Turning the Page: Emily Adams and Julie Tricht on Mastering the Art of New Beginnings and Conscious Leadership

Have you ever stood at life's crossroads, weighed down by the past yet eager for a fresh start? We sit down with the remarkable business partners, Emily Adams and Julie Tricht, to unravel the art of "Starting Over." Emily's return to our show is nothing short of a revival, as they both illuminate the challenges and triumphs of embarking on new beginnings. We're not just talking shop here; this is a soul-stirring journey through emotional connections to global events, the resilience needed in personal crises like house fires, and the reflective time that Thanksgiving ushers in.

As we wade deeper into the waters of transformation, our conversation turns to the heart of leadership and partnership in business. We'll take you through the trials of our own lives, and there's no holding back as we divulge how we integrate these life lessons into our consultancy, aiming to mend the fissures in businesses by fostering personal growth. Julie and Emily then cast a vision for a future free from the shackles of hustle culture, aspiring instead for a world rich with connection and authenticity. It's a powerful dialogue that paints an image of conscious leadership, where personal transformation echoes into the corporate corridors.

Julie is the Co-Founder of Transformative Leadership and Author of "Leadership vs Management.”  Growing up in a blue-collar family that regularly struggled to make ends meet, she always knew she wanted more from life. Pushing herself to graduate high school with honors and going on to study business at Purdue University paved the path for where she is today. Somewhere along the way Julie discovered her passion for helping others to do the same.
transformativeleadershipllc.com
linkedin.com/company/transformative-leadership-llc
linkedin.com/in/julie-tritch
instagram.com/julie.tritch33
instagram.com/transformativeleadership

Emily is the Co-Founder of Transformative Leadership. She is also the author of the book "From Choice To Change" and is a single mom of two boys.
linkedin.com/in/emilyadamsllc
instagram.com/emilyadams_

This episode is brought to you by CamaPlan, A Different Way to Invest. Go to camaplan.com/foundersforum to learn more.

Be sure to click "+ Follow" at the top of the page, new episodes every Wednesday! Thanks for listening!

Follow Marc Bernstein on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook!

And follow Ang Onorato on LinkedIn and Instagram!

Are you a visionary founder with a compelling success story that deserves to be shared with our audience? We're on the lookout for accomplished business leaders like you to be featured on the Founders' Forum Radio Show and Podcast. If you've surmounted challenges, reached significant milestones, or have an exciting vision for the future, we'd be honored to have you as a guest on our show. Your experiences and insights can inspire and enlighten others in the business world. If you're eager to share your journey and the invaluable lessons you've learned along the way, we invite you to apply here.

Transcript

Announcer: 0:01

Entrepreneur, author and financial consultant, Marc Bernstein helps high-performing entrepreneurial business owners create a vision for the future and follow through on their goals and intentions. Ang Onorato is a business growth strategist to blend psychology and business together to create conscious leaders and business owners who impact the world. Founders Forum is a radio show podcast sharing the real stories behind entrepreneurship as founders discover more about themselves, while providing valuable lessons and some fun and entertainment for you. Now here's Marc and Angc.

Marc Bernstein: 0:35

Good morning America. How are you? Good morning Florida, good morning Arlo, good morning Ang, and good morning to our guests Emily and Julie. You've met Emily Adams before. We'll soon introduce Julie and there's a little backstory to the show today. We've done it before and the story is that we love our engineer TJ. He's amazing. However, we had a little mishap and that was that somehow our first show disappeared. So we are doing it again today. It's taken a while because we will have busy schedules, but this one's gonna be bigger and better than the last one and it's really somewhat of a follow-up to Emily's two-part show, because first she has a fascinating story and then she started to talk about her company and the work she does, and Julie is her business partner in transformative leadership LLC and we're going to talk a lot about what they do today after we hear Julie's story and how they got together. But with that, I think we have a little theme today, Ang, if you want to introduce the theme, and we'll all talk about that and then we'll get to their stories.

Ang Onorato: 1:48

Yeah, absolutely, I mean. And happy day before Thanksgiving I can't believe we're already at this part of the calendar and but we were talking offline about you know the, the needed ability to start over. You know what do you do when the unexpected happens, both professionally, personally, and you know, I think a lot of times it tends to. It could throw people, it could throw companies. You know off kilter. But if you approach the opportunity of starting over, just like we're doing today, I think it can give us an opportunity to do bigger and better things. And my personal belief is sometimes the universe says you know what. We're not going to go down that direction. Let's actually start over again.

Ang Onorato: 2:29

So, as you said, really, really excited to have Julie and Emily back in the studio with us today talking more about their company, more about what they're doing. I think the last several months has evolved what they do, but we'd love to hear from them. In a minute I'll formally introduce them again. But you know, Marc, we've seen and talked about the world right now. I mean, what's what's starting over looking like for you right now, as we're even beginning to look at? You know, the new year 2024 is right around the corner. What are you starting over right now?

Marc Bernstein: 2:57

well, it's an interesting story in that things out of our control. There's a lot of things going in the world that are out of our control and for me it's been a very emotional time because I have deep connections to Israel. I have deep connections to to Eastern Europe, where my family is all from, from the Russia, ukraine, austria areas. You know. Those borders have all changed so we have two major wars going on which I never thought we'd see things like this again in our lifetime. On the one hand, I was concerned that we might, but really hopeful that we wouldn't. And it's. I couldn't really imagine the emotional impact, because I know so many people that are impacted by this, let alone the fact that my daughter is living in northern Africa, close to the Middle East, in a Muslim country with the Jewish last name, and I hate to put it this way, but you know there's a lot of. As we know, one of the byproducts of this war has been latent Amit-Semitism and latent Islamophobia, as they call it, and it's just terrible all the hate in the world. I'm deeply troubled by it. So I was thinking, you know that my and this has to do with starting over, because it sort of sets the table for starting over, which is how do you? You know my mission has to be to live a happy, productive life and to impact those around me in that way. How do you do that while also going through, you know, sadness and grief and all the other things related to all this, and I've been very busy. So I know some things I could do, like retreat to the mountains, which is one of the things I do, which I will get to do this weekend, but haven't been able to for the last month or two, and I found a very simple thing as an unconscious, competent my.

Marc Bernstein: 4:49

You know, everyone knows I'm a musician and my guiding light for most of my life has been the Beatles. You know, I grew up with the Beatles and their music just brings me joy. And they happen to come out with their new, what's called their last record. It's called Now and Then, and I knew it was coming out. I knew the backstory on it and I learned more about it, and I just found myself listening to it a lot, because I could take five minutes here and there, watch a video or listen to the song and that brought me joy. So I was able to simultaneously feel joy while all this other stuff was going on and in many cases that gave me the energy to go on with my day and be productive and do the things I wanted to do. So I'm not sure how that. It's kind of restarting while it's going on is what I would call that, but that's my version. How about you and how about our ladies today, emily and Julie, your experiences with that?

Ang Onorato: 5:46

Yeah well, I'll just pop in real quick and say you know, I think for me I've had to start over, like many of us, many, many times I mean on a personal level I had a house burned down. I had to start over again. I've had, you know, to fail the attempts at other businesses that didn't work and had to go back into the corporate arena and starting over again. And you know, I know, I can't wait to hear their story and we don't have a lot of time today, so I'm going to do a quick reintroduction and then we'll get into hearing their story about starting over.

Ang Onorato: 6:12

But to just recap, so Emily Adams and Julie Tritch, two very good friends of mine, been on the show before, but they met while working together in the really highly competitive and really male dominated automotive industry did that for a number of years.

Ang Onorato: 6:27

There were leaders in there realized that leaders and the operational aptitude for a lot of these companies really left a lot. They really found leaders being left to their fend for themselves and they decided, hey, let's combine our you know 25 years of combined experience and let's create a company that can go into these organizations, help create conscious leaders and really teach companies how to streamline their operations so that sort of simultaneously they can grow their people and their revenues, and to me that's a daily process of how they help people start over. But what's more fascinating is how each of their individual stories also replicate this concept of you know how do you pick yourself up and pivot and adapt. So with that we've had Emily's story and we're really excited to have Julie tell us her story today. So, julie, thanks for joining us day before Thanksgiving and I'm sure you have a busy schedule, so tell us where are you today and how did things start over for you in creating this company with Emily?

Julie Tricht: 7:26

Thanks, and I'm really happy to be here, really happy to do this, even if it is the second take, because it's fun, right? It's fun for us to all get together and to just talk about our stuff. So Last time I talked about my story and that apparently struck a chord with Marc and he really remembered it. As we were talking before. I was like Marc, I don't even remember my story.

Marc Bernstein: 7:51

It was memorable to me.

Julie Tricht: 7:53

Yeah, that's great and I love that you say it was humble beginnings, because sometimes I don't give myself enough credit for where I came from and I know I've had these conversations with Emily numerous times. My parents divorced when I was very young. They had a very tumultuous relationship and, looking back on like man, if there were ever two people that were less suited for each other, I couldn't find them, because here they are and then, just growing up in, I mean I knew we didn't have money and we didn't have a lot of money, but I never realized it was as bad as it really was until I became an adult. I mean we were on the brink of losing our home multiple times and I never knew it.

Julie Tricht: 8:37

I always played sports and there were multiple times. That is like the basketball shoes were too expensive and the practice packs were too expensive and it was really to the point where my mom was like I don't know how to pay for that. I don't have $200 for you to do basketball this year, Like I don't know how you're going to play and I would, you know, go talk to my grandma and cry and be like they're not going to let me play basketball this year, like that's not happening.

Julie Tricht: 9:01

So just you know, in growing up in a trailer park I make the joke sometimes with Emily. I'm like, are we getting a hood Julie today? Or we get you and Julie like who's showing up?

Marc Bernstein: 9:11

This story is better than the first time. This is getting See, see.

Julie Tricht: 9:15

I'm owning it now more you are.

Marc Bernstein: 9:18

You are.

Julie Tricht: 9:18

We had practice together and then I have a brother that's like a couple of years older than me and I mean, really we grew up in the same family, we have the same parents and we have very different lifestyles and we have very different takes on life and he is very woe is me. I don't even speak to him because I just I can't handle it. It's like you've got choices in life, right. You can choose to be in it and you can choose to stay in it, or you can choose to be in it and feel it and then elevate yourself above it. And that's really the difference. I graduated with honors. I wouldn't call myself an extremely smart person, I just worked really hard for what I wanted, went to Purdue University, graduated Emily and I had the same degree from there in organizational leadership and supervision, and went into automotive and we'll get into that story a little bit later. But yeah, so that's a quick synopsis of the background.

Ang Onorato: 10:15

Well, it's a great example and, you know and I want all of our listeners to kind of go back and hear the show where Emily tells her story and it's the amount of resiliency and the amount of picking, you know, yourselves up by the bootstraps, I think, is not only important to who you are and why you're fabulous friends and great business partners.

Ang Onorato: 10:34

But I know, and I can attest to this as a first-hand client, you know I feel like that commercial. I'm not only a fan, but I am a client of transformative leadership in my business. And you guys have come in when I was really stuck at a pivotal moment of how do I shift and pivot my business to really exponentially grow, and just a few months ago. And you've, the approach that you take with your clients is really unique. So, julie, I would love for you to maybe you know, talk to us a little bit about exactly what is it that you guys do. I know you've got some really phenomenal partnerships with Torrid AI, which is a phenomenal, you know, ai organization, but it has a very unique slant to that. So talk to us a little bit about how you do this for your clients and what does make it different, what makes it transformative.

Julie Tricht: 11:21

So that's a really big question. So we do a number of things. We do a gap analysis, process improvement. We take a look at your business. We do business analysts right. What does that mean? We take a look at where you're at. We take a look at where you want to go. We take a look to see where your gaps and help you build that bridge to get there.

Julie Tricht: 11:42

But the even bigger factor and key for us, I think, is the leadership aspect of it. And so often when people think of leadership, they think big corporations or you have to have multi layers, and that's not it right. For us, leadership is how are you leading yourself in your daily life? Because everyone needs to grow and needs to develop, or you get the choice right Of whether you want to grow and develop or not.

Julie Tricht: 12:07

And the more we work with clients, I think, the more we realize that they don't need business help or business support. They need to look at themselves and they need to look at where they're at in their personal life, because you're not segmented when you come to your business. It's not hey, I'm showing up as Julie today, who has a degree from Purdue and a minor in social All of these really cool things that look awesome on paper, right? I'm a person who had parents that got divorced at six years old, and how does that affect me in my life and how does that affect me in my business? And if I'm willing to look at those things, then the sky isn't even the limit, because you go beyond that. So that's really where our core foundation is Let us help you move through life. And how does that amplify your business?

Ang Onorato: 13:00

Yeah, absolutely Well, I think you know what you guys have always brought to your clients and we've talked about and, like I said, I know that you're doing in your other partnerships. I've experienced it myself. It's really tying the humans behind the work, right. There's humans behind being leaders, there's humans that make up corporations and I think attending to the full embodiment of that is what is really taking business forward today. I grew up more can attest to this.

Ang Onorato: 13:28

I think you guys are a little bit below us but in terms of the generational piece, but we grew up really in corporations that operate in that command and control mindset, right, and I think especially in automotive, as you said, it's a very storied, very older school industry. So we're going to take a break here in a minute and what I would love to maybe throw out a question and I know Marc's got a couple good ones for you guys too, but we love Emily and Julie to both get your take on. You know, how are you seeing these changes from a personal standpoint, from an operational standpoint, in organizations today, moving into like a new way of doing business, kind of that future of work, because I think that's it's a really important, you know, facet, if that makes sense. So when we take a break now and we'll come back and tackle that question, Thanks, wwwmdbcom. Forward slash IRA.

Marc Bernstein: 15:15

We are back on Founders Forum and and I'm going to ask you to continue in your line of questioning and then I want to get involved because I want to look at Emily and Julie as entrepreneurs. Let's not forget they are themselves and I have a few questions for them about that as well.

Ang Onorato: 15:31

Yeah, absolutely. So let's just just finish that last topic. We'd love, maybe each of you to give kind of your take on what are you seeing and hearing when you're talking to clients. You know what, how are they thinking about shifting their business? And then, yeah, no Marc, would love to have some some future looking questions. So, julie, let's start with you what, what are you hearing from clients? What do you, how are you seeing them guiding their businesses? You know, right now, and and what's that change of environment, if any, inside?

Julie Tricht: 15:57

so I think some of the biggest things that we're seeing is People are are having a challenge, seeing their worth and their value and what they really bring to the world, especially women that we work with and I mean, we do see it in in our male clients as well, but it's usually a much more prevalent with women and and balance, like we all think that we have to do it all all the time right, and I think that I'm a perfect example of this today, and I'll give you the reason behind us. You both know that I'm not feeling 100% today. I'm a little bit under the weather and I'm like right, take a look at calendar. What do I have on there? Well, we've got this podcast interview that we're excited to be here to do, and then we have another client meeting later today. I'm like outside of that.

Julie Tricht: 16:41

I don't think I'm doing anything for the business today. I don't think I'm. Life is life and it's gonna keep on doing it without me. So just really allowing yourself the grace to be where you're at and for that to be enough and for you to be okay with that, because you can't give something a hundred percent if you don't have it. So these we get to take people through these beautiful lessons and through these beautiful transformations. But there's always something that's being reflected back to us in the way that we're looking at our own lives and in our own business and what we're doing.

Ang Onorato: 17:14

Yeah, that's beautiful. I think it's a great. It's a great reminder and, and you know, especially if you're a leader, you can't lead a team, you can't lead a company for your shareholder value if you're not, you know, if you're not keeping your cup full, as we know. And that's a great topic I know Emily and I chat a lot about. So, emily, what, what are your thoughts in terms of you know, what are you seeing within organizations today and how they're approaching, you know, life and business.

Emily Adams: 17:38

Yeah, I think a lot of what I've been seeing to go going off of the whole value and the wordiness. The other thing is the expectations and the stories that we put on ourselves because of the programming. So we have all these expectations in these stories because we've been programmed for years like hustle grind, hustle grind, even though our body is telling us, no, we're done with that. So it's like separating the mind and the body and it's something that I've been and Julie as well has been very Intentional with is listening to our bodies.

Emily Adams: 18:09

Like my mind is telling me I need to be 150%, but my body's like no we're gonna shut it down today and so you better take that time out, because that's a lot of times where we start getting sick or something starts coming up. Our body is talking to us and we're not listening and kind of going back into Operating from our body as business owners, which is not a whole lot of people will talk about that. But how does that decision feel in your body, not your head, but how does it actually feel for you and giving people, especially business owners, the permission slip that they don't really need? But you get to feel this in your body and just Balancing that out.

Marc Bernstein: 18:52

So I just have to say you know, the three of you know that I'm an unusual male In that I do all kinds of stuff like this. So, somatic therapy I did a few years ago To look, because I was not good at listening to my body and that's what it was all about, and it was. I got some tremendous lessons from that. You know, I'm all about the mind-body connection, but I didn't really realize that the body was sending me a lot of messages that I was not aware of. So I think that's very Profound what you just said.

Marc Bernstein: 19:26

So, since I have the microphone, why don't we, why don't we jump to as entrepreneurs? I know, you know we've talked offline a little bit about your business and what you're trying to do and that kind of thing. And One of the questions we like to ask here on founders forum is if we were three years from today so we were in November of and I don't know when this podcast will. You know, we'll reach everybody, but should be pretty soon. So I don't think we'll be too far away from that, but November of 2026 and you're looking back. I'll start with Julie, but I'll ask Emily as well, and this could be primarily for your business, but I'm interested in whatever you're thinking personally as well. You know what would have to happen over that three-year period, looking back for you to say you made significant progress in your lifetime over that period. So, starting with you, julie, starting with the business, so, starting with the business, I did prep you.

Marc Bernstein: 20:23

I told you was coming.

Julie Tricht: 20:24

I did, you did prep me and I also thought I don't like to be prepped because I like to be on the I know not have to think about things, right, because then then I get to lead with my body instead of my mind. Whatever comes out comes out.

Marc Bernstein: 20:35

Okay, forget, I asked you before three, it's okay.

Julie Tricht: 20:38

Three years from now in the business, I see us having a global reach and I see us Having already changed and shifted the culture that we have now from this hustle and grind To let's get innately connected to ourselves.

Julie Tricht: 20:54

And how that looks differently for everyone.

Julie Tricht: 20:56

And, like Emily was saying, the permissions lip, like we're giving Thousands of businesses and millions of people at this time the permission To be innately who they are not, for our parents tell us we need to be or have to be, not who society says we need to be. You're not doing things in the way that it's always been done, but doing what works for us, and I think Emily and I are a perfect Byproduct of this and the fact that what works for Emily does not always work for me. We are two Incredibly different people where we always joke that we're Yin and Yang and that it's literally that is how it is Um you. And so just really cultivating that in the business world and allowing that safe space for business and the culture of business to shift into that where we're coming from, the space of harmony, and people listening might be thinking, wow, this is a lot of Lulu stuff, but it's, it's innate. We who we are right and we, what we're doing hasn't been working Like how is that working for society right now?

Marc Bernstein: 22:07

What's that?

Julie Tricht: 22:08

in the beginning. We've got two major wars going on. Like it's not working.

Marc Bernstein: 22:12

Yeah. So, first of all, you're really good at this. I just wanted to mention that. So that's a great vision because it's a compass to everything, compass personal business, all of that. So so, Emily, what would you add to that and or personalized to that?

Emily Adams: 22:29

Yeah, I would add, I would echo in second everything that she said and then also add to be leading leaders, to really implement this in a broader scale, and not just in their businesses but in their homes and in their lives, because for us it's just a trickle effect. So we also have the vision of leading retreats where CEOs come in, they drop their titles at the door. Your title doesn't matter anymore. We don't care if you're making $2 or 20 billion, you leave your title at the door. You're here as a human. We see you as a human and that's how we help you heal and transform.

Marc Bernstein: 23:09

I love that. So let me ask you this You've already mentioned just because of what's going on in the world, but what challenges do you face, you know, in terms of reaching that vision for the next three years, and obviously you're equipped with skills to deal with that, you know. Let's just talk about what they are. What opportunities, what strengths do you have to deal with those challenges?

Emily Adams: 23:35

Yeah, I'll go first. Some of the challenges in the opportunities for growth for myself is really working on self-belief and faith. Those are the two biggest things that I've been very intentional about. And just believing and going back to you're not given a vision that you won't be able to execute, because there's a reason why we were given this vision and there's a reason why we're going to execute on it Great.

Marc Bernstein: 24:07

Julie, would you add anything to that?

Julie Tricht: 24:11

I would add vulnerability, and I think vulnerability is a space that we play in a lot and something that we get to learn a lot.

Julie Tricht: 24:18

And the more that Emily shows up and is vulnerable with me as a sole family, right, but also as her business partner it creates that safe space and that container for me to show up and be vulnerable.

Julie Tricht: 24:32

And we had I think it was last week, Wednesday when we had some very, very vulnerable conversations about things that we've got going on and knowing each other's triggers and each other's wounding. And you know she was like, hey, I just want to let you know that I'm doing this thing and it's for the business and this is what's going on. And I'm like, hey, I already saw and I appreciate you telling me and, yeah, it did trigger this, this and this in me and, you know, having the awareness that those triggers are there, and saying thank you, Thank you for that trigger because I needed it, right, Like it wasn't her intention to do that, but it shows up in such a beautiful way and we're able to just be vulnerable and to keep moving farther because, no matter how much work you do, there's still something that's ready to come up for you. And being radically honest like that's another key factor, anything for both of us and just being honest with ourselves and where we're at so we can be honest with each other.

Marc Bernstein: 25:33

I love how you two interact on that. I just have to say I have all male partners and we're working on that, but it's a tends to be a little bit harder. And I just want to echo what I think I heard you say, which is that the challenge is self-belief and faith. According to Emily and I would assume some of that, perhaps for you as well, Julie and the answer, the strength, is vulnerability. To use that to overcome the challenges.

Julie Tricht: 25:59

The vulnerability is also a challenge. I understand that we live in a society and we grow up in a society where it's not okay to cry, it's not okay to have feelings, it's not okay to feel too much. I was too much of a feeler when I was growing up, according to my family, and I'm not too much of a feeler. You feel these things for a reason.

Ang Onorato: 26:20

I love about this story that you guys just shared or the way that you talked about it relating to your business is.

Ang Onorato: 26:25

There is so much talk about the term conscious leadership and conscious leaders, and I'm one of them. It's my passion as well but what you guys just described is what does it look like in everyday practice, where I think a lot of and maybe a lot of our listeners are saying well, you kind of overlook the word conscious leadership because they put their own definitions on it. But what you described is this is what happens. It's the awareness and the ability in creating a safe space within an environment that you work in together, that you don't have to agree and you don't have to do things the exact same way, but it's the way in which the awareness of what that brings up in other people and then making space to receive that, and then how do you bring that together for a solution to move forward. I love that example and for anyone who isn't really clear on what conscious leadership is, that's a really great living example of what it is.

Marc Bernstein: 27:17

Hey, real quick, because we're almost out of time. Time flies so much when we're having fun, as it always does when we're all together. My question, last question, real quick, lightning round what are you reading, or what are your favorite books? What tools do you use from reading? Julissa, he's thrown another one at me.

Julie Tricht: 27:35

I'm reading actually one of Napoleon Hill's books. It's not thinking for a rich, the 15 laws of success are, I might, the laws of the laws of success.

Marc Bernstein: 27:47

It's my Bible, it's one of my Bibles. It's a great book.

Julie Tricht: 27:50

That's what I'm reading right now. Wow I just got done with all the fantasy books, so if you want to have a little study group on that.

Marc Bernstein: 27:56

let me know, I love that book and I love to be cool. We should talk about that, Emily. How about you?

Emily Adams: 28:01

I'm reading it's Not your Money by Tasha Silver.

Marc Bernstein: 28:05

Ah, so all about? Is that about money and success?

Emily Adams: 28:10

No, it's a different view and a different stance on money and how you circulate your wealth and how you show up and where you choose to invest and kind of the language that society has conditioned us to use around money and changing that language.

Marc Bernstein: 28:27

So I haven't heard that one, but as a physical therapist it sounds like one I should read, so I just added it to my list.

Ang Onorato: 28:32

I just put it on my list too. That's why we ask these questions. It's like a cheat sheet for us. So thank you both again and again for joining us and for this amazing, very transformative conversation. So happy Thanksgiving to all, and to all of our listeners and to Marc. Thanks again, guys.

Marc Bernstein: 28:51

Always fun to be with all of you and thank you all for listening and see you next week on Founders Forum.