today’s topic, effectively marketing your podcast.
Lee Kantor: I think if you’re going to do the work to create a podcast, it’s important to kind of make sure that it gets out there to as many places as possible so people can find the content.
Lee Kantor: The first thing I would do when it comes to marketing the podcast is make sure that you’re distributing the podcast to all the platforms, Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon, iHeart, et cetera. Make sure you’re submitting them to all of them. Or if it’s one of the podcast platforms that scrape, make sure that they have the right RSS feed to scrape from you.
Lee Kantor: Second, make sure you have good episode titles. You want to have episode titles that say something about the content. So, you don’t want it to be Episode Number 106. That’s not a great episode title. A better episode title is Six Ways to Market Your Podcast. That’s a better episode title.
Lee Kantor: Third, transcribe each episode. Make sure that you get all of those words digital text in the post so it can be found through all the search engines. Because the search engines right now don’t do a great job scraping the audio, so they need the digital text, and if you transcribe it, you will have it.
Lee Kantor: Number four is create some show notes and make sure that that includes the contact information for the guest, because you want the guest to be found and you want them to be found on your podcast.
Lee Kantor: Number five, make sure your guests are sharing valuable information and advice. If you’re not teeing up your guest to share valuable information and advice, they are not going to share the content. So, the more you can put the spotlight in a positive way on your guest, the more likely it is that they will share the episode on their socials.
Lee Kantor: And finally, number six, make sure you do share the content on your socials. Pick a social channel that you and your prospective clients use and post there regularly, post snippets, post the entire episodes, highlights, things like that. But make sure you’re choosing a social channel that your clients or potential clients are using, that is the one you should be using.
Winning with Diverse Talent Solutions, Celebrating Women of Color Business Owners
In this episode of Women in Motion, Lee Kantor interviews Kenida Lewis, founder of The Adinek Talent Group, a talent acquisition and staffing firm. Kenida discusses her firm’s services, including professional search, temporary help, and unique screening for corporations. She offers insights for employers and job candidates, emphasizing skill development and market trends. Kenida also highlights the benefits of being part of the WBENC community and shares her firm’s success in industries like hospitality and government.
Kenida Lewis is a noteworthy talent acquisition and recruiting leader with a passion for helping companies connect with skilled, diverse talent. As founder and CEO of Adinek Talent Group, a firm that specializes in recruiting and talent acquisition and recruiting strategies, Kenida is able to bring her passion to fruition.
Recently noted as the Top 10 most influential people in Executive Hiring by CIO Magazine, Kenida leads Adinek Talent Group, by partnering with companies to provide a range of custom talent solutions, from recruiting executive talent, high volume sourcing/recruiting to RPO concepts.
Based in Las Vegas, NV the firm focuses on developing talent acquisition and staffing strategies to help organizations win with talent. Before launching Adinek Talent Group in 2020, Kenida served in various capacities in professional services, finance, hospitality and entertainment, including positions at M&I Bank, PNC Financial Services, Accenture and MGM Resorts International.
Follow The Adinek Talent Group 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 Kenida Lewis with The Adinek Group. Welcome.
Kenida Lewis: Thank you so much. I’m so excited to be here.
Lee Kantor: Well, I am excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about your firm, how you’re serving folks.
Kenida Lewis: I am serving people by serving them with talent. We help organizations win with talent. We’ve been in business since 2020, although my experience spans almost 20 years if I can really say that, it’s kind of crazy to say, in talent acquisition and staffing and contingent workforce planning and also just workforce planning as well.
Kenida Lewis: So we started at the height of the pandemic. I knew I wanted to do some consulting work. I was unfortunately furloughed, probably like 90% of the U.S. And I was fortunate enough to pick up a client and they were in the essential worker space and they needed some help identifying people because of the churn because people would get sick and they would have to replace them and have to be out. So I was very instrumental in helping them to stay afloat, the operation to stay afloat. And I just kind of took it from there.
Kenida Lewis: So, the Adinek Group was born. We reincorporated in the great city of Las Vegas, in the state of Nevada. And we offer clients an array of services, so from professional search to temporary help to large-volume staffing. We were very fortunate recently to be a part of Super Bowl LVIII and provide staffing to some of the events that were there in the Las Vegas area. So that was very exciting. So that continues to forge forward our event and large and high-volume staffing segment.
Kenida Lewis: And then we also provide a unique screening service as well for corporations because as you know, unfortunately, it’s kind of a 50-50 workforce mix out there now. Just as many people as you see are getting hired and getting new roles, just as many are, conversely, being laid off. So, there’s a lot of great talent in the workforce right now.
Kenida Lewis: And so when you see a pretty exciting role that’s posted, there could be over two, 300 applications for just one role. I mean, just by my background and understanding of some of the pain points in the talent acquisition and recruiting space, we can go in and help screen those candidates very efficiently and effectively, pass them over to the recruiting team so we’re only trying to support or augment. We’re not trying to come in and eliminate anyone’s job. We just want to help.
Kenida Lewis: So, we’ve been fortunate to receive accolades for our successful work and for the placement. So, we hope to continue to do that. And I’m glad to tell people more about that today here on this podcast.
Lee Kantor: Well, let’s start giving some advice to both sides of this coin here. From the corporate side, what are some ways that you can make yourself attractive to candidates? How would you recommend a company kind of put the word out there when they’re trying to attract the right talent for their organization?
Kenida Lewis: Yeah, that’s a great question. And one of the first things I would do, the first things that happen is kind of the job description as well. I’m sure that you’re aware of. And, you know, what you can do, really, is to make sure it’s very inviting. Job descriptions have changed, and it’s not so much the standard format where there’s so much narrative that it’s very hard to get your – get a handle on. Now, it’s really exciting jargon and just really upbeat and positive narrative that today’s talent can identify with and, you know, they can understand and not be intimidated to comply with.
Kenida Lewis: Also, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of a stat from a company’s perspective that men will look at a job description and they can only have two or three of the requirements that are on there, and they will apply. Women will look at the same job description, and they will feel like they have to check every single box that is on there before they apply. And I just want to make employers or corporations aware of the wording around job descriptions as well to make it inviting and attractive and unintimidating for candidates to apply. And that will broaden your talent pool as well.
Kenida Lewis: And the last thing I would like to make them aware of is that social media is such a powerful force. Way back when people started to incorporate a role called in the recruitment marketing space. So that was really to make sure that the jobs were viable, that they were plentiful, that they were being advertised on the right channels. Now, social media is just such a force to be reckoned with and how people interact with it. So some people or corporations may feel like LinkedIn is just the place to be. Maybe Facebook, really Instagram and TikTok and how you can get really creative with talking about a day in the life as it relates to the jobs that you have is just super important. It’s so relatable, and it brings such a great candidate pool to your organization.
Lee Kantor: Now, what would you say to the candidates out there that are struggling? Like I hear a lot of folks that are they apply for hundreds of jobs. They don’t get any interviews, or any kind of encouragement at all. They wonder if they’re even being kind of seen. Is there anything a candidate could do to stand out, or is it kind of a – is it even worth applying when there’s one of these mass job postings? Is it better to just use your network and kind of work your way into an organization that way?
Kenida Lewis: Very good question. Again, I would say both. You know, knowing someone is probably 60, 70% of the battle to be able to rise your skills and qualifications to the top of the pile. Now, what you do with that opportunity from there is completely on you. You probably hear this term going around now called nepo babies and, you know, people thinking that they’ve been given opportunities. Well, sometimes that’s what’s required. You know, not to say that we’re trying to, you know, I guess mull over anyone else that is any just as qualified or, you know, look over anyone else. But, if you do, if you are able to leverage your network, that is the number one way in order for you to rise to the top of the pile, specifically in today’s market.
Kenida Lewis: I would also say that applying for the job is also very necessary because a lot of times, specifically in roles that require very unique skill sets, you know, could be in engineering or something and technology, that, you know, they will look at every application that comes through. A lot of these large organizations have a pretty large recruiting team, and their job is to identify talent, and they’ve put metrics around the timeline that it takes from someone to apply for them to actually be in seat because as long as that position is open, it’s not making them any money. So that’s another thing that’s going on now that there are a lot of metrics that are being put in place around recruiters and that team to be able to identify the best talent in the most time-efficient way as possible.
Kenida Lewis: So I would say, number one, please leverage your network as much as possible. But please know that it’s still on you to shine during the interview process and take that very seriously, which I know most candidates do. And then, I would also encourage you to apply and be mindful. This is one trick as well that I try to – people that come to me and have questions about applying for jobs or, you know, I’ve looked everywhere and, you know, I can’t find what I’m looking for.
Kenida Lewis: If you apply, if a job has been opened for two weeks, let’s say that, the recruiter will go into that ATS, which stands for Applicant Tracking System, which is what you apply through online. And there is a list of applications. And typically what they will do is the first ones that they will look at are the first ones that come in. So if you apply two weeks later, you know, yours is kind of at the bottom of the pile. So they may have identified someone that has great skills, five or six people that have great skills that applied within the first two or three days. And so because they’re on a timeline or they have other things that they’re working on, they will move those five candidates through and one of them may get hired. So it may have nothing to do with your qualifications or anything. It could just all be a timing issue and just the massive amount of people that come through the requisition. So just be mindful that, you know, it is not their intention to ignore people. It just could be a timing issue. And they could have found some of the candidates that they’re looking for in that first stack of applications.
Lee Kantor: Now, what are you seeing from a trend standpoint? Are companies hiring more full-time employees? Are they going more contract? What is kind of the job market look like through your lens?
Kenida Lewis: You know, that’s – I would say I’ve been – you know, this is a very interesting time. So let’s just start there. I would say that what I’m seeing from a trend standpoint is that companies are still hiring in full-time capacities, let’s say that. But what I’m seeing as I’m scrolling through LinkedIn, I’m on there consistently, all job boards, professional organizations, is that people are finding new opportunities, but they aren’t what the traditional companies that we’re used to hearing like the Coca-Cola or the Pepsi’s or the Twitters or things, Microsoft, or Clorox or, you know, different – you know, you’re used to some household names. They’re very different names that I’ve never heard of, of companies. So some of these startups that have come to be years ago are really coming to fruition, or some people are branching off and doing very different things to be able to compete or take advantage of AI or all of the things that come in through with factory automation and, you know, engineering, those types of things.
Kenida Lewis: So what I am seeing, though, is on the flip side of that are the traditional or nontraditional candidates as I would like to call them, they are a lot more open to contract work, a lot more. I see a lot of candidates or employees that are looking now to transition out of some of the full-time roles because it’s very siloed. You do one thing, one job every day, which is great. It builds a specific skill set. You definitely get experience. You move through the organization, or at least that’s the hope. You get promotions and raises and those types of things.
Kenida Lewis: However, I’m seeing a great need for people and a hunger for them to diversify their skill set because there’s so much opportunity to be able to get new opportunities through social media and some of these other networks or, you know, the Amazon Marketplace. I was on a call today. Walmart has a marketplace where you can get on and sell products.
Kenida Lewis: So, individuals are definitely looking to be able to accept or identify more contract work because it gives them more work-life balance. It gives them an opportunity to diversify their income, and it also gives them an opportunity to expand their skill set beyond just a traditional role. And that’s a challenge for corporations because they still have somewhat of a very traditional model. You go into the work office every day. This is a full-time job. You’re, you know, 8 to 5, 7 to 5, whatever it is. You have after-work events, team building exercises, and then you have this candidate base that is definitely looking for remote work, work from home, and then also contract. So, very interesting times as far as employment trends.
Lee Kantor: Now, how important is it for candidates to just continuously update their skill set? For example, like AI is so popular that you can’t – every day some companies talking about it. Is it something that, if you’re a candidate, especially a young person, that you should be taking advantage of all these kinds of free certifications? Like from the, you know, LinkedIn or HubSpot or Google or Amazon has all these certifications you can get in all these different kind of skills. Is that something that should be just part of your – like, if you’re looking for work, is that should be – that should some of those activities be part of your workweek of just getting and acquiring more of these certifications?
Kenida Lewis: You know, I think it just depends on what the candidate is looking to do. If they feel a little bit unfulfilled in the work that they’re doing, or they feel like they want to do something a little different, I think that that is very important. There are a ton of opportunities for people to be able to tap into, to be able to expand their skill set.
Kenida Lewis: You know, Google has that. There’s coding opportunities. There’s things with AI. There’s also things with social media that you can get certified. You know, Amazon has classes. They have the – I’m going to lose my train of thought as to – AWS services that they have. They’re just tons of things. But it just all depends on what the candidate is interested in pursuing.
Kenida Lewis: What I’m seeing from a standpoint, as far as the certifications are concerned, honestly, is that people, the skills that they have, they’re deeming that those are enough because there are so many opportunities, you know, outside of the traditional workplace. And I think the traditional workplace has a significant amount of advantage as well. But there are so many opportunities outside of the traditional workplace that, you know, leverages, you know, marketplace, network marketing, social media, selling online, those types of things that are pretty easy and intuitive to pick up.
Kenida Lewis: So, I would just encourage anyone that there are tons of resources that are out there for you to upskill if that’s what you’re interested in doing. But then, you know, the resources and the ways to diversify income that are out there now are rather intuitive and it will definitely walk you through to just a new plethora of opportunities for you to take advantage of.
Lee Kantor: Now, when you’re looking for talent, is that part of the service you provide? Like do I, you know, work with you and you coach me? Or is it something that you’re just out there, like you work for the corporations and then you’re out there just kind of scouring LinkedIn and all your variety of places you go to find talent?
Kenida Lewis: We always say that we have three clients. We have the candidate, we have the organization, and then at the same time, we also have, you know, the hiring manager. I think in traditional recruiting, the client has been solely focused on the organization that’s paying the bill. We don’t feel that way. We feel like our product is people, and we take that very seriously.
Kenida Lewis: So we do take the time to do coaching as far as industries that they should be looking in if their resume looks presentable because we feel like that is also a reflection of us, and we also just think that it’s a great service to be able to coach individuals as to how they need to show up. Most people do a very good job with that, but just subtle things may make a difference that we may suggest. And also we have intimate knowledge of our clients. So anything that we can do to make them show up better, we will let them know that.
Kenida Lewis: What I have been getting a lot of now that I’ve been in business, people see me active on LinkedIn and the community and in other places, I just get a lot of people that say, you know, go talk to her. She’s great. Go have a conversation with her. You want a new career, you’re looking to do something different, you want to change, you want a new job, go talk to her.
Kenida Lewis: And I never really considered myself a career coach. But I just figured just through talking people as of late, talking to people as of late, and all of my experience, the nuggets that I give them are very valuable. So now we’ve turned that into, I would say, a mini product or service. So if someone has sent my way and they’re looking for suggestions around career coaching or next steps or new job opportunities, where should I look? I do provide a first consultation for free. That’s anywhere between 30 and 45 minutes for us to get the ball rolling.
Kenida Lewis: Then if you feel like this is something that you’re going to benefit from, we’ll talk about future sessions and what that looks like in hour increments. But as a complimentary service, we do resume review if we’re working with you and actively submitting you for one of the jobs that we have to our clients. So, any of the recruiters on my team or with my organization can help you show up so that you look your best and you have your best foot forward.
Lee Kantor: Now, can you share why it was important for you to become part of the WBEC-West community?
Kenida Lewis: Yeah. WBENC is an amazing organization. It is just filled with women entrepreneurs and, you know, corporate leaders that are championing for other women or all women to be successful. I had the opportunity to go to the WBEC-West procurement conference in Tucson last year, and I literally met people that I had been trying to connect with via social channels for months with no success. And I was like, oh, you know, there’s so and so working right there – by there. She’s a VP of procurement for this hotel company. And you get to network and talk with them. They also have a matchmaking session.
Kenida Lewis: So all of the services that you provide through the state and local government are assigned a NAIC code, if people are familiar with that, and they can match you with employers that are looking for your services. So you can go there. They have tables set up, and you can talk with people that are actually looking to procure the services that you have. They have just a plethora of events that thrust you in just a world of opportunity for your business to be successful, whether that comes from additional certifications if you’re looking for financing, if you’re looking for other resources, you know, operational channels. It’s just a wealth of information. And then also just the database that they have on file.
Kenida Lewis: So if you’re not in front of people or at a conference or at a networking event sponsored by WBEC-West, you can hop in the database and you can type in if you’re looking for someone at Hilton and all of those people will come up. And it’s almost like it’s a warm introduction versus just reaching out to someone on LinkedIn because you’re in this amazing networking group or organization and enterprise that people champion and really believe in. So it’s been nothing but a great resource for me. And I encourage anyone that is considering the opportunity to take advantage of it.
Lee Kantor: So what can we be doing for you? What do you need more of and how can we help?
Kenida Lewis: I would say at this point, it would behoove me to continue to try to take advantage of the opportunities to garner contracts. That’s what everyone is really looking for. Some people say, I need financing, I need this. Well, sometimes if you have the contracts, you know, financing becomes less important. So, really, we ways for people to continue to connect and continue to have great conversations with decision-makers to be able to garner contracts that are in, you know, my area of expertise so that I can continue to grow and I can continue to help other people.
Kenida Lewis: Our mission is people purpose placement. So we place people for and with a purpose, and we would like to continue to do that. And being exposed to other organizations that have great cultures would be amazing for us to connect with, to be able to place some of this amazing talent.
Lee Kantor: So is there a niche or a sweet spot or an industry that you work in or do most of your work in?
Kenida Lewis: We have been very successful in hospitality manufacturing. We’ve placed a ton of engineers, project managers, and engineering and manufacturing and construction hospitality across the board so that’s professional-level positions as well as high-volume positions. And then we’ve also been working in state and local government. And then most recently we launched our sports and entertainment high-volume division. So any of those areas would definitely benefit us.
Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on your team, what’s the website?
Kenida Lewis: It’s www.theadinekgroup.com. And just for humor, I know that The Adinek Group is a mouthful and people ask me how do you pronounce it? But actually, it is Kenida spelled backwards. So, just want people – some people pick up on it right away, and some people are just kind of like, what is it? And, you know, some people kind of mull over it. So that’s an easy way.
Kenida Lewis: We’re also on all social channels. We’re on Instagram, @theadinekgroup. We’re on LinkedIn as at The Adinek Group. We have a full page with our mission, vision, posts, resources, all those things in addition to the website. And we do have a small presence on TikTok. We could do better and we will, but you can find us in all of those places. So once again, it’s www.theadinekgroup.com.
Lee Kantor: Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work, and we appreciate you.
Kenida Lewis: And I appreciate you having me. It’s been such a pleasure. Thank you.
Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Women In Motion.
Janis Thornton with JT Fitness and Golf
Janis Thornton loves to play golf and has been playing for over 20 years. She also has a passion for how our bodies move and wants everybody to age backwards. Janis is greedy, she wants all golfers to play golf well into their 60’s, 70’s, 80’s and 90’s.
Janis owns JT Fitness and Golf, LLC, an online personal training company that specializes in Golf Fitness.
Janis worked in sick care for 25 years working in cardiac rehab and the pharmaceutical industry. Now she happily works in healthcare with her online business.
Janis has been featured in Golf Digest, has written a Golf Fitness Course and is working on a Golf Fitness book for Golfers.
Connect with Janis on LinkedIn, Facebook, X and Instagram.
This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.
TRANSCRIPT
Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.
Stone Payton: Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show, where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this afternoon. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with JT Fitness and Golf. Janis Thornton. How are you?
Janis Thornton: I am doing great. Stone. Thank you so much for having me on.
Stone Payton: Well, it is a delight to have you on the show. I got a ton of questions. Janice, we probably won’t get to them all, but I think maybe a good place to start would be if you could share with me and our listeners kind of a broad perspective mission, purpose. What are you and your team really out there, out there trying to do for folks?
Janis Thornton: Well. So JT fitness and golf is all about helping people age backwards. I love working with golfers, especially since I am an avid golfer myself and being in my mid 50s, I want to be able to play golf well into my 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. So I want to help my fellow golfers be able to do the same thing. Because Stone, quite honestly, I’m going to admit it. I’m actually really greedy. I want to have friends to play golf with as I get older, and so if I can keep them healthy, that’s what I want to do.
Stone Payton: Well, based on that pursuit, I got to believe golf is a part of the answer. But I got to ask, what? What is the back story? How did you get into this line of work serving these kinds of people?
Janis Thornton: So I actually spent 25 years working in sick care, meaning I spent ten years working in cardiac rehab. I spent another 15 years working in the pharmaceutical industry. Therefore I saw a lot of illness. And quite honestly, I got tired of it. And I’ve always been, uh, working in with strength training, with being a personal trainer and just wanted to take my get out of sick care, start my own business. So that way I could really focus on working on the wellness side of things, because now I truly believe I do work in the wellness side of things instead of sick care.
Stone Payton: Well, what was that transition like? Was it were there some surprises, at least early on, making that transition from that world into this entrepreneurial world where you were doing completely your, your own thing?
Janis Thornton: Well, yeah, there definitely is challenges that go along with starting your own business. Uh, because when you go, at least I will speak for myself, starting working in working in corporate America and always kind of having someone guide you along because you always had a boss to becoming your own boss. I will say that was the hardest thing is just like learning how to truly build your own business has been challenging, fun, but challenging because there’s so much to learn about actually starting a business.
Speaker4: Absolutely. Well, now.
Stone Payton: That you’ve been at it a while, what are you finding the most rewarding? What’s the most fun about the work for you?
Janis Thornton: For me is when I can truly help someone make positive changes in their life. When they send me an email and they tell me how they’re able to do something that they weren’t able to do six months ago, or that they saw improvement in their golf swing or their hitting the ball farther down the fairway, or they can walk 18 holes now when they couldn’t. That makes my whole day knowing that I’ve just truly helped someone be better, healthy, healthier, wise and that they have a stronger mental attitude. Just it brings me great joy.
Stone Payton: So I, uh, I’d love to hear some more specifics about the work. And I will confess, I’m not a golfer, with the exception that I do play in a lot of these things where they where they have to let me hit the ball once on each nine for a fundraiser.
Janis Thornton: Yeah. Scramble.
Stone Payton: I love the environment. I love hanging out. I just never have invested the time and energy to get good at all at at golf. But I’m interested in in the, in the work and specifically like are there some unique challenges maybe to people in the golf world that are different above and beyond, or just different than maybe fitness challenges and other domains?
Janis Thornton: Well, golf is a one sided sport, so when you are playing golf, you can actually you really increase your risk for injury because you’re swinging right handed or you’re swinging left handed and you’ve got 100 swings, maybe on just one side. And over time, that puts a lot of pressure on your body and stress on your body. Uh, so when it comes to training for golf, you do have to make sure that you train both sides. And not that not everyone doesn’t need that. But we need to make sure that we reduce our risk for injury. And that’s where strength training really comes in. Um, to that golf or to that person. Now, I will say this, though, I feel like every individual should actually train like a golfer because in golf it’s a very rotational sport and we have to do rotational exercises. However, the general public, we sit a lot. We are riding in a car a lot during the day. We’re at the desk eight hours a day and we need to be training, like I said, training rotationally because think about it. Have you ever been working in your yard, or have you ever been just working in the house? All of a sudden you reach for something and your back tweaks? Oh yeah. You’re like, Holy crap, all I did was reach for something. Guess what? When you train rotationally and get rotational exercises into your workout routine, that’s going to reduce your risk of having that happen.
Stone Payton: Okay, it’s my show. So let’s talk about me for a minute.
Speaker4: Okay? Let’s talk about you for a minute.
Stone Payton: So I’ll be 61 next month. I haven’t played golf. I’m I think I’m reasonably fit. I walk around a lot in this little town that I, that I live in. I get some some exercise, hunting and fishing and that kind of thing. Uh, but if I were to come to you and you tell me if I just wouldn’t even be a viable candidate, but maybe I come to you and say, look, I want to continue to get fit. I want to find other ways to get and stay fit. Or maybe I just want to be better at these scramble tournaments or play a little customer golf. Can you kind of walk me through what our what our work together would look like, particularly in the early stages?
Janis Thornton: Yeah. So first of all, to get better at golf, you actually need to hire a PGA teaching instructor to help you hit the ball better. So I will preface that I do not give golf lessons. However, I’m sure you have a local PGA instructor that would happily help you with that. So yeah, I actually don’t. I do meet with people who are, uh, non-golfers as well. Um, and working with me is different than so when you work with me, it is all still on your time. So I have an app that you download onto your phone, and I push you workouts to that app so you’re able to do workouts at home or at a gym. Now the nice thing is, I have all how to videos that go with all of the exercises, so you’ll actually know what to do with each exercise. I find that a lot of people just want to be told what to do, and not necessarily that I want to meet you at 1:00 on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Uh, because a lot of times people say, oh, work got in the way, or my kids, I had to run them to the doctor.
Janis Thornton: I need to cancel. Well, this way I take out that excuse of whatever your excuse is that you can’t meet me for the day, but I still provide you with the workouts, and you’re able to schedule it into your schedule that best fits you. Plus, like, for example. Right now, you and I are three hours different. Well, let’s say you wanted to work out at 6 a.m.. Well, I hate to tell you, I’m not getting up at 3 a.m.. Sorry to work out with you. However, you would still be able to work out at 6 a.m. because you’ve got the workout that you want to do. Now, bonus! I’m always available to you once you’re my client. I’m available, so if you have questions, you need modifications, then that happens. And of course we do a fitness assessment at the beginning. And if I feel like you need some actual one on one time with me, we’ll set up zoom calls there. I will set up for about 5 to 10 sessions, just to make sure you feel comfortable, to be able to move forward into my app.
Stone Payton: I really like that. It sounds like you get the best of both worlds, where I can, on my own time, when it’s convenient for me, begin to implement the discipline, and I’ve got the access to sounds like videos and information that will help me on my own, but I can tap in and have conversations with you directly, even though, to your point, you know, I’m I’m two time zones away.
Speaker4: Right.
Speaker5: Yeah, exactly.
Stone Payton: I, I gotta believe well, this is true in my business, in the media business at the Business RadioX network. And it was certainly true in the training and consulting arena back when I had something closer to a real job. But there I got to believe that there are probably some myths, some mistakes, some misconceptions that maybe even a pattern that you you see over and over again. Are there some common myths, mistakes, misconceptions in your arena?
Janis Thornton: Well, definitely. When it comes, I think there’s a myth of strength training for a lot of people, and especially women, that will feel like, oh, if I do strength training, I’m going to get big and bulky. However, what people forget is as we get older, some of the things that we lose so much of is muscle mass. We lose balance. We lose strength, mobility, flexibility. Well, we need all of those things in order to age gracefully and age backwards. And that’s what my programs create for you and give you, is that you will increase your muscle mass, which is a good thing because it increases your metabolism. Because as we get older, that slows down. You’re going to increase your flexibility and mobility because I provide class like follow along videos for that, um, for you to do. Also, I improve your balance. And if you ever notice older people when they walk, look at the people who actually shuffle. So that means that they are scared, number one, and they don’t have the balance that they need to actually take steps or the strength. But guess what? When you do strength training strength, that there’s so much power in strength training, it’s crazy. And I just can’t express it enough how important it is to get strength training into your workout sessions. And my business loves to help you be able to do that easily.
Speaker4: Well, I’m glad.
Stone Payton: You’ve brought that out because I feel like I’ve had, um, females in my life, friends, family that were a little bit shy about the idea or had the wrong idea about the the impact, and apparently the very positive impact, if done properly, of females engaging in strength training.
Janis Thornton: Yeah. You don’t have to lift super heavy weights. I’m saying you’re not going to just lift three and 5 pound dumbbells, because guess what? Your groceries weigh more than that. Or your grandchild that you want to pick up weighs more than that. Um, however, you don’t have to be lifting 50 and 80 pound dumbbells either to get a great workout. There’s so many different ways that you can increase your strength that it’s, you know, you have to get away from that bodybuilder mentality. And that’s what I do because like I said, I love to train for golf. I feel like you do train a little bit differently. And my workouts, I make it fun. Uh, quite honestly, because it’s not all just strength training. I improve your strength with using, um, a swing trainer. I help increase your thoracic rotation with a device called the True Turn Pro. And all of these devices truly help your spine, help your joints, help your mobility and flexibility. So it’s just a lot of fun.
Stone Payton: Now, did you know right out of the box, or was it even part of the initial business plan? If you don’t mind sharing to to lean on technology, to have the app to have the virtual access?
Janis Thornton: So I will say it was because one of my friends that I had met who was a personal trainer, she had an online business and at the time I was creating mine and I was thinking, oh, this online thing will be great because she goes, genus, your clients can be anywhere and then you’re able to actually work from anywhere. And at the time I was traveling a lot with my husband and I’m like, what business can I have that I can travel with my husband still and still serve clients and online I can I’m able, I can be anywhere, they can be anywhere, and I’m still able to serve them.
Speaker4: So when.
Stone Payton: You. Yeah, absolutely. Congratulations on that. It sounds to me like you’ve cracked the code for exactly, uh, what you, what you wanted to do and how you wanted to to serve. So have you had the answer to this is certainly got to be. Yes, but I’m going to ask anyway. Have you had the benefit of one or more mentors as you’ve gotten your business up and off the ground and running to kind of help you navigate new terrain?
Speaker4: Oh yeah.
Janis Thornton: I try to have a lot of different mentors in my life. Uh, just because and from different avenues, not just in the fitness world, but like, right now I’m part of a mastermind group and have some great mentors there, just helping me guide how to create, really create this business and make it successful. I’m fortunate enough that, you know, people that I play golf with, some of the women that I play golf with are retired from corporate America, or they still are. They’ve starting their own business. And like one of my friends, she’s really good at operations, so she helps me out a lot, or just getting ideas from all these other people. It’s always fun. I have a bouncing. I’ve, like my board of directors, are all my golfing friends because I’m like, okay, I need my board. Help me with what do you think about this or this idea? You know, what should I do? And so it’s nice to have a lot of mentors and people in my life that I can bounce ideas off of.
Speaker4: Well, there’s.
Stone Payton: A pro tip right there. Establish a board.
Speaker5: Exactly. And you don’t.
Janis Thornton: Even have to pay for them to if you get the right people, which is nice, just play golf with them.
Speaker4: So, uh, how.
Stone Payton: Does the whole sales and marketing thing work for a practice like yours? Do you find that you are out there shaking the trees a little bit, or are you kind of getting to the point where it’s more inbound and sort of coming in over the over the transom or. Yeah, how do you like. The reason I’m asking is, I mean, this conversation you got me sold. Uh, you know, I don’t even play golf. Great. But how does the whole sales and marketing thing work in your world?
Janis Thornton: For me, it’s all about I do a lot of networking, so that way I can just meet people to share what I do with my business and then doing speaking engagements, doing this kind of thing, you know, getting on people’s podcasts, doing a lot of social media. Uh, I really do stick to LinkedIn, though, uh, for my social media. And then, you know, I try to write like a LinkedIn article or, for example, I have a e-book on my website that people can download. And then if you’re on my email list, you know, you can learn, get fitness tips, you know, 3 to 4 times a month. I promise I don’t inundate people with emails, uh, because I know some people do. Anyway, um, you know, I try just different ways to show my business and showcase my business.
Stone Payton: So what was that like, writing a writing a book? Did some parts of it come together a lot easier than others? I’m interested to hear about that experience.
Janis Thornton: So I’ve written a golf fitness course, um, for personal trainers. So I will say that was a task I did last year and it took me. I’m going to admit, it took me a good three months to really kind of plan out what I actually even wanted. And then I went into coming up with, okay, what do I want in it? What videos? And then it was just the process of shooting a videos that go into this course. And what content do I want to have in there? How do I want to make this course different than other golf fitness courses that are available to personal trainers to take? Uh, so it was it was fun, a lot of work. And now I’m going to take that course. And this year I’m actually going to be writing another. Well, I’ll be writing a book just on general golf fitness for the average person. So that way they can start incorporating more golf fitness into their lives.
Speaker4: Oh that’s fantastic. Yeah.
Janis Thornton: So I can’t.
Speaker4: Wait. Well, and I’m.
Stone Payton: Sure it’s a marvelous resource, the one you’ve already written and the one that you’re working toward for the reader. Did you also find that investing the time and energy to commit your ideas to paper did it? Um, I don’t know. Did it help you crystallize your own thinking and solidify, like, even equip you to be that much better in your counseling coaching support role? Did it make you that much better, a practitioner, having taken the time to kind of get it all down and lay it out like that.
Speaker5: I’m gonna say.
Janis Thornton: Absolutely. There was a course that I took and it was actually for a Pilates instructor course to become a mat instructor. And one of the lines that the lady that Tanya said in there was, if you want to become an expert, teach. And I thought I let that resonate for months in my head. And that was one of the things that really got me motivated to actually write the golf fitness course. I’m like, you know, I want to be better at what I do. So what did Tanya say? She said, teach, so why not create this course? And then I and then, you know, God works in mysterious ways, because then all of a sudden, last year, I had this physical therapist that I met on LinkedIn. He approached me and said, he goes, I’ve been following you on LinkedIn. You should write a golf fitness course. So I’m thinking, okay, this is just a little weird. However. And then in my mastermind group, they’re like really big on writing a book, writing something, publishing yourself. I’m like, okay, here we go. So to me it was like, this is meant to be. This was definitely meant to be.
Stone Payton: Now, you mentioned a little earlier in the conversation speaking, and that’s another area I’m kind of fascinated with. Was that daunting at first or were you a natural? Did you learn did you learn something about like mechanics of delivering a keynote or how did that all work for you?
Speaker5: Well, I will tell you.
Janis Thornton: If you knew me back in high school and college, I was incredibly shy. Quite honestly, I’m actually still kind of shy. If I’m in a room full of new people, I’m that person who likes to just sit back and observe and let everyone else do the talking. Uh, but once I get going, I’m good. Um, but I will say it still is daunting to me. I have to I’m an introvert. I have to gear up when I do a talk and get myself pumped up to really do it. However, I also know that I am the expert in the room and the information that I have is really good for people and they’ll be excited about it. So that’s what I focus more on to get me through, because I will give a secret away, because there might be someone else out there who’s like me, um, I get red and blotchy when I get really nervous. And so public speaking, I really have to gear myself up because I’m in front of a big group of people. It’s can be very daunting to me.
Stone Payton: So I don’t know when or how you would find the time, but I’m going to ask anyway. Interests, passions, pursuits outside the scope of this work that that you enjoy. You have a tendency to nerd out about that are kind of outside the scope of this fitness work. Like a lot of our listeners know that I like to hunt, fish and travel.
Speaker4: Mhm.
Janis Thornton: So I will say I definitely love to travel. And the deal is I’m married to a man who loves to play golf as well. He’s he’s more addicted to it than I am. So every vacation is around golf. I do play a lot of golf. Uh, because again I feel like I need to play golf. And so that way I can keep promoting what I do. Uh, but, you know. Sure. I love to go hiking. I love to, you know, be by the ocean, those kinds of things. Also, um, like I said, I do love to travel, so everything will be most of the time, though, centered around golf. That might sound boring, but I don’t want to injure myself trying downhill skiing or, you know, even hiking. I do love to hike. Um, however, I don’t do anything crazy just because I’d be really sad if I tripped and fell and broke a leg or hip or arm. That would be sad, because that means I won’t be able to play golf and I would be unhappy.
Speaker4: So what’s.
Stone Payton: Next? What’s on the horizon? You’ve mentioned pursuing this other book. Uh, any designs on continuing to scale the business or serve a different niche or anything like that? What’s what’s in the near future?
Janis Thornton: So I well, I’m really glad you asked that question because I’m about to launch five new courses, uh, which is very exciting. So they’re based around like if you have neck pain, there’s a course for that. If you have shoulder pain, I have a course for that. If there’s if you have back pain, there’s a course for that. If you’ve got hip or knee pain, I’ve got courses for that as well. And then I’ll even be coming out with a 28 day mobility challenge. And you do not have to be a golfer to take on any of those courses.
Speaker4: Well, I love.
Stone Payton: That you’re drilling down on these specific, uh, areas of challenge for people because it sounds like that you can really you can help specialize or even the, the individual, to some extent, with the right coaching and direction from you can can really personalize your fitness program and your specialized knowledge and expertise to address the exact challenges that they feel like they’re facing.
Speaker5: Mhm.
Janis Thornton: Absolutely. That’s what’s fun. So yeah I’m putting everything together right now. I have the neck course almost finished, almost ready to go. And then I’ll be working on the other four. And so hopefully in a few weeks they’ll all be finished.
Speaker4: Wow.
Stone Payton: You got a lot of irons in the fire Miss Janice.
Janis Thornton: I do, but it’s fun and it’s I love being able to be creative and just be able to help. I want to be able to help a lot of people and just be able to make them feel good. And again, as we get older, sometimes it just gets hard. However, when you do exercise on a regular basis and take care of your body, it’s amazing what it can do.
Speaker4: All right, before.
Stone Payton: We wrap, I’d love to leave our listeners, if we could, with 1 or 2 actionable pro tips. And look, gang, the number one pro tip is to to reach out and have a conversation or go tap into into Janice’s work. And that’s the number one pro tip. But sometime between now and then, if there’s something they can be doing, not doing, reading, thinking about, let’s leave them with a couple of pro tips as a result of just having kind of eavesdropped on this conversation.
Janis Thornton: So the first pro tip is to find movement that you enjoy. That’s you’re going to do on a regular basis, whether it’s with me or someone else or you love group classes, you love to hike outside. Whatever it is, find something that you would love to do each and every day. Because our body craves movement, the more you move, the better you’re going to feel. For those of you tip number two, for those of you who do have a desk job, please make sure that you get up from your desk every hour. Do walk around for even if it’s a couple of minutes, get some water. Make sure you’re filling your water glass each and every hour so you stay hydrated during the day. But get up. Do some stretches. You even do five squats at your desk something, but get movement throughout the day because they’re saying now sitting is the new smoking and it’s deadly to you. If you just sit all day because of it, then you’ve been you slept all night. You and might. If you lay on your side, you’re kind of in a fetal position. You sit in your car to go to work, then you sit at work. You sit in that. Car again to come home, and then you sit some more once you get home. So our bodies are made to move. So let’s get moving.
Speaker4: I am so.
Stone Payton: Glad that I asked and both tips are incredibly valuable for me. It makes me feel better, even more encouraged about, you know, like I, I really enjoy moving in the woods, so traipsing through the woods. While it’s something I thoroughly enjoy, it’s also getting me out there and moving. So. And that’s so yeah, that find something that a way to move that you enjoy. That’s a that’s a great tip. And you’re you’re so right I guess I hadn’t really thought about it. We I guess as a population we sit a lot more than our, our parents or our grandparents did.
Speaker5: Oh, absolutely.
Janis Thornton: And just to your point of view, hunting out in the woods. So here’s the other great thing that’s happening is you are out in Mother Nature. You are getting to just be because I have a feeling when you’re out there, you love being out there that it just brings calmness to you, that you’re like, this is the best. And that’s just something to, you know, appreciate when you’re driving down the road and you get to see a bunch of trees or the flowers or let’s say you’re hunting for that deer. You see it off in the distance. They’re cool. I mean, it’s great to be out in Mother Nature, so we all need to just slow down, stop and smell the roses and enjoy what’s around us.
Stone Payton: Amen. All right. What’s the best way for our listeners to tap into your work and connect with you?
Janis Thornton: The easiest way is going to be to go to JT fitness and Golf.com. And on my website you can schedule a call with me. You can go ahead and just check out my website and we can connect that way.
Stone Payton: Janice, it has been an absolute delight having you on the broadcast. Thank you for your insight, your perspective. Thank you for your enthusiasm. It just comes through over the airwaves. You are doing really important work and we sure appreciate you.
Janis Thornton: Well, Stone, thank you so much again for having me on. I greatly appreciate it.
Stone Payton: My pleasure. All right. Until next time. This is Stone Payton for our guest today, Janice Thornton with JT Fitness and Golf and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying, we’ll see you in the fast lane.
BRX Pro Tip: How to Find a Mentor
BRX Pro Tip: How to Find a Mentor
Stone Payton: Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, I know in a lot of the interviews that I do in my studio, I will often ask if people have had the benefit of one or more mentors to help them navigate new terrain. What’s the best way to go about getting a mentor?
Lee Kantor: Finding a mentor is tricky, and a lot of people would like a mentor, but they don’t know how to go about getting a mentor. And it’s one of those things where you just can’t wait to for someone to go, “Hey, do you want to be mentored? I’d love to mentor you.” That’s just not going to happen.
Lee Kantor: So, you have to be proactive when it comes to finding a mentor. The first things you have to do is kind of do your research. Who’s doing what you want to do and they’re doing it in a manner that you respect and value. So, kind of get a list of potential mentors going, and then jump on LinkedIn and see if anybody knows that person, or if you know that person, try to get a warm introduction from somebody you know who is connected to them.
Lee Kantor: Then, get on Google, Amazon, Spotify, research all about them, read their books, articles, listen to podcasts are on. And then, remember that even if you never get to meet them or they don’t want to mentor you, you can still be mentored by them by reading all their stuff and listening to their content.
Lee Kantor: Something that Business RadioX operators have kind of a cheat code on is that we have the ability to invite potential mentors or potential people we want to partner with or work with as a guest on a show to learn more about them and build a relationship that way, so we have kind of an advantage when it comes to mentors or any other type of thought leader. We have the ability to invite them on a show and learn all about them and begin a relationship so that maybe one day we can do business together or maybe work together or mentor.
Christian Kuswita with ACAP Cobb & Cherokee
Brought to you by Diesel David and Main Street Warriors
Christian Kuswita, President and Owner of ComForCare Home Care Cobb County and Co-Coordinator of ACAP Cobb & Cherokee , is a passionate and diverse entrepreneur and marketing professional with the goal of leveraging 20+ experience in marketing, sales, and customer service to help older adult clients live their best life possible. Aspire to create a family-first working environment to empower, nurture, and mentor client-driven caregivers.
ACAP Cobb & Cherokee has been established to offer information, resources, support, and community to enhance the quality of life for area caregivers and their older adult loved ones. Beginning in February 2024, the chapter will provide caregivers with resources, choices, and information that will promote confidence in navigating the often stress-filled responsibility of providing care for aging loved ones. We seek to grow a community of caregivers so that strength can be realized by program participants in company with others who share similar journeys and concerns.
Connect with Christian on LinkedIn and follow ACAP Cobb & Cherokee on Facebook.
This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.
TRANSCRIPT
Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Woodstock, Georgia. It’s time for Cherokee Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.
Stone Payton: Welcome to another exciting and informative edition of Cherokee Business Radio. Stone Payton here with you this morning, and today’s episode is brought to you in part by our Community Partner program, the Business RadioX Main Street Warriors Defending Capitalism, promoting small business, and supporting our local community. For more information, go to Main Street warriors.org and a special note of thanks to our title sponsor for the Cherokee chapter of Main Street Warriors Diesel David, Inc. please go check them out at diesel.David.com. You guys are in for a real treat. Please join me in welcoming to the Broadcast Chapter co-coordinator with ACAP Cob & Cherokee, Mr. Christian Kuswita. Good morning, sir.
Christian Kuswita: Good morning Stone. Thank you for having me here.
Stone Payton: Well, it is a delight to have you in the studio. I have a ton of questions. I know we’re not going to get to them all, but I think it would be a great idea if you could share with me in our listener listeners mission. Purpose. What are you and your team over there at Acap really, really trying to do for folks? Man. Yeah.
Christian Kuswita: So Acap stands for adult children of Aging parents. Um, the mission is simple. We want to provide free community and education to adult children and also their, you know, the spouses of an older adult, um, to provide them with the equip them with information before a crisis happens. Um, a fall, for example, a hospitalization, um, chronic diseases, a lot of that happens and create that crisis. And, and we want to be there before that happens to get them the information and community and help that they need.
Stone Payton: Well, it sounds like a noble pursuit to me. And I got to tell you, you’re striking a chord. I shared with you before we came on air. My folks, uh, 81. I said 81 and 83. Actually, dad’s birthday was just the other day. Um, so for a little while, 81 and 84. And I got to believe there are things that my brother and I should be doing to help them get prepared for this next stage. And I got to confess, I don’t even know. I do know that we don’t know the questions we ought to be asking, the things we ought to be doing, the challenges we should be anticipating. Right?
Christian Kuswita: Yeah, absolutely. So the the mission started with my own, um, experience and then the pursuit of actually helping others in my company. So my dad actually, um, passed away about 12 years ago from a stroke. It’s not the stroke that killed him. It was the isolation that killed him. Because we actually got a really good, uh, personal care aide that could help him. But then. The person could not really connect with my dad. And so that isolation, since everybody worked, um, really that I think what what really made him give up on life and then passed away, um, that actually started me to do or to open Comfort Care Home care, which is an in-home care that helped a lot of older adults in Cobb and Cherokee with their, you know, their their needs, their personal care needs, their compassion, compassion, uh, companionship, need. However, what we found a lot of the times is that, you know, when when somebody seek help to us or many other professionals that help seniors in Cobb and Cherokee is when a crisis happens. When a crisis happens, people’s life are turning upside down, especially their adult children, their spouses. And then they’re they’re sometimes make the wrong decisions about, you know, things they don’t know a lot about what they need to do. They chose, you know, wrong companies. They got into a lot of, you know, frauds and stuff like that, scams. And so I think what’s important about Acap is providing those information early on, equipping themselves with those information. And so when crisis happens, they’re ready, right? They’re ready. They don’t have to be there. The process can be a lot easier, right. And the journey can be easier if they’re equipped with the right information and resources.
Stone Payton: This sounds to me like the best time to do this is yesterday, and the next best time is today. Exactly. And quit saying tomorrow.
Christian Kuswita: Yeah, and that’s why Acap is not so. So the the the meeting is once a month. The Acap cop and Cherokee meets once a month. Usually it’s going to be the third Thursday of the month, um, from 630 to 8:00 in Marietta. But we are online too. So if they go to Acap community. Org, for example, there’s a ton of information. So when you sit yesterday and today, I completely agree, because even if our show or our meeting is not until, you know, some sometime third week of June, but they can go to Acap community org and still get a lot of podcasts, a lot of, uh, recorded of the past meetings. Uh, there’s blogs so you can start learning about that particular, you know, all the aspects right now.
Stone Payton: Okay. I want to hear more about this backstory, because I think what you shared was what compelled you to get into this business of home care. Was your experience with your with your father. Uh, say more about that, if you will. And I’m interested in the the notion of I mean, you also just opening a business. I know as an entrepreneur myself that can be a little bit daunting. What was that experience like?
Christian Kuswita: It was it was interesting. So so we actually opened our business, uh, in August 2020. And you know what happened in August 2020. Yeah. Right. And so, um, but but going back to, to why we did this and why my wife and I opened this company is, you know, as we saw what happened to my dad. And by the way, you know, my, my wife’s grandmothers, both of them actually passed away due to falls. Um, one of her grandmother actually had an incident where she fell, um, wasn’t found for probably 18 hours. Um, and the only reason that she was found was because, you know, her caregiver came in the morning. Um, the door was locked, and she almost left until she saw the curtains. Starts moving, and she was. What’s going on there? The the colonel was moving. So then she called 911. They opened the door and she was lying there for 18 hours, and she was still had the strength to just pull the curtains slowly, just in hope that that it would alert somebody. And luckily, the caregiver saw that she went to the hospital, rushed to the hospital, and she passed away. So, you know, those information and those experiences that we had really compelled us to look at, you know, how can we help? We can’t help them any longer because they already passed. But how can we then help, you know, somebody else that is hopefully not in that experience, but help them to live independently and safely for as long as they can? And I think the, the in-home care, um, industries is what we, what we, what we chose to. And I tell you, we’ve helped so many, so many older adults, um, live safely and independently. We call it live their best life possible.
Stone Payton: Yeah. So you’ve been at it a little while now. I can’t believe you started when you started that. That in itself is incredible to me. We were able to weather that storm, but I don’t know if we’d have ever gotten off the ground. Me and Lee with Business RadioX network if we’d had started then, uh, but now that you’ve been at it a while, what are you finding the most rewarding about the business? About the work? What’s the most fun for you?
Christian Kuswita: Well, you know, it’s funny. People always ask us, and, you know, of course, you you you didn’t know what the business. Is all about. And you could ask so many questions during the discovery period, but you wouldn’t know until you really doing it right. And so, you know, many people came to us and said, hey, you’ve been in the business for almost four years. You’re doing really well. You are developing your brand. You’re you’re you’re delighting and helping your clients. Is it hard? And I said, absolutely. It is hard. I mean, it is the hardest thing that my wife and I had done in our life. Right. Um, but I always tell this analogy about golf, right? Um, I suck at it. Okay. I’m very bad. Going to be.
Stone Payton: Friends. Me too.
Christian Kuswita: Right, right. I, you know, but I love going out and and and go to, to golf course because, you know, some of the most beautiful sceneries are in golf courses, but I don’t I don’t play well. But every time I go out and play a round of golf with its nine holes or 18 holes, there is just one hit, one hit that made me always come back, right? Um, that one hit that made me mesmerized and said, oh my gosh, I’m so good at this, I love it. I want to go back. I think this work is like that. So whenever my wife and I, you know, you know, all the challenges with finding caregivers, a lot of changes with the client’s needs, you know, all those things, um, every time we help an individual and when their spouse or their children came to us and said, hey, Christian and Earlene, you know, my dad’s life, um, the last three months of his life was really help because of your help and your caregivers. That’s the fuel that we get every single day to wake up and help everybody that that needs this, that is that is the purpose of this job. This job. Well, I.
Stone Payton: Can I can see it in your eyes and I can hear it in your voice. And I know that you’re quite, uh, sincere when you when you relay that. I gotta believe that you run into some of the same. I’ll call them myths, mistakes, misperceptions, misconceptions about this whole arena. Can you share some with us so that we can be on the lookout and try to guard ourselves against falling into these traps? Yeah.
Christian Kuswita: So you’re meaning about in-home care, correct? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Um, so there’s a few. We call it myth. Uh, on in-home care. I think the biggest one is, uh, Medicare. Right. So some people would say, oh, yeah. You know, does it cover by Medicare? In-home care is not Medicare covered. The only reason for that is because Medicare will cover, um, health related issues or activities. So things like wound care, um, you know, changing or colostomy bags, oxygen now in home care is deemed as or classified as non-medical and therefore unfortunately, it is not covered by Medicare. There are some other sources of payments other than out of pocket. Most of our clients pay out of pocket, but then long term care insurance can cover home care if they have um, uh, VA benefits called an attendance benefit can cover that. And then lastly, Medicaid can cover that, right? So that’s the first myth. The second myth is we talk about that non-medical side side side of it. Uh, people always say, hey, you know, can you change the oxygen level, you know, for my dad, or can you provide, uh, administration of medication in home care? We can’t do that because we are non-medical. A good example is the medication. We can remind somebody to take their medication, but we can’t manage or administer the medication. So the medication has to be already managed by, you know, the family members or even the pharmacy in pill boxes. We can then remind the client to take that medication. So those those are the two biggest, I would say, myths. Uh, in in home care there are certainly several others, but those are the two biggest ones.
Stone Payton: Well, then it occurs to me that perhaps many people should start earlier than later, even if it’s because it’s not like we got to have you again. You know what? It’s my show. We’re going to. Let’s talk about me a minute. My folks are 81 and 84. You know, my brother’s down in Tallahassee. Um, right now, things are pretty good. Mom did have a pretty nasty fall not too long ago. Uh, and things are fine, but, you know, how bad would it be? Or reframe differently? How great would it be if somebody came in, provided a little companionship, gave gave them a little bit of a break from each other, maybe help prep a meal or maybe some of these other services. I don’t know what they’re allowed to do, but, uh, you know, just kind of keep things on track and be a be around. That’s that’s right in your wheelhouse. Right?
Christian Kuswita: Yeah, absolutely. I think you are absolutely right. There are certainly many individuals, older adults that really don’t know what in-home care is, and they resist the care. Right. And especially when you already have a crisis that can be difficult. So easing them in um, is is a great idea. Um, a lot of home care companies, I think almost all of them have a minimum. And the minimums can be different. Like in our case, for example, the minimum is only four hours a day. We don’t have a requirement that you have to come, that we have to come three days a week. We just have the requirement of four hours per day. That means that, you know, we have clients that call us for once a month for transportation, right. And so we want to make it very easy and very simple for you to use us. And then when we start doing the, um, the companionship right early on, we can set it where, you know, it’s a fun kind of trip with a friend. Now, again, many of our caregivers are older, too. Our average caregiver age at about 40. 35, maybe 48 years old. And so that’s good because one is they’re more reliable, right? The older they get, the more responsible they are.
Christian Kuswita: Um, the older they get, the more passionate and have a lot more experience. And so we can really, truly do that companionship. We have a client now that does twice a week with us at four hours, and she just goes shopping with them like go shopping, watch a movie, just have fun, go to restaurants. She lives in the community, but she really doesn’t connect with the people there because she is still very independent. Uh, mobility is very good. And so she wants to do the things that she would like to do. Our caregiver was, is 48, I think, the one that helped her. And so it really fits with her a lot. It’s almost like a daughter that she never had. So easing in, we can design an activity for that four hours depending on what the client likes, your mom or dad, for example. And then we can make sure that those activities are meaningful. And then if something happens, you know, in the future, they don’t they already have that experience with us. Right. And so they’re more willing to accept the help. And I think that is that is really crucial.
Stone Payton: Yeah. Clearly there’s the immediate value that I feel like you outlined very well and I find incredibly compelling. But it makes that next conversation, that next set of conversations easier when it’s time to transition and ramp up the the level of care that makes all the sense in the world. Yeah.
Christian Kuswita: So from from doing a companionship and transportation care to then next step would be personal care. Much easier when they already start at the beginning, even if they’re doing it once a month or once every week or twice, uh, every two weeks, it doesn’t matter. To start is is always a good, um, a good direction as well.
Stone Payton: So what I’m picking up from this already. So thank you. This has been incredibly valuable for me. I hope the listeners are getting something out of it, but this is a great opportunity for Stone to learn something. If you want to talk to smart people and learn something, get yourself a radio show. But. But what I’m picking up from this is, uh, you know, Russ and I, my little, my little brother and I, we could begin almost immediately to avail ourselves of this education and input from Acap. And at the same time, maybe one of our early, uh, activities is to look into just getting a little bit of companionship, just, you know, to get things, get things going. And then we touched on it briefly, but I get the idea that there’s tremendous value in getting all of your, uh, your ducks in a row, you know, like, where’s, uh, and, you know, take all the help I can get with approaching the conversation, you know, where’s the money? Where’s the insurance? What do you how do you want things done? There’s, uh, there’s a lot to do.
Christian Kuswita: Yeah. And and that’s a great point, stone. So, Acap, um, I run is a nonprofit organization, and it is by chapters. Our chapter, of course, is copying Cherokee. Uh, it is run by Volunteers of leadership team. We have we have 15 leadership teams. And our team, um, and we Kelly and I handpick all of those people in there to make sure that two things. One is we have a very diversified. Industries experts in the team. So, for example, Kelly is in senior placement, right? Uh, uh, helping seniors to look for, um, independent living community or assisted living memory care. I’m in in-home care. So we go and and and make sure that people live safely, live their best life possible. We also have, um, Nelson elder care law is represented, uh, somebody from Medicare, somebody from Edward Jones, financial planners moving, um, moving managers, uh, community is represented. So we have modification company. And so that’s number one. So the diversification of the leadership is important because we want to make sure that if there’s any questions like I have to be honest, I don’t know all the questions. I don’t know all the answers about older adults and their needs, because I’m only very focused on one side of the industry. But if but if somebody comes to me, I tell them I will find the answers right? I can find the answers because of the people that I’m working with right now. And these eight cap leadership teams really showcase that.
Christian Kuswita: The second thing is the people that we chose that we pick really think about the others first and not their business, right, because that’s important. And we tell everybody because again, vendors also come to our meeting in a cap and we tell them this is a safe space. If you are not a sponsors that provide the funding for us, you have to come without with your companies, you know, put the put them at the door when you come in. Right. There’s no solicitation. We even like our leadership teams. We only wear the A cap badge. I mean, I’m wearing my comfort care badge, but if I go to the meeting and I’m not the sponsor, I’m wearing my A cap badge. I don’t say who I am unless I’m a guest speaker. If I’m guest speaking, we want to make sure that there’s credibility. So I have to say, who do I work for? Um, but this individuals that that serve the a cap company Cherokee serve others first and serve their companies later. That’s critical because when somebody goes to them and asks them questions, they will give them the real answers about how to help and not about the benefit of their companies. Now, if their company seems to match of what the the, um, children is needing, then yeah, hopefully that will connect. But it’s to help first and to serve first.
Stone Payton: I love it. Uh, and people who listen to this show know that we often. Subscribe to and try to make a point of reminding people to serve first serve early, serve often. It all comes back to you if if it should and it and it often should and and often does. So when you were making the transition to building your business up, did you have the the benefit of one or more mentors to kind of help you navigate the the terrain early on, or were you just baptized by fire or how did what was that like?
Christian Kuswita: I think it’s both. It’s both. I think the number one mentor that I have to mention in my life was my dad. Um, so he’s an entrepreneur. Um, it’s funny that I told him so many times during our conversation, you know, as as father and son, I said I would never work for you, right? Because because the time that he spent away from the family, building that business, I think was the number one thing. But guess what? I’m here. Yeah. Um, so, so I think with him is spending time and him mentoring me about how to run a business, because it’s not just the sales and marketing side of it. It’s is is the customer service and how you treat people, how you treat your employees. How do you build a culture of the companies? How do you then treat your referral sources, right? Your partners, those are all important. But then also, you know, simple things like, you know, making sure that there’s enough toilet paper in your in your restroom, right. Because that’s just, you know, you wear so many hats. But I think seeing him did what he did, you know, growing the company was always to me I think it’s, it’s a, it’s a number one thing. Secondly, it’s my work, my past work in corporate America. I’ve been very fortunate that I’ve worked with so many great individuals and mentors. Um, you know, from the different companies I’ve been and I’ve been in different areas such as customer service.
Christian Kuswita: I’ve been in, uh, product development, product management, sales and marketing. Um, and I’ve seen operations work with operations, manufacturing, things like that. And so I kind of know and want to want to demonstrate the good things of what I’ve learned and not to do the bad things that I’ve learned. Right. And so I think that kind of helpful, too, in this job. And and also interestingly, there were, I would say, 2 or 3 people that really helped me when we first opened the business. And one of them actually is our competitor. Um, one of our competitor became one of my biggest, um, mentor. Um, and also there’s another lady that that actually is, uh, owns a sister company that is owned by the same company that owned the brand Comfort Care. That also helped us. So there’s 2 or 3 that really just, you know, we still have to do everything right. It’s our it’s our company. But they kind of put us in the right direction and pointed us to the right opportunities and kind of, you know, guide us through the way. And I’m forever thankful to those people. Right. Because, again, I think you have to have great mentors in your life, not only for work but also personal life. Right? Because that’s how we all learn, you know, because we’re never perfect, never perfect.
Stone Payton: It’s so encouraging and reinforcing for you to to say that about mentors in general, but encouraging for you to share your experience with a competitor. I had a mentor early in my career. I kind of grew up in the training and development world, and he said, Stone, serve your competitors and you won’t have any. And to a degree that that has come so, so true. And this whole serve first serve early serve often value system clearly, uh, you you have it as as well.
Christian Kuswita: Yeah. And and you know, to be honest. And if you look at the, the statistics and it’s really staggering, um, that I think every day 10,000 US citizens, um, turn 65 R right. And so and so that statistics and the change in our demographic every day in the US is staggering meaning and plus also a lot of those people that turn 65 will have issues. It could be chronic diseases, could be dementia and other and other diseases, Alzheimer’s, Lewy body vascular dementia, things like that. And they will need help. And I think it is it is illogical and it’s not logical for you to. Push away your competitors, because at this, at the same time, you know, as a company, you’re going to need help. You have you need all that you can have to help, you know, the seniors. And so I don’t think our company is equipped to handle everybody. And so that’s why the competitive landscape is important. And we want great competitors, because if we need to refer some of our clients because we can’t handle them or the volume, the volume, then we have people that we trust that we can refer to and we refer to our competitors to, um, for that. And we vet them, we vet them, we know who’s good, we know who’s new, we know who’s not very good. So we when we have to refer, we refer to those that we really, really trust.
Stone Payton: One of the things that I absolutely love about the way that you’ve chosen to approach and serve your market is I’m getting the the distinct impression that you’re the guy that knows the guy, uh, you know, like, uh, as for example, I have gotten to know the folks over at, uh, Nelson Elder care, uh, law. Uh, but, boy, if I were on the hunt for somebody, I got to tell you, after this conversation, my first call is to Christian, right? And I do. You you clearly have that position in the community. I got to believe you enjoy being the guy that knows the guy, too, right?
Christian Kuswita: I do, I do because I think, again, the brought up, you know, from my dad, you know, I, I’ve been always very social. Um, I like to know people. I like to build relationships. And so I think logically when we open the company, you know, my wife said, I’m not doing things that you’re going to do, you’re going to do and you’ll be the face of the company. And so I did. And part of that too, um, is to to find a network with like minded individuals. Um, and there is actually a really large, very passionate, very intimate networking in Cobb and Cherokee for seniors called the Cope and Cherokee, uh, services for the elderly. Um, and we meet twice as actually we meet once a month, uh, but we rotate between Cobb location and Cherokee location. Um, we are you know, it’s funny, when we first when I first joined, it’s during Covid, the first meeting that we had after Covid where we could do a face to face, there was only less than maybe 25 people. Now we have about 70, 80 people strong that come in.
Christian Kuswita: Um, we have more than 150 members, you know, and so but those are the people that are, um, serving, you know, in home care. They are hospice, home health, uh, elder care laws, Realtors that specialize in older adults, moving managers. So those are the people that I work with and our network with. And when I say intimate and and and passionate, you know, it’s funny because the group grows every single time. But then you have that. Core people that is always there. And then the people that come in that that have a different intent of just serving others, you can see that they come in once and they just they just don’t fit in. Right. And so that’s the the thing about this networking group is that, um, you know, this is one that I think I would recommend if somebody is serving the older adult community, you can go to Cope and Cherokee Service for the elder website, look at their meetings, come and join us because I think you’ll find this networking is also very valuable.
Stone Payton: So you touched on a pro tip that probably applies to setting up and building a business with anyone, but particularly a spouse. And that’s a clarity of roles, because say more about that and any other tips you might have for a couple that are looking at launching and growing a business?
Christian Kuswita: Well, you know, what’s funny is, um, my wife never worked in a day in her life until we opened this company. Really? Yes. So she she has a marketing degree. But then because we came so we immigrated from Indonesia in 1999. And so with my schooling and then work, uh, she couldn’t work because she’s my she was my independent until my she was my dependent until probably, uh, you know, 6 or 7 years ago when, when we got our green card. Actually, more than that, like ten, ten, 15 years ago. Um, so when we opened the company, it was the right time because, you know, we are financially sound. So we could have investment to open the company. We are and our kids are, are much older and so they’re self-sufficient. I joke with my wife like, you know, at that time we could leave the kids for a month, as long as the the fridge is full, they’re not going to die. They’ll be okay. Right? They have a car. They can, you know, one of them can drive them around. They’ll be fine. Right? Um, and then. And then we love Atlanta area. So we moved around so much. And now that we’re in Atlanta area, the diversity, the weather, the location, the people, we just loved it. So so we want to plant our roots here. We said, you know what? We’re not going to move anywhere. Um, you know, I don’t like my job and I want to quit. I said, what what’s your thought about opening our own company? And so the funny thing about when I said that she hasn’t she never worked in her life is that she she does not she she did not have that corporate America mentality.
Christian Kuswita: Right. Good example. Um, when when we first open our door, of course, we have to, um, we have to, um, orientate, put orientation for our caregivers. I, I develop a 35 pages PowerPoint slides, right, that I put on the TV and every caregiver that came in, you know, I said, okay, here’s number one, safety is first, blah, blah, blah. And I went through everything and then guess what? They’re all fell asleep. They all fell asleep. Right? Because again, caregivers are not corporate America. They don’t have that experience. They see me. They see me as, oh, this is somebody that worked in companies like, that’s not my style. I don’t connect with them. Um, my wife just said, forget it, don’t do that. So then she started with just talking one on one, just having conversation, talking about life, talking about their kids, talking about, you know, where they move from and just basically getting to know them at the same time. Then, you know, they’re doing the same thing. They’re they’re signing off the paperwork, they’re doing the drug test, they’re doing the background check and all those things. And you know, it. It took longer. It took two hours, three hours to get it. But then it’s so much different because the caregiver is starting to connect with her on a personal level. Right. And so this industry is not about, you know, some yeah, pay is important, but it’s not about benefits.
Christian Kuswita: In-home care companies have probably the less benefit than other health care type industries. So being able to connect on a personal level that my wife can, can do helps tremendously. Um, and that’s the thing that I value from her, you know, you know, at first I said you got to learn everything from me. But then after I see some examples that she did, I’m like. Damn. Don’t learn from me. Do what you do because I think what you do work. Then why do you. You know, why do I have to push that? And so that’s that’s been the case. I mean, she’s been rocking it. We’ve been able to recruit caregivers. Uh, tremendously. We’ve been able to get clients being happy because she, you know, very personal not only to the characters but the clients. And so that works. Um, but also working as a couple has a lot of issues, too, right? Because again, there’s two different mindset trying to run the same thing, trying to row in the same direction. And that will always come to conflicts. But as long as you know where the line line, you draw the line, right? Like I’m marketer, I’m client, client relationship. I do all of the other things that are business related. But then she deals with the operations side of it. And if I don’t try to cross that line, I think we will have a pretty good relationship at the end. Trust me, I never slept in the couch yet since the four years that we opened the company, so I think we’re still doing pretty good.
Stone Payton: That’s an important metric. You don’t have to sleep on the couch.
Christian Kuswita: You’re right. Percent. How much you sleep on the couch during the four years? That’s a really good. Yeah, I agree with that.
Stone Payton: Well, I don’t know when or how you would find the time, but I’m going to ask anyway. Passions, interests, hobbies that you pursue out outside the scope of this work. Is there anything you like nerd out about and go do to just kind of get away from it for a bit?
Christian Kuswita: Yeah. So we like to travel. Um, and so hopefully we’ll, we’ll still have time to travel. Um, the, the, the bad part about working, still working in the business, not on the business. We still have to work during our travel. So if we have to go, um, to, to vacation, we still have to work. We love to play tennis. And so we played a lot. And I think because just the traditional I think we’re getting sucked also to pickleball. So we’re starting to play pickleball as well. Yeah. Um, we enjoy great friends and food. And so we get together a lot with some of our great friends and just, you know, drink, um, you know, wine and food. Um, those are probably some. And spend time with the families, of course. Right. Um, so those are some of the things that that we love to, we love to enjoy as a family together.
Stone Payton: So do you find that when you do step away a little bit, even if you’re still working a little bit, that it does kind of give you a chance to to recharge, refresh, get a different perspective and be that much better equipped when you get back to serve, even even better, I know I do.
Christian Kuswita: Yeah. Well, I think there’s there’s two parts. Number one is if, if when we do really vacation with the families, we got so tired when we come back, we need a vacation, right? To me, I think my my recharge time is the weekends where there’s nothing going on. Um, and, you know, I just take my my wife, we go to winery drive and just do nothing. And, you know, at that point in time when it’s like in the afternoon, you know, that the shift starts in the morning or the shift will not start again until at night. That middle part is kind of void, which is great. Right? So there’s no issues. That’s where we can really enjoy. So we just sit down, get a bottle of wine, look at the views, drink, talk, eat. Maybe there’s music there. Um, or if there’s just a time that there’s nothing going on, we just can, you know, go to our neighborhood pool and just relax there. Those are the the the type of things. Vacations. I think we’re trying to do too much sometimes that we’re like, oh my gosh, like, I need another three days. But those, those relaxing moments, you know, weekends are the ones that I really enjoy to recharge myself.
Stone Payton: All right, before we wrap, let’s make sure that our listeners have good, easy to reach coordinates to tap into all the marvelous work that Acap is doing. And let’s make sure that if they want to have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on your team, uh, maybe they’re even interested in in, in working with you. Uh, or maybe they’re like me and Russ, it’s time to learn to learn more, but let’s leave them with some coordinates. Uh, whatever you think is appropriate. Websites, LinkedIn, whatever.
Christian Kuswita: Yep. So, Acap, uh, you can go to Acap community. Org. So Acap community.org and then look for the cop and Cherokee um chapter. So if you go to location, go to Georgia, there’s a cop in Cherokee location that’s specifically to us. There are also two other in Georgia. So if you’re listening, let’s say from uh, Atlanta area, there is the North Atlanta one. So you can look at that. Um, they meet on a different day. I think they meet on the second Tuesday. We meet on the third Thursday. And then there’s also in Gainesville in Hall County. Um, and then if you go to Acap community, or you can also look at all of the podcasts, all of the videos, recordings, you know, things like that, topics, you can go there. Um, and then if you want to learn more about Acap or about comfort care about our, uh, our company in Cobb and Cherokee, feel free to give me a call. My direct cell number is seven seven. 02947176. You can text me there. You can call me there. That’s my my cell phone that I carry everywhere. And so it’s 24 hours a day. So if you have any questions about anything just let me know on that number.
Stone Payton: Well, Kristen, it has been an absolute delight having you in the studio this morning. Thank you for your insight, your perspective, your enthusiasm, and your your commitment to genuinely serving. This has been a a marvelous way to invest a Tuesday morning man. And we we sure appreciate you.
Christian Kuswita: Thank you so much, Stone. Thank you for.
Stone Payton: Listening. My pleasure. All right. Until next time. This is Stone Payton for our guest today, Christian Kusuda with Acap Cobb and Cherokee and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying, we’ll see you again on Cherokee Business Radio.
LaQuita Mason with ELife Home Care
LaQuita Mason, a Healthcare Administrator with a Master’s Degree in Healthcare Administration concentrating in Long-Term Care, symbolizes excellence in the healthcare business.
With over 18 years of broad experience, including a decade of duty in the United States Air Force, her path is defined by extraordinary accomplishments and a profound dedication to excellent care. Her military experience saw her thrive in jobs ranging from Aerospace Medical Technician in Family Medicine to Critical Care Technician in the Intensive Care Unit and Emergency Medicine, as well as a Flight Medic in Aero-medical Evacuation.
LaQuita’s leadership over five deployments garnered her kudos for her agility and clinical brilliance. Transitioning to the Senior Care Industry, LaQuita’s enthusiasm for uplifting the lives of seniors became her driving force.
She advocates honesty as vital to helping vulnerable people and has managed multi-million dollar operations with teams reaching 120 doctors and support workers. Her jurisdiction includes multiple healthcare sectors including Post-Acute Care, Long-Term Care, Home Healthcare, and Hospice. Renowned for her sincere, caring leadership,
LaQuita establishes demanding standards for care, embracing the idea that “excellence is personal.” Her passion is built in personal experience, having cared for her Aunt Pokey throughout a vital era, which instilled in her a strong awareness of the caregiver’s responsibility.
Beyond her professional activities, LaQuita takes peace in traveling with her spouse, immersing herself in the awe-inspiring grandeur of the world’s natural treasures.
Follow ELife Home Care on LinkedIn and Facebook.
This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.
TRANSCRIPT
Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Houston, Texas. It’s time for Houston Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.
Trisha Stetzel: Hello, Houston. Trisha Stetzel here bringing you another episode of Houston Business Radio. I’m really excited about the guests that I have on today. LaQuita Mason, who is the administrator for ELife Home Care. LaQuita and I have something in common. She is also a veteran, which is amazing and I can’t wait to dig into the details around her business. So she is the healthcare administrator with a master’s degree in Health Care Administration, concentrating in long term care, and symbolizes excellence in the health care business. With over 18 years of broad experience, including a decade of duty in the United States Air Force, her path is defined by extraordinary accomplishments and a profound dedication to excellent care. Welcome to the show.
LaQuita Mason: Thank you so much. So we’re so grateful to join you and just so appreciative for having us on today.
Trisha Stetzel: Well, I am really excited to have you. So you and I got to meet at a veterans event that I was representing the Veterans Chamber at, and I’m so glad you showed up because we have so many things in common. Right. It’s I wasn’t involved or engaged in that space and I am now. And so just getting the message out there and really bringing in amazing people like you who are running businesses and have a decade of experience in the United States Air Force. So I gave a brief introduction of you. I’d like to know a little bit more about your background. So what can you share with us?
LaQuita Mason: Yeah. So that was really aging me. I thought about that. It’s been years. It’s been 18 years. And so it’s really starting to age. But I always tell everyone that I feel like healthcare chose me because when I was sitting in that basic training room and I opened the package and it said, um, air medical evacuation technician, I thought, what is that? It’s a really fancy long. You know, the Air Force uses these really fancy terms. And I thought, what is that? And it’s really led me on this amazing journey. I started out as a medic in, um, in a clinic setting, and then I eventually went into critical care and worked in emergency settings, and I worked in the ICU, and I was able to deploy over five times while I was in the Air Force. And I worked, um, in one of the largest and one of the most busiest ers at that time, which is Balad, Iraq. I actually was privileged to be there twice. And so that’s a very, very, um, sentimental place for me. I really had to grow up professionally and personally. And I just, I treated a lot of my experiences to that encounter from the very first trip, um, in Balad, Iraq. And so after, um, returning, I became a flight medic and deployed a couple times as well. And I just felt this desire that I was supposed to do something, something different. And I felt that while I was privileged to take care of one of my family members, which was my aunt with my mom’s twin sister, and I was also privileged to take care of my dad as well.
LaQuita Mason: And it was one of the most vulnerable moments in their life. And I just have come to believe that home is so much greater than a brick and mortar. It’s something that is sacred. It’s a sanctuary. And so I just remember both of them that were in they were at those stages of being end of life. And they said, can you take me home? I just want to go home. And I started to have this burning desire. And at that time I was still military, and I just felt like through my heart to serve them. It’s almost like God was giving me these ideas that this is where you’re supposed to be. And I couldn’t run from it. So I thought like, oh, I’m gonna do all these different things. But it would just keep coming back up. And I just felt like, this is something that I’m supposed to replicate to hundreds and thousands of other family members, because when we think about home, it’s our heritage. It’s a legacy. And for me, I felt like it was such a privilege and it makes me almost emotional thinking about it. Um, because I got to be there in some of the most sacred moments of their life and times of where I wasn’t able to see those things.
LaQuita Mason: I got to learn things about them that others may not have gotten to experience because I was there during those vulnerable moments, and it just created this zeal and this passion. And so sometimes if you talk to some individuals that I’ve worked with in the past, and I’m going to wrap this up, they would probably say, like, Lupita is really, really, really intense. She’s really passionate. And it’s really because every single time, it doesn’t matter who the individual is, I always am reminded of the faces of my aunt and my dad and those moments. And I said, I never, ever want to become callous or forget why I do what I do. And so it’s really something that is so personal for me. Um, the Air Force says that there’s a there’s a core value that says excellence in all we do. And I have really taken that on as a core value in my personal life and my professional life as an administrator, because I just am so fortunate to believe that God has allowed me to be in this moment and with this particular gift, to not only lead, but to also serve. And I want to make sure that I do it well. And so that’s how we birth a life and and that’s how we’re here now. And it’s been over a ten year dream. I started to feel this burning desire. And we were finally able to acquire an acquisition last September.
Trisha Stetzel: Well, congratulations. It sounds like this was meant for you and the place that you should be. And I got, uh, goosebumps as you were talking through that and understand, uh, that space that you’re in. I spent a lot of time volunteering in nursing homes, uh, with my my dogs. I have animal assisted therapy dogs and spent a lot of time there. I moved my mom in with me, uh, many years ago, and now I’m caring for my grandmother, who is in a memory care facility, so.
LaQuita Mason: Well, bless you.
Trisha Stetzel: And I have so much in common. It’s it’s undeniable that we needed to meet each other when we did. I’m really.
LaQuita Mason: I didn’t know that part because, you know, I used to be an administrator in a long term care facility for about five years, and I wish we would have had individuals coming in to bring animals because our our residents would have loved that. Oh my God, that would have been just so refreshing and nurturing for their souls. So that’s a beautiful, beautiful service that you are providing.
Trisha Stetzel: Well thank you. And you know, there were people at the facilities that the only reason they would get dressed and get out of bed that day was because we were bringing the animals. You know, it wasn’t about us, it was about the animals. And, you know, just to see their faces light up and be able to enjoy that unconditional love that pets can give. Yeah. So amazing. So yes, we have.
LaQuita Mason: A.
Trisha Stetzel: We have a whole nother conversation to have.
LaQuita Mason: I I’m sure there was no call that day. There were no incidents because everybody’s so excited about seeing those pits. And so that’s just beautiful. I’m sure the administrator and the staff appreciated that.
Trisha Stetzel: Yeah they did. Let’s dive a little bit into for those who may not understand what home care is. So what is that service that you’re actually providing?
LaQuita Mason: That’s a really good question. And so what I will say, and I’ll kind of be really quick about this because there’s a lot of numbers that’s involved. And when you think of home care services, there’s 1 or 2 things that you’re thinking of. It’s either field services or non-medical services. And what we currently provide are non-medical field services. And you don’t think about it because you do it voluntarily every day. All of us. Right? We get dressed, we put our own clothes on. We never think about it. Um, we prepare our own meals, we go shopping for ourselves. If some of us are prescribed medications, you know, we’re taking and we’re administering those medications ourselves, or let’s just say, for instance, you just really have no one that’s in the home. There’s no one in the community. All of your family is kind of dispersed throughout the nation, and you just want that companionship. Those are the services that we offer. And so we do that because the truth of the matter is, is that our baby boomer population, they’ve been a different breed of people their entire lives, and they are becoming one of our largest groups of individuals to ever be a part of a generation. Right. And they’re expected to be even larger in the next couple of decades than more of the children that we’ll have.
LaQuita Mason: And so the truth of the matter is, is that one out of five individuals will need these services, and two out of five of them will have multiple comorbidities, which means maybe they have cognitive limitations, maybe they have functional limitations that will require someone, such as our services, to be able to come in, to have a caregiver, to be able to provide them with the things that they will want able to do voluntarily. And the truth of the matter is that I’m a millennial, right. And I’m sure there are some Gen Xers and also Gen Zs that eventually they will be, um, the ones who are looking for these sorts of services for their loved ones, whether it be their parents, their siblings, their great grandparents or grandparents. And the truth of the matter is, is I would like to say that everyone has the flexibility in their schedule to be to be able to provide in-home care services. And so that’s where we come in, and we’re able to provide those income, those in-home care services that your loved ones would want, able to do independently and also able to do those services safely.
LaQuita Mason: And so that’s really what we focus on, is making sure that your loved ones are safe, safely able to get the same services that they once were able to get independently. And so, um, and that, you know, that’s ADLs two activities for daily living is another term that you may see like ADLs. And the thing is that they’re coining this term, the silver tsunami. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it. Just that’s what they’re called. They’re coining, um, the babies, you know, the baby boomer generation. And it’s probably why you’re starting to see so many, like, assisted living facilities all over the places. Um, because they’re preparing health care is really preparing to be able to have these structures in place. Um, as our baby boomers continue to age and want to age in place, and they’re really like, I tell some of the baby boomers that’s on services, I’m like, you guys are more high tech than I am. Like, you know more about technology than I do. They want the, you know, the retail, um, services. They want the virtual, uh, uh, telehealth services. They want to do everything in the convenience of their homes. And so we want to be able to meet that need.
Trisha Stetzel: That’s amazing. I was thinking about so my grandmother, who’s 93, still uses a tablet and like facetimes and. Yeah, so she does pretty good with with technology. Probably better than me in most cases. I hadn’t heard the term silver tsunami, but that’s going to be stuck with me. I’m going to remember it’s very interesting. The service that you provide is so important. I know when I was doing my volunteer work, one of the things that I read about seniors is they fear losing their independence more than they fear. End of life. And that’s huge. Uh, so being able to, um, stay in place and have someone who can provide that type of service, like what you’re doing, is so important for them to continue to feel that independence that they’ve had their entire lives. It’s a strong group of people, I’m telling you that that silver tsunami. Yeah, very.
LaQuita Mason: Very much so. And, you know, the truth is that they are a generation that they’ve experienced a lot even, you know, obviously the boomer generation, the parents, their parents experience even more, um, that World War Two generation. And so they are very strong willed individuals. And it just reminds me of what America was built on, right, is that we have people who are very strong willed and we pin that, lose this. We can’t we cannot lose our foundational principles. And that’s one of my main reasons why I really enjoy being around the senior populations, because I get the it’s almost like I’m getting this free life coaching, um, from them. They’re filled with so much wisdom, and so it’s such a great honor. It truly is to be able to allow them to continue on with their strong will and also have a sense of dignity. Right, because everybody wants to have that sense of dignity.
Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. So this is probably a really good time for me to ask you to share, like a testimonial or even a story of someone that you’ve worked with in this particular space.
LaQuita Mason: Yeah. Thank you so much for allowing this time for testimonials. Um, you know, the truth of the matter is we had a situation to where a family member was in California, and they were having some issues with logistics of getting, um, their mother transferred to California. And so we did a lot of things at once. It really wasn’t a part of what we do, but because we wanted to make sure that there was an ease of transition and to make sure that there’s no stress, because the truth of the matter is, none of us want to be up. We can’t even function appropriately and do our jobs well. If in the back of our minds we feel like the person that we love and the person that’s been there for us the most, that they’re not being taken care of. And so what we did was we created a plan to where we’re essentially in that home nearly 24 over seven of the day. And, um, and it’s been very challenging. But the peace of mind is knowing that one, the sun was in California, that there’s no stress. It’s funny. I don’t even hear from him at all. Sometimes I check in and then I say, hey, are you still there? Like, are we still going through the process? It’s like, well, you guys are doing such an exceptional job.
LaQuita Mason: You know, I don’t feel like I have to call and check in on mom. And so I just, you know, he was so grateful because he felt like he had gone through so many cycles of different agencies. And the truth of the matter is, it’s thousands of home care agencies that are out there. And I always tell people we’re not selling retail. This is not money that we really are privileged to go in and to the sanctuary of one someone’s home, and two, that we really are taking care of human beings and they need the human touch, they need that empathy. And so I think he was just so at ease. He even said it. He said, you know, I was so at ease with you guys that I had almost forgotten, um, that I needed to call and follow up. And so, um, it was just a blessing to hear and know that he had entrusted us to that level. And so I think that that’s one of the highest testimonies is when we can have somebody that truly trusts us and sees us as their family, to know that we’re going to do the right thing.
Trisha Stetzel: Wow. That’s amazing. Let’s talk a little detail around e life. Who are you supporting? What neighborhoods are you in? What part of town, and how can people find you if they want to learn more?
LaQuita Mason: Yeah. So, um, we are our headquarters are located in Cypress, Texas. However, we service six regions throughout the Houston, and I’ll just, uh, list all of the regions. And so if anybody’s listening, you have questions, you can always give us a call. Um, our number is (832) 614-3029. And those areas that we’re currently covering is of course Pierce County. And we cover, uh, Fort Bend, Galveston, Liberty, Matagorda, Montgomery, Waller, Austin. And so Walker and there’s one more Brazoria that we cover. And so that means that we’re covering as far as north is, is Willis, and then as far south as, um, Galveston. And we’re going out to places like Channelview. So we cover all over Houston anywhere that you can think of, we’re covering it. Um, I am first to say, if we don’t have the support or the staffing to support that, I am so connected with different resources because of my background, that we’re willing to make sure that your family member has the right resources and is connected with the right caregiver and home care agency is amazing.
Trisha Stetzel: So you’ve said something that’s saying to me, Matagorda and Brazoria, because I tell you, I have looked for services in home care services, like when we go out of town so that somebody can come in and make sure mom is okay. And it’s like crickets trying to find people who support this area out here. So that makes me really happy. Oh.
LaQuita Mason: That’s exciting, that’s exciting, that’s exciting.
Trisha Stetzel: Oh, yes. Okay, so E-life has a website and let’s tell people where to go. And then if you’re on social, let’s, uh, direct them that way as well.
LaQuita Mason: Yes. So we’ve made it really easy. Um, and it’s just Eli Compare.com. You can find us online. You can just search Eli Homes here. Um, and then as far as socials, you can find us on Facebook under Eli Homes here. You can also find us on Instagram on Eli Homes here. You can also find us on LinkedIn at Eli Homecare at Will. And again, I always tell everyone, if you’re unsure about services, just give us a call in. One of our senior managers will be more than happy to come out to provide an assessment so that we can determine what services your loved one will benefit from.
Trisha Stetzel: Okay, I love that I can. Your heart is so big, and I love that you’re working in this space and you’ve always worked in this space. Just now it happens to be with silver haired people instead of right. Yes, I love it. Yes. So one last question for you before we wrap up our talk today is what impact do you hope to make in the home care industry? Marquita a really.
LaQuita Mason: Really good question. And I think it kind of goes back to what I was saying earlier, that home is so much more, you know what I mean? And I just truly believe that our goal is to make sure that we preserve the sanctity of our, um, seniors and not just our seniors, but also those who have disabilities, right? Even if it’s a child or teenager with disabilities, um, can make sure that they are thriving in familiar environments. And not only, like I said, to be able to replicate the personal care that I was privileged to be able to provide for my own loved ones. So it’s one thing when you provide the services, right? But it’s another thing when you’ve been on the other end of the table as far as being the caregiver for your family members. And so you know how vital and how important it is to be able to give this exceptional quality of care. And so my goal is to really, really make sure that the same things that my family members, they desired in their heart and we were able to give them that I’m able to replicate and give that same thing over and over and over again. And so our overall aim is obviously to provide that specialized care, but most important, to make sure that it’s quality care. And I know that that’s kind of cliche in healthcare, but that’s the truth of the matter is, is that I am the administrator, that you can call me any time of the day. And I want to make sure that we make things right.
Trisha Stetzel: I yeah, you and I need to spend so much more time together. I’m just saying so much more time. I’m so glad, absolutely, that there was something that brought us together. And you were meant to show up at that event, and I was meant to be there. And I can’t wait to spend more time with you and really, um, not just talking about your business, but how many things we have in common. I think it’s amazing when we open up our hearts, and that energy that’s out there just attracts the magnets, right?
LaQuita Mason: Just like I love it, I love it, it’s amazing.
Trisha Stetzel: Okay, so we’ve got everything out there. If people want to connect with you E Life Home Care, they can find you on social. They can also go to your website. Uh, your telephone number and contact information will all be in the show notes for anyone who wants to pick those up. I can’t wait to have you back. We’re going to have to find another thing to talk about. I feel like, I don’t know.
LaQuita Mason: We it’s just such a beautiful experience with you today because and I agree, I just believe that it’s divine connection for sure. It’s been such a blessing to have connected with you.
Trisha Stetzel: Well, thank you for being on the show today. I really appreciate your presence. I appreciate what you’re doing in the community, and I know and can feel the difference that you’re making even in this home care space, because it is an important, um, area. It’s an important industry for all of our aging parents and grandparents and the people that we take care of to have quality care, uh, like Eli. Home care gives.
LaQuita Mason: You. Thank you so much.
Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. Thank you for being on. And that’s all the time that we have for today’s show. Join us next time for another exciting episode of Houston Business Radio. Until then, stay tuned, stay inspired, and keep thriving in the Houston business community.
Natural Skincare & a Story of Entrepreneurship, Celebrating Women of Color Business Owners
In this episodeof Women in Motion, Lee Kantor interviews Ashley Rankin, founder of AR Naturals Skin, a natural skincare company. Ashley shares her journey of creating skincare solutions for her sensitive skin, leading to her best-selling lavender rest cream. She discusses her background in biology and her father’s influence on her interest in natural healing. Ashley emphasizes the importance of rest repair and mental health, revealing plans for a course and community events in Denver.
Ashley Rankin is the founder of AR Naturals Skin, a beauty company dedicated to providing premium skincare that supports soulcare. Her best-selling Lavender Rest Cream is designed to promote better sleep. The company focuses on mental health and wellness, and in the past year, AR Naturals has partnered with Rest2Reset, a professional development organization that offers emotional wellness and resilience training for professional women.
As a biologist and writer, Ashley enjoys merging the scientific and social factors that impact wellness. She has been published in popular outlets like Tiny Buddha, Paul Carrick Brunson, and Converge magazine. Her work was recently featured in Live Affirmed magazine, and she co-authored “3 Ways to Prevent Burnout,” reaching thousands of professional women.
Her digital course, Elevate Your Rest IQ: Nurturing Self-Love for Ambitious Women, launches in Fall 2024. This course explores the barriers and opportunities for increasing self-love, reducing external noise, and aligning more closely with our most authentic selves.
Connect with Ashley on LinkedIn and follow AR Naturals Skin 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. Today on Women in Motion, we have Ashley Rankin with AR Naturals Skin. Welcome.
Ashley Rankin: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
Lee Kantor: I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about AR Naturals Skin. How are you serving folks?
Ashley Rankin: Yes, absolutely. So, again, my name is Ashley of AR Naturals, and I have a handmade natural skin care company and I serve my people through handmade natural skin care. My best seller is my Lavender Rest Cream. And I also have support services for rest repair and burnout recovery.
Lee Kantor: So, what’s your back story? How did you get involved in this line of work?
Ashley Rankin: Yes. Before that, I just wanted to thank Ella Lee and Dr. Pamela Williamson for having me on today and for extending the opportunity for me to share my story. And, also, I’d like to thank Sandra Ocasio and Victoria the Podcaster for her guidance and preparing me for today’s interview.
Ashley Rankin: And I got involved in this industry through a personal challenge. So, growing up, I had very sensitive skin, aggravated by many commercial products, which inspired me to create my own skin care solutions. And, again, my best seller is the Lavender Rest Cream, and it was also in addition to supporting and healing my skin. It was also developed as a reclamation to myself to create time and space to take care of myself.
Lee Kantor: So, had you ever kind of concocted some skincare? How would you even know how to begin something like that?
Ashley Rankin: Yes. I’ve made skin care products from a young age. I’ve always been interested and tinkering in the kitchen growing up. My dad grew up on a large farm in Mississippi, and so we grew up on a lot of acreage, and he taught me a lot about herbs and natural ways to heal the skin and the body. So, I just got in the kitchen, I’m also a biologist, so I brought that training into the kitchen and started creating my own products.
Lee Kantor: So, when you’re creating a product like this from scratch, how do you begin? Like what’s the process you use to, you know, even begin experimenting on something that might work?
Ashley Rankin: Absolutely. I often approach it like a lab experiment, but simply. So, I like to just prioritize simple formulations that heal the skin. Nothing, you know, too fancy and nothing unnecessary. So, it’s literally just natural oils, butters, and skin safe fragrances.
Lee Kantor: And then, once you have one of your products, how do you go about testing it? Do you, like, have your friends try it? What’s the process like before you roll it out?
Ashley Rankin: Absolutely. I’m always my first tester and my immediate family. And then, I certainly have a trusted few that will give me feedback on the product on how long it stays on the skin, how it moisturizes the skin. I often get feedback that it helps to support and clear eczema. So, I’m just really starting with close family and friends and then extend it to some of my tester customers and community.
Lee Kantor: So, how do you get a feel for if something’s going to take off or not? Like, I’m sure you tried some things and you’re like, “Oh. Well, that didn’t sell as well as I thought it would. But this one is really taking it.” How do you kind of gauge that?
Ashley Rankin: Absolutely. Trial and error, certainly. So, when I started off, my line was more extensive with body butters and scrubs and lip balms and soaps. I make a variety of products, but I really appreciate this question because what has taken off has been my rest cream, and I believe it’s because many people can relate to being tired, to being exhausted, to having rest deficits that they need to repair. That’s certainly how I came into creating that product. And so, that has been my best seller and the one that resonates most with my community. And I can speak more to my own journey with rest repair as well.
Lee Kantor: Yeah. Please share.
Ashley Rankin: Absolutely. So, in preparing for this podcast discussion today, something I’ve been reflecting on is how rest saved my life. And I’m someone who’s very ambitious and hard working. And I’ve been inducted into my college’s Sports Hall of Fame. And I was accepted into an extremely competitive career field, and, of course, I run my business and I’ve always been willing to wake up very early, to stay up late, and to sacrifice and do the things that ambitious women do to be successful. But all of that discipline without balance led to rest deficits and, ultimately, severe burnout in my personal life.
Ashley Rankin: So, I like to share how I got there and how I crawled my way out. And I found that the external noise of others was louder than my own internal compass, and this took me off course and into spaces and places that were certainly harmful to me. I don’t know if anyone else has felt like this, hopefully some listeners can relate. But that whole journey brought me back to the masterclass of me. And so, this is an SOS call for anyone that is in need of rest repair.
Lee Kantor: So, when you were struggling in this area doing the work that you’re doing helped you kind of get through that?
Ashley Rankin: Absolutely. The Lavender Rest Cream was a reclamation of self, which I call it time that I take for myself that’s protected and just an opportunity for me to be mindful and to take time with my senses. And to use the product, yes, it’s a skincare product, but I like to say that it’s to support self-care and ultimately soul care.
Lee Kantor: Now, as part of your entrepreneurial journey, are you trying to build community around kind of this concept, which it seems like to elevate the skincare is just an element of it, but it’s really, you’re trying to build community around mental health and wellness.
Ashley Rankin: Yes. Lee, I appreciate your question. And that’s exactly what it is, you asked earlier how I know if something will take off, and this is what is taking off for me, what has resonated most with my community, and my social impact is in the area of mental health and wellness, again, stemming from my own personal experiences with severe burnout. And when I found that I was transparent and honest about what I was experiencing, because I was silently struggling – I think other people may be able to relate to that – like looking great on the outside and just falling apart internally – excuse me. So, I am building an active community around rest repair.
Lee Kantor: Now, why do you think it is that a lot of entrepreneurs, or just people in general, they almost want to put on a facade of everything’s great, I’m strong, nothing’s going to knock me down. And then, sometimes when you are vulnerable and you share and you are transparent, like you mentioned, all of a sudden, the floodgates open and people want to help and they want to be part of the mission.
Ashley Rankin: Absolutely. I think that from at least in my experiences from young ages, excellence was modeled to me, high achievement was modeled, never letting people see you sweat was modeled, and it was all well- intentioned. But I know I certainly internalized that to an extent my acceptance within community was conditional and based on my performance and how well I was doing. I know that that was a harmful way that I internalized high achievement. I also think that, you know, it’s scary to be seen, we’re often criticized when we’re not in the right community or around people that necessarily care about us when it’s not constructive criticism.
Ashley Rankin: And so, I know we all learn how to put our representative forth in work and even in our personal spaces, and that is necessary to an extent. But I think I certainly had to learn how to separate my representative, which is authentic and necessary in certain spaces. But how to just live a more balanced life and prioritize the people and the places and the things that accept me authentically and learn how to – excuse me – I say, pause, pivot, and purge from things that are actively harmful to me.
Lee Kantor: Now, when people kind of join your community, obviously they get access to the skincare line, including the Lavender Rest Cream, but is there also workshops? Do you do get togethers where people can interact with each other and network? Are you trying to build kind of that type of community as well or is it just a place to buy product?
Ashley Rankin: I appreciate your question. So, I have been repositioning my company to be, yes, there’s access to the skincare products, but I’m also actively developing my first course, which is called Elevate Your Rest IQ. And so, within that course, we’ll explore and re-explore values and our priorities and really get down to the root and the core of being ambitious is great, but sometimes there are underlying challenges, fears that need to be addressed so that we’re operating in ambition in a healthy way. So, my first course will be launching this summer. And, yes, I plan to do more workshops and boot camps and even some in-person events, rest events around Denver.
Lee Kantor: So, I know you haven’t gotten it all kind of baked yet, but what are some of the elements of the events?
Ashley Rankin: Of the in-person event?
Lee Kantor: Yeah.
Ashley Rankin: Yes. Very simple, just to come and rest. I take inspiration from Ms. Hersey of The Nap Ministry. She’s out of Atlanta and she just would have literal rest events in different spaces around Atlanta, you bring a yoga mat and a pillow, and you lay down. And she may have a short word to share, but I draw inspiration from that. So, it would be something similar for people to just come hold space that we can be still and quiet and validated, and that our value is not dependent on our productivity.
Lee Kantor: Yeah. Now, you mentioned that this evolution into community is important to you, why was it important for your firm to become part of the WBEC-West community?
Ashley Rankin: Absolutely. So, I’ve been part of many accelerators, like I’m sure many business owners have been, and I was encouraged to take advantage of the certification, not only because the trainings, the networking, and the resources are really, in my opinion, superior to what I was able to access on my own, but that the certification is like a premium stamp and it shows intentionality and, I think, seriousness of the business owner to connect and expand. So, it was certainly a priority to receive my certification.
Lee Kantor: So, what do you need more of? How can we help you?
Ashley Rankin: Oh, great question. A community continuing to be introduced to other business owners and, I would say, leadership that, of course, I know has the capability and the interest to expand the rest message.
Lee Kantor: And if somebody wants to plug into your community and learn more about your product line, is there a website?
Ashley Rankin: Yes. My website is currently being managed – or it’s under review – excuse me – it’s being updated, but I do have a link that I can share to connect people into my email list and for the skin care products, for the community events, and the upcoming Elevate Your Rest IQ Course. And then, I’ll plug them in once the website is updated.
Lee Kantor: And then, how can they join that list?
Ashley Rankin: Yes. It’s a Google link so I can forward that to you.
Lee Kantor: All right. So, we’ll make sure that that’s part of the post. Well, if they want to connect with you on LinkedIn, can they do that?
Ashley Rankin: Oh, certainly. So, my name on LinkedIn is Ashley, and then N for Nicole, and Rankin, R-A-N-K-I-N.
Lee Kantor: Well, Ashley, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work, and we appreciate you.
Ashley Rankin: Yes. Thank you for having me.
Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Women in Motion.