It's Personal Stories, A Hospitality Podcast

Lauri Reishus, President & CEO at Airlines Reporting Corporation(ARC) interviewed by Dorothy Dowling

• David Kong

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In her insightful interview, Lauri Reishus offers valuable guidance for individuals seeking to shape their career journey. She emphasizes the concept of natural leadership, which involves actively seeking opportunities to understand the business's current objectives and future aspirations.

Dorothy Dowling:

Greetings, I am Dorothy Dowling, Principal of DEI Advisors. We are a non profit organization dedicated to personal empowerment. I am truly delighted today to welcome Lori Riches, President and CEO at Airline Reporting Corporation, also known as ARC. Lori, welcome. It is such an honor to have you with us

Lauri Reishus:

today. Thank you, Dorothy. I'm pleased to be here. Laura,

Dorothy Dowling:

your remarkable career progression from a business leader in a travel venture company space, and then actually to move on in your journey to lead ARC is truly inspiring. I'm wondering if you would be willing to elaborate on your career journey and share it with our audience.

Lauri Reishus:

Absolutely. My pleasure. I started in this amazing travel industry at American Airlines in reservations, and it was not my intention to join the travel industry at the time. It was just a job, but I ended up really falling in love with the business. And yet I found myself not personally able to continue to work at American Airlines because I had very low seniority. I'm working at a res center and I was the single mother of two young boys at the time. So as I started to explore my options, it became, I became aware that I could become a travel agent. I didn't really. know that I could become a travel agent, but I realized that I could. So I went and got a job at a travel agency, a corporate agency. And all I did in the first year or so was send prepaid tickets. If you have been around as long as we have, you know what that is. No one knows what that is anymore. But anyway, I, I got really involved in the travel agency business and enjoyed it immensely and moved into different roles. And then I had the very good fortune to meet Mike Primo. And when he left the agency that we both worked at and went to go lead Sado travel, which is an airline owned travel company he offered me a position and I came along. This has been an interesting part of my career is. Almost all of my career, I've worked for airline owned companies, almost 20 years with Sado Travel, which handled military and government travel, and then eventually got into corporate travel and as an airline owned company, and then here at AHRQ, that remains an airline owned company. So many years at Sado Travel, again, different roles, took on marketing, operations, customer. Success, we called it account management back then sales support and I, and ultimately became like the VP of global accounts at Seattle travel, which was acquired by Navigant and then Arc came calling and I left to go to Arc and I was hired by Arc because travel agents are a really important part of. The customer community at ARC, and yet nobody really at ARC had ever worked at an agency and they wanted to do, develop a data business, develop more services for both agencies and airlines. So they brought me over as a general manager and I subsequently became the COO and then became the CEO elect successor. And here I am the CEO now for going on three years. That's

Dorothy Dowling:

an amazing story. And I know you spoke about Mike Primo, but I'm wondering if You wouldn't mind sharing stories about mentors or allies and how they help shape,

Lauri Reishus:

Mike was a part of my career for many years because he ultimately joined me at ARC and became the CEO as I said, but I think from. One of the things I will say about Mike, and I think if you can find someone like this in your professional career, you'll be a very fortunate person, not just a mentor, but really an advocate and an advocate in the sense of give her this opportunity. Maybe she's never led a marketing group before, but she can do it. Let her do it. He would mentor from that kind of coaching perspective, but really he would just throw me into the deep end of the pool when we needed a different things done. And I. I knew I could always go to him for advice and guidance, but really just was a strong advocate and I think everybody needs both mentors, someone that can help you get, be a trusted advisor, give you coaching, but you also will benefit greatly if you can find someone who will give you new opportunities or advocate for you to have that, that, that opportunity. I know

Dorothy Dowling:

some of our DEI advisors have actually emphasized that point. Lori, and that sometimes the individuals in their lives that were so transformational in their career journey, they saw things that, but frankly, they didn't necessarily see in themselves and having someone really support you in terms of taking some of those career risks and that person in your life and I can understand why your journey is. It's quite amazing and just a success that we've had over time. I can see why he saw all of those.

Lauri Reishus:

I remember I'll just tell you this really short story. We needed a head of marketing at Sado travel. The Internet was started and there was, excuse me, Arkansas. I get sometimes Sado. Was now going to leave, not just focus on military and government, but go after big corporate accounts. That was an opportunity for growth for say to travel. And we needed marketing in that case. And I remember him coming to me saying, I need you to go over there and lead the marketing group. And I'm like, Mike, I don't know. I don't even know the different fonts, I don't know anything about marketing. I, and he said, our business, you got people there that know. They're great writers and graphic designers and we have a webmaster, but they need someone who can tell them how to connect to our customers, what our customers care about, the business. So it's just my kind of my favorite example of him giving me a nudge or a push in the, in a direction that he knew I could do it. I had my doubts, but I ended up loving it.

Dorothy Dowling:

And I think that true appreciation of customers, that truly, I think, empowers CEOs in a very special way, because they should be shaping business leadership. And so I'm sure that affinity you have in terms of understanding has really helped shape all of the businesses. I'm wondering if we can just move a little bit in terms of advice you might give to others who are earlier in their career and some of the key. Success factors that really power to your commercial and business leadership grow.

Lauri Reishus:

Absolutely. It is. It is a journey in a career and what you need when you're younger in your career earlier is sometimes different, depending on, as your roles progress. So if I think about advice for people earlier in their career and that might mean you've not been in a leadership role yet I. I, my best advice at that stage of your career is to be, hugely focused on learning, understand what the business that you work at is trying to achieve, not just what they do today, but where do they want to head? What's their. Aspirations as an organization. And if you get clear around that, then you can keep your eyes open for opportunities to be of assistance. And that may not be quite yet a new role, but maybe there's a project that needs people to help it with or an event that needs volunteers or just look for opportunities to help others. This is my. Favorite advice to people who want to like, how do I get into leadership? You get into leadership for the it's hard. Sometimes it's hard when you haven't been a leader to get that opportunity. But the way I've seen it work for myself and for many others is if you become that person that others, people rely on, you've helped them, you understand what they're trying to do, you're willing to give above and beyond the, what's basically, required of your job. That's like natural leadership. You'll get. The opportunity to lead if you are already being viewed as a natural leader and so early in the career, I think it's really around that look for opportunities to learn and grow and help others become a leader. And then you have this period of time where you're still probably doing a lot of the day to day work of the function that you're in, but also leading it. So at that phase, you have to really focus on becoming a good leader. Learning to, to help others be successful was very different than just doing it yourself because, the classic experience for most of us is, people can be very successful doing things differently than you do it. And letting go of, it has to be done kind of the way I did it and learning to really work with others and all of their various styles and approaches and yet getting the results that everyone's looking for. That's a really interesting phase. And I think that's a phase in your career where you probably need a lot of support. Training, coaches, leadership isn't easy. We've all seen it done well, and we've seen it done really poorly, and you will not, you will, you'll cap out if you don't learn to do it well. And so that's my early in career advice. I don't know if that's what you're looking for, Dorothy, if you want me to expand on anything. And

Dorothy Dowling:

I think that those are really powerful in terms of advice, because I do think that transition, and if we think about Mackenzie just released the latest study in terms of where women sits in the labor force and that broken run that they talk about is truly the gap analysis. It seems to be holding a lot of the actual metrics for women to actually move their careers along and that element of moving into that leadership role and helping others be successful. And truly understanding that journey and getting all the right support as you identify, because I do fundamentally believe that it's difficult transition and a lot of people think it just isn't natural kind of development that we all have, but it truly is not. So I think you're giving people permission to actually identify with more formal training, coaching, et cetera, to be successful is important for everyone to hear. I

Lauri Reishus:

want to, if I might just add a little bit because I'm preparing for this conversation. I was thinking a lot about past three decades and I want to balance my advice about helping others as a way of, Almost learning and earning new opportunities with making sure you're taking care of yourself and not getting taken advantage of, because there's a balancing act there, right? If you lean too much into that, there are plenty of people who will take credit for all of your hard work and you'll be looking around going what's happening for me? I, so you had, there are different inflection points where you have to pivot from, focusing on others and helping others be successful to making sure people know what you're doing, what you've achieved. And, because. I just, and make sure you're thinking about that consciously along the way, and if you start to feel a little bit like resentful, you probably let it go too far. So that would be my piece of advice for folks to make sure you're really thinking about it consciously and not letting things just take you down a path too long in that sort of helper mode, helper learning mode. Yeah. Yeah.

Dorothy Dowling:

And I think that's a really important balance that you and I'm wondering if we could expand on that because. I'm wondering, you have been a team leader of a lot of people do a lot of good work at ARC in terms of the kind of development that you offer to your teammates, including interns, but I'm wondering if you could expand a little bit on some of the ways that you have really focused in on making sure that the kind of contributions that you are bringing to the table are being recognized as well as how You have really approached

Lauri Reishus:

team leadership Yeah I'll speak to the former first, and then I'll, I want to talk about team leadership. But I had a, I remember having a very large aha moment. And it was in a situation in which I was actually having pretty serious conflict with the, with a peer, another executive at AHRQ and. He said something to me and sometimes, sometimes the best learning, sometimes you learn some really important things from people. You may not necessarily even really that much. So I think that's an interesting thing that I learned in that interaction. But he basically told me, you do a really crappy job helping people understand what's happening in your area and what you're doing. You really don't know how to you just think if you work hard, everything good is going to come. And it was true. It was painful to hear, but I just say that you have to make sure that your your teams, I'm a big fan of, make sure there's, you give lots of recognition to the team. None of us do this alone, but you have to also make sure you're communicating. Internally and externally in a way that allows people to understand what you've contributed and what your team is contributing. So I just thought that was an, it was an interesting experience for me because I, that would be the trap that I've fallen into a few times in our career. Just of course, I should just assuming that I would get recognized and rewarded for all of these efforts and accomplishments. So you got to tell people, it's almost like an internal, it's like a, now we talk about having a personal brand. We never used that language before, but you really do have one and paying attention to that's important. In terms of team development, I think, for example, we have a very robust internship program and what I've seen, in fact, we just hired a couple of our interns from this class they, giving. People need lots of, you have to pay attention, you have to make time for people, regardless of where they are in their career, you have got to make time for people to, but when people are earlier in their career, they may need, you have to think about situational leadership, like, where are they in their career? And you've got to, as a leader, you have to modify your approach for that. For the, so for an intern, for example, they are just learning about this industry. They have such a hunger for information and you really got to spend time explaining this crazy complex industry that we work in. And if you don't make time for that, you're really impairing their ability to. to contribute as quickly as they want to. And it creates a, I think, a frustration gap for people. So I try to remember where are people at if they're new and they may have been in the company for 10 years, but if they just got a promotion, they're almost back to square one in terms of learning. So I try to remember that and give people. The time that they need, I just find that as they, as people evolve in their career, what, where I might've been much more directive as this is what we need you to do. This is, let's talk about how you do it. That's very like level one to how can I help you? When people have mastery of a role, then they're just looking for maybe some guidance and support. So it's been really mindful of where people are at and trying to. Tailor your approach to the, to, with that awareness. And I find that works, frankly, for a, for an intern, all the way to, when you just, I just, promoted recently someone to an executive role, but new in that role, they're in a very early learning stage. You can't just assume that they know how to go about doing what you want them to do.

Dorothy Dowling:

If I may, Laura, I just think you're brilliant in terms of this situational leadership and being so sensitive to your teammates. I know we spoke about it. With your internship program and how you had to balance that with your other teammates, because they were going to do things that many were interested in. Yeah, but I just think your sensitivity in terms of understanding others careers journeys and just being an advocate for them and truly helping them in terms of their success rate. I do think it speaks to your work. Understanding customers and how you meet these customers too.

Lauri Reishus:

Yep. It's always about the people for. Yeah, for sure.

Dorothy Dowling:

Yeah, you've done some amazing things and I do think your internship program is something that many in the industry could learn from. You've done a really good job at really focusing on

Lauri Reishus:

that next generation of leaders. I, I'm so amazed by interns or I just this week spoke to some of the folks that we've recently hired and a number of them were earlier in their career. It is so exciting what they, they've got such a global perspective. It's just innate there. Just their technology savviness just blows me away. We had an intern program that they did in about six weeks. This what an amazing project with AI, for example, and it was like easy, so it's just so it's reassuring and exciting to see the newer people come into the industry and I love being around them. I think this is, it's a lot of fun and it makes you feel really good about the future.

Dorothy Dowling:

I think the other part that I loved when you told me that story was that they their passion, energy, positivity, drive, all of those things is very contagious in your organization.

Lauri Reishus:

One of the unintended consequences of COVID for us is we've really rebuilt AHRQ. AHRQ has a very tenured senior team. And when COVID happened, we had to we did early retirement. We basically reduced our workforce by 25. percent. And now that we've rebuilt the team, we've hired all, a third of the people at ARC, one third, are, have been with us for two years or less. So it's a huge infusion of new talent and energy and ideas. And most people are not from the industry. So that brings amazing perspectives. And so it's been a, I don't like the way that it had to happen, but in a way, it was a really given ARC like new life for the future. It's. Exciting.

Dorothy Dowling:

That's an amazing framework. I think I'll take away in terms of looking at how some of the process and coded have created a real cultural impact. Absolutely. Thank you for sharing. I wonder if I go back and, I hear a thread in terms of personal mantra. That in terms of how you really think about your approach to business, your partners, and obviously your team, but I wanted you to articulate that for us.

Lauri Reishus:

I do have one and it's actually, and it's a big poster on my wall. Somebody came along and found it for me, but it's one I've used for a long time. And it is a double edged sword, but I still believe in it very deeply that you work hard and be nice to people work hard and be nice to people. And. I hold on to the work hard piece because I believe leaders should work harder than anyone else on the team. It's not the sometimes we've all seen the opposite, right? Somehow, times people get to a more senior role and somehow everybody else is working, but they, they. I don't know, they do their thing, but I really believe that you shouldn't ask people to work any harder than you do yourself. And I have a Midwest background, so maybe that's just that work ethic. But good things happen when you put your shoulder to the wheel and really work hard. And then the being nice to people, it's just, maybe it's that customer background. I, grew up in customer service. I, So my best friends actually are people I've met in the industry or used to be colleagues or currently colleagues. I just care a lot about the relationships. I think I'm a relationship first leader. That doesn't mean that I haven't learned over time, how to manage that appropriately. Sometimes tough decisions have to be made and all of that, the best stuff happens when people are. Bringing their best into the situation and the culture of the company is very much at arc has been around, great people trying to do great work together. And I just, to me, that's, it makes. Life suite, and, we spend a lot more hours that are in our life at our job than we do sometimes outside of the work. So that's for me. My mantra.

Dorothy Dowling:

And I think there's really good lessons for all of us in that, or, I share that perspective that hard work and the learning that comes through that is.

Lauri Reishus:

Yeah, Dorothy, I think that's really important because, higher the level in the organization that you get, the less you're actually doing the work and the less you're actually, Directly impacting your customers and your products and what all of that's going to flow to the bottom line. And so you have got to build a team of people that, are doing great work and, you have to. You're not going to get that if you're not treating people well, just, it's just human nature. I'm sure there's situations where people put up with bad bosses because of they, for whatever reason, I, I don't think that's the world we're in anymore, people have lots of choices and you, I think if you want to attract talent to your team and retain that talent, you've got to treat people, respectfully and well. No, and I think

Dorothy Dowling:

everyone talks about the discretion to give to their lawyers that you have to earn that. I just come into again, because I, the sense of your commitment to why you have built such a powerful and you have such loyalty to support you and our, I'm wondering if we can move on a little bit about learning, because you've had an amazing and you talked about starting out as a single parent. The journey, the choices that you've had to make, but this element of continuous learning and growth has been noted by many of the advisors that participated. I'm just wondering, as you have been any go to development. Books newsletters, courses, different things that you have attempted that have really been important

Lauri Reishus:

to your personal development. There are so many sources. I'm a voracious reader, and I think that actually has been really helpful to my career. And it, you can pick up ideas reading. A biography of a historical feature of figure as much as you can a business publication, for example, but I am really a big fan of Harvard business review. I think they have really well researched interesting articles. Oh, I. Every issue I get some idea and probably make my team crazy. Hey, we should check this out or we should do this or why aren't we doing that? So I'm big fan of HBR. I recently started following chief dot com for women. They have great articles. And then chief executive dot net is another really great. It's, yeah. I didn't really discover them until I got into this role. Not quite sure why that happened, but I'm forwarding stuff all the time because, and you don't, you can, anybody can sign up for their newsletters, really thoughtful, very timely, interesting little, articles that will give you lots of. Interesting insights. So those are some of mine. I'm a big fan of the beat and the company dime. So within our world, I'm, there's so much to read, but those are usually, I don't let those get too stale. I did in preparing for this role, have a more formal development plan with formal learning. For example, NACD, National Association of Corporate Directors, I'm certified as a corporate director. So there was quite a rigorous amount of Learning related to that, which has served me really well in this job. And I did take a one week class at Wharton around strategic planning for executives. I would say a big miss for me on my development plan was I should have learned more about mergers and acquisitions. That's never been part of my background. I'd never worked for a company that acquired anybody else or merged with anybody else. And yet here at ARC, we do have investments in other organizations and we've had. Some of those hit various events and so that's been an area that I wish I had learned more about. And so I would advise anyone getting into this role. Be sure you're sharp on mergers and acquisitions in addition to strategic planning. That one served me well. So those are highlights that come to mind, Dorothy.

Dorothy Dowling:

Those are all great tools. I share some of your passion for some of those publications. HBR is a big tool for me as well. But I do think that balance of actually investing in education is also really for our audience to hear, Laurie, because I do think sometimes you need time away from work and one of those leadership development programs really allows you to go back and focus again on

Lauri Reishus:

Skill experience and that I might mention is when I joined arc, it was after almost 20 years at a TMC. I knew obviously about arc. But what I didn't realize when I got to arc almost 18 years ago that there was. An enormous amount of conflict between the travel agency community and the airlines that owned arc that just wasn't on my radar when I worked at a TMC. And so I took a conflict resolution course an 18 hour class at a local university, because it was fascinating because half the people in there working for the UN or their army captains. But here I am trying to figure out how can I. Help arc grow when the two core constituencies, airlines and agencies are like, hate them. So I hate each other and they. because we're not doing something to the other group. So it was fascinating. I learned some really great leadership skills just around, because conflict is just a human thing, right? It happens all the time. And everything from how to facilitate, how to find shared wins, how to show. Two different groups, true respect and value each group for what they bring. It was, if anybody's in a situation where that rings a bell, I would say there are some really interesting like mediation and conflict resolution courses you can take. And you may be the only business person in the room thinking, you're not trying to become a mediator and help people who are divorcing, come to an amiable settlement, but it's still the same tools and the same mindset and approach to the problems that. Humans are having with each other. So that's the one I would add. Yeah, I

Dorothy Dowling:

think that's an amazing suggestion for it. Because I do think in all our domain business world, we all have to navigate conflict and hopefully bring things to a positive outcome. So that's a really good tip. I wonder if we can move on because ARC is quite a complicated, business model it's really important to the airline community, of course, and it's a real data connector across the travel ecosystem. And I know you talked about building alignment, but I know we've also talked about just the governance, the level of governance with the nature of the stakeholders that you have to continue to, evolve your strategies in terms of all of the shared partnerships. Approaches that you have from your business model, so I'm wondering if there's any tips that you could offer in terms of how you navigate it, all of that stakeholder engagement and leadership.

Lauri Reishus:

Kind of building on my comment about the conflict resolution we've navigated this well at AHRQ by really ensuring that all the people, the processes at AHRQ the, our priorities are attentive to both airlines and the agency community. And we, in some cases had to make some shifts. We and then we looked for places where we could, we ARC could actually add true value. It's not our job to just tell people, Hey, you should get along. We have to actually do things that help them both succeed or both achieve their respective objectives. Dealing with different constituencies, from a governance perspective, we do have very formal agreements with agencies and airlines. And so we, but yet we have learned that the stronger you make your relationships, which has been a huge focus over the last many years the less you have to be guided by agreements and the more you are guided by shared conversations. Shared objectives and you can agreements can be modified. Agreements are not, carved in stone like the tablets. They can be modified to reflect new realities. If you, if people want them to be. And that starts with the relationship and the understanding of what's getting in the way or what people want to achieve. So again, it comes full circle for me. You build great relationships. You can usually navigate through any challenging times and you can get help people get. the outcomes that they're looking for. And a lot of that's AHRQ's job in many ways is to help airlines and agencies be successful. Like it doesn't show always on our bottom line, but that's actually as an industry owned entity, we exist to try to create, value for the participants at AHRQ. I

Dorothy Dowling:

think again your discussion of that shared sense of purpose and relationship engagement. I loved the comment that you made about the difference between And a shared sense of outcomes and how to really build that level of commitment to each other so I think that's really good advice. And I think for organizations that have an awful lot of.

Lauri Reishus:

Thank you.

Dorothy Dowling:

Thank you. I wonder if I could move on to just you personally, Lori, because you're a trailblazer. I think you're the 1st woman who's ever helped this pool and, I believe you probably had to work on really building your canvassing consideration. I think all of you are faced with that challenge because you're actually. Changing people's points of view of a woman actually holding that role. So I'm just wondering if there's anything you can share in terms of how you really. Developed your consideration among the various decision makers and seeing you as a successor to that role when the opportunity presented

Lauri Reishus:

itself. Thanks for that question. First I had to decide that I wanted it myself and it was actually an interesting process for me. I was very I've never been a person who's focused on what's next, I get really passionate about what I'm doing. I want to do a great job. As you can tell, I get all consuming and when it be. When I started to understand that, our current CEO at the time, Mike was going to be retiring, I was, I had been really happy in my COO job. I felt like it was doing a great job. It was challenging. I certainly was still learning and there was always new things to do. But then I, all of a sudden I had this moment where I thought, man, if it's not. He's not here and it's not me, it's going to be like one of these guys and I'm looking around the team and not that, nothing wrong with any of these guys personally, but I thought I'm, I would be better than this person. I would be better than this person because I really did. But all of a sudden I realized I am actually the most qualified person in the room to take this next step. And so it sounds silly, perhaps even, but that actually great. Wasn't obvious to me until I got it through my thick head. Once I decided that was what I was going to do. I got really intentional about it. I leaned in to building even stronger one to one relationships with our board members, our directors of the company, because Arca's industry owned. I knew. Almost all of these board members, superficial, superficially as cost, maybe deeply as customers, some, but some not, I didn't have a relationship with at all. So I spent a lot of time, went out and, met with them all personally wanted to make sure I really understood what they were trying to achieve. I knew them in the arc world, but I really wanted to get to know them better. So that was something I did. I had that really intentional development plan that I mentioned to you earlier, and I got an executive coach and. Probably the most important person in my career success is this executive coach. I worked with her while I was developing my succession capabilities and getting ready for the next job. And I worked with her for the last couple of years. When I got into this job, I was a new CEO. It's a new role. Absolutely. Critical resource for me. And then the other person that's really been important to me is the chairman of our board, who is a woman. Bonnie writes, didn't really know her that well until I got closer to this job and I knew it. That was a relationship I needed to build. And I've just, she's just become an incredibly important person in my life, personally and professionally. Thank you for

Dorothy Dowling:

deconstructing that path for us. Or I guess I do think about the people that are going to be the decision makers. On the relationship engagement and understanding what they wanted to achieve, and then really looking at what you need to develop in terms of internal skills and building a very intentional plan around that. I think that's excellent advice, and I think it's something that many of us could take on at any point in terms of that next career step. But I really thank you for sharing it, being so vulnerable in terms of.

Lauri Reishus:

And if I might just add 1 more thing I was the obviously a strong internal candidate, but. I believed that the board would, and probably likely, should have taken a look externally as well. And so I decided for my own well being, one of the things I needed to do was be ready to not get the job. And to, and so I did start to look for, okay, what would be, what other cool things could I do with my career? I started thinking about leading a non profit. I live in the D. C. area. There's tons of amazing non profits around here. And I needed to be able to feel that myself and communicate. To them Hey, if this doesn't happen, I'll be fine, but I won't be here. I needed it for myself, but I also think it was important that, they knew as they were considering their decision that I, if I didn't get the job, I wouldn't be here again.

Dorothy Dowling:

Thank you for being so and so powerful in your decision in terms of allowing us all to understand that. Because again I think others sometimes need to hear the strength of what you brought to the table, leveraging your negotiation, your strength. But also having, so we're coming up near the end of the interview, Lori, but there's 2 things I was hoping. 1 is really work life balance. And you started the conversation about being a single mom, but. All leaders struggle with all of the demands of workplaces upon them, the hard work that you referenced earlier in terms of the career journey commitment. But I'm wondering if there's anything you can share in terms of how you have intentionally managed some of those demands being a parent.

Lauri Reishus:

Yeah, and other jobs I feel like for most of your questions, I've had a really great answer, but this is 1 that I honestly haven't. done really well with, and especially in earlier parts of my life where I was ambitious really committed, and yet a parent of younger I have two sons, they're grown men now who like to remind me on a regular basis about all the times that I wasn't there for them. But then I remind them like, hey, look at my job now, look at, we get to do a lot of really cool things as a family because I can afford to take us. But I, if I could go back to my younger self, I would not probably change my commitment or my ambition, but I would probably ask myself more often with, really force myself, like, how important is this? Because there were periods of time in my career where I thought everything was important. And, I look at it back now and I think, I can't even remember why we even did that. Maybe ask yourself a little bit more is this, how important is this? Should I really be sacrificing, my evening or my weekend for this? Or is this something that. I don't have to be a you don't have to be a superstar around everything that you do. So picking and choosing a bit more would be my advice. But when I finally did figure out that if I didn't take better care of myself, I wasn't going to make it. I really developed a, a habit over the last several years of making sure I take at least two. Chunks of time off a year for a vacation, one for family, one for like friends you have to put that time in the calendar and honor it and that, don't let anything get in that way. And if you do that, at least, you've got a couple of, and then there's, of course, we all have some holidays here and there you'll be able to give yourself enough R& R to create that kind of balance. So that's my best advice, but it's, I think it's a dull work in progress for me sometimes.

Dorothy Dowling:

If I may, or I just want to thank you so much for being multiple for sharing so many personal elements

Lauri Reishus:

of your career journey. I also want to

Dorothy Dowling:

congratulate you because I know you're going to receive this week, one of the women at the IGPTA top women in the industry award and you have been a trailblazer and you just bring so much intellectual capital, but you also bring this warmth. In terms of the courage journey that I just truly admire. So I thank you for sharing that and for showing others the way forward and I also thank you for your strength in terms of how you have carved your career out and how you have empowered others to see that way and support teammates on their journey. Thank you for the wisdom. I know that our audience will very much appreciate that to share with us

Lauri Reishus:

today. Thank you, Dorothy. It was a real pleasure speaking with you.

Dorothy Dowling:

Likewise. And if I may also say thank you to our audience. And if you have enjoyed this interview with Lori, I hope you'll also come to our website because there are many other TBI advisors like Lori that you can learn from on our webcasts and public podcasts that I know will really empower you to be a TBI advisor. I hope to see you there, Lori. Thank you again.

Lauri Reishus:

Thank you, Dorothy.

Dorothy Dowling:

Thank you.