Reclaiming Your Hue: A Podcast for Women Rediscovering Themselves in Motherhood & Entrepreneurship

Ep. 82 with Nikki Ahlgren | Founder, Hilo Talent Partners

• Kelly Kirk • Season 1 • Episode 82

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Pivoting With Purpose

You can outgrow a title, an office, and even a version of yourself—and that’s the point. Kelly sits down with Nikki Ahlgren to unpack the real pivot from C-suite stability to values-first entrepreneurship, where clarity and presence become the operating system for both work and family. Nikki shares how she navigated the gray zone between identities, let go of the need to prove through late-night perfection, and rebuilt a business around outcomes, trust, and high-touch relationships.

We dive into the strategy behind effective executive search: defining success before sourcing, avoiding noisy inbound channels, and running disciplined research that targets the right 300 candidates instead of the wrong 600 apps. Nikki explains why she shifted to flat-fee pricing to eliminate misaligned incentives and earn CFO-level trust, and how she balances being a true talent partner with sustainable growth. We also talk seasonal decisions—like giving up office space—and why the ego tied to “looking big” can block what actually works for your life.

Community shows up as a quiet superpower throughout—Rotary connections, industry conferences, and intentional networking that trades volume for meaningful one-on-ones. And because entrepreneurship is a family sport, Nikki shares how a playful side venture with her kids turned into a lesson in branding, service, and ownership. If you’re standing in the in-between, wondering whether to leap, you’ll hear practical tactics and a humane philosophy: pick the lane that brings joy, set clear intentions, and let clarity attract the right opportunities.

If this conversation resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend who’s ready for a values-first pivot, and leave a quick review so more listeners can find us. Your support helps this community grow.

Connect with Nikki:

Contact the Host, Kelly Kirk:

  • Email: info.ryh7@gmail.com

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Credits:

  • Editor: Joseph Kirk
  • Music: Kristofer Tanke


Thanks for listening & cheers to Reclaiming Your Hue!

Kelly:

Welcome everybody to Reclaiming Your Hue, where we are dedicated to empowering women to embrace and amplify their inherent brilliance. Our mission is to inspire mothers and entrepreneurs to unlock their full potential and radiate their true selves. I'm your host, Kelly Kirk, and each week my goal is to bring to you glorious guests as well as solo episodes. So let's dive in. Good afternoon, Nikki. Good afternoon. How are you? Having a great day. Better now that I'm here. Good. Oh, that's really sweet. I appreciate it. What's nice is this isn't the first time that we've actually met in person. And so I would love for you to actually share one, how we got connected. And then two, how we actually officially met in person, too.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, of course. Okay.

Kelly:

So if you can recollect.

SPEAKER_02:

This is sounds like maybe a common story to some of your other folks you've had on the podcast too. Cause I was listening, going, okay, we have some commonalities here. So I think that's really cool. Obviously, we're in the same community.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And we run in some of the same circles. I think we both know a lot of the same people when it comes to rotary. And that's a big passion for me. And I've met so many wonderful friends, both in the rotary, outside of the rotary. And I was actually referred to you by two different people within Rotary at different times. Um, let's call it four months ago or so. And it was coming up on your one-year podcast anniversary and heard about the event. And people had been talking to me about getting connected with you anyway. So it was actually a really perfect timing. Very kismet that we could not only connect prior to that, but meet there live in flush at that event.

Kelly:

Was it Sutton? Did Sutton introduce us? And Brandon. Brandon as well. Brandon Vitali. That's right. I was like, you know, because Sutton was just here.

SPEAKER_05:

Yes, small world.

Kelly:

For the listeners, um Sutton has her name has come across this platform before, but she will actually be interviewing here in the next few months too, because she's just entered into a whole new world of momming becoming a robust mom herself. So I'm like, it's your time, it's your time to shine. But when she was here, she was like, I think I introduced you to Nikki. And I was like, Did you? I can't, I don't know if it was it was Brandon started it.

SPEAKER_02:

Brandon started it. And then she also reached out and I said, Funny, you should mention. Yeah, I'm meeting her soon. So it was a really great, great mutual connection. So doubling down on your good connections in this community and all the great work you're doing and the relationships you've built, because it's building a really great ecosystem here.

Kelly:

Thank you. Gosh, that's so sweet. And it's also a friendly reminder, too, like for me to just kind of keep that in mind because I think as individuals, women, and then especially when you're building something, it's easy to go, am I actually having impact? You know what I mean? Like, is it is this actually doing good? And then you have, you know, people like yourself who say something like that. I'm like, okay, it is, it is actually making more waves than I think it is.

SPEAKER_02:

So we'll keep going. And sometimes the impact's important, but sometimes it's just how much you enjoy it. You know, sometimes we overthink the impact that we need to make, and that comes organically. That's gonna happen if you're enjoying it, because people know that that's authentic. So if you're really loving it and really enjoying it, people get behind you and support you, especially even if they're like acquaintances, right? They don't have to be your best friends, they kind of become part of that network even if they you don't even know they're listening, which is kind of exciting.

Kelly:

I couldn't agree more. I do want to take like a second to talk about rotary and how incredible rotary is. And the reason why I want to bring this up is because I think first and foremost, rotary is kind of like a hidden gem.

SPEAKER_02:

Totally.

Kelly:

And not a lot of people know about rotary. And then when you find out about rotary, then you're like all of a sudden you bump into people and you're like, oh, you're in rotary too, you're in rotary too. And it just it's like, oh, then all of a sudden it becomes this more prevalent thing. But speaking of community and the importance of community, I feel like rotary speaking on for myself, maybe, but I have grown such incredible friendships from Rotary in addition to it like helping me to be more involved in a community aspect as well, both within Rotary, but then within the ecosystem of E Dyna as well. What are your thoughts?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah. I'm just thinking about it because, well, we'll get into this in this podcast, but through through my entrepreneurialship, I decided to rent an office space in eDina. I actually don't live here. I live about 25 minutes away, 20 minutes away, but I wanted to get connected to a business community that was easily accessible to me. So I'm farther south. Um, and to get to, let's say, Minneapolis or St. Paul, more of a thriving business community, let's say, versus where I'm at. Um, this was about halfway, let's call it. So, anyways, when I joined um my office space, I shouldn't say joined it, but rented the space, I wanted to plug into the business community as well. And what I had found was a really thriving network of opportunity here with the people that I met and the connections I've met. I felt I feel just so blessed to have this great network and Rotary being one of them. And it's funny enough because there's Rotary clubs in every city, right? So there, and not only that in Edyna, there's multiple in EDINA. It's not just one. So there's a lot of opportunity in Rotary, I think, to find your people, find your group, whether that's actually in the city you're in or the a neighboring city, um, kind of plugging into what makes sense for you because everything has its own flavor.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, and so I feel lucky to be part of this group. There is one in my town as well. Um, and I had never heard of it. Um, there just wasn't a lot of marketing, wasn't a lot of um awareness that I had until I kind of got connected in through E Dina's. So it's been really fun.

Kelly:

Remind me where your office space is again.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I was out of the Southdale lifetime.

Kelly:

That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_02:

And I was there for a couple of years, and I actually just gave that up this summer, primarily because I have three boys, and this year they have three different schools and three different drop-offs and pickup times. And that goes as late as nine o'clock in the morning to as early return as 2 p.m. in the afternoon.

Kelly:

So it's unbelievable.

SPEAKER_02:

It's it makes it unbearable for both my husband and I to be gone from the house and having the ins and outs and people flowing and like it. We just didn't want to have nobody there. So I gave that up to be at home.

Kelly:

Oh my gosh, I could take this so many different ways right now. I think I want to I want to segue from this, but keep this at the forefront. What came first for you? Was it motherhood or was it entrepreneurship?

SPEAKER_02:

Motherhood. Okay. Let's talk about it. Okay. So I'll say, like, like a lot of entrepreneurs, I think there's threads throughout your whole life where it's never really starting. I mean, yeah, to be a hundred percent on my own for my own income without a formal job, I've always been doing different things, right? Uh even as a young kid. But um it really took to about three years ago when I made this decision, like I can really do this and be successful because I've learned enough and have the foundation. I know the bits and pieces and parts. So with the kiddos, I I have three. Like I mentioned, I have three boys, um, 11, 9, and 5. So definitely in the thick of it, middle school, elementary, and still daycare. So oh my gosh. I cannot wait for next year when I'm down to only two schools. That's gonna be one. And no more daycare. Oh my goodness, can't wait for that. So, yes, motherhood came first 11 years ago now, and um formally entrepreneurial journey for three. Okay.

Kelly:

I think what you just spoke to as it pertains to like office space and giving up office space. Okay, so that's like that's not where I want to go with this. I'm what I want to take this further and talk about seasons of life. Because you talk about threads, right? Like there is there's so much to be said about what you just spoke to that is about seasons of life and making shifts and pivots within these seasons to support the family, but then also support the growth of your business too. And no, I'm sure that there was this like reflection of like, okay, I am I I'm not gonna even be spending time in this space anymore. And that comes with a cost. I'm not actually utilizing the dollars in the way that they're supposed to be used. So why would I maybe I'm maybe I'm not even in the right. No, like you're absolutely right. I want to talk about that because like I I think that this is important for the listeners to understand and and level set with you in your story.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I think there's a couple of components with that because there's one making good business sense, two, making good family sense, and three understanding where your ego lies. And and I'll touch on that, but um of course, financially, like you look at an office space. I was finding that there's different ways you can do an office from just flexible to, you know, um, you show up when you show up, but then you don't have all your stuff. It just there's not functionality in some ways to do that when you're getting early and starting out, but I'm such a social butterfly that if I strictly work from home, it's going to be slowly suffocating. And for me right now, this is a pivot where I said, I know this is going to be hard mentally for me to be in my home and to work from here. I am very productive, but at the same time, I need the energy around me. But really, it's not just energy for energy's sake. There is a component of just getting out of the house and not feeling like I'm, you know, spent five days straight without leaving that feels a little bit like a hermit, but thank goodness for rotary and things that do get me out of the house for other reasons. Um, but the connections at a place where entrepreneurs come to work, you're really not connecting because you're not partnering. I have made good friends, but you really have to go out of your way. And most of the time you're not taking the time to do that, and nor is anyone else because they're working their normal jobs and they're busy and they're stressed and they're coming and they're going and whatever. So I guess what I'm saying to that point is um having a partnership or an employee or actually working together is what I'm missing from that dynamic, instead of just that full independent everybody's doing their own thing. And then there's the ego side of things, right? So when you're building something, even to just not have that space feels like, oh, am I shrinking? Am I losing something? Am I taking away? Does this feel like a real thing anymore? You know, when you just have that routine or that structure and now it just doesn't feel the same. Or and it's not scaling back for scaling back's sake, it's just it doesn't make sense right now for multiple reasons. But there is that piece that I'm becoming a lot more comfortable with, with sort of a broader ego death, let's call it, when it comes to having your identity tied to corporate or tied to this thing you're building. It's like you're not the thing. That thing isn't you, you know, none of that is. So who really cares?

Kelly:

That was so good, Nikki. Love, I love it. I so I giggle for a couple different reasons. One, I had been on somebody else's podcast and got to experience what some other guests experience coming on my podcast, which is like, what am I supposed to expect? Right? I'm a little nervous, I don't know what to expect. How is this going to go? Right. And also she named that podcast of the of mine uh Ego Death. Like, because all I talked about was random all I talked about was how I needed to, because it was shortly after I had made a pivot out of my then career and mortgage into what I'm doing now, and also going into business with my husband, there were so many opportunities to just let go of my ego and just go, it doesn't serve me anymore. Or that doesn't serve me anymore. And I just have to go through these uh layers of emotions, right? And so it's it's very interesting. That's part of the reason I was giggling. The other reason that I'm giggling is because like there have been so many other individuals who have been on this podcast where this very thing comes to top, not in the same exact like wording, right? But just I needed to come to grips with the reality of the situation. And a lot of that has to do with their ego and just going, it doesn't serve me anymore.

SPEAKER_02:

And I think the ego is important to have, it's a component of everybody, but it's keeping it in check and or reassessing it at different times of when it's going to serve you and when it's not gonna serve you. There's also, I think, stages of life and age in general where you kind of hit this point. Maybe that's why they call it a midlife crisis around 40s or something, right? Where it's so common to sort of take that step back. It's it's like, am I halfway through this experience? You know, where are we at? And and trying to put in check what you really enjoy doing.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Ego can be very helpful as you're going through your 20s and 30s, right? And that's kind of helping you build and helping you push and giving you that reason to get up every morning and like that drive. But at a certain point, there's a real checks and balances that happen. And I don't think it's uncommon. I think that's probably why everybody's bringing it up. And now more than ever, when we just look at society and how people are acting and this and that, it makes you think about a lot of different things and and kind of what you hold value to.

Kelly:

Right, right. Speaking of which, let's talk about this. Let's talk about the things, the the core values that Nikki holds at the current moment and how you've gotten to that point.

SPEAKER_02:

It's a good question. Um, harder to articulate, maybe, because there's a lot of things I value, you know. Um, if you look at the personal front, I value my family, my husband, my kids, you know, and that's really important and and extends beyond the immediate family, you know, the close people that are in your life that are really important. And that is what really gets me up in the morning. It's different than when I was in my, you know, earlier days when you're independent. Sure. And that drive for corporate ladder, that was what I was maybe going for, you know, more at that point in time, or just it was just an achievement. It didn't really matter about the ladder. It was just, I want I have such a high integrity around the work that I always wanted to do it well. And not even to be the best. It wasn't about being the best, it was just do everything at my best. And that naturally was an accelerator, you know.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And so, but now, I mean, if I look at values today, that flips. It's it's what are we doing to be a cohesive family? There's the components that is financial. And there's the more you you fill your personal cup, it flows into the family and vice versa, back into your business. And I think that's a really great value chain because it's sort of symbiotic for everything. Um, and I look at what I'm doing now very differently than maybe how I looked at career and income or just where we're where I was going with my life. Um, even in the last call it five years, I've I've appreciated a lot of things more differently. So my values are first and foremost like what am I doing to show up every day in these different facets? And first for my kids and my husband. Um do I do it perfectly every day? No. No. But we try, we try, and it's a slowdown moment. And actually, funny enough, being at home every day, that slowed me down because I wasn't rushing out the door. It's very fascinating to be like this, I needed this because I'm recognizing those moments differently. I'm recognizing now that one child doesn't get on the bus till nine. We've got some time in the morning. We're spending a little bit more quality time than I maybe would have had in my normal day before. Um, and if I was rushing to an office, which it's who who starts at nine o'clock in the morning? Nobody. I mean, I'm still working in the morning, but like that's really unrealistic for a family. I can't believe we have this in our society.

Kelly:

But it's it is so wild. I I just came across this whole topic that we're on right now. I just came across a visual component of it, and it's a picture of a mom who's like in the kitchen. One hand has is like out, one arm is outstretched holding a laptop, the other arm is outstretched cooking, and then on one of her legs is a child, and I think she's like dressed in her yoga apparel, and I'm like, yeah, it sort of feels like that. And then I think that the caption was like the probably something to the the effect and impact of expecting women to work expecting women to work as if they do you know, do you know where where I'm going with this? I always struggle to like try to think of what the word warning would be for that, but but something to the impact of like society expects women to like be as if they don't work, but work as if they don't have children. Does that sort of something like that?

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, I didn't think you were going there with that, but that's an interesting one.

Kelly:

It was something like that, but it to fold in this aspect of like taking some time to slow down, but then also the societal pressures of you have to be working at a specific time or you have to be here for a specific amount of time as well, which you probably see more in the corporate environment than you do being an entrepreneur. But I know personally that when I stepped into this world of entrepreneurship, coming from more of a corporate setting, I was like, Oh, I have to be at my laptop by this time. And I have to work through my lunch, and I have to be like, no, I can't, I can't stop working, or I can't go and golf with potential individuals that I would do business with. Like, that's not allowed. You know what I mean? So I it it's Where I'm going with this is like understanding what are your values, holding those values true. How does everything else piece in? Understanding this pivotal pivot moment into a season of life, right? And going, it is okay to slow down and have a pause and take some time with my child. Also very challenging that everything starts at nine o'clock.

SPEAKER_02:

Later than it should. Totally. Because we've already been up for four hours, you know, making breakfast and backpacks and all that. Yes. But you know, as you're talking, I do have to take a moment to give some cred to the men. Um, I know a lot of this is about the moms, but I have heard, you know, several episodes now of this podcast, and a lot of the entrepreneurs have a strong man behind them that is picking up a lot of the pieces. Right. And when I see two hard-charging entrepreneur individuals, it's messy. It's really messy when they're doing different things. It's different when maybe you're working together on the same thing. But um, if there's, let's all call it some healthy competition between careers and drive and initiative, things get really messy in the home life. Um, that's why society back in the day when things were slower, we had very different roles and very different responsibilities. And it's not that society expects women to do it. We've just taken on way more, nothing's fallen off. Right. Um, so I think to a certain extent, the only way to make it work is if there is some balance on both sides to adjust and re-pick up and reshuffle. Yes. You know, there it can't just be additive, it needs to be rebalanced between the relationship, whoever your partner is. Um, and I do hopefully you have a partner because it's too hard to do this alone. For goodness sake, bless all the people that try to do entrepreneurship and manage kids and a family on your own. I mean, I can't even imagine because you really need a partner that's going to help with that. And I look at the type of um the way I guess my husband and I manage our family dynamic and the roles between cooking and the cleaning and like a very, very fair balance. Um, no one thing is beneath either of us. We both just do it, we both pick it all up, we both do the drop-offs, we both do the everything is shared. And I think it has to be that way if you're gonna share the career component too.

Kelly:

What does your husband do?

SPEAKER_02:

He's a financial planner.

Kelly:

Okay. Yeah, it's so he has he has an entrepreneurial.

SPEAKER_02:

He works for a firm, so it's a little bit different. Um, in term I would say instead of call it entrepreneurship, more of a corporate um type of a role uh because he's more supporting the growth of the clients versus an independent um agent or a planner that you would probably know of. So it's it's a little bit of a different structure. So consider he's has more of the corporate structure while I have more of the Wild West entrepreneur. But that also works. We're both very career-driven, though, right? And have commitments throughout the day. And even when it comes to doctor appointments, dentist appointments, it's not one of us that's doing all of that. And we've had to adjust at different times for that too.

Kelly:

I think it is important, yes, to your point about how acknowledgement of the support in the village that is around us as women, as strong-willed individuals, strong-willed women who are committing to this path of entrepreneurship, right? What does that support look like around us, and vice versa too? I do think that there is a little, there is societal pressures. There's no doubt about that, about what it looks like to be a mom and then also to be in a work environment. But you are right also. We as women have taken on a lot of those pressures. I mean, this goes back to probably the 70s or 80s when there was this dynamic shift societally for women to be in the workforce and be more independent and take more on. And then it has just grown into a snowball effect from there. And now you're starting to see a little bit more of this shift the other direction where women do want to, they want to be able to spend more quality time with their family and not be always succumbing to nine to five or eight to five, or you know, whatever that timeline needs to look like in a corporate environment. Okay, so you had come from a corporate environment too. How long were you in that particular setting?

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, for you know, since call it right out of college until three years ago. So, you know, almost a 20-year career in corporate um in a variety of different functions and roles, and we can dig into that too, which is just an interesting. Everybody's got their own path to get to where they are. And um, yeah, so that's it's that's been the majority of my time.

Kelly:

And what were you doing? Refresh my memory. I know that we talked about this on the phone, um, but it was a very short period of time. That was a while ago, too. It was a while ago. So refresh my memory. And for the listeners, what was it? What was the capacity of what you were doing in the corporate setting?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. So starting earlier in my career, I actually went to college for advertising, business, and Chinese language. So that combination sounds a bit odd, but I very quickly learned I had a real interest in advertising and really the human component of why we do what we do. And, you know, I don't want to say how you influence. There's a component of that, obviously, with advertising, but there's more behind the sort of psychology of advertising that I was really, really interested in. But agency life is not a life for me. I didn't know and do my homework of what a real job in advertising would look like.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And very quickly pivoted from there, still enjoyed the classes, still enjoyed the learning of that. But the business and Chinese component was okay, when I get out of college, I want to work import export with factories in China, do work over there potentially, um, do a lot of travel. I had spent some time in Asia. I studied abroad in China. I spent a year there after college. Um, so that had been on my my radar as my my next thing, but it was kind of a bad time to to find a job that was going to be meaningful in that space at the time. So what was that time frame? It was right around 2008, by the time I got back from overseas. So you know, 2008 was a crazy year.

Kelly:

So is that when you graduated from 2007. College? Okay. So you're you're a year older than I am, probably.

SPEAKER_02:

We're probably the same age because I graduated a little early too.

Kelly:

So fascinating. Yeah, I was like, she's talking about probably exactly the same.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, yes. So, you know, um, from manufacturing product and sales is where I got started. Um, had a really great opportunity with a local manufacturer to run some product and and try my hand at sales. Had a lot of fun with that and kind of went down uh industrial manufacturing/slash supply chain type route through that. A lot of that was sales. So got my feet wet with cold calling, hitting the pavement, very male-dominated industry. Um it kind of felt like rinse and repeat once I got into it and learned product is very easy to learn. Feature functionality. I can sell this, I can talk it in my sleep. It got a little bit mundane for me. Not enough of a daily challenge, not enough learning. I can pick, you know, I can keep picking up new product, but that doesn't take very long to learn. So I needed to get into a space that was going to stimulate me a little bit more. So after my master's, I went um and got that at Bethel. Um, after my master's, I pivoted into healthcare. So from there, I did more operations, um, you know, call it more program strategy for different enterprise programs. That was a really fun experience that exposed me to different components of payer insurance side of healthcare and the back end of a lot of really interesting programs that can make an impact. So really enjoyed my time there, did some projects that were technical, a lot of tech AI projects that led me down a path to go more of a technology company and be part of their emerging healthcare and life sciences practice. So I kind of went from manufacturing to healthcare to technology into professional services and consulting. So as I'm pivoting around all of this, um I ended up becoming a chief people officer for a startup that did consulting around intelligent automation and AI. So it was a really fun space. It was a learning for me in a lot of different ways, both from the size and scale of the company to what we were doing and growing, the people side of things, building culture, building, building talent strategies, figuring out operations on the back end and how are we going to build that? So loved working with my partners there. They're still fabulous and such a great, great experience. But at a certain point, I was missing sort of what I had in earlier in my career, which is that client-facing piece. Okay. HR and operations is so internally focused, and you become very myopic into that world. And you feel like, or I felt at least that I was sort of losing a piece of my outside network and my outside friendships and the business development and sales responsibility of growing the business. Um, it became more, call it on the maintain and operate the business. Um, so I knew that I needed to go back to something that had more of that entrepreneurial component for me and the role that I was doing and showing up for every day to be fulfilled. So that's where I pivoted into where I am now, which is Hilo talent partners in recruiting and executive search. I've done some talent and advisory work, and I help similar stage companies, really that earlier stage and growth mid-market size company in healthcare and in tech primarily. And professional services are sort of the three core pillars of what I support today.

Kelly:

I love it. When you made this pivot into entrepreneurship, I love that you gave the the background and the context to like here's what I was missing. I knew that I wanted to see more of that. How old were your kiddos at that point?

SPEAKER_02:

Um, so call it maybe nine, six or seven and three-ish or so, two or three. So pretty early.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

You know, there's a lot of moving parts, and that's scary because when you have a real significant income and contribution to the family to step away from that and decide to go this route where it's completely unknown. Um, thank goodness my husband trusted me to be able to trust myself, frankly, right? It takes two people in that. I can have all the trust in the world, but if you don't have a supportive person who also trusts the vision for that, that's a little scary because again, that's that's a big part of what we've built our life around, is two solid incomes.

Kelly:

So it's wild. I think about like the whole purpose behind this podcast is really to talk about the interception, the intersection is probably a better way to put it, intersection of that career pivot into entrepreneurship, and then also the dynamic shift that that has on family as well, and being a mom and just showing up in a specific way. So I want to help bridge the gap for the listeners in some of the thought processes that you were having here before making the leap into entrepreneurship as well, and were some of those on the family side as well to be able to go, okay, yeah, I can do this, I want to do this, and it's also gonna be able to support over here.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. For me, I knew that I it was like this innate knowing that I have to make this pivot, I have to make this change. It was so real in me. The it was almost consuming my brain, right? And this was call it eight months before I did it. So I was transparent with my partners, um, my co, you know, the other founders at the company that I was with, and really talked them through what I was thinking. And because I don't leave anybody high and dry, I'm not I'm not a fast mover in that regard because what we were building there also felt very near and dear to me, like a baby, right? That there was blood.

SPEAKER_04:

It was a startup, right?

SPEAKER_02:

It was a startup, yeah. And I mean, we at one point we had like 300 employees from pretty much maybe 10 when I joined. And so it felt like we were really growing something meaningful and I was close and connected and being the people officer. I mean, you're really ingrained in the culture of the organization. So very passionate. That was all through COVID and all from my home office. So there was a certain level of sort of stress that I tied back to my home office that I'm now back to.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, a little PTSD, you know, in a way, just like, you know, that was a traumatic experience for everybody going through COVID and trying to, yeah. That was a new company. We had just had our another baby and we're all at home and the kids are homeschooled, and we're all we're all going through everything in that house together. And there was that certain point that I was like, I know I need to make this change. I don't even know what I'm gonna do. Literally, I helped to find a replacement for myself with this company, and it took about five months. And so through that transition, it wasn't quick. It wasn't like I'm gonna do this tomorrow. It's like I don't know what I'm gonna do, but I know that this isn't gonna work for me long term. And so I'm gonna have to, I don't, there's no space in this for me to even think straight on what that thing is. So I didn't have this idea very clear in my head, full transparency of what it would look like. But by the time I left, I had about two months of reflection, actually other interviews, because I was like, maybe it's maybe I'll go work for a search firm. I like this idea of doing executive search. I loved building that company. I love trying to figure out and work through the scenarios of when is it appropriate to bring in a CFO? When is it appropriate now? Are we ready for a COO? You know, that type of strategic hiring and the criticality of bringing those right leaders at the right time to help that business thrive. That was what I loved probably more than anything out of that whole experience. And that's where I got this passion for it. So I started interviewing with other executive search firms just to say, maybe I could try that. And just wasn't feeling right. And I think, thank goodness, that there was a lot of hiring freezes right at that point and just hey, let's talk next year. Well, I didn't have time to wait till next year. So the universe gives you these nudges, right? Thousands. When I stopped messing around with trying to flip-flop between should I start something on my own? Should I do this? Are there other things? I looked at franchises, I looked at all kinds of stuff during those couple of months. Everything. Seriously. I mean, I was looking at med spas, I'm looking at, you know, different random retail businesses I could buy. It was funny. I looked at a lot, but I just kept having this nudge on the recruiting front. Like, this is what I know I can do well. I know I'm good with people. They're selling on both sides. So I always thought I was missing this sales component. You're selling your services. Yeah. But also to the candidates to the company. And there's just a lot of like navigating that and that tuitiveness and um strategic piece. I mean, there's both the intuitive and the gut, but there's also very high due diligence and like bringing those puzzle pieces together, anyways. Um, so through that whole process of exploring, once I got clear, and I advise this to people all the time, because obviously I'm talking to talent, talking to people looking for jobs, I'm talking to companies looking for right great people. The conversations I have are so interesting. But for people who are in between, like I was, if you continue to play the flat the fence, the universe doesn't know what you want. Okay. And nor do you. So the minute you finally decide the path you want to take, you get super clear on that and you set your intentions on this is the thing I'm doing. That's when almost like the veil is lifted, right? So I spent all of like a day coming up with the website. I'm not very good at it, but I whipped it together and I was like, fine, I'm just doing this. I'm not gonna think overthink this. I'm just gonna launch it and see what happens. And I'm gonna go all in. No more interviews. I'm not gonna talk to anyone about a job. I'm gonna do this for me. And the day I launched my website, I had a friend reach out and I was like, I have a contract I can send you tomorrow. I need help. And I was like, okay, that's the sign. There you go. That's the sign I needed. And everything picked up after that. There's been ebbs and flows. I'm not gonna say it's been a perfect study stream, like, but that's part of this business. Um, but that right there was exactly the nudge I needed, was exactly the clarity. And from there, it's it's only further solidified that I really like this path for me.

Kelly:

I love it in that I'm looking, because I'm literally time stamping in my head, that specific part that you just spoke to, because it's so good. The the the fact that if you are not clear in your vision, nothing is going to come to you. Be it the universe, God, whatever like the belief system is for a specific individual, nothing is coming to you unless you're pretty crystal clear on what it is that you want. And so to spend a little bit of time to like thoughtfully think through that is really important, right? And then once you do, just watch and wait and see the dynamic shift that happens. I can hundred 100%, a thousand percent empathize with this right now. Been there, I've done it. The second that I got pretty crystal clear on something is when all of a sudden the floodgates opened up in that specific realm of where I was going, what what I wanted to do. So spot on, Nikki. There's laws to this universe here.

SPEAKER_02:

There's there's laws in whatever way you want to frame it up or teed up to your point, but clarity is key. And it doesn't have to be forever. I think we over engineer things sometimes, or we, you know, there's always that saying like tell God your plan, or whatever that one saying is. But yeah, you can't really do that because all you need is the clarity on the direction that you want to go. Like, I'm Heading down this path instead of the other 40 paths that I could choose. I'm gonna go down this one here. I don't know if at the end of where I can see if it's gonna take a left turn or a right turn, and that's okay because I can also still pivot. But when the magic starts to happen a little bit more organically without the over-engineering, you just need clarity on path and then let the magic happen. And I think I'm learning to do more of that because I look back and reflect and see how well it is when I stop trying to overengineer it. Yeah. Let the partners come in, let the relationships evolve, let things happen on the time they're supposed to happen. Even for my clients, right? If I try to push a client to go make a decision faster, that doesn't work, right? Right. There's no point in that. They're not right. So everything with ease, you know, like it has to I'm learning to pivot right now from sort of pushing what I want to happen to being the magnet for what should come.

Kelly:

Does that make sense? Oh, a thousand percent. Talk to me about what that looks like for you in having this shift happen that I'm gonna attract things to me versus going out to actively try to seek that. Because that's a little bit of what you're talking to and speaking to.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, exactly. And it's just subtle changes, it's subtle changes in mindset. It's not a drastic thing. But um, you know, there's a lot of people out there that talk a lot about manifesting, for example, um, vision boarding, that's a way to do things. Yeah, you know, and I think there's just an organic part of that which starts to say, okay, I'm gonna be the best person today. I'm gonna, I'm gonna have instead of saying, I want three clients, and I'm let's say I'm vision boarding three clients that are gonna happen this week, that's all way to do it. Or you say, I want clients to come to me that are the right clients, that I can make an impact for them, that I'm gonna do the best work and it's gonna be appreciated. And, you know, we have a mutual beneficial relationship where the best outcome possible is going to happen for all parties involved. And that's the different mindset of, and whenever that happens, it doesn't have to be this week, it can be within the next 30 seconds or it could be in three months from now. I don't really care. Yeah, but the outcome is what we care about, you know, and like letting that piece of it fall into place versus I just want three clients. Well, you can have really sorry, crappy clients. If you had said it, it would be okay, you know. But but it to me, I'm just recognizing the fact that all the good things come with time and I can slow it down a little bit because when I slow it down, somehow everything picks up and I didn't even plan it that way.

Kelly:

It's like the it's like when you schedule a vacation and then you're like gearing up for the vacation, and all of a sudden things really start to pick up, and you're like, oh, so of course you're telling me I should schedule more vacations. Yes, that's what we're gonna do. That's the plan. I it's uh literally every single time I've ever gone on some little break or vacation, things have either happened leading up to it or during the vacation. And God's testing God is testing me, going, How are you gonna respect your borders and boundaries here?

SPEAKER_02:

There's that.

Kelly:

There's that. At that, like the same kind of like it's like a catch-22, but okay, Nikki. First question that I want to ask, coming off the heels of this, is how did you get to the name of your business?

SPEAKER_02:

Ooh, so Hilo talent partners. Hilo is Hawaiian for new moon. Okay. So, which actually was just last night, by the way. Was it really? It was. One o'clock this morning was a new moon. So, anyways, um, not that I like religiously follow that or or look at that, even though I am very interested in the moon cycles. I think there's some validity in what kind of happens around those times, which is funny. But no, new moon really represents new cycles, new beginnings. Okay. It's a new moon is when it's all black, right? You can't actually see it. Um, so it's the starting of the cycle. It's so similar to recruiting and new job and new opportunity. It's really about the rebirth and that rebeginning of that new, that new pivot and that new cycle. So that's where I got the name from. Um I have some family, and my husband lived in Hawaii for a little bit. So um it just kind of felt like the right name for the approach of where we're going and what we wanted to do and how I wanted to help people with their next new thing.

Kelly:

It's incredible. I love it. And I love the kind of like unearthing a little bit more of like the reasoning behind that. It's it's so cool. Yeah, thanks. Talk me through a day in the life of Nikki recruiting, like an average day.

SPEAKER_02:

You know, it's a lot of research. I would love to tell you that I could get up and go for like a jog every day, you know, but um the way that I approach things, and I'll just tell you how search works for me. And um, it depends on how niche different industries are. So I won't say this is exactly perfect for everybody, but the way that I approach recruiting, the way in general it works, is that I'm hired by the client, right? They have a unique need within the company. If if it was a common need or they had a full service HR team, they could probably do it in-house. But they're coming to me oftentimes because they either don't have an HR team or they have something really unique that takes a lot of time to find, and they're not just don't have capacity or the capabilities to go do that. I treat everything like a very intense project. Okay. So from the very beginning of defining what that looks like from research on comps, similar to real estate, honestly. You know, you're looking at um comps out in the market, you're looking at job descriptions, you're getting very clear, crystal clear on outcomes. What do you want this person to do? What does success look like? Um, to get into this role and do it well. How are they going to be rewarded for that work? And like really kind of talking that through, especially with earlier stage companies, they might need a lot more advice on that and and thought and time up front to really get that clear. But once we have that all clear and once we have job applications coming in, I will tell you, I rarely find the candidate through job applications. And that's because there's so much nonsense today of people who have no qualifications for the job. It's making it harder and harder and harder for recruiters to be effective at it. That's why you don't hear from recruiters anymore, because when we used to get 50 applications, now we're getting 600 and 580 of them are completely irrelevant. But the time suck that creates means you don't, you may not hear for somebody for weeks or at all because they're still kind of trying to get through the drudgery of resumes and data. And even on LinkedIn, you can answer a couple questions, but people don't always tell the truth. And so you like they'll say that they did something, you look at it like, no, that's that's not even, I don't see that anywhere, you know, and that's a that's a bit of a stretch. So time suck. There's hours and hours and hours spent going through resumes, but more importantly, I do a very specific campaign and outreach to candidates that I find. So I typically will find over 300 people that I want to specifically target for one position.

SPEAKER_05:

Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

So that's an intensive amount of time. Yeah. Communicating, following up, working with hiring leaders, scheduling, managing the process, especially when it comes to executive searches. So I do everything from C-suite on down.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, so I have a variety. So from the C-suite perspective, there's a whole nother very intensive process we follow in terms of vetting and research and discovery adjacent industries. We look at a lot when it comes to that. I follow a very similar approach, but maybe to not the same level of research intensity as I would for an executive role, because there's just a very smaller pool. Sure. And the background research on those individuals are different than that we would do. Um, but some similar similar in nature, even if it's going to be an account executive or a sales position, if that's just a really tricky role for I'm doing a lot of that right now, actually. Um, sales roles. Companies are are booming in terms of rethinking their sales strategy at this moment. You don't say. Yeah. Yeah. So, anyways, it the time is probably, you know, 20% communicating with my clients. The other 80% is doing the homework and the research and talking to candidates. Okay.

Kelly:

And remind me, the the niche market that you're primarily, I should say, let me back up, the niche avatar of businesses that you're working with primarily. You is it small to medium-sized business?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I would say anywhere from founder led, pretty early, early. Um, they might be looking to add another leader, another partner, or start to bring out or build out a team or teams within. I've had situations where there's two co-founders and they want to build out their product and finance org, or it might be I'm trying to build a whole new sales team from scratch. Okay. It might just be one role. Um, but the size of the company does tend to be more commonly around 50 employees to 500 is kind of where I play. And that's in healthcare, technology, and professional services.

Kelly:

Okay, there we go.

SPEAKER_02:

Any role, any function from finance to marketing, sales operations, even technology roles, leadership roles.

Kelly:

So the research, too, is really um, and I'm sure that this has just come over time, but like having uh an understanding of how each of those roles really operates within a specific business is highly important, right?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. And I think I somehow organically did it right by myself being in so many different positions and those industries to see how those teams work intimately.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

You know, from customer success to being sales to being in product and understanding product, working with product to working with finance, right? Yeah. Like not all recruiters have that diversity of functional experience and even industry experience, which is kind of funny. So I can pull on a lot. There's a lot that can translate across industries, but there's a lot of nuance to it too. So I understand the commonalities and I understand the difference. I understand where adjacencies can pull in and where somebody could be successful based on other sort of soft skills that can translate really well. So I think just having that real day-in-the-life experience of what a lot of these jobs are is really beneficial.

Kelly:

Uh, totally. 100%. Okay. So I want to pivot and fold in motherhood into this. I can imagine, and and I think I can totally speak to this across the board for many, many different fields that people focus in. But I can imagine with what you're doing and the intensiveness of it that it can be consuming. So one, how do you create boundaries for yourself and folding in motherhood into that? What are some of the challenges that you have encountered since starting the business within the last you know, three to five years? How how have you experienced some of the challenges in the harmonization between a mom and owning a business and and building a business too? It's so funny.

SPEAKER_02:

If I look at the Nikki of even ten years ago, five years ago, my level of prioritization was probably skewed. Okay, tell me more. When I say that, I always had an intense job, no matter what. And it's my intensity, you know? It's so funny because every job can be intense, and you realize, oh, it's just you.

Kelly:

Um and that's you towering off for really and I love the intensity. You think so? Oh gosh. Yes. I just it's in a really good way. I will say that I can see how well that serves you and what you're doing with business and having your own business too. I can see how it serves you very well.

SPEAKER_02:

You know, though, it's funny because I actually really appreciate listening to others on this podcast who seem very similar. And I think in general, everybody's got a yin and yang to themselves, a masculine and a feminine. We really turn on that masculine energy when we're in corporate world, right? And that's that then has masculine impact at home, meaning just how you approach the home life. And I have really softened from there. But if I look at like a five year five years ago, me, what I would do is be I've got to get this presentation done. I've they're calling me late at night. We gotta work through this. You know, that's gotta come first. You you handle bedtime. Like I gotta, I gotta work on this. And that happened way too much. Um because there's other people's expectations and that pressure and not wanting to let anything, there was never anything that could fall through the cracks.

SPEAKER_04:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

And that's tough. Expectations of myself and that performance was very high. So, you know, if anyone needed to meet at nine o'clock at night, eight o'clock at night, you bet I'll be there. I'm there, I'm not gonna say no. I'm we're gonna get this thing done and it's gonna get done to a hundred percent. Now, wow, what a shift. It's my hundred percent. It's not anyone else's hundred percent. And I like what I do, so I can do it and I can do it efficiently, and then I can turn it off.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Because there's no deck I need to create for anyone anymore.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

Do you know what I mean? I'm operating in a way that I think adds value. And when corporate decks and staying up all night and tweaking font and tweaking edits to this and that that we're gonna look at for 30 minutes and then just start a new deck the next day. It's like it's so useless, so useless. And you just realize why did that matter so much? Why did I prioritize an eight o'clock bedtime and not putting my kids to bed to make sure that deck looked really great? Yeah, no one cares. Literally. And I really recognize that fact of the runaround and the lack of value. There's value in what the content is if we actually cared about the content, but we're not talking really about that. We end up talking about the nonsense stuff. So now my mindset's different because if I'm good at good with it, it's good enough.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And I'm not saying I'm cutting corners because I'm absolutely not, but I just don't have that pressure of trying to understand what I think might be others' expectations of what need is needs to get done and why why we haven't done the 40 other things that are on everybody's to-do list. Cause that that just means I'm gonna get all 40 done and I'm gonna keep working all night to get that 40 done.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And I actually an old um boss of mine, and if he ever listens to this, he had said multiple times to me, you're the ultimate taskmaster. And I was not happy when he said that. I'm like, I am strategic. I do, I don't know what you're talking about. I'm an executive. What are you saying? Don't call me the taskmaster. I absolutely despise that comment. But then when I really think about it, others were able to prioritize better than me.

SPEAKER_04:

Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

And actually let the nonsense stuff go where I thought everything needed to get done at 100%. So it's a real awakening for me because that comment clearly has still stuck with me. Or like if he listens to this, just no. It was it was impactful. Yeah. And he wasn't meaning it to be mean or he's just, but guess what happened? Because I was the ultimate taskmaster, more and more and more kept coming. And the overwhelm of that, like there was never a day to take a break. There was never a vacation I didn't work. There was never a not to say that I don't do that in entrepreneurialship now, but mom stuff is much more high. Of course, I still work when I need to work, but when I'm having time with family, it's a different time. I'm a relaxed mom now. More relaxed. Yes. And it's great. It's great. It's great. And I don't want to change that.

Kelly:

Was that the moment then for you? Call it that. Like, I'm choosing to create a deck versus go and put my kids down. Was it in those little moments? Like, was it one specific moment or a couple different moments collectively together where all of a sudden you're like, what am I doing? Like why am I doing this? And um, how has that how has that then triggered you in how you show up differently with the business now? Does that make sense? Did I maybe I need to rephrase that?

SPEAKER_02:

No, I and maybe I don't know if my brain was going on one tangent, so maybe I'm answering this right or not. I don't know. But I think to the point where where I was, call it the five to eight months before I formally stepped away from my last corporate position, I started to recognize the pattern. I started to recognize that, you know, we were in hypergrowth. Every day is new, every day is a new challenge. To we kind of have some stability here. And now we're moving from growth to operate, and yeah, it started to feel the same. And the workload was no end in sight. It felt like almost rinse and repeat, but every day was the same level of intensity. But we're not moving anything forward. It's different when there's intensity and you feel like you see this baby growing. Yeah, there's difference when you're intense for intense sake.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Does that make sense? And when I recognize that fact, and like now, now I'm gonna be waking up every day thinking this isn't going upward, it's going more flat.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And that's just the way this is going to be. And Nikki doesn't know how to shut that off. And everybody has an expectation of Nikki at a certain that's actually really hard to change. Yeah. Right. Like people who start a new job and have a certain level of output or they've set a certain expectation of how they work and where they work and when they show up to work and all that stuff. That's kind of your definition point. Because you can interesting. Or, you know, it's not day one, but I'm saying you you kind of develop uh the way people expect you to show up. And if you're at a certain intensity, people are gonna be like, what's wrong with you? Are you okay? You know?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And it's not that you want to turn it off, but it I almost needed to reinvent myself, reinvent myself as not the super taskmaster.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Get out of that because that's not what an executive is here to do. And I I I just absolutely despise that, but it had become that. And if I really look back, I'm really good at that a lot of things. And so a lot of things fall fall there. And it it was just a wake-up point, I think, at that to say that is me, but I can choose to do it differently and show up differently. And I'm gonna have to unwind some behaviors in myself. It's not easy because that is it's just on. It's just an on switch. There's it's it's not there's not a throttle, a throttle back, but I think I'm I'm approaching it differently now to what the on means so that I can show up better for my kids. And I really think there's been a change there. And like I notice that my kids feel more safe and secure, if that makes sense. Yeah. Like I come home and there's just let's just hug for 30 seconds.

Kelly:

Yeah. It you don't feel like you're rushing from one thing to the other versus how was your day?

SPEAKER_02:

And it's a legit question. I want to hear what you did, and I can carve out the next 10 minutes to hear how the class went. And it's not like, how was it? Good? Good.

Kelly:

All right, let's go. You know, and well, it sounds like to me it this pivot into entrepreneurship has come, there's so much that's come along with it, right? There's beauty in entrepreneurship, there's beauty in that shift. There's also a lot of ugly underbelly, too, which we'll get to. But it allows like the it sounds like it has allowed you to be more present for your kids, more present for the family. And isn't that just ultimately what a lot of this is about, right? Like as a mom, as a as a wife, whatever you however you want to shake the dice on this one, being present is ultimately what people want from us. And we want that from people too. We want to have this present. I love part of the reason I love this is because there's so much intentionality in this one-on-one conversation. Right. I have undivided attention from somebody, and you have my undivided attention too. Also, the rest of the listeners who are gonna take time out of their days to spend time listening to your story. But it's we're here, we're present. You you were intentional about going, I'm not gonna have my cell phone going off in the middle of this. Same thing for me. I wanted to make sure bings and clings and all the stuff on my computer is not going off because I have time with you. It's present. We're be we're being present with one another. So full circle moment back to like what you're speaking to. How incredible that you can now be like, I'm here. And we're and we're we're we're here together. We're gonna spend a little bit of time talking about like how was your day? Because the kids are like they're they strive for that.

SPEAKER_02:

They need it, they desperately need it, and they can tell when it's not authentic, right? Or you're rushed. Now, again, I'm not perfect on that too. Oh, um, like the minute one of them tells me about their day and they convert it to a video game talk, I check out.

Kelly:

Oh my gosh, I can't hear about it anymore. Um, you know, with all boys, I don't understand it.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, yes, I can't process, it just does not compute. But yeah, but you know, there's there's meaning in that downtime and in the slowness, and I have appreciated it personally so much more than I knew that I I didn't know that I didn't appreciate it before. Does that make sense? Like I never thought I didn't appreciate it, but like now I know that this is a different level of appreciation.

Kelly:

Yeah. You are you're still building your business. I can imagine something that I was thinking about in reflection of what you shared with like um your schooling is that business component of your schooling has probably played in strongly to building out a business for yourself. Correct me if I'm wrong.

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, I think there's always that for sure. Um I think so much more you learn on the job, you learn what you like. Because right, even if you go to how many people actually do their degree or like follow their life path that they thought about.

Kelly:

Elementary education, Nikki. Okay. No. No, right?

SPEAKER_02:

So I mean, sure, you go to school, you learn some things. What I think you learn is independence and how to grow up and be an adult and be responsible and take responsibility and make decisions and make a path. Yeah. Start to carve the path, and then you continue to pivot throughout life. Um, so that's I think the biggest learning. When you're 18, you're not an adult. You're just, you're just, you know, trying that next phase. And so as much as there's this like adult break, that's really not. So I think that for me, it's been constant pivots and constant learning. I've always I've always trusted myself, though, my capabilities to be successful. There's never been like a doubt in that. Um and so in whatever that's applied to. I mean, I could go work at a pet store and I could love it, you know.

Kelly:

But also I love your confidence. Seriously.

SPEAKER_02:

But I think everybody's got that capability. I would I want to honestly find a way to bring that out in more people because with that confidence, you can do anything, honestly. Yeah, do anything. Um, but I will tell you because I have a lot of interests. What's been interesting in this entrepreneurial path is sometimes I have those moments of, well, what if I was doing this too? And so I have tried a few other startups and things in addition to this because I can't stop myself.

Kelly:

Um it's so funny that you bring this up because as you were talking through um the the period of eight to nine months out from quitting, and you were like, things just got like this. I'm like, oh, I think I know a little bit of something about this because I see it in my husband, I see it in me too, where like if you all of a sudden you kind of get comfortable with things or it's like really routine, and you're like, this is really fucking boring, part of my friend. Yeah, which is actually just snapped out of me. This is really boring. You're like, well, what's next? What's the next thing? How can I make an iteration out of this? So you like to dabble. Are you do you like to dabble?

SPEAKER_02:

Definitely a dabbler. So I'll tell you a funny. Well, in addition to a couple of partnerships that I've tried over the last two years, a couple of different um tangents. There was a health tech company I was getting off the ground a little bit ago. There's a whole story about that. Um, but even more recently, I we had a wonderful summer this year, one of the best summers with my family that we've ever had. We did a lot of different trips, one including Hawaii, where the family was for uh nephew's graduation. Um, but with that trip, this you're gonna find this funny. We had the kids try the dirty soda trend. Have you have you heard of this? Dirty soda. It became like a TikTok trend. Mom talk. There's a Bravo show about mom's um more secret lives of Mormon wives. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyways, on that show, they talk about sodas because they don't drink alcohol or caffeine. Oh, is it like mixing different mixing sodas with yes, with different um flavorings, creams, different, different fun stuff. And anyways, so I took our kiddos to a place in Hawaii, which normally they don't have soda, but they tried it. Of course they loved it. And so we had to go back two or three times to get this soda. And guess what happens when we come back from that trip? We should start a dirty soda trend here. So we as a family have had so much fun building out a whole brand. We have a mascot, we have a logo, we have we did our first soda event at the Edyna Car Show, the Rotary Car Show. Oh my gosh, I love them. So my kiddos were involved. We built, had to get a POS system, we taste tested like crazy, we built a menu. So the company's name is Soda Bop, and it's a drink with a music theme. And we have a drink playlist, and the playlist is songs, but funny enough, get this. We originally started as a 90s theme.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

When the kids would come up and order a soda, they say, Can I have the MMM bop drink? Mm bop. Mm bop. Yes. Yeah. Hilarious, right? Like we think it makes sense. They said MMM bop because they did not know the songs. And I've heard that more than once. So funny. And so, you know what now we're doing, or at least I haven't talked to my husband about this or kids yet, but we got to know our audience, right? Yeah. We have a real opportunity to be like our drink playlist for this group is Taylor Swift songs and like not different than you know, we gotta we gotta change it up because it was so funny. Like what resonates with me and who I thought was gonna be at the car show. There's a lot of kids that had no idea what some of these things were, which was wow, just so funny to me. But the point of that is I'm trying to start the entrepreneurial ship with the kiddos young too. And why not? We're having so much fun. We're gonna do some events starting next year in the even in January too. So we've just we've only done the one, but we've got our brand built out, we're licensed, we've done the whole thing. We've the kids are having so much fun. We got them shirts, and you know, they're feeling like this is legit. So as they grow older, there's a you know, opportunities to pay them for their time, and there's a lot of opportunities as entrepreneurs to make a family business. Um an opportunistic thing for them too.

Kelly:

I love it. You are a quick learner, aren't you?

SPEAKER_02:

I think, yeah, anything's possible. I can be an AI expert and a soda expert the next minute.

Kelly:

Yeah, I was like, she's a quick learner. So she so you do you feel like with your business, the talent agency, like you've got a pretty firm grasp on what is happening with that and how to continue to build the revenue for it or the revenue is where it needs to be now. So you're like, okay, let's let's start something else fun.

SPEAKER_02:

You know, through this, I feel like I do have a better handle on that business in particular. Um, I have a network of people I bring in to help sort of scale as I need scale. Um, so I can and I want to do more of that. I want to bring more opportunity to other friends and great workers in the ecosystem to help build this more organically. I want it to get bigger. Um, through this, I have been narrowing my focus, even though it seems pretty broad, it's it's more narrow than it was before in terms of the industries that I serve and the sort of expertise that I lend. And my process is becoming a lot more clear and repeatable.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, so there's maturing that's happening organically and intentionally in that side of the business. And because I've tried a couple of things here in the last two years, I look back at that and I say, if I would have just doubled down in this, I would have been even farther. So I'm creating a little bit of my own distractions from the growth potential. So I'm actually trying to pivot to calm myself down. I know I just said I just started a soda business like two months ago, but now the kids can take it over. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's already sort of a little bit on past build phase two, because now we have some stuff figured out. Um we're not, we're not pros at it. I think we'll work it out a couple more times. But you know, that that can kind of happen and this can kind of happen. And I want it, I'm appreciating the the let's see how we can grow it instead of just start it. I I don't want to just keep starting, I want to grow.

Kelly:

Is it just you in the business right now or have you scaled? Do you have other do you have you hired?

SPEAKER_02:

I have not hired um just the 1099s that I have been bringing in to help me scale at different times. Yeah, really depending on the project. But it is only me full-time. And I don't I don't know if or when I would if it needed to be the case. Yeah, like it would have to be really the right person or people and probably need to narrow in a little bit further so there's volume in a certain area that other people, because I can do a lot of different things, but um, and other people have more narrowed skill set in what they do. So I would either have to bring people in for a certain segment or a certain industry or a certain function where they lend that expertise, but there just need to be enough volume in any one of those to make it make sense.

Kelly:

Okay. So I don't I don't know enough about this. Is me just being curious, frankly, because I don't know enough about recruiting to know like does a business within that realm need to have staff or not need to have staff? You know what I mean? Like I don't know enough, which is why it prompted me to ask that question. But it sounds like as it pertains to your business and that the particular niche that you're in, it may not even be necessary because you can do quite a bit of it yourself.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah. I think it just depends on how I would want to grow it, right? Um there's plenty of people that are single shingles and do this work. I love that. Single shingles, um, independent and do that, and there's a certain level of capacity you can do with that.

Kelly:

What does it look like? Because you mentioned bringing on like contractors, right? Talk me through again, not naive, not understanding fully the concept of how the business operates. Talk me through like when and how and why that would need to be to bring somebody on. And then is it just for a period of time?

SPEAKER_05:

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Yeah, there's others out there that have their own businesses as well. So there's a lot of times there's a referral piece to it, and we partner on expertise lending, let's call it. Yeah. Right. So even just from a volume or overflow perspective, I have people that do straight sourcing. You tell me what you want to find. I have all the tools. I can go out and I can do the research for you. And then I will do all the vetting and the screening and the interviewing, but like getting those people engaged, doing the outreach, getting the interview scheduled. That piece of it, I've brought in people to do just that component of it. I've brought in people to help me with marketing efforts before. Um, I've had people help me with my thought around my brand before. Yeah. Um, from the street recruiting perspective, a lot of the times I'm doing the business development and finding the opportunity and then bringing the in the recruiter on the back. And typically it's the sourcing side. When I say sourcing, it's trying to find candidates for me. Um, and then I'm the one working with the client. I'm the one ensuring that we're moving things through on their side, that we're meeting their expectations. I have the core process, and I really just need help on the research side of the candidates to get them engaged. Um, so that is primarily it. I've also done the inverse of this, where I I'm a partner at another firm as well, where we only focus on private equity executive search. Okay. And so, and in that realm, I am a partner and I do do their professional services channel. Okay. So, you know, that is great because we have the autonomy to I can still keep my Hilo business and we have that agreement in place at least for now. But that partnership is really building something with others that's going to grow in a channel that they have a need for. Um, and so in that regard, I'm more working with the client, but not as as much on the business development front. But I'm really the execution arm of getting and working with the client, finding the candidates. And executive search is a whole nother interesting challenge and opportunity. It's really fun. Um, so so that's really cool in that regard too. So I will say there's a lot of options on the on the table right now for how this is going to grow. Do I know exactly what it's going to look like in five years? I'm kind of leaving that up to fate and opportunity a little bit because if I were to hire a full-time W-2 or many or have a have a different kind of partnership in this, it would really have to be very clear vision, very clear need. Like I like the opportunity to bring the right people in when I have the need and not have that sort of pressure or that commitment unless we're all on the same page in a very deep way.

Kelly:

Well, I mean, the business has to get to a specific point where you can bring them on, right? Like it's it has to actually make sense. I think about it as it pertains to like what my husband and I are doing with the real estate business. We have capacity to do what we're doing right now, just the two of us. But next year, we are very crystal clear that we want to double our business. And so when that happens, there will be a need to bring somebody else on. It's just kind of the the nature of knowing your numbers, right? Yes. The nature of understanding the volume that needs to be in place in order to make that a true reality. And and otherwise it's not like I guess the uh also the other side of this, it's it's not a testament to like business failure of any sort, or like it's just uh this is I'm good. I'm doing well, we are doing well in our business, you're doing very well in your business. It's just all right, now all of a sudden, here's where the business is at. I need to hire somebody, right? Right, like right, it is it, it's just a numbers game.

SPEAKER_02:

Totally, totally. And and I think about all the opportunities that exist and what's coming and the amount of support I've been able to lend these clients of mine now. I I don't want to lose that high touch. I don't want to lose the value of having a true talent partner. I'm not a recruiter, right? Yeah. And there's a lot of recruiters out there, but I consider myself different. I consider myself a talent partner who's gonna be sit sit beside you and think through the strategy and think through the real dynamic of what good looks like. Um and just sort of approach the process a little bit different. So, anyways, I say that like you, I don't want to scale for scale's sake either, because that's an important piece of the delivery that's differentiated in the market. You want somebody that's gonna come with you and kind of grow with you and help be that support where you can pick up the phone and we can have a real conversation, we can tweak things, we can talk through things, we can you can just use me as a sounding board. Um, that's a different level of support that I don't think everyone could afford to offer. But yeah, if you grow for just the revenue, that starts to change things. And I would miss that. I yeah, because that's my team then. They become the extension of my team. And if I didn't have that, that wouldn't be fulfilling to me.

SPEAKER_04:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

If I'm just doing business development and handing that off, and I'm not really engaged in the process, I'm not really engaged in that business. I feel like I'm part of their business. I feel like I'm I'm a part of their team, even though I'm I'm I'm just me over here. But um, that's a really important part for my fulfilling um and why I do this, you know. So I I I find that that's that's what brings me the joy.

Kelly:

It's interesting that you that you share this because I I love the reflection point of wanting to have like a white glove service of sorts, right? And this this like teeter totter fine fine line of going oh I where do I see the business going? How do I want to what's the kind of revenue that I do want to have in while also having a nice balance. Of high-level touch, high-level service, white glove service, so to speak. And I think that they're like how this is maybe we can just talk through this and kind of riff through it. What is the teetering point, right? Where all of a sudden you're like, I'm not, or I do need to hire somebody on, but I also, it's like so important to continue to maintain the level of service that I am. What does that need to look like? And I think about it in our as it pertains to what we are doing in the real estate world. It is critical with a capital C that we have high level service for our clients, that we continue to maintain that um relationship with them. Right? Like the relationship is super important. And and also we do want to continue to grow as well because we want to serve our family in a specific way. Too, we want to serve this podcast in a specific way, also, right? So like this is I'm just I'm I'm completely riffing right now. Yeah. Yeah. And going, what what gives? Like what does that like what needs to be true in order to still continue to maintain a level of service, build the revenue, and also go, okay, it's time to hire too.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm I'm thinking about this and I'm playing it out in my mind because there's a lot of different scenarios that could happen, may not happen. But I think for for me and maybe for you too, because I do think the way that we operate in whether it's real estate or in recruiting and talent side of things, our business models are relatively the same. It's high touch, it's relationship. It's keeping when people are moving jobs. Guess what? There's opportunity. When people are moving houses, there's opportunity, right? In terms of if I did it well for you the first time, you're gonna call me back the next time you move and you're looking for a partner again, right? So it's it's maintaining those relationships, it's staying top of mind, it's checking in when it does. You don't need to check in, you know, it's it's authentic friendships, which take time. Like how good are we with our own friendships sometimes, right? We can let things go and maybe we're even more intentional about our friendships in work because it's it's important, it's all of that is important. And um that inflection point being, how do you keep that with getting the right support around you so that you can still scale it? So I look at the work that I'm doing and the hours I'm spending looking and talking to candidates and the hours I'm spending. Well, there might be that time where it is, it does make sense to have that person do more of the candidate facing, and I am more of the client facing, right? There are components that they can have those relationships and I can have my part of the relationships and still feel fulfilled, and both sides of the house can feel very fulfilled by that.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, so so yeah, I think there's a certain sort of revenue threshold where that does start to happen. Um, I've also shifted my model a little bit, um, which is which is good. I think there's actually been this interesting change in the environment that of recruiting, where it's always been, and I'll just say this for uh people out in the world that don't know how this works, but typically when recruiters are engaged, they get a percentage of the salary, first year salary. Okay. And so there's variability in that, right? And there's always been this, okay, when you're negotiating on behalf of the candidate for five grand more or 10 grand more, same with real estate.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, are you just trying to get a slightly higher salary because you're in it for your own interest, or vice versa, right? Like there's just this inherent mistrust in that process, which I don't love. And I know you experience that same totally. Even you are fully 100% for your client. And but my clients both parties, the candidate and the the inclined the client, right? It has to work for both, and I have to advocate for both. So what I've done is I just do a flat fee, you know exactly what you're gonna pay. There's you know, within a band, like salary bands, and we're gonna set a budget and we're gonna be intentional and I'm gonna make it work for everybody and made it very clear, and that has been a game changer in terms of approachability. CFOs who need to budget and plan for that really like that too.

Kelly:

Um I can only have that. I can only have it.

SPEAKER_02:

The variability, and when you get hit with the bill, you're kind of like, oh gosh, you know, I wasn't anticipating that. And when you kind of set a large range in terms of salary, that can mean your fees are all over the place. Um, so yeah, anyways, I I don't know why I'm going on that tangent, but it it does create a different level of authenticity that comes off the table of that misguided, like who are you representing here?

Kelly:

Yeah, yeah. I think I think that was a relevant point in the conversation for you to share that, right? I mean, you're shifting, you have shifted how your model is. And so what that looks like downstream is gonna be different too, right?

SPEAKER_02:

It's about trust building and you know, and trying to alleviate the concern or misconception that can happen from it. And I feel really good about that. I've seen other recruiters now start to shift from that too. I didn't even know anyone was doing it before. You started a trend. I doubt it. I doubt it, but it was always out there. You know, I'm sure it's nothing new. And everyone's like, yeah, duh. We've all moved. I know I have no idea. It's not like we I talk shop with that many people.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

But but I think it's been a game changer because when I talk to clients, they're like, oh, I'm so glad you did that. That makes a lot more sense to me. Yeah. So that that's been a good shift.

Kelly:

What has um I'm gonna I'm gonna shift gears into a little bit more of the personal, and then we're gonna start to land the plane here too, out of respect of time also. Um what has networking, community, building community in this space? Like you alluded to it on like what you do with rotary, for instance, for instance. But I have to imagine that in the world that you live in with talent, building a community within that and networking and like kind of rubbing shoulders with people looks differently than it does, say, in real estate, right? We can do that in other scopes, i.e. rotary, but I'm curious what that has looked like for you to be able to build the business that you're building for yourself.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I've tried a lot of things. Oh, that's such an actually an interesting component of getting started. Yeah. Because I was so in the business before in corporate, in the business, I wanted to spread my wings and meet everybody. I almost went bananas. I joined every organization, every group, every women's, this, that, um, networking so many nights of the week. One, because I was really craving it, honestly. I just felt like, oh my gosh, now I have time to do this and I'm on my own. And not only is it a necessity, I want to.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, and so every group, every virtual coffee, every everything I could get my hands on, I was networking just to really get to know people again and kind of see what the world is doing. Um, it's not honestly, one person kind of put me in my place a little bit and was like, has does that actually generate business for you? Are you being intentional with where you're going and where you're showing up and how you're spending your time? I'm like, no, I'm going everywhere. I'm I'm meeting everyone. Okay, is everyone the right people to meet? Yeah. And I was like, okay, great point. Um, let me rethink this. And I got burnt out, burnt out big time from that. Um, so the same gal said, I don't do any of that anymore. I'm intentional about my day and who I want to talk to, the people I want to reach out to, the people I want to reconnect with. The she's like, just think of that hour you spent at that one event, what may or may not have had any fruitful conversations. But if you're intentional about that same hour of time and you send 20 great emails, you reach out to 20 new people or whatever. Yeah, but you're intentional about it, that's what's going to drive this home for you. So year one was all every door is open. Year two is shut every door and hunker down and get clear. And then year three, I think it's a mix.

SPEAKER_04:

Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm like, no, I really enjoyed those things. I don't want to just say that's a none of that's a waste of my time. It's all good use of my time, even if it's just for social rejuvenation and being getting some girl time or whatever. Yeah, you know, other collaborative professional time. It's not just women's events, it's everything.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

But um the networking piece of things I have found going to conferences that are specifically in the industry and I'm intentionally meeting people for coffees and for one-on-ones while everybody's in the same space and taking that up, it's always been fruitful. I've always gotten a client from every time I've done that, which has more than paid for the time and travel and everything else. So I have to continue to do more of that. Where my people are going, I need to be there and I need to just get the time with them and continue to build those relationships and spend that quality time to see where they're at. Yeah.

Kelly:

Give me an example of like a conference that you just recently went to.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I was just at the health conference. It's HLTH, it was in Vegas. Um, I've gone to that the last couple of years, and it's every sort of early stage health company to some mature ones, but the idea is their general attendee goal is to bring in providers and payers to meet these companies, right? But I go in with a different perspective. It's also investor, very investor-heavy, meeting with startups for potential investments. So I spend time with them too, because they're investing in interesting portfolio companies that might need some expansion of their leadership team or other interesting roles.

Kelly:

That requires strategy.

SPEAKER_02:

It does.

Kelly:

Which you're good at. Sometimes, sometimes. No, I mean, I that's let's call it what it is. There's you have, and this doesn't come without like having those experiences that happen in year one and year two, right? Right. Because I can I can relate to this wholeheartedly, where you're relatively new in something and you're going, all right, who I gotta spread the word, I've got to meet with everybody, everybody's gonna know about what I'm doing. Yes, yeah. And then in your circumstance, you had a little bit of humble pie. And I think that that humble pie comes in various ways, right? Because I think either you go, wait a second, I just went to this event and what did I get out of it?

SPEAKER_05:

You know what I mean?

Kelly:

And that could be your form of humble pie, which by the way, it was mine. Like that was my humble pie at one point or another. Or you have somebody go, how's this actually serving you? Or your husband, my husband. What the flippity flop are you doing? You know? Like, okay, thank you. Thank you for being my cheerleader. But you know, and then all of a sudden you're like, all right, I'm ready to get a little bit more granular in what this looks like. And that's where beauty comes. That's where the strategy comes. You can start to be strategic about what your efforts look like.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and I would say to that too, I noticed myself going for going's sake, meaning you're still paying to be there, right? Like everything costs money. So you go to these events, you go to these activities, you show up. And if you're not really intentional about what I am doing here, you show up, you maybe meet a couple people around you, you leave, and you and then I would look at myself being like, Well, would I would I have wanted to approach me?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

No, I wasn't energy isn't quite on. Um, I've done too many of them this week, so therefore everything just felt like another thing to do versus really wanting to be there. Do I want to learn that content? Is that content interesting for me? Should I be expending my money in this? Right, like you're exchanging energy and financials to be there. Like what I'm I should be there to also receive something to right, and I don't mean it like that, but but like there's I get have to be intentional about my time and like wanting to actually show up. Other what is otherwise, what is the point?

Kelly:

Right, right.

SPEAKER_02:

And so I noticed myself kind of not fully showing up with the same level in of energy, the same level of I want to get to know you. I want to spend my time with these different people, but there wasn't any intentionality behind it. So it was starting to feel too wishy-washy to me, to myself. And I'm I'm like, I don't like who I am showing up at this thing today, so just don't just and rethink it. This is again year one thing, but you you know what I'm saying.

Kelly:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I do. All right, we'll start to land the plane, so to speak. I would love to hear a piece of advice that you would give a younger version of yourself, given all of the experiences up to date. A lot of the stuff that we've talked about.

SPEAKER_02:

I don't want to say I wouldn't change a thing, but stay the path because it all matters and yet nothing matters. Meaning like all the little things made me who I was, but yet all the little things, true little things, didn't really matter in how you get there. Because you're gonna build yourself and there's no right or wrong answer in life. And I think everybody feels stressed or gets a little envy when they see other people doing different things or moving a little farther, a little faster. Um, you know, and I'm like that. Why not why not? My confidence takes over. Why not me? Why can't I have I can do that? I can do that. Of course I can learn that. Like, sure, I can dive into that and I can learn it tomorrow. You know, so that that is the drive that I would never change. And the tenacity and just the go-getter-ness, like you be you, you do your thing, and nothing, everything else will come in time and in the right time. I think we all think everything needs to happen tomorrow, and life needs to evolve. Life needs the time to breathe, it needs the time to percolate, it needs you need the time to actually learn it. If you rush through things, you're not really learning the thing you're doing. So there's a there's a slowdown in the speed up piece that I would tell myself and that it's going to come, and maybe you just need to spend a little bit another six months in it and like figure out how that goes and learn the lessons. I wouldn't change anything, but at the same point in time, I would appreciate the process and I would appreciate the how and not not the where I'm going, but the how I'm getting there piece a bit more. Um, because I think I could have learned a lot more along the way if I would have taken the time to recognize it in the moment. Even with college, I did those three degrees in three years and working full time. Stupid. I didn't appreciate the learning. I was doing the learning. I'm like, but I have two more hours in my day. Why don't I take another class? And I didn't even realize I was going to graduate early until it was done. And I was like, oh my gosh, I've already completed all my credits just because I was well managing my time. But I could have done that very different and appreciated the college experience or appreciated those classes more, or really just enjoyed the process of learning. Not just because I had two more hours in my day, I could fit that in. Like, and it wasn't to just do that for do it's sake. It was just okay. Like, yeah, I can take that on. And you weird fascinate me.

Kelly:

I love this.

SPEAKER_02:

Weird. So go back and just slow it down and enjoy. Enjoy a little more. Have a little more fun, laugh a little more. I love it.

Kelly:

I do want to ask you if we can just take a few more minutes. Was that the time period before you left corporate the proverbial deepest, darkest valley for you? Or have you experienced something different since either before that or after?

SPEAKER_02:

It probably was because again, there's that sense of identity and feeling like I've gotten this far. Meaning now I'm at a C-level position. There's no up from a C-level position. There is no other like ladder. I mean, yes, there's bigger companies, there's more impactful companies, there's there is an up. I'm not saying there isn't an up. I I understand as it pertains to the corporate. You know what I'm saying. Yeah. It it was just kind of like, okay, now what? And I think that shakiness of I actually don't know what the what is, but I'm just saying that this isn't my my next phase any longer. Like I feel like I've hit this phase now and I'm done with it. But holy crap, I don't know what that is. So walking away with really honestly no plan.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

A very, very high-level plan. Um, that was crazy uh in and of itself and stressful and and um shaky, you know, in terms of just trying to define what that what does that even mean and what how to even explain this to somebody. Does it sound like I'm having a mental breakdown or something? Like, you know, yeah. I wasn't, but it was just like, yeah, like what does that look like from the outside? You know? And when really I was just being thoughtful about like I I know I need to make a change, but internally was also tumultuous while while going through that. So that, and I would say one other time when um I had a corporate job that had me traveling extensively, very male dominated. And, you know, we were thinking about potentially having our third baby at that point, and I knew there's no way. How am I going to hide this? How am I going to even be pregnant and travel or be sick or not have that glass of wine at dinner when we're all accustomed to that version of Nikki? You know, how do I possibly it just the thought of that almost made me sick, like physically sick of like how can I do this and like have the family that I want, but also keep the job and the reputation and the respect that I want to maintain here because I thought I would lose respect, honestly. So I had to walk away from that before we even started to try for our third. So that had to be a big shift and a right shift, big time right shift. But it had to be a pretty big shift for me to even consider that next family step. If we were gonna do that, this cannot happen because I can't even physically imagine it.

SPEAKER_04:

Wow.

SPEAKER_02:

So there's a lot of like big points there, but like in my life that felt like intense.

Kelly:

Well, it's all centered around identity, right? Big time. Yeah. And so part of the reason this podcast started is because I was frankly vulnerably having a bit of an identity crisis and all at the same time. I love that you mention this thing about just wanting to be thoughtful about what that next like knowing that something is not right, feeling out of alignment, feeling like there's something else greater and bigger for you. Out there. And then this like gray area in between is really, really tough. And I think that that's part of what you're speaking to. And I can empathize to this greatly. That gray area is so, so tough because it's like, wait, I do know who I am. I know that there's something right over here, like literally within grasp. How do I get there? And then the the perception of what it looks like outside of you, recovering people pleaser. Also recovering perfectionist to some degree. And not knowing what like the next pawn move was gonna look like this past year. I was like, oh my gosh. But I also remember hanging everything up in mortgage and feeling so much relief. I don't know if you felt that when you left this sense of like ultimate relief. And I have been asked so many times, I'm guessing you have as well. Do you miss it? And I'm like, nope. Not at all. Like, not even remotely. Would you ever go back? Nope, not at all. Because everything that I have experienced thus far is feels like freedom with a capital F. Now it doesn't come without its own sense of like. Yeah. You know, like I again, I reference like there's an underbelly to entrepreneurship, but I get to dictate what my life looks like. I get to dictate what my day looks like. I also have recognized from you, Nikki, you must be pretty epic with time management.

SPEAKER_02:

There's always more time. There's always a way to fit it in, right? Just, yeah. I think I've always been like that. But but yeah, I love your points on that. And I I think that it it all goes back to how we've evolved, right? I you didn't learn that until you've learned it. You can't know that. Nobody can just tell you anyone listening to this who hasn't gone through it, they have to go through it themselves to get to that point.

Kelly:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And sorry, listeners. Yeah, yeah. So all this advice is great, but sorry, you still have to go through the journey on your own and figure it out in those different phases and have the that gray space and go through the uh discomfort of that because everybody's gonna have their own version of it, especially if you go through this journey, you're gonna have to step back and give yourself the space or you're gonna have to get uncomfortable. And that uncomfortable is gonna look different to everybody, whether that's an ego death or whether it's a financial stress or whatever it's gonna be, you know, family stress. Um, sometimes you have to get kicked in the face with a death in the family, or somebody gets sick, or you know, there's a lot of these big shifts that if you don't take that step or that leap, the world will make it happen for you and we'll kick you in the face to make you do it.

Kelly:

And two things to just piggyback off of this to pull the thread from the beginning of this conversation to hear, it's clarity. Like when you have clarity in where you want to go, it like that is when you're gonna start to see things just shift. And now I completely forgot about the other one. I like it though. I had two things, two things. It'll probably come back to me. But but Nikki, I have like so thoroughly enjoyed learning more about you, learning more about how you're harmonizing motherhood and entrepreneurship. Just a few more questions. You probably did just actually give some advice to women listening, but perhaps a different piece of advice to somebody listening right now who is in the gray area.

SPEAKER_02:

Take the time that's needed in the gray because there's meaningful impact that's happening in the churn. Once that spark happens, think about what's gonna bring you joy. Don't think about what's gonna bring you money. Don't think about what's gonna bring you X thing, right? We've all played that game. We don't need to play that game anymore. Because if when you do it right, all of that will flow. So think about how you want to feel every day. Think about how you want to wake up and what your life structure is gonna be like. Think about the impact you want to make at a high level. I know I said don't worry about impact later because the impact will come. That will also come too, but it's important to get that clarity in that gray time on what you can feel comfortable and happy with waking up and doing. And then once you set that vision, just stick with it for a while. You're gonna pivot 10 more times. So don't worry if your pivots like what whatever you started with isn't what you end with, because you're not. It's not, it's going to have to evolve. The world evolves, everybody's changing, the economy's changing. You can't you can't manage all those cards. So you just have to pick your lane, pick what's gonna bring you joy and bring you happiness, and the rest will come and and give it a real go. Don't half-ass anything, just give it a go and then see what happens from there.

Kelly:

I love it. So good. How can individuals who are listening right now get connected to you?

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, yes, of course, on LinkedIn you can find me, Nikki Olgren, A-H-L-G-R-E-N Ulgren. So it's a little bit of an interesting last name. Um, you can, of course, find me there. My website's helo talent.com, H I L O Talent.com. You can also follow us, SodaBop M-N, on all the trending platforms. I still have a lot more marketing and creativeness to get to, but I'll get to that next year.

Kelly:

As soon as, as soon as we wrap up here, I am gonna go and follow it because I think that's the it's it's fun. Are you guys on YouTube? Are you doing stuff on YouTube?

SPEAKER_02:

I haven't done anything on YouTube yet. It's not really video content, but we're on Instagram, TikTok, um, Facebook.

Kelly:

Okay, love it. Who would be a good connection for you? Oh, I would love in this moment in time.

SPEAKER_02:

In this moment in time, I would love to get connected to business owners, heads of sales, and COOs of emerging fund companies that want a true talent partner. You heard it, folks. That's just fun.

Kelly:

You're so welcome. I I am grateful that our paths have crossed. I've learned so much from you in this very short period of time. And it's it's been really fascinating to just get to know a little bit different version of Nikki from a 30-minute conversation and a brief passing at a podcast anniversary event. So it's been really insightful. I appreciate you, and I hope you have a great rest of the day. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks for listening. And if you enjoyed this episode and know of any inspiring mamas who are powerhouse entrepreneurs, please help connect them with myself and the show. It would mean so much if you would help spread this message, mission, and vision for other Mompreneurs. It takes 30 seconds to rate and review, then share this episode with your friends. Until the next episode. Cheers to reclaiming your hue.

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Kelly Kirk

Host