B2B Inspired
B2B Inspired, the podcast by BlueOcean - The B2B Agency, is all about exploring the ins, outs, ups and downs of B2B Marketing here in Aotearoa, New Zealand. We'll uncover emerging trends and thinking while sharing inspiring real-world stories from B2B Marketers here in New Zealand. With the goal of supporting New Zealand’s B2B Marketing community in becoming one of the best and brightest anywhere in the world, let’s roll up our sleeves and take on tomorrow together.
B2B Inspired
Effective Tips On Being A Better Leader with Hayley Nelson
Curious what it really takes to lead with impact? In this episode of B2B Inspired, we speak with Hayley Nelson, Head of Marketing at Craigs Investment Partners, about the link between leadership, culture, and influence.
Hayley reflects on how leadership is earned through consistent actions—not job titles—and why listening is a critical leadership skill. She shares how working with a leadership coach helped her embrace her style and gain confidence in her voice.
From building culture intentionally to modelling values under pressure, Hayley offers grounded insights for leaders at every level. We also discuss how credibility is built over time, the importance of psychological safety, and how to lead with authenticity in everyday moments.
For more B2B insights, ideas and opportunities, head to www.blueoceanagency.co.nz
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Let’s roll up our sleeves and take on tomorrow together.
Kia ora and welcome back to B2B. Inspired a podcast by Blue Ocean where we unpick the ins, outs, ups and downs of all things business to business here in Aotearoa, New Zealand, From emerging trends and thinking to the inspiring real world stories and experiences of smart, good people from within our ecosystem. We're here to help the New Zealand B2B community to become one of the best, boldest and brightest anywhere in the world. Now if, like me, you live and breathe all things business to business and you're looking for a place to connect, learn and be inspired, you have come to the right place. Let's join Freya Spaven over in the studio.
Speaker 2:Kia ora and welcome back to B2B Inspired by Blue Ocean. Now, regardless of your title, if you're good at what you do and how you do it, chances are that you're already seen as a leader, whether that's at work, at home or in your community, and we know that leadership isn't often what we think it is. Now, we've spoken about leadership a couple of episodes back, so if this topic interests you, hop back and listen to Claire Swallow's podcast on company values, but today we're going to hear from Hayley Nelson, the General Manager of Craig's Investment Partners, on what leadership looks like in action. So firstly, can you tell me about your career journey, and I think it would be really helpful to understand some of your background and how you feel like you've navigated towards leadership as a skill.
Speaker 3:Yeah, firstly, it's great to be here, so thank you very much for inviting me, freya, and it's been a pleasure listening to some of the previous episodes as well and hearing the journeys of others. So, for myself, I moved to this wonderful city when I was 14 years old it was a bit of an adventure and went through school at Otomoto College, absolutely loved it, and one of the things when I was finishing school after a year away, actually studying abroad was I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do when I grew up, so to speak, and so I knew I was good with people. I knew I was good with numbers. I enjoyed traveling. I was looking at that business line. I was good with economics. I was like rightio I want to take a gap year and navigate. Is it going to be I go and study business, business and leadership, or is it going to be travel and tourism? Because I just love to travel. And I had the opportunity to go and work for a bank it was a large organisation at an entry-level position, and throughout that gap here, which evolved to be nearly 21 years, I had a lot of opportunities to come from the ground up in terms of working with clients, understanding their needs and making recommendations for them through to leadership roles and opportunities as well, diverse a little bit in terms of coaching teams, leading teams, facilitating workshops and looking after high net worth clients as well. So I had a lot of opportunities within there and the organisation I was with was also really good at fostering and growing their own people as well. So lots of leadership coaching and peer-to-peer coaching as well, which was a fantastic opportunity. I wanted to continue that career journey and, for family reasons, tauranga is my home and I wasn't going to be leaving the city, so I didn't want to go to a bigger city to do that. I think one of the things I'm quite proud of is actually being able to create a career in a provincial town and have opportunities and create opportunities without having to go too far to do that.
Speaker 3:An opportunity came up at another bank. A few of my friends had gone across there, so I took a sideways step and a bit of a comfort zone step, but also a growth opportunity for me, and there was nothing broken with where I was. It was just purely an opportunity to do something different, meet new people, acquire new skills. So I went across to that organisation and very quickly was given leadership opportunities there, partly on their cultural side, I think. I was nominated the Culture Committee lead within about five and a half seconds of being there, and then there was a leadership opportunity within the team as well, which I stepped into and thoroughly enjoyed because I was able to pull a lot of the resources and the skills that I'd acquired through previous organisation into that role.
Speaker 3:From there, an opportunity to further lead a team came up with the organisation I'm with now with Craig's, and the thing that really appealed to me when I applied for the role was that they said there is a lot of diversity in this particular role, and for me, one of the things that I thrive on is having a diverse opportunity each day and saying yes to different opportunities and creating a position that is really interesting.
Speaker 3:So no, two days are the same in what I do and when I reflect back and you and I chatted earlier around some of the learnings probably from my earlier years and I'm the only girl with three brothers, so leading my brothers around to do things was perhaps one of those reflections of how I've been able to help lead and influence teams as well I also think back to my college years and someone pointed out to me the other week that actually, hayley, you've been to a single sex school, a co-ed school and an international school in your high school years and I was like I hadn't actually thought about it in that way and I think that's a real reflection of the learnings I can take from that, consciously or unconsciously, to deal with all sorts of different types of people, because all those experiences help us make a richer experience for what we can add to to other people.
Speaker 2:That's amazing.
Speaker 2:So a theme throughout your whole journey is recognizing and taking opportunities, and it seems like at every opportunity that you've been given, you've been able to step into and step up in terms of your role and your leadership experience, and it sounds like you've had a lot of experience taking, taking your experiences into each of your roles as well.
Speaker 2:So I think that's something that a lot of people can learn from not being frightened to step up and step into leadership roles, and I love that. You spoke a little bit about your family as well, and I think a lot of people sometimes think that maybe they're not a leader or they don't see leadership qualities in themselves. They don't see leadership qualities in themselves, but I think we can all relate to having brothers or siblings or a friend, or you know whether we've coached and elevated and lifted up. Another common thread throughout the, what you've been talking about is being intentional with your leadership style, because obviously you're a GM now you might be under a little bit of pressure to deliver results, so how do you line up that with strategy so that the culture can help to get you there?
Speaker 3:I take it back to real basic things and I think about how I set myself up each day to actually have a good, successful day and how that can flow through for the business also. So having a really good, structured routine in the morning where I've got good habits that set me up to have a good day and then I play that out to hopefully have a good life through that and coming into the office each day being clear on what that strategy is, what the plans and actions are to help achieve that. How can we motivate others and influence others to get on board with that? How can we manage our resources best as we can? How can we follow up? How can we track those results?
Speaker 3:Also, while pulling in together the relationship techniques, which I see is probably one of the most important things to be able to navigate your way through with organisations, having really strong internal stakeholder relationships is a critical piece to actually helping achieve strategy, because you can't do it on your own.
Speaker 3:You know you need to be able to pull in other players in the team and pull on their strengths and how they can participate with it as well. With that, having strong external stakeholder relationships is also a very critical piece because there are going to be things that you're going to need to look out. You know, getting that helicopter look, yeah, from a from a higher view. Look out how are others doing this. You know what are the some of the transferable techniques that people might be able to share, and that's where I think things like this particular podcast is sharing the different techniques and strategies that other people go about to be successful and help themselves and help others move forward. So, having some good routines, being aware, reflecting on where you've come from which goes back to our earlier question, being able to reflect on where you've come from, the lessons we've learned, to be able to pave a way forward and help implement that strategy and help the businesses achieve their visions and their goals.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love the point that we made earlier about being a lighthouse and not a tugboat, which sounds like it's applicable to both the internal side of things and the external stakeholders as well. So what does that look like in real life and how can we help leaders to make better calls during these change processes?
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely so, being a lighthouse as opposed to the tugboat. Yeah, I first thought about that from a family perspective. Rightio, we're getting up and we're going for a walk up the mountain this morning, and who wants to come with me? And sometimes there might be a bit of stone-cold silence, but actually as people see that you come back and you're enjoying yourself from that walk or that adventure, and they actually want to be a part of that as well.
Speaker 3:We take that into the business sense and you can really lead from example in terms of getting people on board to follow that lighthouse and go towards that, because they can see, actually this is a really cool place to be, this is a really good thing that we're being a part of and we can actually help influence this piece. So, even though sometimes you do perhaps want to tag people along, I think in leadership, there's a big part of being a real influencer of those around you, and I talk about leading from your position. So, even if you may not have manager or leader in your title, you've got, I would actually say, an obligation to be authentic in what you do, but also lead from your position, share your wisdom, share your knowledge, help others to progress and proceed as well. So you know, in terms of that team culture, we've all got responsibilities to be a leader from where we're coming from in that piece.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, influencing others is a really big, important part of leadership and that goes both down to internal stakeholders but also up into you know the how do you, how are you speaking to and what communication techniques do you use when you're moving those ideas and getting buy-in with somebody that's, you know, potentially in the c-suite or above?
Speaker 3:yeah, I think we have to build. Being able to build some genuine rapport from the kit co is so important. You know, if you're going in stone cold, this is what I want and how I want to do it. It's almost a bit of a okay right. Who is, who is this person and where are they coming from? There are times when you may be able to do that. We've been able to build a bit of genuine rapport, just as we've done today. Have a bit of a conversation first. We're feeling a bit more comfortable. Actually, I feel like I can trust this person a little bit more before sort of launching into radio.
Speaker 3:Going back to our vision this is what we're wanting to achieve. I think Claire touched on it. To our vision this is what we're wanting to achieve. I think Claire touched on it. This is the island that we're heading to, interesting the maritime pieces that we're pulling into, all of this. This is what we're wanting to achieve. Here's a way that we can do it. We've bounced it off this person. I've got feedback from that person. How are we actually going to go about doing this and moving it forward? Building some initial rapport, having good rationale as to why you're doing what you're doing and being able to come up with solutions and overcome objections as well, is a really important thing.
Speaker 2:I think you and I talked quite early on about being optimistic, and I think in your LinkedIn profile it says that positivity is infectious. You know optimism. I think that a lot of our listeners will relate to that. We're big fans of Simon Sinek start with why and I know that he is a self-proclaimed optimist as well. So where does that optimism play in and how do you impart that throughout your interactions during the day?
Speaker 3:So interesting when you do those strength finders, and for me, what always comes up the top every time Optimism, optimism. And I, when you do those strength finders, and for me, what always comes up the top every time optimism, optimism. And I do like to have my glass half full. I do like to use all the other cliches that go along with it, because I wake up every day and I want to live a good life and I want to have a good day. So how do I make it a good life and a good day? It's all about my perspective. You know things happen and it's how we react to those, and I'm not saying anything new that people don't know, but it's being able to continually remind yourself. Actually, something might pop up and it might throw you off kilter for a little bit, and that's okay. However, it's being able to take a moment and go right.
Speaker 3:This is interesting. How I'm behaving to this is, and or responding to this is interesting. What am I going to do with this? That's going to help me and I'll go back to have a good day, have a good life, have a good outcome. And what can I learn from this particular piece as well? I am grateful I do have that natural piece with me, but I think it's also one of those things that people can learn and put into their day and into their lives if they want to being able to look in the bright side. What am I grateful for? What are the good things that have happened? I did an exercise with the team the other day and it was reflecting on all the good things that we've had for the year to date and I quoted a lady I'd met recently and said right, let's go with positivity till we puke.
Speaker 3:Very visceral, exactly so you can imagine I got that reaction from the team that I talked to this about, but it was getting out all of the really good things that have actually happened and then shifting into the radio. We've got gaps, challenges or opportunities. How do we work with those? And that was how we framed it up how to close xyz gap, how to, you know, move forward on this particular piece. Framing it up from a leadership perspective in a positive way is just so important.
Speaker 2:To go back to that lighthouse piece, get people on board and help support so what other techniques have you used to get your team along, especially during challenging times? You know we're halfway through the year now, we're recording halfway through the year, and so what are some things that are, what are some techniques that teams can do right now, today, to reflect on what's happened in the last six months and what they should be going doing going forward, to realign with their goals.
Speaker 3:I think it's as simple as getting together, you know, doing a stand-up huddle. You know, getting the post-its out. Actually, let's just spend 10 minutes reflecting on the year that has been. You know, give everyone time to actually think in the first person themselves. You know, talk it over with a colleague next to them and then just start throwing it up on the whiteboard, on the post-it notes, just get it out and then, when it stops, wait and get some more. You know, if time allows because there will always be more when you give people that time and that space to think about it and then actually really taking that time and being intentional with right out, how do we turn that dial that one percent more. You know, how do we do things slightly differently to make it better for us because, as we know, you death, taxes and change the three things that are never going to stop for us. We need to continue to change ourselves to be able to help our businesses continue to change and to help ourselves continue to progress also and that's a good, I suppose, tool and technique for oneself also.
Speaker 3:What are all the positive things that have actually happened in my world at the year-to-date or in your world? And then what are the things that I'd like to do differently? What are some of the gaps? And actually, how can I do that? And I know of someone that they would take. I think it was one day a quarter. It was their thinking day. They were in a senior leadership role and they'd actually take themselves away and they'd go in with a notebook and a pen and just write down. You know, some of it would have been all the things that have been really good. Some of it would have been all the things that they want to work on and then those how-to pieces. I'm yet to take a full day myself to do that. It might take an hour or so to do it, but actually stepping aside, aside, reflecting and thinking about where you want to go, is a really important thing.
Speaker 2:We've spoken before about leadership coaching and that you've been a big advocate for a leadership coach. What kind of what role has a leadership coach played in your development, in your journey, and in what scenarios would you recommend somebody reach out to a leadership coach?
Speaker 3:So I've been working with a leadership coach since just before I started with the organisation I'm with now, and the reason why I did that was because it was a step up in terms of that role piece and I wanted to have, you know, the best toolkit I possibly could have to help me navigate through what challenges I might have or what opportunities I might have.
Speaker 3:Having a really good, genuine rapport with them is so, so important, and also that consistency is important. One of the things that I have learnt is that the way that we respond to things as an adult is the same pretty much as the way that we would have responded to it as a child. So often there are ways that we would have responded to it as a child. So often there are ways that we might react to something and we go. Well, this is an interesting way. Why am I reacting this way and identifying what was it that potentially happened in my younger years for me to react this way and doing a bit of that reprogramming. I've done NLP Neuro Linguistic Programming studies and learning how you can reprogram your brain to react differently, or at least observe and react differently, just because we have been one way we can change you don't strike me as a reactive person at all, so it must have really worked.
Speaker 2:in terms of um, there's a there's a big difference right between responsiveness and reactionary, and you can really see it in some leadership styles, particularly when there's lots of big, loud voices in a room. And I guess this is where we come to when we say leadership can be quiet too. Yeah, in terms of that. Now, if you're a business owner who feels like you're across everything all the time.
Speaker 3:What are some of the first leadership levers that you'd pull to allow your team to thrive, but without losing sight of the things that you also need to achieve in the business? So I listened to a leadership podcast just this last week actually. It was an interview with Simran Kaur, who wrote Girls who Invest. Who's now Friends who Invest, and one of the things that she touched on there was around the investing journey and specifically how we need to invest in ourselves. Firstly, when you're paying yourself, I'm talking from a financial perspective. So I need to put money aside for future Hayley or future Freya and invest that in whatever way that I need to to help me have good outcomes in the future, and I liken that to that leadership piece. You actually need to invest in yourself to be able to show up for other people.
Speaker 3:You can't pour from an empty cup, as one of my colleagues says to me. You know when that when they can see that perhaps actually, hayley, I think you need to go and have a break, because that's one of the things that I'll make sure that I'm always doing that I leave the office every single day, regardless, to help recharge my batteries. I'll typically go on my own for a walk down to the water just to clear my headway, because I know that that's a good way to be able to come back and start out with a fresh set of eyes. So being able to fill up your own cup in the way that you know you need to to be able to help others transition through as well. So some of those key, simple things for me is taking a break, having boundaries. So I typically will not check my emails in the weekend, but my team know if they need to get hold of me, they can call or text me and I will respond.
Speaker 3:Because, for keeping my own self on a healthy trajectory, I need to have some boundaries in place, because I think, especially as leaders and especially, I know, as business owners, it can be very consuming that you want to be responsive and available 24-7. However, it's also not healthy for us and it will quickly drain your battery, unless you disconnect for a period to be able to go on and do that, and I think of the business owners and that, even if you can disconnect yourself for several hours over a chunk of a weekend, just do it. Yeah, it's not going to be the end of the world and you'll get through it, and that will just help give you the energy to keep moving through as well and I think that probably leads really into my next question around mastering where you are when you're looking towards your next goal.
Speaker 2:Instead of jumping and hopping through and having patience, you know to be where you are and mastering your space. What does that look like in practice and how can you apply that?
Speaker 3:So I touched on before around being in provincial New Zealand and you know, often things take a little bit longer, you know, for roles or opportunities to come up. So you're actually spending more time typically in a particular role where you've got the opportunity to really, I suppose, master it, to be curious about what that next role actually is, and it might not necessarily be that linear roll up. You know, it could be to the side that's going to create those opportunities. That linear roll up. It could be to the side that's going to create those opportunities. You've got the opportunity to pass that knowledge forward as well. If you are really skilled at what you're doing, and that is a really privileged thing to be able to do for somebody else.
Speaker 3:I think in life one of the most important things for us to do is to be able to pass on knowledge. As parents, we want to pass on knowledge to our children. As an employer, an employee, we want to pass on the knowledge. It's not a secret the more people that we can actually help lift up and bring up, it's going to only add to what your business is being able to deliver. So, going back to the question in terms of mastering that, it will never fully master anything. There's always going to be room for improvement. One of the things I love about the industry now is that you will never know everything. Something's always going to change. But the more you can be really skilled and pass that knowledge forward a, the more likely you are to get that promotion if you're the right person for that particular role, but b the more value you're going to get yourself being able to share that knowledge and looking for opportunities as well.
Speaker 2:Right seeing those opportunities is almost a leadership in practice as well, isn't it?
Speaker 3:absolutely moving towards things as opposed to away from things. I think quite often people can be going all right, I'm actually sick of this, I'm ready to check out. That's going to be really hard for you to find that next opportunity, whereas if you go all right, yeah, there is more I can add to this organisation or there's more I can actually add to my city or to the world, I'm open for that opportunity. But I'm going to make sure I do the best that I possibly can in what I'm doing now, because that's going to put me in the best light for whatever is open there and, yeah, being open to be able to add value in a positive way for other roles, whatever that might be, it's really important.
Speaker 2:Adding value. I like that you said adding value, because I think that's a huge part of leadership and a huge part of just being a good employee in general but, also, you know we also creating value for our customers.
Speaker 2:Um, there's so many stakeholders that we that we create value for, and lots to think about in that term. So, um, I know that in your past experience in banking, when you were working with businesses, I presumably, who were asking for finance, that you had 10 leadership principles or a framework around principles. Firstly, tell me about the 10 principles, and how would that look if someone was coming to you for advice?
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely so. The bank that I was with they did. They brought in this amazing leadership program. It was a little bit cheesy at first. We watched these videos of this guy. Well, that was probably five foot nothing and some really big hair, and if anyone has worked at that organization you know exactly what I'm talking about. But they were really good steps. So they called it the 10 Steps of Leadership, and there probably is a little copyright sign I should be putting after this, but it was from Vision Plans, vision actions. I'm going to have to go back to my, my brain here. I've written it down, but I'm going to vision plans, actions, results, tracking, follow-up and feedback goals, coaching, resource management, motivation and relationship techniques, and there's a beautiful diagram. It's a big circle and you had the vision goals, actions going around the circle and in the middle of it was relationship techniques, and I think I touched on it before that having really good relationships is the key to success for all those other pieces falling together as well.
Speaker 2:So you'd say being a connector, those relationship?
Speaker 3:pieces are the key really to unlock the rest of your leadership skills. Absolutely, yeah, absolutely yeah. The good thing with that organization as well is that they took these, took the leaders through their leadership coaching and training every two years. There was a warrior fitness, yeah, and the same with their client facing roles. They had some great development planning and it wasn't just a one and done, you've done it, and in two years time you'll do it again and you'll do it again. You know, we used to talk about the rubber band you stretch out after a workshop and then things start to loosen and it collapses a little bit. So they stretch it out again, um, and pull it back through, and that was a really good model of how they did things in the b2b context.
Speaker 2:That's really interesting as well because we work with a lot of customers who are you know that we might work with a handful, you know, in comparison to a b2c company so relationships are really pivotal often into to getting the next piece of business from someone.
Speaker 2:We have long sales cycles that look, you know, three, six, twelve months. Sometimes somebody could be waiting for years for a piece of machinery potentially that's gone through a large and long manufacturing process. So we see the same thing and we say that trust is a pivotal skill to be building inside of a leadership. When we're thinking about leadership, um yeah, have you got any experience with trust and how would you speak to trust building?
Speaker 3:yeah. So what comes to mind for me there is owning things. Yeah, in particular, if things aren't going well, own it. Yeah, I think of an example. Today I sent an invite out but I only invited me and the guest speaker. I actually didn't invite the rest of the team, so it was going to be a bit hard. So I'm like that's me showing up being a human and it's okay. You know, it's actually okay. And when I think of those external relationships and hopefully we're not making too many, you know, errors and like that but actually being able to reach out to that person and go hello, freya. Um, we had a conversation. I just want to follow up on that. Yeah, I just want to give you an update. We might not necessarily have the answer right now, but I wanted to update you with how we're going with progress and just really owning that relationship, sort of end to end, or at least when you're handing it over.
Speaker 2:You've got that, that follow-up there to make sure that it's taken care of as best as you possibly and that's showing leadership in your personal and professional interactions right, not just in terms of leading a team, but it's also being a leader for your clients and a leader for your suppliers and relationship holders as well absolutely yeah because they've they've reached out to you initially.
Speaker 3:If that is the case, yeah, and you're the one that's that had that initial relationship.
Speaker 2:That's in your court.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:So if somebody wants to make a bigger difference in their business this year, whether they're an employee, maybe they've got, maybe they're a middle manager or maybe even at a leadership level what's one piece of leadership advice that you'd like to give them?
Speaker 3:show up the way that you want to show up, and what I mean with that is bringing your best, yes, authentic. Bring your best self to work. You're leading, yeah, and you have a responsibility to make sure that you're leading from the front, you're encouraging and influencing others. And show up the way that you'd like your team to show up. You know, if you want them to come up, come into the office, you know, fired up, rearing, ready to go energized. Do that yourself.
Speaker 3:You know I'm a big one for actually talking about writing. Let's just look in the mirror. And how am I showing up today? And is this how I want to show up? Yeah, or can I just turn the dial a little bit? We all have days where actually, yeah, I'm not 100%, my tank's not full today. However, I'm still going to show up and do the best I can. Or that might be the day that I'm just going to work from home today and I'm going to recharge my batteries and I'm going to empower those other people to do what they need to do a little bit today.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, showing up and leading from the front yeah, absolutely, um, perhaps an opportunity here to talk about mentorship and the leadership communities that you work in. I know that you are part of two board of directors and you're also a founding member of the power suit community as well, so I thought maybe you could speak to those.
Speaker 3:Uh, yeah, yeah, so I like to say yes. Uh, suffice to say I'm here today, um, because I see it as an opportunity for growth and doing different things. Um, I'm also learning to say no, you know. And yeah, and I say learning too because, yes, I've always been able to say no. However, when you get some really exciting opportunities come your way, you can be enticed to say yes to lots of different things. However, you've actually got to reflect on right, is this the path I really want to go for? And actually, am I going to be over-committing myself a little bit too much to be able to do this? So I say yes to things that I find interesting and I say yes to things that I can see that I'm going to learn something from this or have an opportunity to help other people, and so when I look at the organisations I'm involved with, there is a real, genuine way to help other people with those. I think of the Women's Fund that we've launched, and actually it is purely philanthropic to help other charitable organisations step forward and be able to invest back into their kaupapa and what they're doing. The other board I'm involved with is really grassroots and helping people transform their lives to be better With PowerSuit. It's just a lot of fun. Yeah, it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 3:Kristen and Nair, just you know they're founders. This is not the first company that they've founded and they are real high energy, which I love, and when we actually met in person that we were just like this powerhouse of chat, chat, chat, chat, chat. You can just imagine what it was like and I just really enjoy being part of that community of people who are wanting to accelerate themselves and take action. It's that step forward to be the best versions of themselves and live those good lives. Back to the reading, the simon cynics, going back to being part of a community that are focused on leadership, growing, developing like-minded growth mindset. It's a really cool way to be able to take on your own knowledge but also to pay it forward for others and I think, as I you know, broaden that lens of what I'm open to. You know what's the universe got in line for me.
Speaker 3:Next, you know I get approached by especially quite a few, you know quite a lot of young females that just want to have a conversation with me and just to share, you know, some words of wisdom or what I've done and the opportunities that I've had, and I love it because it's you know, it's an opportunity to see some young wahine that are starting on their journey, that just want some help or guidance and advice, and they're being really brave and reaching out to somebody.
Speaker 3:However, I'd also like to think that I come across as being really accessible and open to actually helping other people as well, which, for me, is really rewarding that I'm not scary In fact, we talked before around the reacting piece, my colleague's a couple of seats down. He's like I talked before around the reacting piece, my colleagues a couple of seats down. He's like I've never seen you lose your cool. I'm like, no, you probably won't, you just won't. Yeah, because that's not how I want to show up. I don't want to be the person that loses my cool. I invest a lot to keep my cool and keep my calm. That said, I can put a stern voice on when I need to, especially with children. There's a lot, however, just being able to give back, which is what we talked on before as well, being able to add value, give back, help others, give us more purpose and meaning in our own lives by helping others go alone hey no, not at all.
Speaker 2:Not at all where can people find you? I don't want to open the floodgates to uh, to lots and lots of people messaging you about your careers, um, but they can find you on LinkedIn, yeah.
Speaker 3:LinkedIn's probably the best way to finding me there. Um, so I I do go through ebbs and flows of what I, what I post on there, and I was actually given a bit of a hey Hayley. You haven't posted much for a wee while, so I might have to put a little bit of content on there, and there you'll see a bit of the professional Hayley in terms of promoting the business that I'm with and being able to really help educate and uplift and help people realise their investment in themselves and opportunities as well. You know from a professional side of things with crags, but also opportunities to invest in themselves and in others as well. You know, just with various events that I might be involved with and other kaupapa, Can we?
Speaker 2:talk a little bit more about showing up as a leader. Yes, so one of the things that I actually really enjoy doing and I think I heard this and other kaupapa Can we talk a little?
Speaker 3:bit more about showing up as a leader. Yes, so one of the things that I actually really enjoy doing and I think I heard this, maybe on the Power Up podcast was around whenever I actually meet with somebody, whether it's for a coffee or probably for a coffee meet, because that's how I typically reconnect with people after we might have met at a networking event or a business event, and if I find a synergy there, actually let's catch up for a, let's catch up for a coffee and have that one-on-one conversation, as I'll always wrap it up with. You know, is there anything that I could potentially help you with at all? And then leaving that pregnant pause and I'm not doing that to get anything for myself, but actually, if there's a way that I can help that person in some way, be be by an introduction to somebody else, or actually there's something in their business that they've been curious about or anything. It shows a genuine way of being a leader and actually doing things for that right purpose.
Speaker 3:For me as well, and it's something that our founder said is around and I probably have misinterpreted this and put it into my own perspective, but the way that I've picked up on it was we can do. We could do everything. We can't do everything. However, we can do something. You know, we get a lot of people come to us for sponsorship because we do give a lot back to the local community and we'd love to be able to help everybody. However, we actually can't. We do have budgets we need to stick to, but there's got to be something that we can do. So, whether it's we're putting them on the list for our community giving at the end of the year, we actually give out to charitable organisations, or we offer to introduce them to our community foundation, or we offer to introduce them to somebody else or do something, and that goes for business as well.
Speaker 2:We might not necessarily be able to do everything that people ask of us, but we could at least put them in touch with somebody else or offer to assist another way. Great, well, fantastic conversation. Thank you so much for your time. Um, I'm probably seeing quite transfixed the whole time, so thank you very much. Um, yeah, I really look forward to the next we speak. Thank you so much. Thank you, freya. Thank you.
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