This is the Good Neighbor podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Stacey Rizzley.
Speaker 2:Hello friends and neighbors, welcome to episode 57 of North Atlanta's Good Neighbor podcast. Today we have Good Neighbor Vicki Abelson with the defined leader. Hi Vicki, how are you?
Speaker 3:I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me Stacey.
Speaker 2:You are so welcome. I just learned through the pre-interview that you are a fellow Dunwoodyan.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, yes, yes, I love, love, love that so the defined leader.
Speaker 2:Go ahead and tell our listeners about your business with the defined leader.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so my business is called the defined leader. I'm an executive coach and I help leaders grow. I do that through one-on-one coaching and also through group coaching and facilitation with organizations, nonprofit, for-profit, big, small, what have you?
Speaker 2:Okay, that's wonderful. Well tell us about you know how did you get into this, Tell us about your journey, the journey behind that's the story behind the business.
Speaker 3:So you know, I had a very, very typical sort of career progression. I went to college, I went to business school, I got a job, and the job that I got was the job that I have always wanted. My career was in the healthcare administration. I worked for nearly 20 years in healthcare administration, mostly in academic medical centers, and I loved it. It was something that I was really, really passionate about. I loved being sort of on the back end of healthcare, helping the physicians be able to give the patients a wonderful experience patient safety, outcomes, quality, all of that and I loved it for many, many years.
Speaker 3:And as I grew in my career, as it happens, I sort of was further away from the actual work and I found myself leading the people, leading processes, and I loved that more. And as I started, as I got married, as I became a mother, I really wanted to figure out what was next for me and did I want to stay in healthcare for the rest of my life or did I want to do something else? And I really did find that working with people, having that one-on-one interaction was helping them have those aha moments about their careers, was the most inspiring thing for me. So I got a coaching certification. For a long time I was coaching while I was working full-time while raising two small children, and then I left my job and I started coaching full-time and I haven't looked back and I love it, that is a great story.
Speaker 2:I know we as moms and entrepreneurs and in starting businesses, we wear a lot of hats, don't we?
Speaker 3:We wear so many hats, so many hats, sometimes all at the same time. Exactly, I always stack them up, stack them up exactly.
Speaker 2:There is nothing to complain. There is only one hat. I know that's boring. Well, that one-on-one connection is what drew you to coaching. I love my industry. Obviously I'm connecting with people all the time and I understand that passion. It's really neat to be able to hone in on the portion of what you're best at. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And there's something about helping a person have that aha moment, and seeing that aha moment in their eyes is really inspiring.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh gosh, and don't we all love having aha moments? Yes, and in fact, you get to witness a lot of those, and it was a business coach. That is very rewarding, yes, well, so let's take a second to clear up any myths or misconceptions you think that our audience may have about your business.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it's interesting. A couple of weeks ago I actually went to a wedding and somebody I didn't know anybody at the wedding, and somebody who was sitting at my table was like well, isn't your job sort of made up and isn't it fake?
Speaker 2:Or you're trying not to be insulted there.
Speaker 3:It's like oh, it's very nice to meet you also. But you know, coaching does have sometimes can have kind of a negative rep because there's not necessarily a standardized training. It's not the same thing as you're getting an MBA or getting a master's in social work or psychology, whatever it is. And so coaching can have this kind of like nebulous feeling and lots of different coaches do lots of different things. I'm an executive coach, there's career coaches, there's resume coaches, there's life coaches, et cetera. But the thing that I always go back to is, if you have quality systems, quality tools and can demonstrate outcomes via either through your client work or through your education, coaching is incredibly, incredibly helpful in helping you see the label that's on your bottle, right, we can't, we don't know, like if you, if you think of yourself as a bottle, you can't see what's written on on your bottle, only somebody else can help you see the words, or somebody can help you see yourself from like a 10,000 foot view, and that can be incredibly, incredibly helpful if it's done the right way.
Speaker 2:Okay, so we'll, Vicki, tell us about what you're doing, will shift gears from from work for a minute and tell us what you're doing for fun when you're not working. What? What do you like to do?
Speaker 3:What I'm not working on. I'm moming. So I spend a lot of time, a lot of time with our kids here, whether it's like around around Dunwoody, like the nature center, brooklyn Park, what have you. But Recently I have really, really gotten into Pilates. There's actually a Pilates studio right right around here as well. That I have been absolutely in love with has been the most fun, such a great way to like to exercise and like meet people. It's been amazing. Well, give them a plug. Who is it? It's club Pilates over here by by the public's here. Right, it's amazing.
Speaker 2:Pilates. There's a plug, vicki. I don't appreciate that. Oh it's great, yeah, and I thought it is a lot of fun. I know I'm so fun. Oh my gosh, it's so fun Like across everybody now I need to check check out the class with you.
Speaker 2:Check it out. It's super, super fun, yeah, and really good for you to low, low impact and lots of good benefits of that. All the good things, all the good things, all the good things. They should give us a free membership for this. They should, I mean seriously, oh, my goodness. Well, so let's shift gears again, going from from fun to something more serious, and can you share with our audience a hardship or a challenge that you have faced in life that you can stay now? For having been through that experience, you are better for that today.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a great question. I one of the, I think, challenges of my work is that sometimes people will come to me like, oh, vicki, you know, you don't know, or, vicki, you've already gotten to X place in your career and so you know things are. Things are easier and you know, I have had a lot of lessons, a lot of things that I have done in order to get, in order to get me here, and one of the things that has been, I think, one of the most pivotal lessons that I've learned is in my early 20s I was diagnosed with ADD. And being diagnosed with ADD in your 20s is a strange time because, you know, a lot of us think like, oh, it's something that only happens to children and you know, and that's easily managed.
Speaker 3:But in your 20s, when you're already kind of a quote unquote grown up and you're out in the world and you're doing the things, you're having to learn that much different strategies in order to be a successful, productive adult. And it became my life's mission at that time to really make sure that I set myself up for success, both academically I was still in college at the time but also professionally, and a lot of the skills I learned back then are skills that I still use today and skills that I really pass on to my clients, because, whether they have ADD or not, focus is something that we all really struggle with because of the modern world, and so, to your point earlier, we're all wearing so many different hats and being able to use the skills that I use them to help myself and to help my clients today, it's just incredibly. It's something really rewarding for me and helpful for them, and that is wonderful.
Speaker 2:I too am. I have ADHD and have always, and I was also a school teacher for 19 years, so I saw a lot of it, you know, in the classroom and implementing those strategies. You know there really are excellent strategies out there. So that's great that you have that, that experience, because, you're right, whether or not you have a diagnosis of ADHD, you, you I mean everyone struggles with focus at times, exactly, exactly. So that's that's great, that you can bring that to the table. You know that's a that's a bonus, for sure. Yeah, 100%. Well, so is there anything else that you would like to leave our listeners with? To tell them about the defined leader?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I and thank you for asking that question I think I have a firm belief that all of us, there is a seat on the bus that's headed in the right direction for all of us, and sometimes it just takes a little bit of a push, a little bit of work to figure out where that seat is and where that bus is headed.
Speaker 3:I think when you get to a certain place in your career, you tend to assume that you're in your let's just say, you're in mid-career and you tend to assume like this is it, and I'm just going to do this exact same thing now for however long I have to work, and whether you are in the C-suite or whether you're an individual contributor, there is so much that you can do to help define a fulfilling career for yourself, and I really want to be able to help people define what that is for themselves. I don't want them to get to a certain place in their career and just feel like now that they, now they have to settle. They don't have. They don't have that energy of their youth or their early 20s to, like you know, conquer the world, and now they just have to settle. That's the last thing I want for people. I really want for people to have that energy to say you know what? I'm in the middle of my career. I want to make the most of it, whatever that means for me. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, you are speaking my language. I made a huge career change.
Speaker 3:A big career change.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was in my 40s. I just, you know, entered my 40s and it has been life changing. I mean, I just you know I loved teaching, but this is new and it's guiding and it's something I enjoy and I'm good at. So I can second your thought. Yes, I love it. Just because you have my degrees in education doesn't mean that I can't do something else.
Speaker 2:That's 100%, Absolutely Well. It has been a real pleasure having you on. If our listeners want to learn more and reach out, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you, Vicki?
Speaker 3:The best place to find me is actually on LinkedIn, so you can find my name on LinkedIn. Through LinkedIn, you can find a link to my website. You can find articles that I've written, other podcasts that I've been on, you know, posts, ways to work with me, ways to reach out to me. Linkedin is the best way to find me. I'd love to connect with you there.
Speaker 2:Okay, so I'm Vicki Abelson on LinkedIn, and then you'll be able to get to her defined leader information as well. Yes, well, thank you again for being on. It's really been nice, and I always love it when we have done witty businesses on to you.
Speaker 3:Yes, thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 2:You are so welcome. Well, thanks for being here. That's all for today's episode. I'm Stacy Risley with a Good Neighbor podcast. Thanks for listening and for supporting the local businesses and nonprofits of our great community.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to the Good Neighbor podcast North Atlanta. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, Go to GNPNorthAtlantacom or call 470-946-7007.