Angie Colee (00:01):

Welcome to Permission to Kick Ass. A podcast about leaving self-doubt in the dust, punching fear in the face and taking bold action toward your biggest dreams. I'm Angie Colee, and let's get to it. Hey and welcome back to Permission to Kick Ass. With me today is my friend Thembi Bheka. Say hi.

Thembi Bheka (00:25):

Hi. I'm so excited.

Angie Colee (00:26):

Me too.

Thembi Bheka (00:28):

I'm so excited to be here with Angie. I mean, think you're one of the most hilarious people. I know.

Angie Colee (00:34):

Thank you. I know it's funny too, cuz we just spent like what 20 minutes just talking and catching up before we started record. It's been so long, but tell us a little bit about your business, where you are in the world. Cuz you're a traveler too. And I love that.

Thembi Bheka (00:50):

Yes, yes. So, uh, my name is Thembi Bheka as Angie just said, I am currently in Zimbabwe. Uh, permanently. I usually live in Canada in Colonna, Canada, but right now cause of COVID and everything I in my business as well, my business, uh, is very heavily relied on, um, in Zimbabwe. So my business is called Virtual Staff on Demand. I train African women from abusive relationships to work as virtual assistants and digital marketing assistant. So, uh, right now I am in Zimbabwe basically just work with them a little bit and yeah, so,

Angie Colee (01:25):

Oh, that's a mission. So close to my heart. I, I I've talked about it a little bit, but not super publicly. I did have an abusive relationship that I was in for a number of years. And when I finally, you know, got the clarity and the strength that I needed to leave, that support system was vital knowing that I had kind of as safety net to get out. And when I got back on my feet, I turned around and volunteered at crisis shelters for a while on the hotline. So like this is a mission that's pretty close to my heart and I wanna make sure that people hear about it.

Thembi Bheka (01:56):

Thank you. Thank you for that. And I think, um, a lot of people don't really, this is a thing about being in an abusive relationship. Usually you don't know you are in until you're out.

Angie Colee (02:06):

Yes.

Thembi Bheka (02:07):

And yeah. And then, and then sometimes you're stuck thinking, how do I move on? How do I do this? So for me, because I was also in a, in an abusive relationship, it was very important for me to help these women leave and, and, and, and, and, and just have that financial freedom. I think if you are volunteering in a shelter, that's a beautiful thing because really financial freedom is the most important thing we can ever give to people.

Angie Colee (02:31):

Mm-hmm and that's, you know, I think that's a good point because I think there's a perception. We're gonna go off on a tangent, cuz this is important stuff to bring light to. Um, a lot of people when they hear abusive relationship, they think just physical, like somebody's getting beaten up or, or hit. And why wouldn't, you know, you're in an abusive relationship and there are many types of abuse, financial that you just mentioned was one of them. If somebody controls all your money and you literally don't have money to leave and go somewhere else, that's one form of abuse, limiting your, uh, access to people and resources controlling the relationships that you have. That's another form of abuse. The one that I dealt with was, um, because I kept my money separate from him, smartly , uh, mine was emotional use and it doesn't happen quickly. It's not like a switch flips. It's a little bit at a time they push your boundaries. They push your buttons, you normalize this behavior. You wonder if you're overreacting and then like you said, years later when I get out of this relationship, I'm like, none of that was okay. Not a single damn bit of what he said to me was okay. And when I repeat this stuff to people, they're surprised that I was in a relationship like that. They're shocked.

Thembi Bheka (03:47):

Yeah, that is so, so true. You're right. Because actually I have found personally, um, I feel like being in a physical abusive relationship is better because at least you can tell, and you know, I mean, I don't think there's any better of the two evils, but at least you can tell and you know, that I'm being abused, but with, with emotional, you're basically losing yourself esteem and losing who you are for so long until at the end, you don't even know who Angie Colee really is.

Angie Colee (04:17):

Yeah. And that's exactly what happens in, I mean, I, I remember being so astonished and touched when I first knew my relationship was over on a mastermind call incidentally. So I'm talking to all my business buddies and I'm supposed to be saying, Hey, here's a win that I had this week. And here's a setback that I had this week and, and talking about business and I had it all, all prepared. I had my bullet points written out and when it came my turn to talk, the first thing I said was you guys, I think my relationship's over. And that's the only thing that I can think about right now. And they actually helped me through that initial like realization. And when I started saying, you know, the, these are the points, these are the things that happened in the recent days. That lead me to believe that this is over. I literally had people, private messaging, me and a lot of men surprisingly too, in that group reached out to me privately and said, I can't believe he said that to you. That is not okay. That is not true. You deserve way better than this. Please let me know how I can help. I just want you to know that you're wonderful. You don't deserve this. This is wrong. And so that, I think that's the flip side of the coin with abuse too, especially emotional and like manipulation, financial control, because it's insidious like that. It makes you doubt yourself. It makes you close yourself off for shame. And then you don't get that perspective from people around you who jump in and say, this is not okay. It's not okay.

Thembi Bheka (05:42):

Because you think you are just overreacting.

Angie Colee (05:44):

Yeah. Mm-hmm. You absolutely think that you're overreacting. And, and you think that it's something you did or something that you said, or, you know, oh, I know that he doesn't like when I do that and I did it anyway, so it's my fault. There's a lot of weird twisting of the logic that happens in those kinds of relationships. And it's just, uh, I want to end it, want to end it all. So that was a really long rant about, you know, these, these relationships, but they're, they're everywhere even. I don't know if you're familiar with Selena Soo, but she's a, a big guru in the, the public relations, the publicity space. And she wrote an email, I think last year about getting out of an abusive relationship and. Yeah. She sent it as an email to her list. And I remember like she and I have never spoken before, but I hit reply on that thing so fast and was like, thank you for sharing this needs to get out there. And I wanna be clear, it doesn't happen only to women, but it happens majority to women.

Thembi Bheka (06:44):

Yes. Yes. That's true.

Angie Colee (06:47):

Abuse can happen anywhere, anytime to anyone in any kind of power dynamic situation, but you know, it does disproportionately affect women and children. So just wanna add that little disclaimer there for anybody that raises the flag and goes, but what about men? We see you too, and we support you and we love you get out of those horrible relationships. So all of that to say, you've started this amazing agency to help these women. Um, but I know we were talking beforehand about that being a little bit of a challenge in and of itself. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?

Thembi Bheka (07:22):

Yes. You know, um, I'm gonna kind of talk about the challenges which I face because, um, and then maybe the solution, even to that, because I think, I feel like, um, it's gonna, it's gonna it's can help the audience as well. So basically, you know, I think when most of us started an agency, I mean, we don't even know what, what what's in front of us. That's the first thing for sure. We have no idea, but for me it was the challenges of working with people, working with, with women. I had never worked with a big team. I have a team of 26 now. Um, when I started this, I had zero, zero team, zero experience in that. And actually how it started Angie, this agency is, um, I just wanted to empower women. So I started teaching women how to be virtual assistants, how to be digital assistants. And that was it. That was my goal. And after I trained them to be digital assistants, it came to a point where none of them got jobs because these women, as we already spoke, they had already been in abusive relationships. Their self esteem had been very low. And so it was hard for them to even go out there and believe they could even get a job. You know, we spoke about imposter syndrome earlier on basically. That's how they felt. And so I, I, this was an accidental agency. Like this was like accidental. I'm like I was at it's, um, it's an event where you were at that event too. And I, and I'm speaking, I'm like, I have trained all these women and they can't even get jobs. Like, I don't know what's wrong with them. And somebody said, you need to start an agency. And I was like, okay, fine. I'm gonna start an agency thinking it's oh, Okie dokey. Easy peasy. And after starting it, you know, I, um, one thing that happened is first of all, is working with a team and, you know, as entrepreneurs, as, um, as part of this podcast listeners, which is Permission to Kick Ass really, there is a lot of things which, which we, we need to kind of get through before we, um, before we, we even kind of think about our team. So for me, it was the mindset, the mindset of realizing that not everybody is gonna be like me and also the mindset of realizing that I probably should stop hiring mini me's. Cause I think a lot of us go out there and think, oh, I'm just gonna go and hire people are just like me and it's gonna be perfect. But what happened, what I ended having is ended up having this agency with a lot of, of people, I think at the peak, with like 37 women with a lot of people, almost all of them like me who have no follow up skills, no follow through skills. No, no, no, any other skills other than communication skills, because that's who I am. Like, I'm a friendly person. I wanna communicate. I'm relational. I'm innovative. And so I ended up having this relational and innovative people and nobody who was talking about processes or systems. So really that was one of the challenges. So it was basically it, we kept going, but it was just in disorder. It was so dismantled. Uh, it really needed to be revamped. And that's actually one of the reasons I ended up coming here to Zimbabwe.

Angie Colee (10:41):

Mm. See, that's fascinating too, because I think a lot of people who are interested and this is popular in my field in marketing and copywriting, starting an agency, right. Oh, I'll just have a junior writer write this and I'll charge a little bit of a premium and, and how hard can it be? One people management skills is a whole new skill set. You have to be able to communicate with your team without crushing souls, which is a fine art in and of itself.

Thembi Bheka (11:08):

You know, Angie, I never understood why. I thought that if you to said something to someone who made an error, they would say, okay, I'll correct it and move on. No, I started having people quit on me just because I said, Hey, can you fix that? That's when I started learning that communication skills and how you communicate with people really means a lot. I remember thinking, like I started reading a lot about leadership and training and all that stuff. And one of the things that really came out to me and I, and I wanna share this actually, cause I think it can help some people listening here. Um, it was the, the four feet, you know, the four, four Fs, like the freeze, the, the freeze, how people respond. So freeze flight, uh, um, what, what the other one free yeah. Flight

Angie Colee (11:57):

Fight.

Thembi Bheka (11:59):

Fight. Yeah. Freeze flight fight and, and, and fine. The other one is fine. So I didn't realize that. So I thought that, um, I just thought that I could talk to somebody and they should be okay. They should react the same way I react, which is to respond. But no, it started occurring to me that because also because of the women, I was training who are from abusive relationships. Who've been running away all their time. The moment I tell somebody, you can't do this. What's the next thing they do run away. So I literally used to get resignation letters day after day, without even realizing that I was to blame. I thought that they didn't want to be corrected, but I started realizing that it's because of the response they respond with. Their's is flight for some people it's fight for some people it's freeze, but there has this flight. So when they see danger, when they sense danger, they just wanna run away.

Angie Colee (12:55):

Mm-hmm . And that, you know, that's a great point that you bring up too. They're interpreting what you're saying. As danger, danger, I'm in trouble. I screwed up. I'm wrong. Based on my experience, my life experience, my worldview, this kind of mistake could be fatal to me that it's literally not an intellectual response. It is a chemical, physical, you know, reflexive response that they're not actually thinking. And if you come into that situation and you get frustrated with somebody who's just reacting in a way that they can't really control. Well, then that's just gonna escalate the situation way beyond like yeah. Compassion and connection first. And you know, I, I, I've always talked about empathy being my superpower, which doesn't sound like one, but you know, in a situation like this, I have the ability to put myself in that person's shoes and imagine how they're going to take what I'm about to say and then figure out a way like reverse engineer or a way to soften that blow. In fact, one of my clients calls me the one woman bomb squad. He says that, he likes to send me in to difficult situations that might blow up. Cuz he knows that I can talk it down, but that's exact, that's exactly where it starts. It's okay. I gotta say something to this person. I need to correct this behavior. I want to let them know. I enjoy working with you. You are a phenomenal person. I have a problem with this one thing. That's happening. Love to get your input on how we could fix that so that we can continue moving forward. And then bam, you know, they might still feel some strong feelings. Nobody likes being messed up and nobody likes being called on messing up. Right? There's a little bit of ego and pride, but yeah, there's a way to approach it. That's not. And, and I'm so glad that you said mini me', because I think a lot of people make that mistake too. They're not balancing their own lacks with people who have skill sets in other areas.

Thembi Bheka (14:54):

Yes, yes. You, you have to hire for weaknesses. That's one thing for sure. You have to hire for weaknesses, but a lot of us don't think of that. We just think, oh, we get attracted when you're hiring, you get attracted to somebody's personality. And usually the person we are attracted to is exactly like you. Yeah. And you end up having this company of smiling Thebi's and nothing being done. No follow through no goal setting, just smiling all day long. So, and that can be very frustrating when you're starting a company. Yeah.

Angie Colee (15:25):

Oh, I'm exactly the same, cuz I was all fired up about starting this podcast and like, yeah, I get to talk to people. And then in the first two weeks I got super bogged down and depressed cuz there's a lot of work that happens behind the scenes just to get one episode live. I mean, you've seen all the emails that we've had, but back and forth, just to prepare you for this episode to get your photo and your bio and like, and not to mention all the button pushing and the editing and the things that have to happen. And so that first week or two, I was just like, this sucks. This was a mistake. But then I realized, you know, in talking to people because that's the other important thing, like seeking out perspective. That's why I'm in so many different mastermind groups. Um, but they, they introduced me to my editor who took that off my plate. So now I don't have bit of overwhelm.

Thembi Bheka (16:13):

I almost shut down my agency like, oh I seriously. Yeah. It was so bad. You know, when you were talking about like the, the overwhelmed you went through the first two weeks, Angie I the, like I remember thinking it is so much easier to come up with a product, sell a product and just make money. Because, because remember within agents, you're not only dealing with a big team, you're also dealing with the other end of the clients.

Angie Colee (16:43):

Oh yeah.

Thembi Bheka (16:45):

And at one time I remember we had a 26% refund rate.

Angie Colee (16:50):

Oh wow.

Thembi Bheka (16:51):

Yeah. Yeah.

Angie Colee (16:53):

That is intense.

Thembi Bheka (16:55):

Yeah. Why in every four people we're refunding?

Angie Colee (17:01):

Yeah, that would be just, how did, how did you find a way to keep going when you've got that big, scary metric staring you in the face?

Thembi Bheka (17:10):

I don't know. I'm not sure how I did it. I just, all I know is I just wanted to give up. I just wanted to give up, but at the same time, I was so committed to my goal of empowering women. So I didn't wanna give up on them. I wanted to give up on the agency, but not on them. So I remember still I used to sleep two, two hours, one time I posted, uh, on a group community group, which I'm part of. And I'm like, I need somebody who can give me a solution to stop staying awake at night, thinking about working with a team like, I'm like, I am that desperate. Like I was so desperate. I was sleeping two to three hours, wondering what do I do with this team? There was so much incongruency. There was so much just, I had a lawsuit. I went through a lawsuit. Uh, and it was, yeah, it was just, it was just messed up. But I'm, I'm not saying this to try to discourage people into starting an agency, but I'm just saying when your why, and, and I think that's really what kept me going when your, why is bigger than the challenges you're facing. It's so much easier to keep going to keep at it. Because at that moment I would think, okay, it's easier for me to just start a course. I already had a course. You, you know me, I already had a, a training. I could just whip it up and do an eight week training or even put it on evergreen and kind of just have people just, just take it. But I thought, what about these women? What happens? Like what happens? And the good thing about having a big, why Angie is not just having it to yourself, but sharing it with the world. I have shared this big why on stage. You know, me, you've seen me on stages where I share this big why so now when I think of giving up, I'm like, oh, what will people think, oh, those people who supported me and say, oh my God, I love your purpose. I love you're helping these women. What will they think? And that those things kept me going. And eventually we were able to turn the company around and things just changed. And I think the last, our check is probably lower. Now we at 9% refund rate from 26, which is great. Yes. Uh, I'm mean 9% is still not great, but from where we were, it was amazing. Uh, and, um, and we had really shifted a lot of things and I think it's because I just kept going and my purpose kept going and I just kept inspiring. That's the other thing I think, uh, as leaders that we need to stop doing, I think a lot of us when we're in this business is we just wanna instruct, instruct, instruct that comes out bossy. We need to inspire, inspire our team, inspire our audience, inspire everybody. I think that really is what makes us become leaders.

Angie Colee (20:08):

Oh, man, that hits me like right in the gut today, cuz as I was talking to that same mastermind group last week, so like trying to figure out a new offer and a new direction for Permission to Kick Ass it's not changing entirely, but we're just, we're getting more into alignment with my purpose. Um, yeah. And they were asking me about the two groups of people that I serve and that I help and I started describing them and one of them, you know, how did I break it down? I said, I've got two missions in life. One is to live the ever loving shit out of this one and only precious life I've been given. And the other is to help seven and eight figure entrepreneurs, blah blah, blah, blah. And that's literally one person interrupted me and said, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I like the first one. How do we get more of the first one into the second one?

Thembi Bheka (20:53):

Exactly.

Angie Colee (20:55):

I started instructing. I started going back to business speak and putting on the, the professional mask instead of leaning into that inspiration and exactly why people connect with me in the first place, it was eye opening and I still fall into this trap all the time.

Thembi Bheka (21:10):

Oh don't we all don't we all. Yeah.

Angie Colee (21:13):

Well think we've heard all of our lives about what professional sounds like and what you're doing right. And what you're doing wrong. And then we've just got these stories that are keeping us from following our guts and our passions like you were talking about.

Thembi Bheka (21:25):

Yeah. It's actually the imposter syndrome. We spoke about this before we started recording. It's the imposter syndrome thing. It's like, you know, I loved when you say to me just before the, the, the podcast, the message, the email says just dress wherever you are, be who you are. Because naturally the imposter syndrome says, oh, I have to dress up. Even if it means I'm cold and shivering, I have to dress up, I have to put on lipstick. I have to do this. Uh, but really you don't have to do it because that's what we are told to be expected as business people.

Angie Colee (21:58):

Mm-hmm and that might have been true once upon a time in a different business environment. That was certainly, you know, true. Maybe in the fifties and sixties in corporate America, that you had to look and talk and act and dress a certain way, but it hasn't been true for probably the last two decades. And it certainly is not true post pandemic. Uh, everybody got in on the atheleisure for work. I don't think that's going away anytime soon. Yoga dress pants.

Thembi Bheka (22:25):

Yeah. Made it easy for us.

Angie Colee (22:27):

Dress yoga pants, man. I, I don't understand why it really took a pandemic to make those popular, but that's the best invention ever. I still look put together very comfy, but I could do a pigeon pose if I needed to right now. Ha ha. I like, you know, this is fantastic. Cause I've talked to people about too. That's the other group of people that I serve, which are, are smaller, uh, starting their business or they're creative freelancers or they've hit like a growth plateau. I really love working with those people because a lot of what they're dealing with is head trash. You know, it's the imposter syndrome. It's the, why can't I, why can't I figure this out? Everybody else seems to be able to figure it out. What's wrong with me to type thing and yeah, that, that why I think is always what I default to when coaching those people. Cause I'm like, what is your why? And is it strong enough to carry you through the struggles that are gonna happen? Because if it's just money, you're gonna give up when the money runs out.

Thembi Bheka (23:29):

Oh you will. You will. Because actually it's not even, this was the thing about starting a business. Uh, and, and I think, um, most of us the first years are tough financially.

Angie Colee (23:40):

Yes.

Thembi Bheka (23:40):

So it's not even like you are making a ton of money. Like I remember in my agency, I'm like, why am I even bothering myself with this? I'm not even making anything from it. It's actually most of my, when was coming from coaching, which I was doing on the side. So it's like, I might as well just do coaching and just forget about this. So it's not even about the money. The money is not gonna push you through enough to keep going. Yeah.

Angie Colee (24:03):

Yes. I heard it recently in a financial course, I thought that this was the smartest way that he could have put it. Cause I've been dealing with like money insecurity and hangups and bad stories, all my life, trying to dismantle the, the decisions that I make that keep me operating in that poverty mindset and he said, what did he say? He said, uh, you can only cut back so much, but the potential that you have to earn more is practically unlimited. And.

Thembi Bheka (24:32):

Oh, I love that.

Angie Colee (24:34):

I know it was like a light bulb going off in the best possible way. I'm like, oh, if I work just a little bit harder and I lean into what my mission is a little bit more, there's a opportunities there that I haven't even tapped because I'm afraid and I'm operating from this, protect my resources versus take a, take a calculated risk. And I think that's interesting. At some point when you were struggling with the business, did you have the, that kind of self talk with yourself? Like this is a calculated risk. Did you have, was it people that shined a mirror back at you that helped you believe in yourself again? Or was it just the mission?

Thembi Bheka (25:18):

I, you know, I think at that time, my mission really kept me going. Because I was in such a space where and, and I felt, I kind of felt alone. Mm. Cause very few people, especially in the entrepre, uh, space have 26 people. Yeah. Or, you know, so it was at that time and at that time I had even more, I think at like 37, um, it was at that time, like it's hard to talk to. I found the, it hard to find people who had the same number of, of, of, of team members who are struggling with the same struggles. And every time I would tell them, they'll be like, oh yeah, just talk to them or just hire a CEO or just do this. And I'm like, I don't know what, what, what, what I would even do with the CEO right now. I'm just trying to figure out how to have these girls be nice to me. Maybe I should say it's not that they were mean to me or anything, but in my mind, like I just wanted, I just wanted a team that was just together and, and really, I, I think, um, I think my mission kept me going, like, my mission kept me going because, and also remember because of the culture I'm hiring from, it's a bit different. It was really hard for me to get people to understand what I was going through. Cause when you're telling people, no, but these ladies can't do this. They're like, why can they not do it? I'm like, well, because the situation or the internet or every, so it was really hard to explain the things I basically had to move physically move from Canada and come here to Zimbabwe and just figure it out on my own. And I, and yes I did. I shouldn't say I did it all by myself because yes, I was getting advices here and there, but I feel like it's, I know it'll sound selfish to say this, but I feel like I really was alone because I don't think anybody understood the culture. It's a different culture in Africa. I don't think anybody understood the culture the same way. I understood it.

Angie Colee (27:32):

And they didn't take the time either. I mean, I'm gonna go off on a mini rant and I'm sorry if you're listening and you're the person that told Thembi just to hire a CEO, but that's shitty advice. That is not great advice. Like it, that simplifies a whole lot of people, complexity that has to be taken into consideration when you're telling someone what to do with their business. That's not, that's not just, oh, just you're one hire away from all of your problems being solved. No. And I love you. That's shitty advice do better.

Thembi Bheka (28:03):

Yeah. Yeah. And I don't think those people meant any harm. I don't think they, they had been in this situation for them to really understand it. like, and it's hard to, to try to help somebody to when you've never been when maybe you've only had three employees. Like it's a different dynamic.

Angie Colee (28:28):

It really is. And I think that's what scare.

Thembi Bheka (28:30):

And when you never hired in Africa.

Angie Colee (28:32):

Oh yeah. That's the people component. I think scares so many people from starting a business or growing when they, they get to a certain plateau and they need to make their first hire. They get terrified of what if I make wrong one news flash, you're gonna make the wrong one. People are gonna quit. It's gonna happen.

Thembi Bheka (28:50):

Exactly. I do have to say though, that there's some advice echo from a good friend of mine who I think you should have on this podcast one time and his name's Elliot

Angie Colee (28:59):

I love him. I love him.

Thembi Bheka (29:01):

Yeah. Elliot told me this. I remember one time I was like, I can't even scale my business because there is no way I am. I, I just went through so much trying to fix this team to wait till now I am not bringing another 26 girls in and she's like, Thembi, you kick ass. Like, if anybody can do it, it's you. And he gave me so much confidence. I was like, I left. That was just enough for me to say, I can do it. I can bring in more girls. I can bring in a bigger team and use the same way I used to build this team to build this time, and it's an amazing team right now. Amazing team.

Angie Colee (29:41):

They can't see my expression, but you're telling me that. And I like making this, like, yes! Oh my God yes face. You know, that ties into something that I've been talking about a little bit more recently too, which is that I refuse to be the reason someone gives up on themselves. And I think there could be a little bit more of that attitude and approach in the business worlds because too often we've got people around us that are trying to find the holes in all of our arguments and tell us why we can't do something, but everybody needs an Elliot Connie to be there. Yeah. Anybody can figure this out. You can.

Thembi Bheka (30:19):

Yes, exactly. When he say that, it just gave me so much confidence and I was like, yep, I'm gonna go for it. I'm gonna get 26 more girls. Uh, like I am just going for it. Yeah. Yeah. But at that time it just felt so. Yeah. I have to say that. And, and I mean, he's not the only one, there were other people that, but that's what stood out for me at that time. Cause I was in such a space where any advice that was telling me to do anything was just didn't feel, even though it's something I could try and some of, some of the things I tried, it just wasn't working.

Angie Colee (30:53):

Mm. Can you tell me a little bit more about some of the things that you tried that didn't work out?

Thembi Bheka (30:59):

Yeah. Um, you know, I tried like one of the things which people had advised me on is kind of just placing people in positions. But what I realized is, uh, taking the good VAs and um, and kind of just giving them those positions to oversee the junior VAs was not enough for me because what happened is what they needed is the inspiration. The, the, the not so good is it's not because they are not good because they don't know, you know, there's two reasons why people are not good at some things either they don't have the will or they don't have the skill.

Angie Colee (31:40):

Oh, that's brilliant.

Thembi Bheka (31:42):

Yeah. So I had to fill those two in like, how am I giving them the motivation, which is the inspiration I'm talking about and how am I gonna give them the training. So when my company was at that really difficult position, people had no will and they didn't have enough skill. So you cannot, you can train skill, but you can't train inspiration.

Angie Colee (32:08):

Yes.

Thembi Bheka (32:08):

You can't train personality, you can't train character. So I had to come in and say, okay, there is this type of will, is it because of personality or is it because they've just been so discouraged and destroyed? Um, in, in their environment, they just don't have the, they just don't believe in themselves. So if it was because this person just has the personality of not ever caring at all, then we let them go. But if it was because they've just been in such difficult situations and they needed that motivation to believe in themselves and that training, we stuck with them. And I can tell you, we saw a huge turnaround from those people, because at, at the end, the reason why they were not doing what they were supposed to do is I said it was either the skill or the motivation. And I came in with the motivation and we started doing some trainings, internal trainings, but just taking people when it's a team where it's so dismantled in my situation and saying, oh, I'm gonna promote another person. And they're gonna help this junior people rise. That's not gonna help. If, if, if the spirit is just not, um, congruent,

Angie Colee (33:19):

And I could see that causing basically the same problem that you struggled with, which was the, you know, the managing of the people, especially if they're not mini you's, if this person that you promote, it's not, it's one thing to be a great VA. It's another thing to be a great manager of people. And that's not to say that it can't be learned. Iit can. I was not the most patient or empathetic person all my life. Either. These are all skills that I've picked up along the way in learning how to manage people. But like just a promotion doesn't make somebody a great manager or a great teacher. No,

Thembi Bheka (33:55):

No it doesn't. And I, and that's such a good point. That's such a good point that, oh my God, I can really repeat that. A promotion doesn't make someone a great leader. And that's the mistake that I made when I listened to this advice where I started promoting people. And I, I realized that I learned that. Yeah.

Angie Colee (34:13):

I was fortunate that I had, you know, that when I got promoted, when I was still in a corporate job, I I'd been gutting for this promotion. And then I told him, I'm gonna make senior copywriter, tell me what I need to do. I'll do everything. And he gave me a list and I knocked it outta the park. And it was fantastic. So he gave me my first copywriter to oversee. And then he called me into the office. I did this so lovingly, and this is more, I picked up this skill from watching him be a great leader and how he handled me, because I'm a very passionate we'll. We'll put it that way. I'm very passionate, very passionate, very opinionated person who speaks their minds. So he pulls me into the office and he's like, Angie, could you come me to the office? Okay. Could you close the door and sit down, please? I'm like, oh shit, here it comes.

Thembi Bheka (34:55):

Yeah, there it comes.

Angie Colee (34:56):

Yeah. And he goes, okay. So you've been working with this person. I need you to understand that there are a bunch of different ways that you could potentially solve a problem. And yours is great. And it's not the only way have you thought about letting the writer develop their idea and helping them figure out what their idea looks like instead of trying to force them to use your idea. And I don't even know what my face looked like, but I imagine it was like jaw dropped. It had literally never occurred to me to let someone else find their own solution to the problem. I thought my way was the way, let me show you how I would solve this. And we'll just, we'll be perfect because Angie's perfect and never screws up.

Thembi Bheka (35:42):

Yeah. And don't, we all, like, all of us are perfect, right? Like I think that's the other thing, Angie, like when we approach our team members, you know, there's a phrase I had many years ago. I always says, when it flower, doesn't bloom, you don't blame the flower. You fix the environment in which it grows. But yet when it's our team, when it's people we work with, when it's, uh, other people, we are trying to get rid of the flower or fixing the flower, we're not looking at the environment we're not looking at, did I let this person express their idea as well? Did I let, uh, I'll give you an example today. We're do, we're doing appraisals actually in the appraisals moment right now. And one of the supervisor, uh, comes in and she says, yeah, they call me, um, what's the word, a bully. I got the bully a award. They give me a bully. Or I'm like, bully is not a good word. She's like, yeah. You know why they call me that? It's because I tell them what to do. And, and I don't hide it. And I'm like, and then I say to her, what if I love that you tell them what you do, but what if maybe instead of telling them what to do, you could in inspire them to be better at people. You could inspire them to do something. Maybe instead of getting the bully award, you'll get the most inspirational award like, but still get the same result, except it's a different name altogether. Cause bully doesn't sound great. And this girl was like, oh my God, I never thought of it that way. I just thought they were calling me a bully because I was just telling them they shouldn't do this, the thing the right way and do this this way. And that's the same thing you're saying, like, sometimes we don't open our minds to think the other person also thinks and their approach could work

Angie Colee (37:34):

Oh yeah. Well, and the funny thing about that is too, like, I can appreciate now having hired people and managed people and, and all of that experience, that growth I can ex I can appreciate how hard it was for him to call me a, a strong personality and arguably a workhorse on the team. Like he needs me to be there because I produce it such a high level. He's got to help correct me in a way that doesn't destroy my soul. There's that nice synchronicity there. And he did it in such a great way that allowed me to grow versus, um, I don't wanna say forcing, cuz that's not the right word, but, but leads me to choose to dig my heels in and be like, no, my way is right. And experience no growth. Like yeah. He provided me with you. He gave me such an opportunity and, and frankly changed my entire future and all of the futures of the people that I've had the opportunity to coach and give feedback to as well, by giving me the opportunity by providing feedback that he knew I might not take well, like giving somebody some feedback and some direction, but letting them own it and figure it out themselves is actually a fantastic, fantastic opportunity for that person.

Thembi Bheka (38:53):

Yeah. It's amazing. And you can see the difference in people when you tell them when you kind of just guide them along those lines, compared to when you just, you know, hit the bush and tell them what to do. Like it's just, it just changes the perspective and it changes the company culture too.

Angie Colee (39:10):

It really does. Oh, this is so fantastic. I love everything about this. Okay. Tell us more about the agency and where people can learn more about it.

Thembi Bheka (39:20):

Absolutely. So, um, as I said, this Virtual Staff on Demand, you can go to virtualstaffondemand.com. I, I, I do have like a quick little free gift. Angie, basically, if people wanna know how to work with somebody work with a VA is called, um, How to Professionally Work with a VA, even though it's not just a virtual assistant, like it, I includes tips that could help you so you can get it from virtualstaffondemand.com/free gift.

Angie Colee (39:47):

Fantastic.

Thembi Bheka (39:47):

So that's um, that, yeah, you can get that. And um, basically that's how you can learn about us and would love to talk to you and support you in your journey.

Angie Colee (39:55):

Oh, excellent. Okay. For everybody that is listening. If you are at that plateau that I talked about earlier, and you are terrified of terrified of hiring your first person, first of all, your first person probably needs to be a VA and offload some of the stuff you don't need to be doing. Second of all, get this training so that you can learn how to work with a VA and you can be more confident it, and then you can actually start to grow. I love it. I love it. Thank you so much for being with me today. I appreciate you

Thembi Bheka (40:22):

And thanks so much for having me.

Angie Colee (40:27):

So that is it. Another awesome episode of Permission to Kick Ass on the books. If you want to know more about the show or if you want to know more about me, Angie Colee and the mission I'm on to help entrepreneurs punch fear in the face and do big bold things, then head on over to permissiontokickass.com. That is all one word together, permissiontokickass.com. Make sure to sign up for my email list so that you know whenever there's a hot, fresh and ready podcast episode out for you. And also on Mondays, I like to send out a little newsletter called Kick Monday's Ass. I'm sure you're totally, totally surprised by that. So thank you for being here with me today. I'm Angie Colee. Make sure that you share this with a friend that needs to hear this message today. Like it, share it. Comment wherever you're listening to this today and let's go kick some ass.