Sarah Goffman: The Bold Habit of Daily Progress

About This Episode

When archaeologist-turned-CEO Sarah Goffman stepped into leadership, she led by treating her company like a culture, studying norms, listening deeply, and aligning people and technology to identity. She shares the simple systems that can help turn overwhelm into progress, such as whiteboard priorities, a 1%-better mantra, and journaling outside when clarity slips. We also dive into how real culture is built in everyday conversations, how customer listening fuels her company’s 40-year success, and the leadership toolbox Sarah relies on: clear goals, written values, mentors, and a trusted circle. If you’re stepping into something new, this conversation will help you define where you are, where you’re going, and the habits to get you there.

About Sarah Goffman

Sarah Goffman is the CEO of TCE Company, a telecom and IT firm she boldly took the reins of seven years ago following the passing of her father. She has since led the company into its 40th year in business, honoring its legacy while driving innovation and growth. Sarah holds degrees in anthropology with a focus on archaeology from the University of Delaware and the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, a foundation that shaped her global perspective and analytical mindset. She's a proud member of InfraGard, a volunteer partnership with the FBI focused on critical infrastructure protection, and the Bold Leaders Collective, a network of visionary leaders, and a member of the GTIA Trustmark Working Group. Her journey is a testament to resilience, transformation, and leading with purpose in high-stakes industries.

Additional Resources 

LinkedIn: @SarahGoffman

Transcript

Meet Sarah And Her Background

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome to the Bold Lounge Podcast. My name is Lee Burgess, and I will be your host. If you're anything like me, you love hearing inspiring stories of people who have gone on bold journeys and made a positive impact in the world. This podcast is all about those kinds of stories. Every week we'll hear from someone who has taken the leap or embarked on an extraordinary journey. In addition to hearing their stories, we'll also learn about their bold growth mindset that they use to make things happen. Whether they faced challenges or doubts along the way, they persisted and ultimately achieved their goals. These impactful stories will leave you feeling motivated and inspired to pursue your own bold journey. I believe everyone has a bold story waiting to be free. Tune in and get ready to be inspired. Welcome to the Bold Lounge. Today we have Sarah Goffman. Sarah is the CEO of TCE Company, a telecom and IT firm she boldly took the reins of seven years ago following the passing of her father. She has since led the company into its 40th year in business, honoring its legacy while driving innovation and growth. Sarah holds degrees in anthropology with a focus on archaeology. She's a proud member of InfraGuard, the Bold Leaders Collective, and the GTIA Trustmark Working Group. Her journey is a testament to resilience, transformation, and leading with purpose in high-stakes industries. Welcome to the Bold Lounge. Thank you, Lee. That's great to be here. So I'm excited to jump into your definition of bold. Now we've known each other for a couple of years now. So excited to kind of dig into what you think bold means.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Absolutely. So for me, bold is doing something that's outside of your norm that you have hesitation before doing it, but you know it's the right decision to make. But having the courage to continue with that decision and follow through.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

Okay, I love this. Okay, so outside of the norm, you feel hesitation or you feel some something may be uh holding you back in some form or fashion. It's like do I, don't I kind of moment. But you have the courage to move forward and then to follow through, meaning to keep going. Is there a time in your life that you can remember living aligned to that definition?

Defining Bold

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Absolutely. So I did a major switch in my life from anthropology and archaeology to technology. Um, and then also was taking over the business from my father. So anthropology archaeology, it's a very similar thought process behind it. So I focused a lot on applied anthropology, looking at people's values, their mission statements, how real-world problems could be solved. That was another part of what I focused on in undergrad. Archaeology and anthropology is very much figuring out this big puzzle. And so applied anthropology is as well. So switching from what I had gone to school for into another field I was really passionate about was a bold move for me. Also, I did take over the company that I'm the CEO of now after my father passed away. We had a 10-year succession plan that we had started talking about because it was the plan for me to take over the company. I'd been there for about four years. Unfortunately, that succession plan then turned into a two-month succession plan. So I was picking up the reins of where my father had left off and really creating my own vision of the company, determining where we wanted to go, what products we wanted to be. At the time, we were focused on telecoms. So I brought in MSP, cybersecurity, and a lot of the different organizations that I've I'm now part of was part of that bold move that I took.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

Yeah. So we're definitely going to dig into the company and what you did um after your father's passing and celebrating 40 years is just incredible. Let's go back to anthropology, archaeology to IT. So let's start with, you know, why did you choose anthropology and archaeology as your major? Like, was that something you wanted to always do or always be?

Pivot From Anthropology To IT

SPEAKER_01 4:12

Yes, that is something from the time that I was probably eight, 10 years old. We would go to different places. I always wanted to learn about the culture. I remember sitting at Mesa Verde with my mom and talking to her about the culture and just being amazed that there was so many other cultures of people out there besides my own and wanting to understand them, wanting to understand how I could align with people better. So this is something that was always a really strong passion of mine. I grew up going to the Field Museum in Chicago, going to different museums throughout whenever we traveled, we'd always go to museums while we were traveling.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Yeah. Was it always like a hunt for something? Like when I think of anthropology and archaeology, like the first thing that pops to my mind is fossils. So like it's digging things up and you know being able to figure out the puzzle, like where did this come from? Who was, you know, who owned this? What was it all about in the sense of the history and the deepness of, like you said, the culture and the people uh that lived in that time. But you know, at eight, it's hard to like think like that. But like in the sense of it feels like that's where you know, just how you were exposed to it in the museums and being able to see it, it just kind of grew and grew and grew, and it literally became your major. Absolutely. Yeah. So when you think about the juxtaposition between anthropology and archaeology and IT, what do you bring over into that field from your majors?

SPEAKER_01 5:40

So a lot of what I bring over is understanding people's culture. If you think of most people don't think of business as being a culture, but it really is.

SPEAKER_00 5:47

Yeah. Yeah, let's start with because I think people don't even understand what culture means. Culture within an organization, culture within a group of similar individuals, uh, a community. Like culture can mean so many things. So can you define culture first and then tell me how you can bring those things that you learn from that into the world of IT and implementation and things you have to do within it?

SPEAKER_01 6:10

Absolutely. So culture is how people see their norms, what they do on their daily basis, what their values are, of their mission statements in personal life. It can be your religion, it can be a sport that you're interacting with on a daily basis.

SPEAKER_00 6:25

How you dress, where you live, where you worship, all of those things are part of your culture.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

Exactly. It's everything that makes up who you are. So it could be, for example, I'm Irish. It could be learning Celtic dancing when you're a child. Or have you learned Celtic dancing? Can you Celtic dance? Sort of. Okay. 10 years.

SPEAKER_00 6:45

It took one class. Yeah, I think I can do it at weddings with a drink or two. Okay, sorry to interrupt your definition. No, not at all.

Culture Explained And Applied To Business

SPEAKER_01 6:54

Just basically understanding who you are, where you come from, your background, what makes you as a human is your culture and the people that you are surrounded with. So every single person has different cultures. You have your family background, where you come from, you also have a culture that you're gonna have with your friends, you're also gonna have a culture with your business. And all of these intertwine with each other. But it's what makes up you as a person. And then we can take that and we can look at it in terms of business setting as well. So if you look at business, if you think of a business as a person, not as an organization. So every business will have a mission statement. They're gonna have values, they'll have a certain way of doing things. So your procedures, your policies, your HR, your employee handbook, all of that makes up the company's culture. So what I can do with me having the anthropology background, because I've learned how to look at an organization or look at a group of people, a culture, and say, okay, tell me more about what it is that you're trying to do. What are your values? What's your mission statement? How are you trying to grow your business? Do you want to grow your business? Some people that we go into, they're like, you know what, we're a mom and pop shop. We don't need to grow our business. We just, you know, we're X number of dollars per year, we're happy, it pays our bills, and we don't want to do anything else. There's other companies that we go into and they're like, you know what, we want to be a hundred million dollar company. How do we get there? So we can go in, understand what it is that that company wants to be, what they want to grow to or how they are working today. And we can help align the technology to fit with what they're looking to do. So I like to give this example. There was a culture who they were trying to help, I can't remember what country it is, and I apologize, but they were trying to help a company in that country grow and excel because they wanted to grow and excel. And someone came in who didn't have the anthropology background and said, okay, well, I'm based in the United States, so we need to put one person in charge, and then we're gonna build this pyramid organizational structure, and this is exactly how it's gonna lay out. If you would have taken that procedure and put it into the United States, it would have worked really well. But this was a country where there were different views, and so instead of being one person that was in charge, there was a group of people that were in charge. So once the person left after saying, okay, this is how you built up your company, the company started failing. They sent an anthropologist in and said, okay, what's going on? Why is this company failing? We have this perfect business plan that looks like that should be generating millions of dollars and we're we're generating nothing and we're actually going backwards. And the one key piece that was missing in there was having the group who were overseeing the business as opposed to the one person. And it wasn't like us in the United States where there's a board, it was everybody had equal shares. And it was a small mom and pop company, so it wasn't, it wasn't like they were having a board of directors or anything, but they wanted their family, so their elders were all responsible for making those decisions and helping the business grow. Once they made that one shift, where instead of one person making the decisions, it was all the elders, the company flourished and they were able to achieve their goals of what they wanted. Just that little bit of background for anthropology helps me go into businesses, look at what they're doing, what they're wanting to do, and then I can align their vision statements, their missions with exactly what they're wanting to do and align that with technology.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

Yeah. So like in my head, what I'm seeing is like an organizational dig, you know, in the sense of like, I'm still, you know, doing the visualization of an you know, anthropologist and an archaeologist, right? And I'm probably doing the most cliche ones of all, but in the sense of what you're digging into is you know what's below the surface of an organization, right? You know, you have a website, you have all the things, you have the people, you have the org chart, but that doesn't tell the story, right? So what you're looking into is a deeper level of that and digging into really the things that add meaning that also can be challenges, could also lead to maybe changes needing to occur within the organization and even more. But I love that it, you know, in my mind, that is what you're you're doing, and then specifically for technology and how that fits into the dig and the organizational overall goals. So when you think about your focus on that, had you always thought about going into the family business, or was that not the plan initially?

SPEAKER_01 11:40

I had thought about it. I was working for an engineering firm for a while as an archaeologist. And then at the time I was doing excavations of areas that were being built, and then because of housing decline and stuff, people weren't building as much. So my father and I actually partnered back again to work together on the business. And then we had, so I was with the company about four years prior to me taking over the company. So at probably about mark three and a half, I was a little over four years, but right around that time frame, my father and I had started talking about a succession plan because anytime that you're handing the reins from one family member to another, you need a succession plan, especially at the at that time we were a 36-year-old business. So you need to make sure that you're understanding everything about the core values, things that I wasn't taking care of that my father was taking care of within the business, and really understanding that. So anybody really needs to have that succession plan. So we had talked about setting up a 10-year succession plan, laying it out, and 10-year succession plan is usually average, really laying that out and understanding what key pieces of the company I was still missing. Unfortunately, that 10-year then ended up being about a two-month succession plan, about a month and a half. So it was get as much information as I possibly could and then take over the reins of the company and then really work with it and make it my own.

SPEAKER_00 13:09

Yeah. You say it so like straightforwardly, but I mean, I think obviously, you know, having the plan and working with your dad and doing the things that you were doing to prepare for that over several years, and then suddenly being pushed or you know, having to jump into that role sooner than later. What were some of the things that you did in that moment to help you keep moving forward? And going back to your definition, outside of the norm, hesitation, the courage to move forward and follow through, like you're using that definition pretty much full time during this phase, I'm assuming.

SPEAKER_01 13:43

Absolutely. So I gave myself small goals, and I do this no matter what, whether I'm training for a duathlon or triathlon, or if I'm working on the business or working on a project, I look at what the full plan is of where I want to be, and then I break it down into smaller plans because with anybody, if you tackle a huge project, it seems very overwhelming. So I basically just broke it down to okay, I'm going to today I'm going to learn this. Tomorrow I'm going to learn this. This is my goal, you know, whatever my goal was for a month from now, 60 days, 90 days. And so I had a list of goals. I kept them in a OneNote and I just started checking them off so I could see them as my goals were hitting. I still do the same thing too, as I'm growing the company and we're adding additional products. I actually have a whiteboard that sits behind my desk and I see it every single day of my goals and my dreams and my aspirations of what I want. I do it with my personal life too.

SPEAKER_00 14:43

Yeah. I love the whiteboard. Having the visualization and being able to see the words every day or see the images if you have a vision board and I have that as well. It does create a sense of this is what I'm working towards. And I think one of the things I always tell my clients is to write it down. To write down your goals, to do the things that you're talking about with could either be called habit stacking or goal chunking and combination thereof of like what am I going to do to get there, right? If it's my goal to, like you said, you run and you do a do-athlon or triathlon, or maybe you want to run a marathon, you're not going to do that overnight. You're going to do it in in chunks or pieces or parts. And I think a lot of people don't understand that as well as they should. I mean, they know it, but I think what happens is we start out on something and it doesn't work, or it doesn't, the habits don't last. Or, you know, I'll give you an example today. It's raining and I've been walking six miles a day and I didn't walk this morning because I was like, I just didn't feel too great. And it was like raining, I'm not gonna go. But now I feel I feel it, you know. Absolutely, yeah. So I will walk this evening. So I think, in the sense of that, how do you stay on track when things and rain is minor, but there's major things that can happen that can pull you off track when you feel like you're getting pulled off track or actually don't, you know, achieve something in the speed or time frame? How do you get back on track? What's a tip that you have or something that you do?

SPEAKER_01 16:09

One of the tips I do is I'm a very I love the outdoors. So I will actually turn off my devices. I take a paper journal, pen, completely old school, take it outside, sit on my patio, or go for a walk and put it in my backpack, stop somewhere that I'm out in nature and just write down like what's happening if we're off track, how far off track are we? What is happening? What do we need to do to get back onto track? And for me, and it sounds weird saying that because I'm in technology, I have technology devices all around me. For me to just get back to let's put the devices away for a second, write down on paper what I need to do and be back in nature where I feel centered and grounded, gives me that just a new way of thinking things through. I also have a morning mantra that sits on my monitor, just reminding me that every day I want to be 1% better than I was the day before, whatever that is. So it sits on my monitor. Again, it's right by my whiteboard. I can see everything. And it just helps me get back on track and realize that just because there was a hiccup, it's not end all be all. And there's a way to get back on track. You just have to find it. And being bold is how you get back on track.

SPEAKER_00 17:26

Yeah, again, going back to your definition. Just keep having the courage to move through it and forward and follow through. Keep taking those steps. When you think about your transition into the leadership of the organization, there's a that's a lot of change for an organization and pretty much overnight. What did you learn from that in the sense of change and managing the change that needed to happen in a way that the company could connect with it and then be behind you in the sense of what needed to happen next?

SPEAKER_01 17:55

One of the things I did was I sat down with my employees. Most of my employees are remote, so a lot of it was done through Zoom or Teams. But having those conversations, those one, and it took a while to get through all of them, but having those conversations of, you know, I'm here for you. I was fortunate that I knew everybody within the company because I was in a management role at the time. So I knew everybody within the company, but sitting down and having that conversation of, you know, things are changing. I'm taking over the company, this is what's happening. What do you need from me? How can I best support you? And understanding what people were feeling. Because anytime there's a change in an organization or culture or company or whatever it is, there's uncertainty. Even in your own in anybody's personal life, any change happens, you know. Most times it's, I don't want to say resistance, but there's always that, like, well, what's going to happen? Like uncertainty.

SPEAKER_00 18:51

There's a pause, right? There's a pause, whether it's your thinking or even like physically, of like, what's next, right? What's going to happen now?

Goal Chunking And Habits That Stick

SPEAKER_01 18:58

Exactly. So I went through and I had a lot of conversations with people and I did wish hope and dreams with comp with people. And what that is is what's, you know, what's your wish, your hopes and dreams? What for your personal life, your business life? Where do you want to go? What do you want to do? Company's mind now. Where do you see yourself in the company in five years? And really making sure that I had that aligned and that they had the training that they needed, the support, the tools that they needed, their managers were taking care of them, and really just focusing in on my employees and what they needed at that point. Because they were going through a major change as well.

SPEAKER_00 19:35

Yeah. So when you think about, you know, from then to now and celebrating 40 years, like that is such a phenomenal milestone. Congratulations on that. It it's it's incredible. I'm five years in, I'm like 35 more. Wow. Like it's just incredible. What are the ingredients to a company being successful and being in this space and celebrating? Such an incredible milestone.

SPEAKER_01 19:59

Resilience, listening to your customers first. Main thing is listening to your customers. We have customers who have wanted different products and services. We have a software development team, so we've been able to develop those. We just created a new product that's a phone system that does automatic generations of your calls for you and gives you feedback. And we're launching it soon. So there's more to come on that. But it's called Insight Call Genius. So we're really able to listen to our clients, find out what they need, have those one-on-one conversations, what's working for you, what's not working for you, and being flexible too. Um, with us being in business 40 years, we started out repairing motherboards and hard drives. And now we're, you know, in the 80s when we started, that was almost unheard of. It was something that was a new niche and just knowing what your values are, what your mission statement is, who you are as a company, listening to your clients, listening to your employees, and being flexible and being able to pivot and make those changes that you need to change as things come up. So we've been able to add in additional products and services. We're a managed service provider now. We've partnered with quite a few different companies on offering additional products and services that we weren't doing in-house, but we felt were really valuable. And also staying up to date with knowledge. I'm constantly reading. I have a Kindle. If I'm going to even like a doctor's appointment or somewhere that I know I'm going to be waiting, my Kindle gets thrown in my purse because I can spend five minutes reading a book of whatever the case is. For example, I love reading Atomic Habocks by James Clear. That's where I get my 1% from your book, Lee. I that's on my Kindle is one of my favorites. And when I have a few minutes, I will read back and reread something that I flagged before that was inspiring to me.

SPEAKER_00 21:49

So that's a great idea to also anti-scroll. So, like, you know, because I just think about that as like that's an idea of like also to use that time, that wait time or the pause time that you have for something that actually develops you or gives you new knowledge or gives you, you know, something new to think about. Or, like you said, going back and touching based on something that you know you had highlighted in the past. So I really like that as a strategy, even.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

Absolutely. Other thing I found too is don't be afraid of partnerships. If you don't offer something, there's someone else out there that will offer it if it's something that maybe you don't want to offer. Don't be afraid to partner with those people. And when you're having those conversations with your clients and the client is asking, hey, do you do whatever? Instead of saying no, we don't do that, say, you know what? I have a great person that can help you out with that. Let me get you over to them. And then you can send referrals back and forth to each other. The other thing is having a mentor. I've have an amazing group of people on the GTA working group for Trustmark, which is a cybersecurity platform. I have an amazing group of people that are all my mentors. We work together, but anytime I have a question, I can pick up the phone, I can email them, text them, hey, I need help. Can you help me out with something? And I know that they're there for me. And I also have mentorships for people who have had other businesses before that are not even in the IT industry that can look at it from a third party and say, okay, you know, let's change this. This is a piece that we just need to change a little bit and that will take care of whatever the situation is.

Managing Change With 1:1 Conversations

SPEAKER_00 23:22

Yeah. When you think about a leadership toolbox or what's in there, for me, I like think of like they used to do this in the magazines. I don't know if they still do it, like what's in my purse, you know, and like, you know, everyone pulls out the weird things that might be in your purse. And so I think in the sense of like, what's in the leadership toolbox or the leadership bag, so to speak, for you, in the sense of like every leader should have sounds like a candle or at least something that you can read electronically, you know, on your phone or something like that, a book, you know, from that perspective. What else would you put into that bag, that leadership bag?

SPEAKER_01 23:55

So I put in a goal planner for personal and business. With that, if you're not developing yourself as a person, you're gonna stop developing yourself as a business leader because you're not trying to be better for yourself. And they always tell you when you have when you're in a plane, if the oxygen mask comes down, make sure you use yours first and then put someone else's on. So same thing with that. I would say Kindle or a book that you're reading. I have, I say Kindle, but I have uh off to my right into my behind me in my office. I have two bookshelves. I probably have 500 plus books that are sitting on my bookshelves. You had to get a second one. Right, exactly. I had to get a second one, probably a third one. So I would say those two things mentorships, a group. I love the bold collective. It's um been an amazing experience for me. Having a group of people who, when you're not in the room with them, they're still gonna speak highly of you. They're gonna lift you up even when you're not there. That is so essential to have. So you know that you're going through this. Being a CEO, you can't really talk to your employees about everything that's going on. But having another CEO or a friend that's in the C-suite or management who understands what you're going through is so beneficial. I would also say, so definitely leadership books, a goal journal, and whatever your mantras and your values are, just make sure that you know what your mantras and your values are on a daily basis, your mission statements.

SPEAKER_00 25:25

As we're closing down here, if someone's like, okay, I'm ready to create my leadership toolbox and using some of these, even the process that you use, you know, from the perspective of you know, your skills in archaeology and anthropology to technology, you know, the things that you did to really, you know, make sure you were listening to the customer and taking care and listening to your employees as well. You know, so if someone starting off and thinking, like, wow, I'm ready to load up my toolbox and move forward. What's their first step? Like, what's the first thing they should do as they're stepping into a new leadership role? Um, maybe planned or unplanned.

SPEAKER_01 26:02

I would say define who you are, what you want, what your goals and your missions are. That's gonna help you have your clear definition of where you're going. And then think about whether you're starting over, if you're starting your business yourself, you're stepping into someone else's business or business that's already been created. Figure out where you are currently and where you want to go. Because some of those times those will align, some they won't, and some are just minor little changes that you need to make here and there. And that's going to help you understand where you want to go. I would always suggest to put business plans together, vision statements of one, three, and five years. And this is for person, business, whatever it is, and have a I have a journal that's a goal journal, and it has a list of my top hundred goals in there. And as I go through them, I just check them off and say, okay, I hit this goal. Now what's next? Don't get complacent, just continue. As you achieve a goal, you should have three more that you're putting on your plate. And always keep you to strive to be better than you were the day before.

SPEAKER_00 27:05

Yeah. So keep updating that journal, keep updating the goal list and keep moving forward. What are you most excited about as you look forward to 2026 with TCE?

SPEAKER_01 27:16

Um, very excited about our new products and services that we have coming out and just the growth that we have. We've done a lot of streamlining, working on my vision of the company for the next one, three, five years and just being there for our clients. And one of the things I love to see is when we have like a small client, any client, as they're starting to hit their goals and we know what their goals are and really understanding what they're looking to do. I love when I can see them hit their goals. So one of my things is to see my clients hitting their goals too.

SPEAKER_00 27:49

Nice. Well, thank you so much for being on the bold lounge, sharing your bold journey and the leadership tips I think many people need to hear. Thank you so much. Thank you, Lee. Appreciate it. Thank you for listening to the Bold Lounge podcast. Through the continuum of bold stories, vulnerability to taking the leap, you will meet more extraordinary people making a positive impact for others through their unique and important story. By highlighting these stories, we hope to inspire others and share the journey of those with a bold mindset. We hope you've enjoyed this podcast and look forward to sharing the next bold journeys with us.