Lindsay Karas Stencel, Startup and Venture Capital Attorney

[00:00:00] Betty Collins
So today is just a really unique guest. I’ve always just admired her. Seen her a lot in the the events that are around town of Columbus, Ohio. And she’s always a big advocate for women. And she’s she’s just really cool. And I always call it the Marilyn Monroe of my life, because she’s just got the beauty of that, the hair, the whole thing. But but those are just some you know, she’s got a unique side to her. She’s tenacious and she just gets out there and but at the same time, you know, sometimes we tend to be we can be unique, but are we are we intentional and are we effective? Right. And it’s not even about I’m going to be tenacious, so I’ll be effective. No, I’m going to be effective. And I’m just having to be tenacious. I don’t know which one’s better, but but so today I have Lindsey Stencel. She is just a rock star in what she does. And it’s a man’s world, what she does, and she makes it look really easy from a distance. So Lindsey welcome today, and I’m just honored that you would take some time to be with us today. I know you’re a really busy person.

[00:01:05] Lindsay Karas Stencel
Well, that’s great.

[00:01:06] Betty Collins
Okay, great. So the first question I’m going to ask and I always hate reading bios because, you know, I’m reading them, I’d rather the person take two or 3 minutes and just tell us who you are, what you do, and then we’re going to get into your story, which I can’t wait to hear. So.

[00:01:22] Lindsay Karas Stencel
Sure. So Lindsey Stencel and I am born and raised in Buffalo, New York, and I’m a diehard Buffalo Bills fan to this day. Maybe this is our year.

[00:01:35] Betty Collins
Yeah, it might be. It might be.

[00:01:39] Lindsay Karas Stencel
And I went to high school in that area or college and that area where I played Division one lacrosse and was a student body president and then finally spread my wings to go to law school. Did my first year of law school out in New Jersey? Didn’t love that. I’m not sure if I didn’t love New Jersey or I didn’t love the school. And so I said, okay, I’m going to transfer to something more Midwestern. And that brought me to the Ohio State University, where I did another year of schooling. And then I still didn’t really love being a lawyer, which is funny because today I play a lawyer full time, but we’ll get there. Yeah. And I, I, you know, and it’s one of the things I advocate a lot of people do is just saying yes and jumping in if your gut says yes. So I ran into after my second year of law school, after my second year of working and during the summer, had a job lined up like everything was, you know, doing what it’s supposed to do if you’re in law school. Right? Right. And I just wasn’t happy and arena to someone who was talking about the Fisher Business School programs to include the MBA. And I just approached him afterwards and I said, hey, I’d love to get an MBA someday. I just don’t know what I’m going to do it.

[00:02:54] Lindsay Karas Stencel
And I’m old. So at the time the business school was on quarters at OSU and the and the law school was on semesters. So I was six weeks deep in my last fall semester of law school and I jumped ship and took a full time MBA program course load and kept my night classes in the law school. So I graduated with both degrees and that’s what set me on a path into venture capital. My first full time job was in a family of venture funds and ventures in Columbus, Ohio. I worked there for full time for 12 years. I started as a little associate and then fought and scratched and clawed my way up and we can talk all about that to become one of the managing partners and chief legal officer there. In the interim, I’d accidentally started a law firm, as one does, because I saw a need in the marketplace to help startups and venture funds in the area because at the time, venture and startup work was very nascent in Ohio, in the Midwest generally. And so I saw an opportunity to provide legal services the right way and at an affordable cost. And I didn’t intend to do anything but pay off my student loans. And it turned into this megalith of a thing that I needed to manage. And we can talk about that too. Yeah. And while that was happening, I was also running two different CrossFit gyms, one here and one in Buffalo in my hometown, and that was a lot.

[00:04:17] Lindsay Karas Stencel
And I also took on a role as chief investment officer for an organization in Buffalo called Launch New York, where I ran the most active seed fund in the state, one of the top ten most active in the country for four consecutive years before 2019, where we had a little bit of a health scare. And it sort of said to me, like, Hey, what’s the biggest priority in your life? And so I made some decisions to sell my law firm or roll it into Thompson. Hein So I’m a partner in Thompson High now, and I sit within the new ventures practice, which represents startups, and then I also oversee fund formation for the firm. So think venture funds, hedge funds, PE funds, real estate funds, all that kind of stuff. Sits under my purview now, and that’s what I get to do day to day. And there’s some other things I do, too. I teach at the law school and that’s fine, but it’s a lot of work. And I recently launched a nonprofit too, because I’m really big on entrepreneurial wellness, and I think it’s one of the things that hinders founders abilities to be rampantly successful because they just get caught up in mental health issues, physical health issues or financial health issues, right?

[00:05:29] Betty Collins
So if you haven’t heard the energy in her, then you kind of just you might as well end the clock as now because her energy and passion is so there. And one of the reasons that I have such a respect for is, I mean, it’s a tough environment and the VC is tough. I mean, it’s not anything that you just jump in and go do. I mean, it’s, you know, it’s relationship, it’s boldness. It’s going so now that we’ve heard, hey, here’s where I am right now. Today, when you started out in the journey, you know, and and you’re going up the hill and we’re going to talk a little bit, but the hills of 2020 and 21 and where the environment is today, can you take us back to those times where you had some wow, I don’t how am I going to navigate this? And what were your barriers in that whole navigation of? No, but this is what I really want to do. But I’ve got these barriers and the navigating is tough. Can you talk a little bit about that?

[00:06:33] Lindsay Karas Stencel
Yeah, sure. So that’s a really great question. So when I first started out in venture, it was 2008, 2009. And if we finally look back on that time, it was one of the worst economic times in history, really in the US. It was just atrocious and I was lucky enough that I did get a job. I was one of the 13% of people in my graduating law school, so that’s to get a job and not have their job rescinded. So that was great. But it was a really tough time because for a litany of reasons, one law school and taking four years of graduate work, I was lucky enough to not have undergraduate student debt, but good law school and MBA program, very expensive. And when you carry law student loans and things like that, it forces you to make decisions in certain ways, right? So it kind of handcuffs you. So I always joke with people. I’m like, you know, one of the things I learned is to interview and I won’t say the word on the podcast.

[00:07:39] Betty Collins
Right? Yeah, we’ll bleep that out. Yeah.

[00:07:43] Lindsay Karas Stencel
But what I mean by that is that you always want to be in a position where you can make the decisions that are best for you and whether that’s for your career, for your family, for your mental health, whatever. Because what I found is that I had to make certain decisions in my career which ultimately worked out very, very well. But, you know, part of the reason to start a law firm was to pay those student loans down faster. I had a full time job while that was happening. Right. And so you’re layering on an additional full time job to make something go away. And so it was a blessing because it gave me something that I have now and I’m very, very grateful. But I really do encourage people to really think about in any scenario that you’re in, like how can you be in a power position where if something isn’t a good fit for you or something isn’t working for you, you can make decisions accordingly that are best for you and for your health, right? The next layer of that was actually something I didn’t really recognize because when I started at my family of funds, I just put my head down. I loved the work. I thought it was like super interesting, super fun.

[00:08:55] Lindsay Karas Stencel
I was very engrossed in it. I was. And one of the things I also tell people is like, get really good at your craft. I got really good at the craft because I was in the craft 60 hours a week, head down, like didn’t leave my desk, you know, and it wasn’t really until 2013, 2014, where I started to kind of pop my head out more and take more meetings. And basically I had this personal philosophy of take every meeting. So every person who reached out to me to build my network, I made a conscious effort to take all of those. But I also said, Hey, if this person isn’t a great fit for some sort of relationship with with me, they could probably lead me to the next person who is. And so that ultimately led me to be able to be what I would classify as a super connector, because my network now is so big and broad because I was very generous with my time. So I think giving is very important. But the other piece of it is that my head was down, I was working. So her I was trying to be the best that I could be. I started to come up for. And I had lots of people who had come up to me and be like, you know, you’re the only woman in the room always.

[00:10:05] Lindsay Karas Stencel
Right? And I never even noticed it because I was just doing my job. Like, shame on me. I should have been better about that. In retrospect, I, I should have. But I was just doing my job. And then I realized like, holy smokes, I have a responsibility. Because if I’m one of the few people who was able to get a role that’s like this and start to pave a pathway for other females and diverse individuals to come. Right, man, I better like do it right so that their, their path is a little bit easier than maybe mine was because it wasn’t easy. You know, I had tons of people who I would be in the meeting. They wouldn’t even look at me when I would ask them a question, I would you know, I had people who would blatantly ignore me and pretend like I wasn’t in the room. I had people who asked me if my dad was coming to the meeting to supervise me. I had people at countless opportunities tell me to go get them their coffee and I was like, Did you see who the meeting is with? Like, go get me coffee. Like, right.

[00:11:09] Betty Collins
Exactly. Exactly.

[00:11:12] Lindsay Karas Stencel
It was just really it was hard for a long time and it still is hard. Don’t get me wrong. There’s still some of that in everyday life. There’s a lot of it really in my industry. But slowly but surely I like to think that it’s getting slightly better.

[00:11:28] Betty Collins
You know, we were just at an event together with the Columbus Metropolitan Club, and where Mary lives was with Lives was a big name back in the day in Columbus, and she was invited to speak at a lunch. Right. But they had to bring her in the back door because it was a men’s club. Only I’m real and you and I don’t relate to that. Right. So it’s certainly gotten better because we we were the topic at lunch. But, you know, it’s interesting when you talk about, hey, control your decisions, indecision is not good, know your craft and then you were a giver in hey, I’m going to get these relationships and build my network. But the be aware moment of I am the only woman in the room and I’ve had that where I went. I didn’t get that. And that’s one reason why I’m passionate about my women’s initiative internally, because I’m like, I have a responsibility to make sure that women that are coming up beneath me see it, that there’s a 40 year career. You don’t need to do everything in the first ten or whatever, whatever it is. Right? But to me, to hear you say someone was asking you for coffee, that just blows. I mean, I still can’t even comprehend that. But for.

[00:12:40] Lindsay Karas Stencel
You. Yeah. And like to.

[00:12:42] Betty Collins
Oh, oh, my gosh.

[00:12:43] Lindsay Karas Stencel
It was like I like it with too sweet and low and I was like, cool. I look cool and cream.

[00:12:49] Betty Collins
Yeah. My goodness. But what would you say to women today who are in your position? I mean, you’re you’re not because you had to work twice as hard, probably, right? I mean, because just like I had to now prove myself even more. And I have to be this level to do this to be to have some respect maybe, but help women not let that barrier get you. How did you push through that? Besides, yeah, I like cream and sugar too. Good luck, you know. But I mean, what are other things that you can think back? And this is what I did to push through that moment. I’m glad I did it.

[00:13:23] Lindsay Karas Stencel
Yeah. I mean, it’s it’s funny, right? Because some people sometimes say, oh, like, Lindsay, you do these things and you handle them with aplomb and like, it doesn’t even look hard. And I think the thing is, they’re like, people see the 10% on top of the water of the tip of the iceberg and they don’t see the 90% underneath of, you know, the times. Where did a conversation rock me that happened in person. And I would get back to my car where no one could see me and I would sob, right? Like because people were just heinous, you know? And I would still say even to this day, because I look how I look and I dress how I dress and I act how I act. And I say what I say. People still I still have to be 20% better than the best man in the room. People are always looking for me to fail in some way because then they can point and be like, well, like that’s what’s wrong. Because whatever. I mean, I had colleagues at a different firm. They’ve got some moles in their environment that they don’t know about. But, you know, they said I couldn’t possibly be a good attorney because of the way that I dress and the way that I do my nails. And I didn’t realize that my physical appearance was the thing that dictated whether or not my brain worked well.

[00:14:36] Lindsay Karas Stencel
I don’t know why it is what it is, but I would say, you know, you can never let that show that it’s shaking you if if it’s shaking you like high that stuff you need, don’t let them see it. Because the second that they do, I think a lot of people smell blood in the water and they say like, oh, I can dig in here. It’s the fight isn’t over like it’s we’ve got a long way to go. And so people need to continue to push on and they can’t think, Oh, will, I waltzed in the room and everything is going to be wonderful. And sunshine and rainbows. It’s still not in my world. It’s the man’s world. I mean, I can’t make that more clear. It’s 98% male. Right. And so it it is just one of those things where you just people just have to understand that it’s going to continue to be hard. It probably isn’t as hard as it used to be, let’s admit that. But it’s not going to be easy. And you have to be prepared for that. And you have to be prepared to be better than everybody else that’s around you. And you’ve got to put in the time to do it.

[00:15:44] Betty Collins
You’ve got to be prepared to react. Yeah, I mean, I mean because like there is a I’m sure you have a really good support system so that when you do go to your car and you’re like, I got to sob and I got to get this emotion out or I’ve got event vent, you have a support system that you know you can go to, right. Versus let let everyone around that that unfortunately doesn’t don’t they don’t want your success. They don’t think of your success. Right? They don’t want you to succeed in it. So but, you know, one of the things you are passionate about is small business and helping businesses. It’s not just I’m VC and I’m in this big name and I’m you know, you really have a passion about helping that smaller business or that woman owned business. Talk a little bit about the passion behind that. Or, you know, you could just work for five big clients, but, you know, you might have 20 smaller ones. Tell talk a little bit about that.

[00:16:39] Lindsay Karas Stencel
Yeah. I think it’s just sort of been a coming of age where women are in a place now where it’s normal for them to run the business or be the CEO or run the show. And I think a lot of. Women specifically, you know, they second guess themselves. They want everything to be really perfect all the time. And that’s fine, except for we miss a lot of our opportunities and we don’t do that. So when we do that, excuse me. So we need to sometimes just go. And so some of the things I think about is like, how do we push people to go a little bit faster? Why? Because I want to see them be successful. I want the business world, the working world, the legal world, the finance world to look like the rest of the world around us, like all of the businesses shouldn’t be owned and controlled by a middle aged white man. And I have nothing against the middle aged white man. I love my middle aged white man husband.

[00:17:32] Betty Collins
Right.

[00:17:35] Lindsay Karas Stencel
You know, that’s not real. That’s not that’s not how we get the best of the best. And and so for me, it’s, you know, I think my parents made a ton of sacrifices to allow my siblings and I to have really great opportunity. And I would be really mad at myself if I didn’t take that opportunity and turn it into something really great. So I want people to have everything that they could ever dream and desire. It’s people ask me, they’re like, Lindsay, you needs money on the table. Why do you do it the way you do it? And it’s like, well, sometimes it’s not about money, you know? Sometimes I tangibly just want to see people be successful, right? And because that makes the whole world.

[00:18:16] Betty Collins
Better, right? When I always say this, when the US economy and marketplace succeed, the world succeeds. We’re still that. And so how do you help as a CPA or as a venture capitalist or an attorney? How do you make sure that that’s happening? And when 80% of America is small business, then you have to jump in with that small business. Right now. One of the things about, you know, the barriers and and we talk about middle aged white men I’m married to. We’re old. We’re we’re the older white. I’m old the older white guy that’s 58. But but I mean women too, though can be the barrier to and I’m sure you have enough stories. I don’t want to we don’t have time for all of them but you know, speak to the audience about don’t do that, you know, how do you communicate? Because that I’m sure it happened to you. Can you believe that she’s this or can you believe that she’s that or why did she get this privilege or what? You know, women can be really tough on women. So talk a little bit about that.

[00:19:14] Lindsay Karas Stencel
Yeah, I think unfortunately it’s just really sad, right? Because I think when people behave in that way, male or female, but females have a tendency to do it to other females for whatever reason. It’s usually a reflection of them. It’s not a reflection of us, right? It’s a reflection because they don’t feel good about themselves. They don’t feel enough. All of those things. Unfortunately, that’s not my problem. Right? That is a them problem and not a me problem. But gosh, like the amount of energy that I have, I have watched people expend. I’m trying to point out flaws or discredit me or things of that nature. If they would just apply like 20% of that energy into like doing something for themselves, holy hell, could we have a place that would be so much better? And so part of it is just like, look, you can waste your time trying to attack other women because you don’t feel good about yourself. Or you could take yourself to therapy and you can figure out why you’re doing this, and then you can focus on you and knock the cover off the ball. Like for me, I literally don’t care what the people who have done less than scrupulous things to me in my life are doing today, I couldn’t tell you what they’re doing. I literally could care less, and I just wish that they would think about it that way to like, just get in your lane, know what that lane is in it and go.

[00:20:42] Lindsay Karas Stencel
But unfortunately I’ve seen, especially in my industry, it comes back to I think a lot of people because I hide well if something’s upsetting to me or has frustrated me or if I’m anxious about something, I hide it really well. Like I don’t think it’s something that the outside not that I don’t feel it. It’s just like I don’t think it’s relevant to the outside world that they need to see it. And I just don’t think people understand that it didn’t come easy. It came with a lot of scars, like the stress of doing what I, I mean, my life now is, is wonderful, but enough that it hasn’t been the whole time. But the stress of what I was doing when I listed off the approximately five full time jobs that I had at one time almost killed me. So I had this mask that formed in my sinus cavity and my frontal lobe that was literally killing me. It was cutting off like air. It was cutting off. Oh, my goodness. He couldn’t figure out why I was sick for like six consecutive months, but, like, my body just registered, like, we can’t do it all anymore. And so I think people just don’t see that there’s like, we all fight our battles, like, instead of fighting battles with each other, if we fought a common battle and move the ball forward differently, we’d all be in a much. Her place?

[00:21:56] Betty Collins
Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, hopefully the audience really heard that. Absorb that. Think about your behavior. Women with women especially and even women with men. Men are not the enemy that they’re just not. They can be your biggest advocate, you know. So but let’s talk your craft because you are really good at your craft. And you spoke at the Women’s Leadership Conference last year when it was virtual. And on a Friday you were the last one, right? It’s like, oh, my.

[00:22:20] Lindsay Karas Stencel
Well.

[00:22:21] Betty Collins
I know. But I’ll tell you, the women at Brady, where we were all in a room together watching the conference, they were so energized by man. I’m not sure what she does, but man, she knows what she does, right? She’s got energy behind it. So now we’re in this market in 22 going, yikes. You know, it’s feels like it kind of feels like 2008 except on steroids. So talk about, you know, VCs and what’s going on and give some optimism to people right now where we’re going. Are we really good? Yeah, we’re still really good. It’s just not the greatest. Maybe, but I’ll let you I’ll let you answer question first.

[00:22:57] Lindsay Karas Stencel
There’s lots of things that I think are less than ideal inflation, less than ideal interest rates going up, less than ideal. But, you know, the Fed is doing that because they’re trying to slow a train down. Right. So they need to be paying attention to economic theory like that’s why they’re doing it. Hopefully it’s like a short term thing. But, you know, overall, there’s tons of opportunity that remains in business. And so, you know, some of the greatest businesses in time are spawned out of times of recession because people go, I’ve got I see a problem. I can create a solution. I can get people to pay me more for the solution than the problems like let’s rock and roll. And so, first of all, I think there’s an opportunity in that always. Secondly, venture isn’t as economically impacted by massive macro scale economic downturn. You know, people might be a little bit more cautious with a valuation of a business or they might be a little bit more cautious with cash. But the right businesses that should be getting the funding typically don’t have an issue getting the funding right. And if the business is kind of in the right place at the right time, they’re still going to continue to excel despite what the market is doing. So one of the things I tend to encourage people to do is like, look, if you don’t love what the market is doing, you can hedge against that by investing in alternative investments, be adventurous things of that nature. And so now I think is an appropriate time to do that. I don’t think it’s the time to sit on cash and go, Oh, man, I, I’m afraid I’m going to put this under my mattress. I think it’s time to say, like, Hey, what are there some things that I’m really passionate about or have knowledge based in that I can invest in, that might be startup B or small businesses or whatever the case is going to be and see if I can make some money.

[00:24:59] Betty Collins
Yeah. I mean, in 08 i can remember it pretty clear where it was like, oh my goodness. And but it was a good wake up call just like maybe 2020 when we were all in a pandemic. But there was a lot of people who said, okay, now what? And they did. And right now, the people who are going to go, now what and what are we going to do just to climb this hill? It’s a little it’s a little taller. Right. And I was telling a client this morning, we were and he said, I’m sitting on this much cash. And I said, that’s fine if you don’t want to grow, if you don’t want to reinvest, if you want to go earn 2% for a while, if you whatever it is. Right. I said because it’s there’s a paralysis to that. And I’m not saying go out and just be crazy, but there’s a lot of opportunity market right now and you can’t listen to yesterday’s news on target lost whatever you know you’ve got to go och it’s probably a bad day for Target, but it doesn’t mean it’s a bad day for everyone.

[00:25:58] Lindsay Karas Stencel
Well, that in the index, the market usually index is upright over time. So yes, there’s good days and bad days and there you can’t look at it in a one day time frame. Yes. Are there days that have been worse than others in 1929 and 2000? Seven and eight? Sure. Right. But like, look how the market has rebounded since. And overall, the market does continue to index up so.

[00:26:21] Betty Collins
Well in just to give women some encouragement. I mean, the venture capital money’s out there. Access to capital is out there. And we tend to think it’s not there for us. So bankers don’t sit and go, here’s a pile for women. Here’s a pile for men. Right? They don’t do that when they get an application. It really isn’t that way. Some of it is what industries we tend to choose maybe are tougher to finance or you know. But let’s encourage you. How can you encourage women today to keep know, keep asking for that, you know, venture capital, keep pursuing it, you know, don’t give up on it. What do they do?

[00:26:57] Lindsay Karas Stencel
Yeah. So first things first. The answer is always no unless we ask, right? So if we don’t ask, we don’t.

[00:27:03] Betty Collins
Get that.

[00:27:03] Lindsay Karas Stencel
Love that we should be. It’s almost shocking to me when I ask for things, what I get. I mean just by asking. And then I get mad at myself for not asking for more because I’m like, Well, they’re just going to capitulate to this like, Geez, Louise, what would they have done otherwise? But I mean, I always start from a place of extreme fairness, so I feel good about it and hopefully they do too. But alas, that’s not what we’re talking about. So first ask.

[00:27:30] Betty Collins
Yes.

[00:27:31] Lindsay Karas Stencel
Second, there is an interesting thing happening in market where, yes, you might hear some of this on the SEC side, ESG environment, sustainability, governance, where we care about governance in terms of like what does the diversity of a board look like? What does diversity of maybe funding look like or things that get invested and look like? And so companies have been putting out mandates to say, yes, CEI, diversity, equity and inclusion is incredibly important to us. And I’m saying I’m talking here on the corporate side and oftentimes corporate investors are investing into venture funds or they have their own venture funds either way. But they have a lot of times mandates that they are needing to deploy capital into women and diverse led businesses, and a portion of their monies need to go there by their corporate mandates. And so we have never seen it like this before. So the wind, in a lot of ways is like at our back. And when the wind is at your back, you got to say, okay, that’s what you got to do. And it’s scary and it’s crummy. And asking people for money is hard, but like so is sitting where you are right now today.

[00:28:48] Lindsay Karas Stencel
So from my perspective it is get out there, take advantage of the wind at your back. Find allies that are in some of these different organizations and maybe not even just an ally, but an accomplice like someone who really wants to see something be successful for whatever reason. We’re all personally motivated in some way, shape or form. So what’s moving those people and how are you helping them achieve their goals and make the story simple for them? Like a lot of times it is a no brainer when you’re like, Hey, company, insurance company. I am a female and I have an insurance technology that could help you. Here’s how it can help you. It can help you on your initiative. It can help you because we make your stuff more efficient. It can make the story simple so that they. They can go. Oh, yeah, that that does make my life better. Like, look at this easy thing that I could do right now, and it’s never easy. But you get conceptually what I’m.

[00:29:48] Betty Collins
I’m involved with the High Women’s Coalition. And I was just talking with Rachel Weiner, who’s the executive director, you’re familiar with her. And she said some exciting news was that Intel, of course, is coming to the region. And they so, of course, Rachel is strategic. And hey, you know, how do we how do we get a conversation with them? They are so excited. Intel is that they’re going to get to talk to the Ohio Women’s Coalition and hear about it to know what can we do because we’re coming to the region. And you’re right, they want to invest in this, right? They want to give to this and not just give the women’s coalition a check, but it’s like, how can we help women business owners? What businesses are women to own? Who is certified? I mean, it’s exciting time. You’re right. You know, so so what I hear you say is to get up every day and do what you’re supposed to and tell your story. Because if you do and then, of course, ask the question that you want the answer to. So that is why I just love Lindsey Stenzel. I love listening to you even with your high state LinkedIn, things that are out there, it’s just always so very, very cool. But we’ll close today with just an inspiring something from Lindsey Stenzel to the audience of, you know, on whatever comes to your mind. I don’t know if that’s a terrible question.

[00:31:06] Lindsay Karas Stencel
No, it’s good. So that’s actually when I was little, my parents read me a book, say we read lots of books, but one book we also read every single day. And the book was called Duga and the Unusual Duck. And my dad always said it like Doug in the Unusual Suck.

[00:31:26] Betty Collins
I love it, I love it.

[00:31:28] Lindsay Karas Stencel
And some Asian Doogan had some disabilities, we’ll call it, and he was different than the other docs. But those differences made him very unique in a litany of ways which allowed him to be successful in a litany of ways that other people couldn’t be successful. And at the last sentence of the book is, Don’t be afraid to be different. Our differences make us special. And so it’s one of the things that I have lived by my entire life. You know, I have I don’t own a suit. I am a lawyer. I’m a partner in a law firm who does not own a suit. It’s a little challenging going to a meeting with the CEO of Chase yesterday where I was like, what does one wear.

[00:32:07] Betty Collins
This one wears? You always knock it out of the park. So I say Wear what you want.

[00:32:13] Lindsay Karas Stencel
But you know, I sort of embrace that in every aspect of my life. And I encourage other people to do it too, because I think when we are authentically us, the differences that do make us special, we are more comfortable in our own skin and we’re more more comfortable in our own skin. We’re not wasting our energy. Even if it’s a little bit of energy. I’m like, Oh, my suit’s uncomfortable. Or, you know, my my hair is not done the right way or whatever, you know, instead you’re just out there being comfortable you and pushing forward whatever the thing is that’s motivational to you and moves your soul. And so I, I desperately encourage people to not be afraid to be different because those differences make us special. And that is what ultimately can drive us to be. Oftentimes recognized and respected for the things that we do every day.

[00:32:59] Betty Collins
Okay. You had me at the dock, I guess. I mean, what a what a fabulous way to end. And I just appreciate you giving of your time today. I know you’re very busy, but what an inspirational message that my audience gets to hear today. So I so appreciate. And we will get this podcast out and get it to my audience. And again, thank you for joining us, Lindsey Karas Stencel.

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