Join me and Lisa for a deep dive into the wild world of entrepreneurship. I love this one, because of how bravely she faced the unknown. Sometimes plunging headfirst into it is the best way to make waves! Lisa tells us all about her journey from corporate to business owner, and the bigger vision she had for companies as a trusted consultant. (And if you’re a roller coaster fan, we’ve got a LOT of great metaphor in this one!)
Can’t-Miss Moments From This Episode:
This one is jam-packed full of advice. Don’t miss out - listen now!
Lisa’s Bio:
Lisa L. Levy loves a good puzzle. After witnessing the confusion that ensued after new technology systems were integrated into offices in the early 2000s, she didn’t panic. She saw an opportunity to establish effective processes that support employees and businesses grappling with evolving technology. Then a pattern emerged: internal teams kept failing to communicate with one another in the wake of change. To respond, Lisa founded Lcubed Consulting. Lisa helps companies align people, processes, and technology to utilize agility as a strategic advantage and acknowledge change is a business constant. Her secret sauce to success is leveraging key elements of Project Management, Process Performance Management, Internal Controls, and Organizational Change Management to build teams with the skills and capabilities to drive strategic results.
Lisa is a 3-time #1 best-selling author. In her book, Future Proofing Cubed, she shares her insights on productivity, profitability, and process refinement in business. Lisa’s goal is to prepare her clients with the skills, capabilities, and self-reliance they need to thrive in the future without Lcubed’s guidance. With this notion, she has broken the typical consulting model.
She
Let's collab:
Let's connect:
If you dig the show and want to help bring more episodes to the world, consider buying a coffee for the production team!
Join me and Lisa for a deep dive into the wild world of entrepreneurship. I love this one, because of how bravely she faced the unknown. Sometimes plunging headfirst into it is the best way to make waves! Lisa tells us all about her journey from corporate to business owner, and the bigger vision she had for companies as a trusted consultant. (And if you’re a roller coaster fan, we’ve got a LOT of great metaphor in this one!)
Can’t-Miss Moments From This Episode:
This one is jam-packed full of advice. Don’t miss out - listen now!
Lisa’s Bio:
Lisa L. Levy loves a good puzzle. After witnessing the confusion that ensued after new technology systems were integrated into offices in the early 2000s, she didn’t panic. She saw an opportunity to establish effective processes that support employees and businesses grappling with evolving technology. Then a pattern emerged: internal teams kept failing to communicate with one another in the wake of change. To respond, Lisa founded Lcubed Consulting. Lisa helps companies align people, processes, and technology to utilize agility as a strategic advantage and acknowledge change is a business constant. Her secret sauce to success is leveraging key elements of Project Management, Process Performance Management, Internal Controls, and Organizational Change Management to build teams with the skills and capabilities to drive strategic results.
Lisa is a 3-time #1 best-selling author. In her book, Future Proofing Cubed, she shares her insights on productivity, profitability, and process refinement in business. Lisa’s goal is to prepare her clients with the skills, capabilities, and self-reliance they need to thrive in the future without Lcubed’s guidance. With this notion, she has broken the typical consulting model.
She
Let's collab:
Let's connect:
If you dig the show and want to help bring more episodes to the world, consider buying a coffee for the production team!
Angie Colee (00:00):
Welcome to Permission to Kick Ass, the show that gives you a virtual seat at the bar for the real conversations that happen between entrepreneurs. I'm interviewing all kinds of business owners from those just a few years into freelancing to CEOs, helming nine figure companies. If you've ever worried that everyone else just seems to get it and you're missing something or messing things up, this show is for you. I'm your host, Angie Colee, and let's get to it. snd welcome back to Permission to Kick with me today is my friend Lisa Levy. Say hi.
Angie Colee (00:38):
I'm so excited. This is the final one of the day for me, but I know that Lisa is bringing the energy. I'm so excited to talk to you. Tell us a little bit about your business.
Lisa Levy (00:47):
Absolutely. So my business is 14 years in the making and the constant reinvention of itself. It is L Cubed Consulting, and I serve as a trusted advisor for organizations to help them learn how to adapt and thrive. Mm-Hmm. . So what does that mean? Right. We work with, we work with teams to make sure that we have the right people doing the right work, and then we help them enable with technology. For me, it really is about those first two things, the right people doing the right work. Technology just gives us a little bump in effectiveness, but it really is important to me that we help our teams and my client teams learn how to use best practices so that they can grow and scale and right back to my language, that we want everybody to be able to adapt and thrive.
Angie Colee (01:36):
Mm-Hmm. . Oh, I love that. And I think that's such important work too. I know I am a coach for a friend of mine's program, and he teaches people the, he teaches creative freelancers the business skills that they need to grow their business. And I think one of the biggest shockers to people as they go through this program is, you know, we'll have them do this exercise where they have to write down things that bring them energy and things that drain their energy. And they're always surprised when I go through their work and give them feedback of like, oh, social media drains your energy. Good news. You don't have to do it, uh, prospecting well, you're gonna either have to hire someone that can bring you prospects or like partner with somebody, or you're gonna have to get comfortable with some form of it. You can't ignore it entirely, but like, yeah.
Angie Colee (02:19):
You don't have to cold call if you don't like cold calling. You don't, you don't have to do what you don't wanna do. And I think that ties into kind of that old employee model that we talk about where it's like, just a button the seat, but is it the right button? The seat, though, you know. Um, another thing that blew their mind was when I told them that I'm pure strategy, pure copy. I don't push buttons. You don't want me to push buttons. I will find the nuclear option if you get me anywhere near the back end. So like, let's just keep me in the sandbox where I belong and not try to, to put me over there. .
Lisa Levy (02:52):
Absolutely. Right. And we all have places where we, where we, where we, we thrive, right? Our strengths, we play to those, some, you know, play to our passions. Mm-Hmm. . And we can't always only do that, what we're passionate about. Yeah. Prospecting is that perfect example. I am a business owner. I have led this business for 14 years, and the word prospecting makes my hands turn clammy. And my, you know, the hair's on the back of my neck stand on end. But oh,
Angie Colee (03:18):
Yeah,
Lisa Levy (03:19):
It's important that we interact with our clients and our potential clients, or we don't actually get business. So knowing how to make it, for me, I have to gamify it and mm-Hmm. it is not prospecting, but it's checking in on people. Mm-Hmm. people I haven't talked to in a long time. People I've just met. And it is a conversation and it has nothing to do with business. And then the prospecting, right. That comes organically through a conversation.
Angie Colee (03:43):
Mm-Hmm. .
Lisa Levy (03:45):
But I resist it every single time.
Angie Colee (03:48):
I love that you brought up that it's a conversation, because I think that's a big sticking point for anybody that talks about a sales conversation, right? Mm-Hmm. , they, they emphasize the sales part of it, but not the conversation part of it. And I think that that's a mistake because I operated under that thought for a long time too, that misunderstanding of the process, thinking that if I'm getting on a call with somebody, I close 'em, gotta give 'em the irresistible deal and the pitch that's gonna, like, I'm trying to do all of these mental gymnastics to read this person's mind and somehow like, you know, psychic my way into the perfect deal for that person. And I'm so focused on what's going on in here and trying to land it that I'm not actually listening to the person, which is what would've closed the sale to begin with. And maybe I don't close it on this call, and that's okay, but I started the conversation that might lead to this closing someday. And then exactly like you said, it's following up, it's checking in. It's just a conversation.
Lisa Levy (04:42):
It's, it's a relationship, right? Mm-Hmm. . And we are all sold to all day, every day in every aspect of our lives. And how many of those things do we absolutely hate? Mm-Hmm. . I hate my inbox with, you know, the email messages with the subject lines, Hey, just checking in , Hey, wanted to bump this to the top of your inbox, right? These are all sales tactics that make my skin crawl. And every time I find that I start to do one of them, I like, I have to stop. Mm-Hmm. walk away and figure out what it is that I genuinely want to do with this human being. And is it a phone call? Is it a, an email with a little bit more meaning than, you know, just wanting to touch base? And when you find something that's actually a little bit more of an actual connection and a point where you can start that conversation, build that relationship, business will follow. And it always does.
Angie Colee (05:38):
Hmm. I love that you brought that up. And I feel like I'm gonna say that multiple times in there, but just know I'm, I'm preparing to love everything that you have to say. Um, what do I wanna do with this human right? How do I wanna work with them? What do I love about this person? How do I see us connecting? I actually landed the very first cold email that I sent out when I went out on my own after leaving the corporate job. I wound up, and it took a couple months for this contract to take place, but our connection was, I dug through their website, this was an agency, and they had one of those, um, you know, part goofy part serious leader profiles on the page. And the VP of this, of marketing of this agency had some sort of bit about how, like, his favorite concert ever was, one of those boy band concerts, like with a whole bunch of boy bands at once, .
Angie Colee (06:25):
And I told him, I just got back from Summerland, which was like, Oasis and Sugar, or not Oasis, um, oh, I ca Everclear and Sugar Ray, and like all of the nineties bands from that era. And I was like, Ugh, I imagine you and I would have so much fun going to concerts together because it sounds like our, our tastes are similar. By the way, I'm a copywriter and this is what I do. And that's how we started that relationship. It wasn't about, Hey, I noticed you need copy. I have been to have copy. Uh, could we work together? It was like finding a genuine connection and not when I didn't, I think the intent was right too, right? I didn't go from that, from an artificial, like create this musical connection and be like, so now that we got that outta the way, let's talk a business.
Lisa Levy (07:08):
It's the dialogue. And you have to, we have to be able to continue that dialogue. And so we're on this whole topic, and we're on this topic because I hate prospecting, right? Mm-Hmm. , we're talking about those, those moments and those things Yeah. That as a business owner or a leader that we have to figure out, can we figure out how to do it? Can we find somebody else who is willing to do it? Can we afford to pay somebody else to do it for us? Right. And these are things that as we're growing and scaling our business, we have to, we have to think through because they are the foundation for us to be able to do the things that we do well. Mm-Hmm. and be able to push aside or to somewhere else things that we don't.
Angie Colee (07:45):
Oh, yes. So, you know, a funny thing just happens that right before Lisa and I started recording, I jinxed it by saying, I've had to clap to restart. Like, that's a signal to my editor that we messed up and we kind of wanna stitch something together. And I was like, we're gonna make it through this entire episode, and I'm not going to clap. I just had to clap because my little note taking device, uh, suddenly shut itself down, literally as I was looking at it to ask Lisa the next question, and then I had no idea what I wanted to say. 'cause I wrote it down so I could stay present in the moment. And to me, this is just an example of like how we can prepare and we can set ourselves up for success and to be present in the moment, connecting with people and still have things go wrong that you didn't plan for. Um, and I just thought that that was so perfect to what we were talking about, that it happened in real time. I'm here, I'm prepared to listen and the technology
Lisa Levy (08:37):
well, right. But technology will always fail us. Mm-Hmm. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when, and so, right. We just have to be able to pick up and move on. We're, we're sitting here chatting and it's great, but, you know, in business when these things happens and, and systems crash Mm-Hmm. , right. It's important that people know how to run their process.
Angie Colee (08:55):
Yes.
Lisa Levy (08:56):
Without the technology. And I work with my clients in that space a lot because people will say, yeah, we know what we do. We, you know, we've got great teams. We do, we do this all the time. And is that process documented? Mm-Hmm. , is it written down? Do people do the same, work the same way? Always. Mm-Hmm. And, you know, I get these really ConFuzzled faces and I said, well, it's really not a process if it's not documented. Mm-Hmm. . And if that documentation isn't followed, so we would tend to write, rely on our technology, but then when it's not there, can we fall back and still conduct business as usual without that technology? And it's amazing how hard it is to actually do that. Yes.
Angie Colee (09:40):
Yes. That is one of the things that my friend teaches in his program too, which is how to document your process. Right? 'cause that can be a little bit intimidating. And I don't wanna go too far down the rabbit hole in terms of, of how to do all of that, but big aha that most people get when they go through that is you already have a process. You just haven't written it down. You haven't documented, you haven't figured out what parts are working, what parts aren't working, how you could adjust things, how you could keep it, how you could make it more efficient or more smooth. Right. And when you don't do that, doesn't necessarily mean you can't do business. But it means that you're spending a whole bunch of extra time and brain power and energy recreating the process from the ground up every single time with every single client. And like, just imagine how much more you could get done if you allowed yourself that freedom to just write it down and know how you work.
Lisa Levy (10:32):
Well, absolutely. And the reality is right, if it's not written down, it really isn't a process. Mm-Hmm. Because it's not done the same way every time. Mm-Hmm. And I know I'm being a stickler, and I know that that's like, okay, we're picking the knit on this one, but I am going to one more time because it's important that we know what they are. Because if I'm training you right, I'm gonna train you the way that I do it. Yeah. And then I'm gonna walk away from the job and you're gonna do it, and you're gonna do it the way that I trained you ish. Mm-Hmm.
Angie Colee (11:00):
. But now
Lisa Levy (11:01):
It's the way that you do it. And so three years from now, when we, this business that we're building together grows and scales, and somebody asks George how to do this task, he's gonna say, well, this is what I do and this is how I do it. And somebody, I'll ask the question why? Mm-Hmm. , he's gonna say, well, that's why the, that's how the person before me told me how to do that. And then we'll go, why? And we'll take it back and nobody knows why we're doing this work, and heaven forbid it, it doesn't actually add any value to our business or to our customer. And so now we're wasting time and money and energy Mm-Hmm. on something because we never wrote it down. So we don't know that we're doing it or not doing it. And it's wasted. Yes. So it's not real unless it's written down.
Angie Colee (11:45):
Oh, I love that. And that ties into, I think one of my biggest frustrations when I was still in corporate, the fact that nobody could answer why we were doing something. And if we proposed a new idea, it was always met with this resistance of, well, this is the way we've always done it. And so basically we're not open to trying something new. We're not open to examining the way that we've always done it to see if it could be done better, because it's easier to just put that on autopilot, so to speak. Um, and I know we're always looking for efficiencies, right. I'm efficiency minded too. Um, and also you've gotta occasionally look at those efficiencies and ask yourself if they're still working the way that you want.
Lisa Levy (12:23):
Absolutely. Right. And asking that why and challenging the way we've always done it, that is foundational to who I am and how I show up with my, my teams. Right. If somebody tells me, um, why the reason they do something is because that's the way they've always done it, for me that is like cue the horns and the confetti and eureka moment because oh my God, we have an opportunity to improve what's happening here. And mm-Hmm. that nobody realizes just how significant that improvement is gonna be.
Angie Colee (12:53):
Hmm. And that's awesome too, that you're coming at that from a place of hold up, celebrate. We just found an opportunity to do even better as opposed to some folks that I see that kind of go into that, well, why didn't you know better? Why didn't you do better? Because we can't until we know. Right? Right. And so it's not necessarily that person's fault that they didn't think critically about how could I do better with this if they weren't given that opportunity or shown that model of how to do it in the first place.
Lisa Levy (13:20):
Absolutely. Right. We have to, to get to this place where we're proactively thinking about that on an ongoing and regular basis. Right. That is a huge cultural reality that we have to create one where we, um, we inspire people to question what they do and why they do it. Where we continuously review how things work to try and make them better, that we experiment to learn things, and sometimes we experiment and get results. We didn't want. Some people might call those failures, but those things that we don't want are learning moments that we apply that to the next thing that we do. But this is a huge cultural shift for many companies, and I'll pick on those companies right now that are big and boldly saying, everybody needs to go back to the office. They wanna go back to the way we've always done it. Mm-Hmm. , even though we've proven and we're showing that that way doesn't work that way, holds back tremendous numbers of people. And the surveys and the statistics say that 66% of senior leaders in those global organizations, if they are forced to go back to the office, are willing to resign 66% of senior leaders. Gallup poll in the last couple of weeks, done, um, with Deloitte, I believe absolutely mind boggling. So the way we've always done it is the first sign of there is an opportunity to do better.
Angie Colee (14:50):
Mm-Hmm. . And I think the pandemic showed us just how many jobs could be done remotely. And I, you know, the, I'm I'm on the fence there because I think that it is vital to connect with the people that you work with at some point face-to-face. But I'm also grateful for the model that I had for working remotely when I worked on a team. And that was a couple of times a year, actually, I think three to four times a year we'd fly in for either a team meeting or an event that we would all do together. And then that made the connection possible that was happening virtually. Right. Then I actually know this person and I feel comfortable asking them for a side call that's off the main calendar so that we can workshop this thing that I'm working on. Right. I, I agree with you in that I think there's this stubborn tying to, like, there's a certain kind of magic that happens in those side conversations where you're walking between meetings. I can have a side conversation after everybody else has left the zoom too.
Lisa Levy (15:42):
You know? Absolutely. And I, there is no 100% right answer for the way that we should work.
Angie Colee (15:48):
Yes.
Lisa Levy (15:48):
There is a time and a place where a whole bunch of people need to be in a room together and that Mm-Hmm. in a four hour window of time being co-located in a creative space, they are going to create genius outcomes.
Angie Colee (16:00):
Yes.
Lisa Levy (16:00):
There's gonna be a time and a place where that same group of people needs to be working alone in their quietest space, heads down doing the thing. Right. Or maybe they do the thing while they're on the treadmill. Mm-Hmm. . Or maybe there's time their, their focus time is, you know, I, I like to have my hands doing something, so I do some really creative thinking and it's stupid, but I do it while I'm folding laundry. It just works for me. Mm-Hmm. Nobody should tell me when or how
Angie Colee (16:28):
Exactly
Lisa Levy (16:29):
We have to make space for all of those things because I will promise you that sitting in an office five days a week, because I'm told that that's where I'm supposed to be, does not promote the best productivity for me. And, and I am Mm-Hmm. , you know, not unique in that, in that setting.
Angie Colee (16:46):
Oh, no. I remember plenty of office meetings where I was falling asleep, and it was precisely because of that, because of appearances and how I focus and listen, which is the same thing. I have to be doing something with my hands to keep me occupied. And if I'm not doing some sort of craft, you know, weaving or folding or doing something like that, then I have to be on my laptop playing solitaire. Like something that's kind of mindless that doesn't really require much thought, but kind of keeps me here in this room in my body listening. Otherwise, I'm out and out. Who knows where I am. I am certainly not present here. And I used to get called on that all the time because I look like as I am zoning out, because every time I try to do something that keeps me present, it doesn't look right to other people.
Angie Colee (17:34):
And that's not how they would focus. So it shouldn't be how I would focus. And that didn't work for me. Actually got in trouble in grad school for that because I was playing another such, I think it was like a shooter game while I was taking notes during class. And the wall behind me was glass. And the program director had brought somebody in for a tour and they saw me playing games. And so I got called into the program director's office, like, you just made the school look bad. Uh, we can't have this. And I told him, I hear you and I understand, and maybe I should move to where my back is, not against the glass, but did you ask the class whose notes they're using to study for the final exam? That would be mine, . Like, neither are the notes that people are sharing around to use for this class. So it works for me. And why can't that work for me? Why do I have to do it a different way if that works for me and all the other people around me?
Lisa Levy (18:23):
You shouldn't, right? Mm-Hmm. Nobody. Mm-Hmm. , we need to know how we, how we show up and how we perform at our best. Mm-Hmm. . And, you know, and that's a, that's a heartbreaking story that you just shared about grad school, right? Um, that you were challenged on and, and told that you made the program look bad. Mm-Hmm.
Angie Colee (18:42):
Lisa Levy (18:44):
Who caress how you get through the process of learning. We all know, right? That at different ages we learn more visually at different ages, we learn more, um, orally, how do we synthesize Right. To hear it, see it, and write notes. There are all of these different connections. And for somebody to tell you that your way, isn't it look, reflects poorly on the program, reflects really poorly on the individual whose mouth was moving when they said that.
Angie Colee (19:11):
. Yeah. And I think it was just, uh, I think I can see looking back that it was kind of the InBetween era, right? Where we're moving into more of this technology stuff. When I started grad school, I had a fricking palm pilot. That's how all of the, like, how quickly all of this stuff has developed. When I started grad school, the first generation iPhones were coming out, and then, like, this world has just exploded in the last 10, 15 years. Um, and so I can understand like, we're the first generation of kids that are bringing laptops to class regularly and asking to connect to the wifi. And this is a paradigm shift versus people bringing their notebooks. And also if I'm bringing the laptop, because I can type so much faster than I can write, there's a very real possibility I will just hop on the internet and check right on outta here mentally. And I don't wanna do that. So I play a little game that keeps me present. Right? Um, and I'm not saying that the way forward is everybody play games on your computer or anything, I think, but
Lisa Levy (20:06):
It's what works for you prior to that, a generation ahead of that, you might've been doodling a comic, right? Mm-Hmm. , you might have been drawing an, you know, animation, you might've been doing all sorts of things if you have the skill to do things like that, but Right. Doodling would've been the, the, the low tech way of something like that. And
Angie Colee (20:21):
Oh, I totally did that in elementary school and got in trouble for it back then. .
Lisa Levy (20:25):
Right? And, and that's, that's just, that's also wrong, right? Mm-Hmm. , because that's just right. You're processing the hand is going so that the mind is processing the information. And we've, we know these things. Educators have known these things, but that desire to discipline conform behavior somehow has always sort of superseded what we know in terms of, you know, learning styles. And that's unfortunate.
Angie Colee (20:49):
This is all fascinating to me because exactly like you mentioned, there is kind of this pressure to conform and it almost seems like that makes it easier for a manager to manage, right? If you, if everybody's behaving the same way than, well, cool, my job's pretty easy, but it's, it's almost more of a challenge than to me at least having run teams. It's more of a worthwhile challenge to find the things that make my people excel and stand in their genius and perhaps even elevate this beyond what I thought the vision could be for this project or this initiative that we're launching. And just giving them those tools and allowing them to operate the way they operate, even if it makes zero sense to me, uh, just unlocks something that's really nifty.
Lisa Levy (21:33):
Well, and, and I'm gonna play with the words that you used in that, right. Managers manage tasks. Mm-Hmm. Manage things that are repeatable, that, that fit in the box.
Angie Colee (21:44):
Yes.
Lisa Levy (21:44):
And really, I think what you've described just briefly in how you present it, right? You, you weren't a manager, you were a leader. Mm. And a leader is somebody who gives, you know, their, their staff the freedom and the flexibility to, to drive results and outcomes. And it's not about, um, metrics that don't matter, right? Were you in your, at your desk from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM I hate it. Um, right. But, but it's a key difference. And, you know, we, we use the language and we use the word sometimes even interchangeably, but I think that there's a difference. And I think that it's important to remember that as we're building teams, I never wanna be the smartest person in the room. Amen. I never wanna be the, the definitive answer that says, my way is the right way. Because I'll tell you for free, it's not always gonna be the case. Every now and then, I might have a brilliant, brilliant freaking idea, but I am equally capable of having a really stinky, awful one.
Angie Colee (22:42):
Yes. .
Lisa Levy (22:44):
And you have to have a team around you that has the, the safety, the sense of, you know, of rapport and relationship and trust to say that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
Angie Colee (22:55):
I do love that. And I've loved being that person that, exactly like you said, being a leader versus managing tasks, looking for outcomes and encouraging them to find their own process to get there. Right. I worked with a writer on my team where I was helping him to develop a welcome sequence. And let's, let's say, I'm trying to figure out how to anonymize this. It was an adult humor brand for a product that's related to natural functions we have as humans. Right. And so there was an opportunity to literally go with toilet humor on this, and it would be on brand, and everybody would laugh. And I told him, you know, you've got a background as a comic. Poop jokes are funny, funny, let's just go to town and see what you come up with. We've got this outline with the themes for each email. Let me see what you got. And when he came back, I was laughing my tail off. It was so funny. And there was no way in hell I was gonna present that to the client. 'cause he had gone straight past the line all the way into like NC 17 there. Like,
Lisa Levy (23:58):
But did provide the point of departure to get what you needed.
Angie Colee (24:02):
Yes. Because what I told him was, this was so funny. I'm so glad that you did this. And honestly, I would rather you push it way too far than to come at me from a bland vanilla blend in perspective. It's much harder to add something special to the bland version than it is to go way too far and then reign it back in. So I told him, okay, cool. We found the NC 17 version of this. Could we bring it back to pg? Like, let's make it a little bit less disgusting, a little bit more family friendly, then we can find a way to present this to the client, and I'll be on your side for that. Um, and if they push back, they push back. Right. But that was how we got to a version of this that was family friendly, that was on brand, and the client just went, oh my God, this is so fantastic. It wouldn't have happened if I hadn't just taken the reins off and told 'em, go be free.
Lisa Levy (24:51):
And, and this is, those are the kinds of exercises and opportunities that I love to facilitate with my clients, right. In the spirit of ideation and innovation. Right. And coming up with the craziest ideas that they can possibly think of. Right. And it's like we, let's start with we, you know, star Trek level crazy, right? We are beaming to the moon where whatever it is that we think that this business could be doing, should be doing, would benefit the our clients, the world, our community, whatever it is, think as big and outrageously as we possibly can. Yes. And let's get as much of that idea out there, because in those big, obnoxious, crazy things that are never gonna be, become reality, our themes of things that can
Angie Colee (25:38):
Yes.
Lisa Levy (25:38):
And for my clients getting into the, the habit and the ritual of ideating and thinking crazy allows them to innovate and come up with the new things, the new products, the new services, the new ways of doing work internally, the how we shift from a traditional five day week to a four day week. How do we make these things reality? But we have to start really big and really crazy. Mm-Hmm. and then pull back in the ideas that we can actually then work with. And over time, maybe things can get bigger and a little bit more crazy. Um, and that's kind of the fun of, of that process.
Angie Colee (26:18):
Oh yeah. I mean, none of the things that we enjoy now would exist if it weren't for somebody having a crazy idea that somebody else was like, there's no way that will ever work. I imagine the first person to pitch the idea for the iPhone Right. That we could have it all in our pocket, was probably people were going, wait, what? I mean, that doesn't make sense to me. I, I already have a flip phone. Like, why do I need it to have a camera? It just doesn't make sense. Why would I invest in that? And somebody took a chance on it, Steve Jobs, uh, and made it awesome. And now it's kind of the new standard. Right. And I don't know if I'm totally making up facts on that one. I, I very well could be. But it's just interesting to me that like the big vision has to exist first. And you have to believe it's possible for things to change. Otherwise, you're just gonna be playing small. I guess for some people it's fine. But for the rest of us, I'd rather play big
Lisa Levy (27:10):
Rather always play big. Right? You can always rein something in. And, and I guess you were talking about with the, the, the comedian and the, and the content. It's easier to have something that's too much and scale back than to have, you know, the blank page and go, what do I do with this? Mm-Hmm. . So, yeah. I, I, I'm a big proponent of, of dreaming big, swinging big and going with gusto and then finding the point of appropriate from that.
Angie Colee (27:40):
Yeah. Oh, gusto is such a good word. Hmm. I love that. All right. So I'm gonna do an abrupt segue and I'm gonna say take us back, like what got you into this line of work? How did you get to this point with building this particular business?
Lisa Levy (27:53):
Absolutely. So the year is 2009. I'm in my mid thirties, and I'm on my way to the rollercoaster. I've got my ticket and I swipe my ticket. I take the seat, the bar comes down, I'm holding on as we start to ascend. And I realize that my knuckles are white and my stomach is in my throat. And we haven't even moved yet.
Angie Colee (28:20):
Oh goodness.
Lisa Levy (28:22):
And I hear dinging the elevator door open. I shake off my little daydream and I realize that it's 8:00 AM The CEO has called me into his office, and I don't know why. And nothing good comes from this.
Angie Colee (28:36):
Yes.
Lisa Levy (28:37):
So I take a deep breath and I walk into his office, and you have to understand that he is a gregarious person. He is a southern charmer, Texas drawl, big smile and big blue eyes. Mm-Hmm.
Angie Colee (28:50):
.
Lisa Levy (28:51):
And I'm not buying the charm this morning. I'm just not sure what's about to happen. And he greets me and he gives me a big hug. And he starts talking as he offers me a seat in his office. Mm-Hmm. . I'm sitting down and he starts, and all I hear is W-W-W-W-W-W The teacher from the peanuts is in my head. WWWW. We make things too hard. W-W-W-W-I wanna try something different. WWW or a startup after all. And I'm, I'm sitting there and I'm smiling and I'm nodding and I don't understand a word that the man is saying, but I focused wholly on getting out of this conversation as fast as humanly possible. I have my break. I have the opportunity. And I, I went outside to catch my breath, and I took a look around. I'm in Tempe, Arizona, it's spring, the sun is shining.
Lisa Levy (29:44):
It's gorgeous. And the building is glass and it's glistening. And I look at it and I see the rollercoaster from hell. And I know with every fiber of my being, I cannot get back on that ride. Oh. And I'm standing there and I'm staring, and I'm focusing on my breathing. 'cause I'm still kind of out of breath. And my heart is racing, and this little voice in inside of my head says, I don't want to go back in there. . I'm think really, I, I totally kind of agree. And that this other little voice says, oh, but Lisa, you have to Mm-Hmm. , your job is inside of there. Well, voice says, so do something different.
Angie Colee (30:25):
Yeah.
Lisa Levy (30:26):
But it's a paycheck. It's my paid time off. It's my 4 0 1 k, it's my future. It's everything I ever wanted in my career. I am building a team of project managers who are there to make this business more effective, more efficient, is everything I've ever wanted.
Angie Colee (30:43):
Mm-Hmm. .
Lisa Levy (30:44):
And I take another deep breath and go, I can't do this. And in that moment, I decided to take a risk. I decided that I was in my mid thirties. I am single at that moment. I have no children. If there's ever a point in my life when I, I'm in a position to do something radically different, now is the time. In that moment I decided to become an preneur. I didn't know how I was gonna do it. I didn't know what it was gonna take to do it. But in that moment, in this little temper tantrum inside of my head, I made the choice that I was going to build a consulting practice that would make businesses better tomorrow than they are today. And in doing that, I decided that I was going to build my own roller coaster. If there were twists and there were turns and there were unexpected loop to loops, they were gonna be there because they were fun for me, and they were not something that somebody else was putting on me.
Angie Colee (31:45):
Yes. And
Lisa Levy (31:46):
In this journey for 14 years, I first and foremost took control of my life and of my career, and I do work, and I can align with the values and the people that I wanna work with. And I can align and choose not to work with people.
Angie Colee (32:03):
Mm-Hmm. .
Lisa Levy (32:04):
And I get to enjoy the ride, even though it's not always easy, and it is not always easy. I have those opportunities to make it what I want it to be. And throttle the speed and the pace, and the type of work and what I do today with the business. While it may resemble what we were doing 14 years ago, I never would've envisioned where I'm at today.
Angie Colee (32:27):
Woo. Oh, that's fantastic. Uh, can we dig a little bit deeper into that? Like what you started with, knowing, I don't know what I'm gonna do, but I can't do this, and how you
Speaker 4 (32:39):
Got to today and where, where you're at.
Lisa Levy (32:42):
So in that experience, I was a startup and there was a senior executive team. All the c-level executives had teams of consultants who were working for them. And they were little fiefdoms, and they were little, little like little military units running around the building, running amuck, never talking with one another, and certainly not ever working together. Mm-Hmm.
Speaker 4 (33:02):
.
Lisa Levy (33:02):
And I thought that that was absolute insanity. I truly believed that the purpose of a consulting presence is to bring people together, to collaborate, to build the foundation to grow and scale. Mm-Hmm. , what I was watching were silos being created and reinforced with attitude, with procedure, with just bad attitudes. I'm not even gonna mince words or just some of those were just grumpy people. And I think that they were all worried about their company's bottom line. Yeah. I call it landing and expanding. And it is a consulting practice mainstay. I did not wanna do that. I wanted to build teams that would break those silos, get teams working together and, and make an impact. But at that point in time, I knew how to do that through the discipline of project management. So that was the first thing we started doing, was going into environments to help people manage projects, because projects fail all the time.
Speaker 4 (34:01):
Oh, yes. And
Lisa Levy (34:02):
They fail for all sorts of different reasons, but we can make that better. Mm-Hmm. , that was phase one, iteration one, experiment one, however you wanna look at that.
Speaker 4 (34:13):
Mm-Hmm. .
Lisa Levy (34:14):
And then there are other things that I know that for projects to be successful, right? You, you have to have processes. We've already talked a lot about the people and the process and the kind of where I'm at today, the people process, then technology. So I kind of had to scale it, right? We started with, with projects, which enforced process, and then we had to get the people. And so over time, the focus has changed. And I do very little project management. We do a lot of process management and refinement and efficiency, and a tremendous amount of work with people.
Speaker 4 (34:46):
Hmm. So
Lisa Levy (34:46):
One of the disciplines that we use and rely heavily on is organizational change management. Mm-Hmm. . And that is like the best practice of best practices because it's all about people.
Speaker 4 (34:57):
Yes.
Lisa Levy (34:58):
In business, we have to help PE take people on a journey. And as business grows and changes, right? Changes is inevitable. And we humans don't like to change. But if we can teach people how to embrace change, it becomes so much easier. Mm-Hmm. . And if we get used to the idea of change is inevitable and we communicate the right way, here's what is going to happen. Here's what it means to you as an employee, here's what it means to our clients or our customers. Here's what it means to the business as a whole. It gives everybody a chance to go, I am aware of what's happening around me. And if it's interesting and presented in the right ways, I may even say, I have a desire to participate in this change. And now we've got something. Yes. Because now we have people willing to move us forward in the experience and then goes through, we go through the learning, right? What is it? How do we do it? What are the new skills? What's the new technology? And we learn all of those things. And then it's real, right? We have made change.
Angie Colee (36:03):
Mm-Hmm. .
Lisa Levy (36:03):
And then the real magic has to happen because we have to sustain that over time and not go back to the dreaded the way we've always done it.
Angie Colee (36:12):
Oh, yeah.
Lisa Levy (36:14):
And so organizational general change and taking people through, we've made the change and make that change stick into the future is the key to everything.
Angie Colee (36:23):
Mm-Hmm. ,
Lisa Levy (36:24):
That is the ultimate underlying recipe for success. If we can make a change happen and sustain it over time, we can do anything.
Angie Colee (36:32):
We love that. I, you know, I'm, this is just speculation from the outside in, but I know a friend who has an agency that, and he works with entrepreneurs, and this agency is staffed with writers who help these entrepreneurs write their launches and their sales pages and their emails, et cetera. Right. A typical agency model. Then AI came on the scene at the end of last year and has really just accelerated that much more. And I know several agencies that went ahead and made the move to like, cut writers employee ai, but not this one. This one went, Hmm. I'm betting that a lot of our entrepreneur clients are going to be curious about how they can use AI in our business. And so instead of replacing the writers, or like I go into my silo and dig deep on this and, and proclaim everything that I've learned, I'm gonna mobilize my team of writers and say, Hey, I've bought you all of this subscription access to chat GPT and these other, and I want you to experiment with this.
Angie Colee (37:32):
Feel free to use this to generate copy ideas, bullet ideas. What I mean, obviously don't turn in chat GPT work as your own, but I want to learn and play and break things and figure out how we could teach our clients how to use this for themselves and use this as the tool that it is. And I just thought that that was really interesting. That that could have easily been a, uh, a fearful thing for the writers on that team of like, crap, I don't know where I stand. I don't know how he thinks about ai. Am I gonna be booted? This is a big change, like you said, we're resistant to change. And it felt like he just very smoothly incorporated that massive technological shift into this is the way we do things. We are going to become the leaders that help our clients understand this technology. And to do that, we gotta understand it. So like, let's go, let's go break some things. Let's go have fun with this.
Lisa Levy (38:22):
Let's, let's take apart some of the things that whether he was aware of it in the moment or not. Mm-Hmm. . He, by embracing the, the, the degenerative AI and helping their clients learn how to use it for very basic functionality, it is allowing him to elevate his writing staff to perform higher level projects that bill at a higher rate, that have a, you know, bigger sticking power. And he has elevated his entire team's capability and his entire profit model. Mm-Hmm.
Angie Colee (38:52):
Lisa Levy (38:54):
By embracing the new, empowering the client and letting his writers actually do things, let's own it. Right? Writing email is no fun for anybody. Mm-Hmm. , right? Depends
Angie Colee (39:07):
On whether you get to make poo jokes like my comedian friend or not. Well,
Lisa Levy (39:10):
But even when you're writing the crude jokes, right? They're still higher level writing tasks, things that projects that a writer would rather do than write content, really for emails. I, let me just kind of put that in that bottom of the barrel type stuff. But empowering a client to use chat GPT for that 80% of stuff, that's 20% that they're still gonna continue to use their human talent on is more engaging for the writer. Mm-Hmm. . And again, it'll, it'll be more profitable for the business. So I love that story. Yeah. It's fabulous.
Angie Colee (39:44):
I thought it was so, so smart. And I mean, I found out about it from one of the writers on staff who told me how this was going. And I encountered it when I was, uh, facing my own resistance with ai. And I don't, it, it was that change resistance, exactly like you said, where I was like, uh, I don't know how that works. I don't know how good that could be. I'm just not gonna bother. And so one day I found myself in a situation where I was like, I want to write this like mini book about different client challenges that we face as human beings, right? And the miscommunications that can happen therein that cause a whole bunch of tension and angst. And I wanted to give examples of how I would walk somebody through altering their thinking and altering their approach in this.
Angie Colee (40:25):
And I know somewhere in here I've got a hundred different scenarios of the different ways. Clients and employees, clients and contractors, you know, miscommunicate and butt heads and sitting down and, and brain dumping all of that is just producing this big mental block. And then this friend of mine goes, you know, you could use chat GPT for that. And I was like, wait, what? C Come again. And I was like, I mean, it's gonna be, uh, they said, take, use your copy chief hat here. You're going to be instructing a junior writer on how to come up with the list, which may mean you need to try a couple of times, but tell them who you are, who you're speaking to, what problem you're trying to solve, what your voice sounds like, and the kinds of ideas. Like give some examples of what you're trying to generate and then say, cool, give me a hundred ideas.
Angie Colee (41:11):
Because then you get to cherry pick the best ones that it comes up with, and it's gonna do that in like two minutes. What would've taken you two hours? And I went, okay, two minutes versus two hours. I like this. Let's go. And I plugged it in. And I would say, yeah, out of the a hundred or so that it came up with, probably 30 of them were decent enough to work on, but how long would it have taken me to work up those 30 ideas, especially facing the resistance that I was, versus just embracing this and trying it for the experiments as it was. And you used experiment earlier as the first iteration of your business, and I thought that was genius. Like, yes. Experiments.
Lisa Levy (41:47):
Well, my, my new best friend chat, GPT and I, we do all sorts of things together.
Angie Colee (41:53):
Did you give it a name?
Lisa Levy (41:54):
I no, I, I call it chat. GPTI won't even lie. . Um, um, but let's see, prospecting, we talked about how painful and awful that is. So there's different types of prospecting. The colder it is, the harder it is for me to do it. Right. Stranger danger, I'm a, I I am a Gen X kid, right? Stranger danger just freaks me right out. Cold calls are like the worst, but Right. We don't cold call anymore, right? I use LinkedIn and I make a connection request to somebody that I think looks interesting. And then, right, there's these little conversations that we start to make happen in, in LinkedIn land well chat GPT and I created what does contact one look like? Okay, we've had this piece of information. I wanna mature the conversation. What does contact two look like? And I have like four levels of interaction.
Lisa Levy (42:41):
I also host a podcast Mm-Hmm. . And so I'm prospecting for guests. And so I have a series of connection requests and conversation starters that are around the, the podcast side of it. So that's two now two different types of prospecting that I hate doing, that my new best friend and I have really refined out. When I started my podcast Disrupt and Innovate, I started it with me monologuing on different topics, trying to set a tone and set a pace before I started the interview kind of phase of this and chat. GPT and I, I gave 'em a, you know, a list of disruptive topics and things that are happening in, in the business world. And I wanted to talk about, you know, what they are, what it means, how disruption plays a part in that, in that area, what innovations are coming from it. And it created the script in the show flow for what my content would look like from my initial episodes of, of the podcast. Nice. Obviously a couple of iterations and a lot of tweaking on my part to get it right. But that first set of things that it did in moments
Angie Colee (43:44):
Mm-Hmm.
Lisa Levy (43:44):
Would've taken me some weeks of some research.
Angie Colee (43:48):
Oh yeah.
Lisa Levy (43:49):
And, and it con you know, condensed it down like the blink of an eye, the snap of a Fingers gave me something that was an outline that was 80% baked. Mm-Hmm.
Angie Colee (43:59):
.
Lisa Levy (44:00):
And then I didn't have the blank page to stare at, and I was able to start taking action. And so I love, right? I I, I, that is totally my new BFF
Angie Colee (44:11):
Mm-Hmm. , I say the same thing too. I did, I totally didn't expect to get on an AI rant today. But, uh, you know, for everybody that is afraid that it's gonna take jobs, I mean, to a certain extent, if you don't differentiate, there are certain tasks that it can do better than a human. And that's okay because that means just like when we had automobiles invented that, you know, took away from that made the ranches less prevalent with the horses and the buggies and, and whatnot. Everything evolves and changes and new industries pop up that we can't predict as a result of these old industries shifting out into different things. Um, so I'm not as afraid of it as I think a lot of folks are. That's not to say it won't have real impact, but I do like the fact that I can use it as that tool, as leverage. Right. I'm not outsourcing my thinking to it, which I think is the mistake that most people make. I'm not asking it to write a book for me. I'm not asking it to write my articles for me. I'm asking it to give me an outline. I'm asking it to give me a format, some ideas for a title that I can riff on. Like I'm using that tool exactly like you said, to beat the blank page and to give myself a jumpstart that I can react from. Genius.
Lisa Levy (45:22):
Yeah. And, but let's also not downplay the things that it will be able to take over. Mm-Hmm. . And, and that's not a bad thing. Um, in our healthcare industry, and this is where we're gonna go down a spiral and you can shut, ask me to shut up at any point. But in our healthcare space today, we are lacking skilled labor. We do not have enough nurses, we do not have enough doctors, we do not have enough medical technicians. And there are things in a triage scenario, in a telehealth environment that an AI running the process can expedite through so that it can route and prioritize what, who needs to be treated, how they need to be treated, and get them into the right hands of the right clinician who may or may not be physically in the same space with the patient. Mm-Hmm. , right.
Lisa Levy (46:08):
The AI can do a lot for us. And that starts to help populations that are not getting the healthcare that they need. Rural populations where you have a hard time where you physically have to drive potentially hundred of hundreds of miles to get to an er. Mm-Hmm. . It's really scary to stop and think that that is a very real thing in our country today. If you live in a metropolitan area, you don't think about it. But remote and, um, rural lifestyle is still a little harsh sometimes. And there are things that AI can do for us that take people out of the mix and make the quality of the experience and in the scenario with patients can make the outcomes, which sometimes can we, we talk in life or death here?
Angie Colee (46:49):
Yes.
Lisa Levy (46:49):
Better. Mm-Hmm. because they can route you the right way faster. Um, so that you don't have to repeat steps through the start and stop of different interactions that the AI can stream, streamline that process, and walk with the patient all the way through to actual treatment. I can't wait to see some of those things happen for us.
Angie Colee (47:10):
Oh, I love that. And I made that funny noise just because I thought that that was, so, I hadn't even concepted that that could be a thing. But I think you nailed it and it ties back so perfectly to everything you were saying at the beginning about a process. That process is broken. Because literally every time I get transferred, I have to repeat the same story that I have told four or five times, and now my blood pressure is higher and I am frustrated. And it's not your fault. I'm frustrated. The process has failed us both, and yet you are the person that I get to take my rage out on because I'm not getting the care I need. Whereas something like this could be seamless from start to finish and give us better outcomes, better experiences with less frustration all around. I like that.
Lisa Levy (47:52):
Well, and that's not even taking into it actually starting to be able to do triage, right? Asking questions about symptoms, mapping that up against the databases of medical history and knowledge, knowing everything about your medical history and things that you've tried, what medications you're on. Right. Things that can get missed. If you were in a scenario, you were in a car accident and you were unconscious and unable to speak, right? If the AI was able to come in and aggregate data from multiple sources and say, okay, we've got Angie and she has this medical condition and she's on this medication and has a reaction to this, and her primary care physician is right and collecting all of this information, and you are unconscious, but you are getting treated properly because we have these really cool tools at our disposal that are, are, are taking care and protecting your, your health and wellbeing.
Angie Colee (48:42):
Oh, yes. I love that. Oh, we're gonna go, we're gonna keep going down the rabbit hole because I love to and we still got a couple of extra minutes. Um, I imagine, especially as a woman in the healthcare system, and I'm, I'm gonna go there, but I've had so many sucky experiences in the medical industry where I was not listened to or I was told I was being a baby that actually happened in the er. And like, I'm from the country, y'all. You don't know what it takes to get me to hoof myself, to the er to deal with people in that stressful situation, to be told by a doctor that I'm a baby, for something that I think is threatening my life. Like, oh, ooh, ooh. I wanted to set things on fire that day. I wanted to break all of the metal medical equipment, but I was too sick to do it.
Angie Colee (49:28):
Uh, and then it turns out I had to have a tonsillectomy at, uh, 23, which is a fair rarity. Like to have your tonsils so bad that they're taken out as an adult. 'cause that's a hard surgery to recover from when you're an adult. But I digress anyway, like the point of this being that, you know, that's an instance where I think the AI can be super handy because human bias doesn't come in where somebody can look at me and see me struggling to breathe and somehow decide for themselves that I am not seriously ill, that I'm just a big baby and not deserving of the same medical care as someone else because they don't think I'm serious enough. Where I'm sitting here going, why do you think I'm here, bro? I think it's serious. I'm in pain. I'm hurting, I'm struggling to breathe. Ugh. Yeah, that makes me mad. I didn't expect that right today.
Lisa Levy (50:14):
Oh, there are so many of 'em. So be put yourself in the, the shoes of you are not only a female, you are now an elderly woman, and you are in your eighties or your nineties, and you are sick and you are in the er, and they're talking in jargon and language that you don't understand and you're scared and you're alone. And I, I had the experience with my grandmother a number of years ago where we were trying to get her treated and they talk at her around her. And if I hadn't been in the room to facilitate, right, actually pay, slow it down, pay attention, speak in plain English, right? Things that, if this whole process at this stage would have been managed by the ai, right? Mm-Hmm. , we would've already been through a whole lot of this stuff. And the AI can communicate in language right? In ways that you understand. And if you say, I don't understand that, right, it's gonna rephrase, reposition, and, and you know, try again. Whereas human beings are very bad at that.
Angie Colee (51:09):
Yes.
Lisa Levy (51:10):
And so, you know, there are all sorts of options and opportunities for that technology to grow and evolve. And it's, it's weird saying the word technology and then using language grow and evolve, but really that's what's gonna happen, right?
Angie Colee (51:25):
Yeah.
Lisa Levy (51:25):
Um, it, it is a learning platform and it isn't about what was coded, it's about what it learns or how it applies it and what the next piece of information it intakes into and how it processes and synthesizes that. So I personally am really excited, and I didn't expect that we'd go on the AI path today, but it's always a fun one. It's always a fun one because I think, right, we have in our minds the, the entertainment in industry has funneled and, you know, fueled this for us. We go back to the Star Trek, the computer on the ship and the dialogues that it had with the crew. Um, iron Man and Jarvis, right? I think is the, the winner winner chicken dinner right now. I want that. Mm-Hmm. Interaction. I want Jarvis in my life and I surrender all like decision making and household operations.
Angie Colee (52:11):
Yes. ,
Lisa Levy (52:12):
Those are, you know, I, I'm, I'm ready. .
Angie Colee (52:15):
Yes, same here. Like Jarvis, I'm a little bit sleepy, but I need to get to San Antonio, could you please drive me three hours? Yes, thank you. Um, uh, I can't wait for that, like getting some of the, the tasks off my plate. Alright. That was a lot of great rambling. This is what I love about having these conversations. I never know where they're going to lead, but they always wind up so fascinating. I see perspectives that I never could have seen if I, if I hadn't had such wonderful guests like you. So thank you so much for being on the show, for taking us down the rabbit hole. Tell us a little bit more about your business and where we can find you.
Lisa Levy (52:49):
Absolutely. So predominantly right, I am a coaching and consulting business, business advisory services. Um, you can find me on LinkedIn, Lisa L. Levy, and the business website is l cubed consulting.com or for founders and entrepreneurs, you might find it a little bit more interesting@lisallevy.com. It talks a little bit more about those specific programs and you can find us on YouTube. It is the at l cubed consultings channel.
Angie Colee (53:18):
Fantastic. I'm gonna make sure that they've got clickable links in the show notes so that they can check it out. And thank you again for being
Angie Colee (53:25):
A guest. This was
Angie Colee (53:25):
Such a great, such a great episode. Absolutely. My pleasure. Thanks.
Angie Colee (53:32):
That's all for now. If you wanna keep that kick energy high, please take a minute to share this episode with someone that might need a high octane dose. If you could do it. Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to the Permission to Kick podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you stream your podcast. I'm your host, Angie Colee, and I'm here rooting for you. Thanks for listening and let's go kick some.