It was great to be in the presence of somebody who really cared about her people, and it’s more than just three people or four people, right. You know, it’s 70 people to really care about.

But I really loved, like, you know, I think the, the bulk of what we talked about was really like company culture. And I think she really started off well about when she talked about how women, like her goals is to women, that that they can do both. Like they can be moms, they can be great at their career.

Courtney: You could see how passionate she was about it and her face when she said it. They leave, but I want them to know that they can do both.

Dana: Yeah. And I have thought that and I, and I think it’s been really, I feel like we had kids really young. 

Courtney: Yeah I didn’t think it at the time, but the older I’ve gotten the more, I think, oh, we were young. 

Dana: Oh yeah. I know. I was young when I had kids because no one around me was having kids like definitely. I mean, there was a few people, but you know, the bulk of people, like my youngest is a lot of people like first and my youngest is like years older than my, a lot of my people’s first. 

I don’t know, I, I feel like that’s some of the hardest things for us to navigate with our employees is becoming parents because I think there is this, and maybe this is like a great kind of segue question is, I remember my best friend was pregnant and she was like, tell me everything about. And I was like, you don’t want to know everything about labor. She’s like, no. And I was like, I’m going to tell you what you can handle.

And this is what you can handle. And afterwards she’s like, why didn’t you tell me, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, cause you would be like totally freaked out and stressed out about it. And I feel like parenthood is a lot of that. Like you tell, someone tells you you’re pregnant. You’re like, oh my God, congratulations.

This is the best thing. It’s so wonderful. And there, it is the best thing and it is so wonderful, but it is also the hardest thing you’ll ever have to do. And no matter what industry you’re in there is always going to be, it’s going to be hard for that job that you have. And we can only speak to the industry that we’re in.

But I know when I have people that they’re like, oh, I am pregnant and start my first baby. And I’m like, you have no idea what it’s going to be like trying to work this job to run this business and be feel successful at it at any turn. Yeah, you know, but I don’t want to tell them that. I’d be like, I’m so excited for you. It’s great, and it’s wonderful. And it’s two months later and they’re like, how the hell did you do this? Like, I don’t know. I did it. 

Courtney: I did it one foot in front of the other, and I wasn’t successful some days. But when she said you can have both it kind of makes me think of like, what I tell myself is you can have both, but sometimes you can’t have it all the time.

Right? Like there’s days that I’m like, all right, like a kick ass mom, you know, like I’m I made gingerbread men. And let me tell you, if you haven’t made gingerbread men like that is nothing more kick ass than that as a mom, because it is so much work, so messy, takes so long for very little cookies. Very few. 

Obviously I wasn’t working that day, but then there’s some days that I’m like great at, great at work. And there’s very few days that I feel like I’m balancing both in an equally well way, you know, something’s always like falling off the plate and like, that’s okay. Like I think literally that’s okay. I think that accepting that, 

Dana: But that’s okay because you’re the, with your business, it’s not okay with other businesses when you’re not a hundred percent at your job. And I think that’s where she has walked in and said, you can do both because you’re a person first and we’re going to create this culture that allows you to maybe be a kick-ass mom one day, and you’re just an okay engineer the other, right. Like 

Courtney: I like just her saying that she paid for private school, for anyone who had children. I thought that was amazing. Like how amazing is that? Like, you don’t have to decide right between what’s best for your kid and your career. Like it’s facilitating that, and then I think back I’m like, wow, that’s a huge expense, but it’s tens of thousands of dollars to onboard somebody else to get them up to speed, you know, and to what they’re doing. So it really, it makes sense, even financially. 

Dana: But company culture always makes sense financially. That’s a big misnomer. If you’d be like, well, I can’t afford, I can’t afford, I can’t. I’d say like no, you can because the more money you put into your employees, more productive they’re going to be the more output they’re going to have. And you’re going to get that back plus some, right? Like your profit margins are going to be better every single time.

Courtney: Yeah. I mean, I loved it. I loved, I loved everything she stood for as far as that goes, because I mean, I feel like she, when she was talking about like, kind of her approach to employees in general, how she understands the whole, like they’re a whole person, like who they are, what they want. And she feels like it’s her job to kind of fill in the gaps, kind of make that happen.

Dana: Well, I think she felt like it was her job to help them realize what those gaps were. And so like if part of filling in the gap is I am this and I, and I want to be this person, but part of it is I need childcare like then that’s where she can say, okay, I can help you with that. Maybe it’s something else and she can coach them to get outside of their thinking, because she’s talked a lot about that.

Like just changing their mindset. It’s not even like actually, I mean, they, as you heard her say, like they do a lot of stuff and she actually implements things for the company, but a lot of it was changing the way they thought about themselves and changing the way they thought about what work should be.

 Not that that’s free cause it’s her time, but I think that is where like the big difference is. It’s not just, you know, like my husband works for a big company, a very big company and they tried to do company culture things, like they used to have like, you know, happy hour, like at work. They always had like free popcorn, all these other like random things.

Like they have, they do take care of their employees. They have like great healthcare and all that, but there’s not like somebody that’s coming in and saying like, what do you need? Like how, what would make you more productive and successful at work? Like how can we help facilitate you to be a better person?

Right? Because a better person, is a happier person, is a more productive person, is going to do their jobs so much better, right. And maybe they find out I don’t want to do this job. And she’s talked about a lot about that too. It’s like just, you’re not the right fit. Like letting them go, yeah, and being okay with that, like it’s not a failure on you.

Courtney: Well, and I think, and I think back on that, and I think back on like some of our failures and mistakes, where company culture is more important than a person, right? Like it can’t be about a person, right it’s about a culture. Right, do you know what I’m saying? And if you have somebody that’s a bad fit that doesn’t want to contribute to company culture, or be a part of that, like that can really be like a cancer. Like, just being able to have the ovaries to say, like, you’re not a good fit, right. It’s letting you go. This isn’t a good fit for me. It’s not a good fit for you. I don’t want you here. Because sometimes I think you feel either like afraid, like maybe are not wanting to go through the hiring process again or.

In our case, like carrying too much personally about that person and what it means for that person, you know, as opposed to what it means for like, in her case, like all the other 70 people that work for her, you know?

Dana: I loved her thing on the wall that said no assholes. I do appreciate that. Yeah, I do, I feel like she probably couldn’t work for us because I call you an asshole all the time. 

Courtney: You do, but maybe you’re the asshole for calling me an asshole. 

Dana: I don’t think so. I think we can take a survey. 

Courtney: I can take a survey, take a company survey to be on the next one. We’ll report back. She did say that if anyone in the company were to be an asshole, it would be her, right. Probably the most asshole like. So maybe that’s what a trailblazers and visionaries are. 

Dana: I don’t know.

Courtney: I loved how she said one of her core company values as fun. Like if you’re not having fun, like why are we doing this? Right. I, and I, I firmly believe that, like, if you’re not enjoying it, because you spend so much time at work so much time with these people, like if it’s not enjoyable, why do it? It’s just not worth it. 

Dana: I agree, I think, and I think too, the lack of fun leads to intense and severe burnout. And then no one wants to be around someone that’s burned out because it’s, as Rachel Sheerin said, it’s like the cousin to depression, which is so true.

Courtney: Yeah, absolutely. So one of the things that I felt like is she doesn’t mince words. Like she’s just who she is. She said she has no filter. And do you think that employees or people in general can handle like radical transparency? 

Dana: I don’t know, it’s hard. I’m sure it takes practice. And I think that she made a really good point that a lot of it comes, you have to understand intention and, and like her, one of the things that they talk about is everyone has good intentions. And if you don’t have good intentions, then you’re an asshole and you’re not going to work there. So I think there is that aspect of it. I think it takes a lot of practice to handle radical transparency.

 I think there’s a lot of people that would not be successful working for her because they can’t handle that. And I think it comes down to a lot of times, I don’t think it’s about the person delivering the message. So it’s the person who is taking the message. So like sometimes when I think about, okay, like I think about like our employees. Who can I be really straightforward with and honest with and who do I have to like sugarcoat things a little bit?

And when I really break it down and I look at it as like, is it the person that I had to sugarcoat it with, or is it because it’s all I know, right. Would they be able to truly handle me being real, but I’ve never tried it before? Cause I’ve been afraid or I I’ve made this assumption about them. So I don’t really know. I think people in general that you don’t have relationship with cannot handle radical transparency, 

Courtney: well, probably at this point, like people know what they’re signing on for. I’m sure it’s like a rigorous interview process and like they what know company culture is, I mean, we’re that way, like we would talk people when we interview like company culture is key, right?

Like you’re going to have to interview the whole team. We’ll have to group decide who’s going to, take this role or whatnot. So I’m sure now, but I’m imagining like at the beginning, like when she took it over and she had those 30 people.

Dana: She said they lost people; people left. 

Courtney: Yeah. So some people just can’t. 

Dana: Some people just can’t. I think to answer the question, I just, I think a lot of people don’t want to know the truth. They don’t want the transparency. They want to live in their own little ignorant bubble. They want someone to tell them all the good things and that’s so apparent, I mean, you look at social media.

Courtney: The amount of ignorant bubbles? 

Dana: No, the amount of filters people put on their face because why like, because you can’t handle someone saying that they don’t, they don’t like your zit on your forehead or they don’t, they felt like, yeah, I can see your pores. Like one, I know there’s trolls out there, but like, does that actually matter? Like I’ve never put a filter on my face. Like a, I’ve never actually put a filter on my face for Instagram. I’m not saying I won’t ever, but I’ve never done one that unless it’s silly. You know what I mean? Like I’ve never done one to pass off as my own face.

Courtney: When I see those Instagram’s that are like, this is me with the filter and this is me without like is that, is that really real, like people really are doing that?

Dana: Yeah, they do. And it’s crazy. It’s absolutely crazy to me. And so we are literally like, and to me that, that tells me that people can’t handle it. They can’t because all they want to be told is the good, they can’t handle any type of criticism. And I, that was one thing I wish you would talk a little bit more about with her, because I was like, the first thing she said is.

When they come in as retraining them to be able to take criticism, right, cause she was saying how, like you would have these women that would come from these male dominant offices and they were, they were like everything like tiptoed around them and they sugarcoated everything and they were afraid to upset them for very sexist and wrong reasons.

And so that person like that became who they were, right, that they can’t take criticism and everyone had to tip toe around them. And then she brings me to this office where they’re female and it’s like, that’s not how it’s going to be. And like, retraining that, right? Yeah. I don’t know.

Courtney: I was kind of trying to think through like, what if we had a male in the office? Like how odd would that be? You know what I mean? Cause it’s just an office of women, always been an office of women. So being a woman in our office is not an exceptional thing. I don’t know. I think it would be odd. It would be a little odd, like you would be thinking through how you say things or like some of your verbiage and whatnot. But yeah, I was thinking that probably is a lot different than what they’re used to. 

Dana: Do think people can take radical transparency.

Courtney: I think most people, no. I think some of my closest friends, yes. I mean, cause I I’m, I’m very much like a non-filtered person and I like to know where I stand. there’s definitely times I think back on my life, and I think back on times where I was really trying hard, but maybe wasn’t successful or wasn’t accomplishing in everyone else’s eyes, what I should be accomplishing or doing or whatever, for whatever reason, I think probably in those situations, no. You know, cause I think you had to think about what does that person bring to the table? Right. but I think when you’re talking with that a healthy person and a secure person, and then I think then people are more open to being able to take that kind of criticism and transparency. I’d say yes and no. I think, I think its what people are bringing to the table as to whether or not it’d be able to take radical transparency. 

Dana: I can only apply the question to what I know about my employees now, but like what if, and I mean, to be fair, we’re not like overly not transparent. We’re pretty transparent bosses for the most part, but there’s definitely, you play the game with people. Like when you, when you need to have a hard conversation with somebody, there is definitely like that, I’m not going to be straight with you. I’m going to kind of give you the happy sandwich.

I’m going to tell you there, all the reasons why I think you’re wonderful. And then we’re going to talk about this problem in a non-threatening way and blah, blah, blah, whatever. And then I’m going to end with how I think you’re amazing. And I’m not saying that’s wrong, but sometimes that happens. It has to happen three or four times before you’re finally, like, do you understand what I’m trying to tell you?

Like, do you understand that this needs to change, that I need for you to do this better, and it’s that time they’re like, oh yeah so like, this is what I was thinking or whatever the case may be. And it’s like, is all that tip-toeing and not just being straight and just saying like, can we all assume that I like you. I think you’re all good people, right. That’s why I hired you, right. I think that you’re amazing. And I appreciate everything that you do and maybe we step up our appreciation game, but I don’t have to like feed your ego in order to tell you something that I need for you to change. And I think our people could handle that.

Courtney: Oh, I think so too. 

Dana: but that’s not how we manage, necessarily. 

Courtney: Some we do, some we don’t. I think it’s a little more personal. I think it’s definitely different when you talk about like the Bradford people as say like C and D people like they’re managed very, very differently.

Dana: Well, yeah, it will because the problem is seeing the people who don’t see them. So you don’t have that same relationship. So you do have to like, totally like play that tiptoe a little bit and be a little bit more, uh

Courtney: but I mean, like this weekend or whatever, I walked over to the Bradford and I can always see like everything that’s not being maintained well or right, or not good enough, according to my standards.

And I mean, no minced words, like I was like, you got to do X, Y, Z, like every week. Like I can tell this has not been done for weeks and we’re not going to wait for the maintenance person that comes every other month to do that. Like, y’all need to do it. Like there wasn’t any like two bones about it, you know, like it wasn’t.

I was like, I understand it’s a lot. I understand it’s a big, big thing, but there’s, from the time the job descriptions are made, there’s a whole nother person in that role, right? Like, why aren’t we doing this? Right, like what that’s what I don’t understand sometimes. And I don’t mince words about that. I mean, I think it’s received well. I think radical transparency leads to more productive.

and efficient work environments. I think in a lot of ways I would think, because you’re just not beating around the bush. 

Dana: Yeah. I mean, I think it’s you say what you say and you mean what you say. There’s not like you don’t have to like what were they trying to tell me? Was that criticism, was that positive? Like what do they really want me to do? Like, it’s just a very like, direct way of trying to get stuff done. 

Courtney: Yeah, I thought it was great. Like I loved, I love all that company culture. Like how to, what, what’s your favorite thing about our company culture?

Dana: I think for me, I really love like the honest side of it. I, I don’t feel like they try to hide when they’re overwhelmed. And I don’t think they tried to. They’re not afraid to say, hey, I really need this. Like, I really need to take this day or, I really need for you to hire somebody because I can’t do this. I really appreciate that kind of honesty with them. It makes me feel like they trust me with that. 

Courtney: I think it speaks to like security. Like they feel secure in who they are and their role that even if they need extra help, it’s not going to compromise how we view them. 

Dana: Well, yeah. And I think too, it’s very much they trust us. Like they trust that, that we say what we say is what we mean. So cause that’s we say that to them, like when we hire them or when we onboard them, we that’s one of our like core values of our company is honesty. Like that means you don’t have to tell us the specifics of what’s going on in your life, but you need to tell us like, hey, I’m going through a hard time and I, I am, I’m struggling.

Right. You know, I don’t need to know why. I just need to know that you are so that I can put things in place so that you can be successful and you don’t burn out. You don’t leave me. And I, and I feel like this group of people, we have, we’ve gotten it right, and I feel like the group of people before them, we didn’t like, I feel like our last venue manager left.

We had no idea she was having the problems that she was having. And she was just like, I don’t like it, I’m stressed out. I don’t like working during COVID. I don’t want to be here, and I’m leaving. Like there was no, there was nothing for us to do to even try to fix it. I’m not saying we could have fixed it.

No, I don’t think we could’ve. I don’t think we could’ve fixed it. I just, I remember being like, this is the first thing I’ve heard about it. And you’re putting in your notice at the same time, like, this feels very like not who we, who we say we are like, why haven’t we had this conversation before?

Courtney: Yeah. I felt the same way. I love especially with this group of people; how much they have each other’s backs. Yes. It’s, I mean, everybody obviously has their job role, but it’s fluid in a time of crisis or when someone else needs something like there’s any number of people that are willing to like step in for somebody else. So I feel like there’s a lot less that hits us because they kind of cover it all. And I really appreciate that. 

Dana: Yeah, and that, and that comes with like volume of people too, moving from like a two-person team to like a four-person team, definitely you have a little bit more of that, but yeah, but still, no, I do. I totally agree. I love that about it.

Courtney: All right. Well, we’re going to start something new this year. It’s going to be called the F Up of the Week. Yeah, maybe you’re still in it, and like, we can like troubleshoot it together or maybe you have a solution already for it, deem whether that was good or bad. 

Dana: I’ll let you go first. 

All right. Well, my fuck-up of the week is related to my puppy, Ben. Thin. It’s very cute. It’s an Australian labradoodle. Lovely, and can do everything like shake, rollover, lay down. I can tell him to be gentle, tell him to calm down, does all those things. And he cannot pee consistently outside, like cannot.

So I was reading on some puppy things and we stopped giving him any treats for anything other than peeing outside. Like that is the only thing that you get rewarded for is peeing outside and it’s going well for a couple of days, like going down from like 10 accidents to seven accidents to like five accidents.

I mean, a good day, it’s like three accidents. Like that is a good day. He just goes out there and squats. And like, Tinkles like two drops looks at me. Give me my, give me my treat and then goes inside and finishes peeing. Like he understands the concept that I have got to like, do something like peeing here to get this treat, but still I’d prefer to pee inside.

Literally he peed probably. I don’t know, 10 times in like, twenty-five minutes last night, I was about to like throw the dog out, like I’m done with it. And I think that now I’ve just trained him to pretend to pee for the treat. And he has like no bladder control, cause he goes to the door, rings the bell, pretends like cast puppy gets his treat comes inside and pees.

Dana: Maybe he just thinks that ringing the bell means he gets a treat. 

Courtney: No it’s directly related to peeing. Like he knows it’s after he pees, cause he piece and he looks. Comes back to this little wiggly body. Like I did it! and now I feel like I’ve now had this dog that can’t hold his pee, like to save his life. 

Dana: Or maybe you should send them out and then put them directly back into the kennel where he doesn’t pee in the kennel.

Courtney: I know, I did read that. That’s maybe my, my new fix, that he must spend some amount of kennel, cause he does not pee in the kennel. 

Dana: Right. Because this is home. It’s where he sleeps. 

Courtney: He needs to learn how to like, hold his bladder longer throughout the day. 

Dana: Yep. Kennel, train him. 

Courtney: I know, but it’s hard when you’re home.

Dana: I guess. we did with penny and that’s how you, that’s how I found the, he stopped her doing it in the house. She was in her kennel. She wasn’t outside. She was in her kennel. 

Courtney: How long did that take? 

Dana: A week. She was older. 

Courtney: Yeah. How long did it take you to potty train her? 

Dana: Like a month, maybe.

Courtney:  A month, okay. We’re at like five weeks. 

Dana: She was a stray dog. I don’t, she had never been an indoor dog. So she’d only ever peed outside.

Courtney: Oh, okay. So she wasn’t naturally inclined to pee inside. 

Dana: Well, yeah, but she also wasn’t ever, she didn’t understand that. She just thought that the house was like part of her world. Like, so she didn’t understand that you don’t pee in the house. 

Courtney: Yeah, but she never peed her kennel. 

Dana: Never peed her kennel. Cause its where her bed was, where she slept. 

Courtney: All right. I’ll report back.

Dana: Well, my I guess back up of the week, it’s a little more work-related I think it was, I think I just didn’t appropriately understand how busy these first two weeks were going to be, and I really felt like I didn’t prepare for them. And to be fair, I know I had, I did have ear surgery and that was a rough two weeks between Christmas and new year’s or whatever, but there is definitely things I could have done. I mean, I worked on some things a little bit here and there, but like I could not get motivated to do anything. And even to the point where, the kids back to school on Monday and I was like, totally, I was like a really got to work. And I was my computer and I had like texted Courtney.

I was like, what am I supposed to be doing? What’s on my to-do list. Like, I couldn’t even wrap my mind around the amount of work that needed to be done. And like it, no matter how I looked at it in any way. And so I feel like it has led to a very like stressful week. And I feel like I can’t, I can’t be successful and I’m like looking at it.

I’m like, oh my God. All these things we have coming down the pipeline and you know next week we; we teach our first class and we took, you know, you did most of the work getting the syllabus together and all that stuff, but it’s like, okay, you guys actually like plan this lesson and get it together. And then it’s like ongoing. Like, it’s not just you plan one lesson, it’s done. It’s multiple lessons. 

Dana: No, I know. But I think it’s just understanding that that pace is coming right. I don’t know. I feel like I just totally failed on that very badly, a lot. Like, there’s just, there’s just a ton of things to do. And so now I’m looking, I’m like, I’m going to have to probably work on the weekend to get it done really. Which will I do that? Probably not, even though I should. It will still be my F up next week. 

Courtney: You can have the same F up every single week, every single week. But remember your word is expectation. So release the expectation. You’re doing the best that you can. 

Dana: No, I know. I know that and I don’t, I don’t have that’s the thing is I don’t have these high, high expectations of myself. It’s just, I, this is not like an oh, I need to get to here and I want to go 10 steps above, like, that’s my expectation. Cause that’s how I normally am. Like, okay, I need to plan a lesson. So that’s like the base level. But for me, my expectation is to make it amazing. You know, I don’t have those expectations.

My expectations is very base level, but I’m looking at my base level things and I’m like, how am I going to get it done? It’s literally impossible. It’s not going happen. 

Courtney: You’re going to do it. 

Dana: Yeah, no, I will. I just like, it’s just as led to late nights.

Courtney: I mean, I think too, not even having the expectation of like, at this particular juncture, like what’s a weekday, what’s a weekend? What’s the work time? What’s the hours? I guess keeping it a little more fluid, right? Like, hey, at this moment I feel exhausted, overwhelmed. Like maybe even though it’s 2:30 in the afternoon, I would best be served by taking a nap, even though my expectation is that I’m going to be working and getting up, drinking a coffee and working for a couple hours on my computer tonight.

Like just letting go of like the, like the rigidness of it, of those expectations and hours and think about it a little bit more fluidly. Let that creativity come to you when it comes to you, within the timeframe of when it needs to be done. 

Dana: So now? Be creative right now, because it needs to happen right now. 

Courtney: That was me like when I was doing the syllabus, I mean, it was like random 11 o’clock on a weekend day and worked on it. I was like, I’m going to work on it for hour. Well, I just kept going cause I was motivated to do so and I felt good about it and yeah. I sat there for four or five hours and just pumped it out and felt good about it, you know, but it wasn’t like in the confines of like a normal business day. 

That’s one thing I’ve noticed about myself is that there are strange things that wreak havoc on my productivity and sometimes the normal business hours don’t work well for my creative process, especially when I’m trying to make something, whether it’s a lesson or a syllabus or whatever. The office is, doesn’t foster that for me. 

Dana: Yeah. I’m totally opposite because I feel like I’m totally all in super focused, hyper focused when I get to the office. So like I have to let go at home, otherwise I will go insane. 

Courtney: No, I’m like squirrel. That’s cool.

Dana: I know. we work in the same office. So yeah, maybe cubicles would be helpful. I don’t know. 

Courtney: Are you saying you want a dividing wall between us? 

Dana: I’m just saying there’s many a times I’m laser-focused tunnel vision. And you start talking about your damn puppy. He pees outside. I’m like, I don’t have the time to talk about your puppy. 

Courtney: One day, I won’t be talking about my puppy one day soon when he decides to be potty trained.

Dana: Yeah. That is frustrating.

Yeah. All right. Well, good episode. It was great. Check-in on your F up next week. 

Dana: Yeah, I think, oh, I feel like this toll, the, our first, you know, fuck up of the week, you know, corresponds so well, when she talked about how you mind fuck yourself, you know? 

Courtney: Like, oh, so you’re just mind fucked?

Dana: That’s what it is. You just got to get, and it really shows how much just getting rid of the way you talk to yourself and what you believe about yourself. And I think that’s what we’re going to find in these fuck up of the weeks is just what we tell ourselves and how we feel about ourselves.

Courtney: Thanks everyone for gathering with us today to talk about the hustle. For our episode of Anna we are drinking DeLoach Pinot noir, a biodynamic red wine. We hope you get the chance to drink it this week and cheers to amazing company culture. To learn more about Anna and Lynch Mykins. Visit lynchmykins.com or follow them on Instagram at lynch_mykins. You can also find a connect with Anna on LinkedIn. 

Dana: to learn more about our hustles visit canddevents.com anthemhouse.com. thebradfordnc.com and hustleandgather.com or follow us on Instagram @ canddevents, at anthem.house at thebradfordnc, or at hustleandgather. And if you liked the show, be sure to subscribe and leave us a rating and review. This 

Courtney: This podcast is a production of Earfluence. I’m Courtney 

Dana: and I’m Dana 

Courtney: and we’ll see you next time on Hustle and Gather