The Confidence Curve
The Confidence Curve is a podcast that explores the dynamic journeys of successful professionals who have scaled organizations and left lasting legacies. Hosted by Ashley and Rick Bowers, each episode delves into the challenges, victories, and lessons learned. Through engaging conversations with leaders across industries, this podcast offers listeners valuable insights, practical advice, and inspiration to confidently navigate their paths—whether in business, leadership, or personal growth. Join us as we uncover strategies that build successful careers and impactful legacies.
The Confidence Curve
Charting a Path in Healthcare with Heather Zorge
Join us for an insightful conversation with Heather Zorge, CFO of evolvedMD, as she shares her journey from PricewaterhouseCoopers to leading in the fast-paced world of integrated healthcare. Heather’s career isn’t just about climbing the corporate ladder—it’s about aligning personal values with professional impact. She breaks down her experience in integrating behavioral health into primary care and the unique challenges of working in a venture-backed company.
Alongside our hosts, Ashley and Rick, Heather dives into the lessons learned from career pivots, leadership challenges, and the importance of choosing a company that aligns with your values. Ashley also reflects on her time as CFO at Western Window Systems, sharing a pivotal moment that reinforced the balance between innovation and operational integrity.
This episode gets real about leadership, trust, and work-life balance—how to build strong teams, communicate effectively during rapid growth, and set boundaries that protect both professional success and personal well-being. With candid stories and actionable insights, this conversation is packed with wisdom for anyone looking to grow in their career while staying true to themselves.
Welcome to the Confidence Curve with Ashley and Rick Bowers, where personal and professional journeys define the art of scaling with confidence. Whether you're a business leader navigating change or someone seeking personal growth, this podcast offers insights and actionable advice to help you thrive. Now let's dive into today's conversation with our incredible guest.
Speaker 2:Welcome. Here we are with the Confidence Curve podcast from Apex GTS Advisors. My name is Ashley Bowers and my co-host, business partner and husband, Rick Bowers, is here with me Today. We are welcoming a very special guest. I first met her on a panel several months back and we really aligned. I think she's done amazing things, scaling organizations and really developing her team and keeping it all together in the process. We have Heather Zorg with us today. Cfo of EvolveMD. Heather welcome, Thank you. Tell us a little bit about yourself and what of what brought you to your current role, and then we'll get started with some conversation. Yeah.
Speaker 3:First, thank you both, ashley Rick, for inviting me. I'm so excited. This is my first podcast, so super fun. So I'm Heather Zorge. I'm the CFO of EvolvedMD. I've been in the business for about almost nine months going on. Evolved is a small business working on being big. It's actually the smallest business I've been in before, which is really exciting. What we do is we integrate behavioral health, mental health, into the primary care setting. So our co-founders, eric Oslund and Steve Bilgin, created the organization mid-2015 and have been off to the races since then. We contract with some of the largest delivery arm health care providers, primary care providers in the Valley, and we really work to put our behavioral health managers into the primary care setting and to provide them the mental health support that they need, while also keeping the primary care doctor in the loop. So it's really cool. It's very innovative. I'm so grateful to be there.
Speaker 3:I started my career here in Arizona at PricewaterhouseCoopers, graduated from ASU, really grew up here. Arizona is near and dear to my heart. I love it. I love it. I love it. I choose to be here. I graduated from ASU with my degree in accounting, went into Big Four PricewaterhouseCoopers, spent five years here, did all large public audits just really ended up met one of my best mentors. I think my first year is when I met her. I moved to DC, was in the DC office for about three years, left Big Four and went to Europe. It was really exciting with that mentor. I was the head of finance for a large oil company over there in Switzerland, did that for three and a half years and then in that time I have a great husband 25 years, his name is Neil, my best friend. Years. His name is Neil, my best friend, and we have two boys that are now 21 and 19. So during all that moving we moved to Europe. My husband decided to really couldn't work under my visa, so he was a stay at home dad for a while, which was amazing, very well educated stay at home dad he's so good at it. And then we did that for three and a half years and just decided we needed to either stay there or come home, and home for us was here, and then I really got this.
Speaker 3:I'm in this niche where I have spent since 2010,. When we moved back, I've been the CFO, coo of various companies in the valley, the majority of them being private equity backed or founder-led. Looking to how do I make this thing grow and scale, how do I have the exit I want? Do I want to get my first money? All those things. So I've been in. Honestly, I don't think I've been in the same industry twice and, yeah, I love supporting amazing CEOs and founders that take really big chances and then I can come alongside them and help them scale. Help them scale.
Speaker 3:So and and and EvolvedMD. What led me there is I was looking for a place that really fit my culture, fit me culturally. I'm at a stage in my career now where I don't have to let the company choose me. I can choose them and I can be really intentional about that and Evolved. I know Centauri Minor is our chief of staff and I've known him for years and I can be really intentional about that and evolved. I know Centauri Minor is our chief of staff and I've known him for years and I just knew if he was part of it was. He was there, the culture was going to be great, and then I met Eric and I met Steve and all the team and it's just they're so great and what I mean. How often do you get to use your professional skill set in a business that is doing so much good in the world and that's really having fun using my brain, learning and doing good, so it was really unique. That's me. That's how I got here.
Speaker 4:So what's the biggest surprise? Or aha, being in a small company now, because you've been with some big companies for a while. So what is that thing? Are you just like? This is amazing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I found myself. So I, when, when I uh look at issues or problems, I I tend to say there's someone here, there's someone smarter than us, whatever that has done this before. So let's not spin our wheels, let's go find that, that nugget, that smarter person, and and make it simpler for ourselves, and not only because of the size of Evolve but because of what we're trying to do. There are instances where I'm like huh, I actually like I don't know that there's going to be an easy. I think we're going to have to just make a decision, fail fast and hope and then know we have to be on the lookout. So that's been one thing, that I've said that more often. The other thing is we're venture-backed, and that's new to me.
Speaker 3:I primarily lived in either the public or the private equity world and I had heard there would be differences, but I didn't totally understand right, what would that mean? And it is different and I think, even operating in a position where you're, you know you're having to really intention. You always think about cash flow. As a CFO, you always think about your runway, but this is a place where you're thinking about it even more and you have to be really strategic about that, which you always are, but this is a different level of pressure when you're in a VC bag, so it's things like that.
Speaker 3:I think one thing that's been really interestingly surprising is this business is actually weirdly pleasantly surprising in the humans that they've invested in how they do things Like for the first time. I, you know, the team I inherited is so great and they're, you know, I mean, nobody's perfect, they have stuff to learn, but boy are they willing to and they're open and that's you know, just because of who that business is, and so that's been a little surprising. I don't know, I haven't seen a business like normally. The businesses I go in are much larger and they don't look like that Right, and so that's been a little pleasantly surprising. Good, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I love the perspective of just like you can learn from everywhere. Right, if you want to, you can learn from anything, anyone, any situation, any size, any. Some people close themselves off to that. I'm like you're missing just a huge opportunity to grow as an individual and to make even a bigger impact If you're a little bit more curious about the situation and take that learning standpoint. So you mentioned about failing fast, and one of the things I loved about the panel that we shared together was your vulnerability and, just being honest, of you know letting other people learn from those failures, because that's where we learn the most right. You know, we all have our stories of getting it right, but the getting wrong ones usually help people out a lot more. So can you share a time when, time when you faced a significant failure, either in your career or within an organization, and just how did you handle it? How did you rally your team to be resilient in that time?
Speaker 3:as well, yeah, um, I'm going to give you a two one that I had to rally myself and one where I had to probably rally myself and my team, I'll be honest. I mean there's a lot of those, so a really significant one. I had the pleasure of being the CFO of Western Window Systems, which was a really fast-paced, innovative window and door manufacturer here in the Valley Amazing team, such a fantastic culture, and we had leadership principles there that our CEO was very intentional about, and the first one was love people first. The sixth one was do hard things. Another one was think gray and like. There were so many and they all contradicted each other and when I was there, I had honestly, it was my first time in manufacturing I at first, uh, when I got there, they had no cost accountant. I'm like that feels not great. Let's maybe fix that. And the systems weren't fantastic. So there's any number of things right Getting in the way of getting um, inventory right, any number of things right getting in the way of getting inventory right. And we had it was after we had been acquired. So we were now on more of a public, we were acquired by a public company, obviously very important to get things right.
Speaker 3:I understand that, and we had a really big miss, one of the biggest misses I've had in my accounting, and it was multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars that we had missed in AP. So it was the wrong way as well. It was one of those things that shouldn't happen, because you know your last control with your accounts payable is your vendors yelling at you. You know what I learned in that moment If your vendor doesn't have a clue, you cannot at all rely on that. And what I, what I found in that moment was one I had to own it. We had missed some basics, but I also had to figure out why. Because I had built the team was fantastic and what I realized through the learning and what I had to rally my team around was one we have to learn from this and we can't keep it to ourselves. So this think gray idea acknowledging failure, being curious, acknowledging failure being curious. So I had to swallow my ego and go talk and pull my CIO, pull my VP of product, my CEO, sit in a room and be like guys, I don't know how I missed this. We have a fundamental problem in what's happening and I don't think it's just the AP was wrong, I think, and I don't want to miss that moment, but it takes me saying I failed and I really don't want to do it again. And I'm going to acknowledge that while I'm the CFO of this company and accounting is my thing, I need your help.
Speaker 3:And what I learned through that moment was it's okay and people want to help you, they want to be involved, and so you're almost denying them that by not letting them in, and I would have missed it and I would have not learned from that. And the other thing which I really had to help my team because they all obviously felt terrible. It was a terrible timing You've just been acquired, right, it's's just nothing. It was just nothing good about it. And I told my team I'm like, look, I'm gonna, I own this.
Speaker 3:We try to do really hard things here, really quickly, and I love that. And what I forgot to tell you is I need you to do that and you can't let go of the fundamentals. You can't like we had stopped reconciling something to go off and do something cool. And so it's my moment of always remember, trust but verify. Never lose sight of those things that you know. You get excited to go try it and help and whatnot, and you can sometimes get into that mindset of it won't happen to me and it can, and we can't do that to our companies. So that's a really big one. That I would say was a rallying moment for myself and my team and it still sits and resonates with me and I still have to work on it. Honestly, I trust too quickly, so I always have to work on that. So I mean, throughout that story you could hear the discomfort and I still have to work on it. Honestly, I trust too quickly, so I always have to work on that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, so I mean throughout that story. You could hear the discomfort.
Speaker 3:Oh, I did, yeah, and it was years ago, yeah.
Speaker 4:And so you feel those things. But there's a lot of people that have written books and research and things out there that discomfort is where growth comes from. Yeah, and if you're in a situation where it's always comfortable, are you really growing and doing some of those kinds of things? And so how do you maybe with a small company it's more about yourself than it is from the team, since it's a smaller company but how do you help the team grow from some of those uncomfortable moments or, say, get out of your comfort zone a little bit so that we can all get better?
Speaker 3:um, I think the key I've found is letting them see that I don't know everything. And one could argue I've been a cfo for a long time, I'm not going to talk about that and. And so one could argue I should just know all the things and what I find to your point, ashley, like I don't know all the things, even though I've been a CFO for God knows how many years, and so I really focus with my team on showing them it's okay to not know, but you got to go figure it out and it's okay to fail and we have to learn from it. So it's like all those ands pulling the ands together that I found works. Like I had one of my controllers tell me I was the first boss. That it's really interesting. I had one controller tell me I was the first boss that made her feel safe to fail and the growth she felt from that was tremendous because she wasn't scared. She wasn't scared to come. Oh, heather, I missed this, I what you know, whatever. And I'm like, yeah, you missed it. And what? What did we learn from it and how do we fix it right?
Speaker 3:The other thing was and I also had one of my VPs tell me I didn't let her fail enough, and that was very early in my career. Those are two very different messages, and so I try to learn from what my team is telling me as well. There isn't one size fits all for any of them, and so how do you adjust yourself to? You, know what they need, but also hold, like I always tell people, my expectations are very high and I'm I had to get okay with that, but I'm also going to come alongside you as we, as we work toward, towards it, and we're going to be I'm going to be compassionately accountable, but we, we are going to do the thing and it's going to be hard and you know you're gonna, you're gonna learn and we're gonna be clear and kind not nice which there's a very big difference.
Speaker 2:I don't know, it's always just a phase.
Speaker 4:Uh clear, as kind that's exactly what we would say all the time, for sure yeah, exactly so you mentioned a mentor, um, in the beginning of the conversation.
Speaker 2:when you're introducing yourself, how would you say that mentors have impacted you throughout your career and is there a piece of advice that you received early on potentially that has kind of stuck with you, that you revisit when you're going through some of the harder times?
Speaker 3:in your career, oh, my God, all the time. I think that one thing I've learned in my career is, if you're willing to listen, almost all people have something to teach you and you have to kind of get out of your own way and your own head and your own ego and all those things, or even the personal side of it, like, because sometimes you can hear things that could make you kind of curl in on yourself and and um so, uh, there's been, honestly, I've had so many. I mean there's a couple little tidbits. Um, my first mentor that um I mentioned, uh, she's phenomenal and such a strong female leader in oil and gas um, which is crazy. Leader in oil and gas, which is crazy. And she taught me that and that's really where I taught.
Speaker 3:I learned just to try hard things. And I remember one time she told me I was a senior associate at PricewaterhouseCoopers. I was acting as a manager on two of her large public jobs. So I was up and she's handed me in accounting you have to do something called. It used to be called the physical, who knows what it's called now but it's this huge list of things you have to do to make sure that your public filing is accurate. She's like here, do this. I'm like I don't know. Like what me? I don't, I don't do that. That's not what. Like, senior managers do that because it's so important. She's like go do it, if you don't come back to me with a zillion questions. You did it wrong. And I'm like that's actually super fair and interesting. And she taught me, like my second year, that you need to like working for leaders and yourself. If you just go away and try to do something with and acting like I know what I'm doing, it's not going to get you anywhere and most humans actually don't expect you to do that. So it allows you to try really hard things and I think that what that taught me is I don't shy away and I actually go towards opportunities that I don't know what the heck I'm doing.
Speaker 3:Like when I went to Europe, I had no idea I went over there to be the head of internal audit. I'm like, okay, super cool, I've been head of, you know, senior manager at PwC. I can be head of internal audit all day long. I get there and our head of finance was really struggling. And so, karen, within I don't know, it was like two weeks. She's like hey, why don't you just do the head of finance? I'm like, do what you want me to do, what? Yeah, we're going to go public in three months and I need you to unwind this, do that, sell that and okay, whatever You've told me. You've shown me that if I try, I can do it, and it just why not? And you surround yourself with really smart people. You ask curious questions, you make mistakes and then you're like, yeah, that kind of sucked, but we can fix it, it'll be fine.
Speaker 2:It reminds me of the conversation that we had. I was consulting for HomeSmart at the time and the CEO took us to dinner and was like hey, come back in. You know a full-time capacity back at the resident level and I want to go public. And I just looked at him at dinner I said like I don't know how to do that. I don't think I've never worked for a public company. I've never taken a company public Like let me hire you a team that knows what they're doing.
Speaker 2:And he just looked at me and goes no, hire yourself a team that can go do it. But you do it, and I mean candidly. I remember Googling terms, being on calls with bankers and lawyers and investment advisors and sometimes I would get really frustrated because they were using acronyms for things that they didn't need to use acronyms for. But that is part of the process and everyone who worked on that team just looks back at the entire thing as the biggest learning moment of their entire career, no matter what role they played. It was just such a learning moment because it was really hard. We had no idea what we were doing, but we were determined to do it right.
Speaker 2:What made you do it? Like, why did you say yes? I don't know that I've ever been asked that question. I think in the moment it was something that you know obviously I hadn't done before. This is going to sound cheesy. I think actually, in that moment I knew that I would protect him over the glory of going public. Yeah, and I knew that by him having me do it and surrounding a team like that's what he was looking for is for someone to still, like, have his best interests at heart versus someone who had done it and it was transactional and yeah, that can get me a little emotional at this moment, but like, yeah, I think keeping the culture connecting with the people and all of that was.
Speaker 3:So he wanted your how he wanted, like how he knew you would do it and he knew you could figure out the technical yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, which at times went better than other times, for sure.
Speaker 3:I always find it fascinating how, so many times, we focus on the what, and it's like most humans can learn the what. You know what I mean? Yeah, like you can learn how to reconcile the thing or to fix that thing or to learn that process, but their how?
Speaker 2:yeah, that approach the intention, yeah, the integrity, the you know the why well, and that was at the end when I was exiting and joining Rick and Apex.
Speaker 2:One of the things that we want to do or help business owners exit right- and go through that process and I called one of our investment advisors and I said you know, I have one question. Like we hired everyone you referred to us lawyers, bankers, like you name it. We always went back to their people. We would do our due diligence, interview other people, but we always went back to their kind of stable of referrals. And I said you never referred a coach to us.
Speaker 2:And he's like what do do you mean? And I was like for like at midnight, when I can't get a model to work and the bankers are going to put us on hold, who do I call? You know, when you don't want to look like you don't know what you're doing in front of certain people, who's that person? Just to guide you step-by-step through the process? That only has our interest at heart, right? And he actually laughed on the call and he was like that doesn't exist, ashley. So my next question I was like well, based on what I've done, do you think I'm qualified to do that? Because I feel like that's a gap, because it is so stressful. It's such a crazy stressful process and you just need your person in your corner as you're going through it. And thankfully he said yes, or I don't. I don't know that Rick would would have accepted me in apex, but I don't know, I mean but I think some of some of that back to your question of why you did it.
Speaker 4:it's everything happens for a reason, and the fact that you had that opportunity and that that he trusted you with that, so that put some more um more behind what you wanted to accomplish and prove everybody else wrong because they put timelines on it and you beat the timelines and all of those things. But now, having said everything you said, what you're doing for our current clients is amazing things and it's, I think, going to lead us into kind of that next phase as Apex continues to grow as well.
Speaker 2:It is fun because, like you know, you're taking some of the pain away. You know just that little bit. You really are.
Speaker 3:Probably more than a little bit, I'll be honest, Having a great advisor that knows what they are doing and that you can connect with and be vulnerable with. Because it's really hard, when you're in a C position or higher VP right to show that I don't know and in a really critical moment, you don't want to show you don't know and so to be able to just be like, yeah, I don't know how to do this. Can you help? Have that bat phone that you can call?
Speaker 3:Have that bat phone that you can call yeah that bat phone that you can call is really important.
Speaker 4:So how have you gone about choosing a coach more so than a mentor?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I do have a coach. She has changed my life. I've had a few. The first couple I had were kind of really early in my career. I would say they were chosen for me. I'm honestly looking back so glad that that happened because I don't think I would have known what good looked like. Because I think you can have coaches that three varieties, and I've had three and maybe there's more, but I've had three. You have a really great coach that's focused on making Heather better in this environment. How do we make Heather better for this role, this environment? Or you can have a coach that's how do we make this employee good for this company? It's a very different tone and tenor and discussion point. Right, if it's the lens of what the coach is is using.
Speaker 3:I found Christina I was, uh, giving Christine Christina's name name when I was going through my biggest failure, personal, in my first CFO role, and I was one of those people that always went up and to the right. I was always promoted early, ranked one at big four, you know, do all the hard things. And then my first CFO role, I ran into a pretty big stumbling block and it could have I don't think if I, if I hadn't found her and gone through that, it could have really changed the the direction of my career. And so Christina is more my coach and what I would encourage. I think all humans I mean I'm in behavioral health and I love it I think all humans need support and I think all humans need someone who has nothing in it but a lot of and a lot of skill to really help not tell you what to do, but to listen and guide you to the answer that you need to get to, and so what Christina has done for me is really help and and she would when she hears this she's gonna hate that I said because she always says I do the work, and she's right, I do the work and she guides me through the work. It's a lot of work, it's hard, um.
Speaker 3:She focuses on who who's heather and how do we make heather her best self, her most confident self, her most accepted self, and um this idea of you're in a box and you can be this cfo at work and this mom and a wife and a sister and a and a daughter and that right, all the things all of us humans are going through every day and trying to show up and and manage everything. Um, you're just one human and so that that's how I would like you one. Don't get a coach. To get a coach, it's not worth it, it's going to be a waste of your time and your resources or your company's resources. Get a coach because you want to know who do you want to be right and and be prepared for it being hard and be prepared for maybe you're not in the right place for you and for where you can show up as your best self and be prepared like you.
Speaker 3:It is a like, and so I've been with Christina for, um, it'll be 10 years in May, um, and so it's a lot of work. I love it and I hate it all at the same time. Um, I don't, I actually don't hate it, but sometimes I don't enjoy her. Uh, she's making me look at really hard things, um, and I, I think also I'll just be real I think a lot of how we show up in high stress situations comes from your childhood and past, things that you haven't, you didn't even know, you didn't deal with, but it's driving your behavior and to truly accept yourself, you kind of need to know that and it's never done, like I've realized, like what it's done for me is, I feel I, I can tell, I can tell when I'm like little Heather's back, I need her to go back on the playground and let adult Heather continue to to do this because, you know, she's really showing up right now and so now I'm not showing up as my best self.
Speaker 3:So it just it's really allowed me to accept myself and even accept all of my multitudes of flaws that I have in every hat that I wear. But I'm grateful for it and I'm so glad I did it and I'm, you know I'm more more content with myself than I know I would have been if I hadn't done it.
Speaker 2:This is going to sound like the weirdest analogy, but I equate coaching, like being a coach, to being an auditor.
Speaker 2:Oh, interesting, because when you think about it and learning this. Trying to go public, we had one big four company helping us get ready, but then we had a different big four company actually auditing us and they're like you pay them, right, you're technically their customer, but they're there basically to look at everything and to judge and critique and go through and form an opinion, right. And I feel like that's how businesses have to look at coaching, because if I'm paying a coach to coach one of my executives, I am paying them, I am the customer as the business, but they aren't there for me, they're there for that individual and that coaching might lead to that individual no longer being in the organization and everyone needs to be okay with it Because if they've gone through that process, it's what was right in that moment. So it's almost that same type of relationship from the transaction standpoint of I've heard you know different owners and things.
Speaker 2:So well, if I pay for a coach or I send to a peer advisory group and they're just complaining about me, it's like, well, one, look at you Like that sounds like a you thing. Yeah, that sounds like a you thing, you know. But two, if they're needing that outlet in order for themselves to grow so they can handle things better and they can show up as their best self every day. Why not do that, even if maybe it leads to a relationship change, right?
Speaker 3:Because either way it's good for them too, right, I mean, as much as uncomfortable as it is, everybody's better for it, and we lose that a lot, I think.
Speaker 4:It goes to the joke of what if we pay for training and coaching for our employees, and then they go somewhere else? And then the other guy says well, what if we don't? And they stay.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree with that, so so good.
Speaker 3:I love that quote.
Speaker 2:I love that Switching gears just a little bit. So one of leadership's most challenging tasks is balancing high expectations with supporting our teams and developing our people.
Speaker 3:So, as a CFO, how do you go about balancing the development of your people and executing the business strategy at the same time? How do I do that? I, I guess I'm very intentional about it. I try to use techniques to fully delegate, which is different, in my mind, than just delegation, so not just delegating the work but also delegating kind of the outcome and knowing that sometimes when I do that, I and they are going to fail. And that's okay as long as we both learn from it. And so if because if I don't fully delegate, I can't pick my head up, focus on the strategy, it won't allow me to spend the right amount of time with the humans that report to me who in my role I've often found are very diverse. So I have, in my current role, I have business intelligence, implementation, it, accounting, finance, people. So in that context, if I don't delegate, if I don't, I can't strategically do what I need to do for the business and Eric, my CEO, I can't be who I need to be for my peers and I can't be who I need to be for my team. So I think full delegation is really important to being able to manage both. I also, I'm very transparent with my team so they always know where they're at with me and I don't hide my expectations. So I am very clear about what good looks like for me. I do a lot of work to not do things for them.
Speaker 3:I learned that we, we often one of my my learnings in my career is I, I love people. I love seeing my team grow and achieve and become better than me, which so many have like. I have one of my past favorite humans that worked for me. She's the CFO of a public company in Oklahoma and one that's a partner in a firm and, like I still talk to them all. I just it's so great.
Speaker 3:So when you love people that much, you're like, ooh, they're struggling, let me do for you. And I had to learn that you can't do that Because then who fails? That would be me. So I try to really keep that in the forefront of if I see them struggling, being honest about that, helping them work through techniques and tools to to delegate right, the urgent, the important. I also have I don't remember what it's called but also, what do we actually not need to be doing? Yes, yes, right, the whole cap. So just being like really intentional, knowing, frankly, that I need to spend most of my time at this level not doing things, talking to humans, reviewing thinking. So that's kind of that mixture of those things and really it's clear expectations, outcomes and I again my term is compassionate accountability like I am going to be super alongside you and I'm going to hold you accountable and I've learned you have to have some really really hard discussions at times with some of your favorite people and, um, and and it's okay, yeah, it's okay I try to.
Speaker 4:I try to equate delegation with teaching yes you're not pawning your work off on another person to do it. You're helping them grow to the next level and so. But delegation is probably the most common thing I talk about when I'm working with different leaders and things. They struggle with that because sometimes they don't trust the person that they need to do or they've been burnt on it and those kinds of things. So have you had to deal with like, do I trust this person or not, and does the delegation sometimes build the trust back?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I definitely have to do that and I've learned the hard way that I trust too quickly and it's really gotten me in bad in in hard places before. Um, you know, I I try to be super intentional on now about being a trust but verify and also monitoring the environment, for because you can get to where you totally trust someone and then either something goes on in their life and maybe they're not super upfront about that and maybe you see a change in behavior, maybe something in the environment and work comes up right, and so I think that you need to be able to trust your team. But trust is earned and so you really have to. Just, it's a constant like I've. I'll be honest, I I don't think I've learned. I've learned so many things like leadership is the hardest thing and you're never done and you I don't know that you can ever like spike that ball right. It's like culture.
Speaker 2:Right, we're like we'll fix the culture. I'm like, okay, but what does that mean? Right, like we can come in, we can evaluate, we can evolve, but you realize, like it's never done, you can't put a check mark on it and say okay, we're done, we're. You know, and just, I think, when you think you get those things right is when they become the most fragile that's actually interesting and probably really true.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because you start taking for granted like okay, we're good, we're good and then all of a sudden you have a different personality come in, or there's something's going on in the personal life or something where it's like whoa, what happened? How did that break?
Speaker 3:yeah, have you guys seen, as you've worked with companies like what gets in the way, like what are the common things of either establishing trust or willingness to let go, which is almost the same thing, right?
Speaker 4:Fear.
Speaker 3:It's just fear.
Speaker 4:Fear is the big one, because fear, like kills transparency. It does kill transparency. When you're not transparent about what's on your mind, I mean, then it just it tends to fail. If you think about the five dysfunctions of a team trust is the bottom level. Results is on the top. People want results, but they don't think about what they have to do to get to the results. Once you build the trust at the bottom and you can have those conflicting conversations where you're not taking offense to the conversations and things, and then you work your way up, then the results just happen naturally.
Speaker 4:It's the same thing with culture. I think too is like people say I need to fix the culture. I don't know that you can fix a culture. I mean a culture. A culture is just like in the natural world. It's it grows on its own and you need to make sure that the environment's right, the leaders are doing the right thing so that the people feel trusted, and then the culture will just kind of flourish. But you don't fix it. It's not like something that's like okay, I'm going to send it to the mechanic.
Speaker 3:That is very fair.
Speaker 4:I agree with you, you have to nurture it, yeah and be intentional about it. I think right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the other thing is to speed of growth. I think leads to lack of delegation and some challenges in that area because a lot of companies will grow so fast and they skip steps to implement proper like meeting cadences and meeting rhythms.
Speaker 4:If you're a.
Speaker 2:Vern, harnish fan and communication tools and resources and process around that. And so all of a sudden, when it's being implemented, it feels like, oh, we're getting corporate right, like that's the top track, that is the top track.
Speaker 2:Yeah, versus it being something that the team can rely on and depend on and kind of lean into. And then I think when you have that type of really strong communication cadence, then it's easier to delegate because you feel informed too, Because it's not just about everyone else feeling informed At the top. You feel like you're going to lose information and not be in the know because of that. I think that speed of growth can really add to that challenge.
Speaker 4:It's funny. I had a conversation just two hours ago and they were talking about well, this person on the team doesn't feel like they have enough information. So when they're at networking events they don't feel like they have enough information. So when they're at networking events they don't feel like they can answer questions. But if I were to tell you all of the things you think you need to know, then I'm going to say and you can't say any of that at a networking event because it's confidential, but they feel better because they're in the know. So the problem wasn't that they didn't have enough information for the networking event.
Speaker 2:It was that they felt like they weren't hearing something, and so it's like what is the true issue? Well, let's be real. We, when we're making up a narrative.
Speaker 2:It's never as good as the truth, we always go to the, to the negative, when we're recruiting something. Um. Let's talk a little bit about the personal. So I mean, obviously, huge career, um, amazing accomplishments, um. But as you mentioned being a mom mom, a wife and a dog mom, now, I thought we had a lot of fur babies. We have three, I have five and there's cats as well.
Speaker 3:Oh goodness, Two dogs, three cats.
Speaker 2:Yeah, love them all, what has been your secret and I know it's not beautiful all the time, because nothing ever is but what's been your secret of balancing, you know, an amazing career, amazing professional life and everything at home and showing up the way that you would like to on the home front. It's been a journey.
Speaker 3:I think one thing is my husband, his willingness to, you know, really put aside his career, right, poor guy got his MBA. He's always like I'm the most well-educated you know CEO of a home ever. His willingness to do that. We made a decision for us.
Speaker 3:Personally, I think it's so personal how you choose to raise your family. We didn't want just for us again, no judgment of any we didn't want nannies to raise our kids, um, and so we just decided we'd we'll just make do, be a one-income family and and whatever that looks like. Um, he, he worked part-time for a long time but it gave him great opportunities to be a soccer dad and all the things. And I think for both of us it's weird, it like worked out. You know it's not traditional, right, and we both felt awkward in very specific situations. You know I'm the, the mom at the meeting, the, whatever meeting, parents meeting or whatnot that nobody knows how to talk to because I don't know what they're talking about nor does it it's just not because I'm not doing that every day and my poor husband shows up.
Speaker 3:There's never a dad anywhere at any of the meetings, so, which is fine, it's just what works for us. So I think that support and just being both of us being intentional, what partnership looks like, and and it's not been easy we've had rounds and and and really understanding right, because we both gave something up. I gave up the time with my kids, he gave up his career, and I think working really hard together to to understand that we both gave something up right was important. And then, honestly for me, um, I had to learn to be very honest about my boundaries, and that was later in my career. I really and that was a lot of coaching, I never, you know I remember Christina and I talking and one thing that always resonated and what really, I think, changed it for me is she said to me Heather, your job can't always win, and I don't know that I had ever thought about it that way that when I'm choosing to always do that, my kids are losing my husband's, I'm losing my sister, whoever right, my mom, all, and it's like how do you find that balance and be comfortable with what that boundary looks like.
Speaker 3:So I just started in my later, when I moved back here, and the weird thing is, I would say for any working mom, what I found is just my experience with my children is that when they're younger, they're really focused on just their world. So when you're in it, they're super thrilled, and when you're not, they're like whatever I've got my, whatever I'm watching or whatever I'm doing. And so I did a lot during that time. And what shocked me, I'll be perfectly honest, was when we moved back to Arizona. I worked in Big Four for almost nine years and I worked a lot. And then I went to Europe and I had never worked more in my life and so I thought, for sure, right, everyone's going to be so happy when we come here and I'm like working like normal human at least my perspective, right. And my kids were like you're always gone, you're not showing up, and it shocked me.
Speaker 3:And it rocked me a lot, because here I was thinking mom's winning and now mom's losing, and I didn't want them to feel that way, um, and so I just started being intentional. Um, when I took my second CFO job I I still remember the conversation because it was really hard, because I really wanted the job I said, hey, my son, my sons, are in soccer. I'm never going to miss a game. That's just a hard limit for me. I'm, I, I'm not like I just I decided how, um, how am I going to do that? So that both went, it did, and, and I had to be realistic, meaning I chose to be a CFO. I chose to be a CFO that does a lot of deals, um, I have certain standards and so thereby there are going to be times where I have to work from Hawaii or from that vacation or're doing deal, and my family had to come around me on that.
Speaker 3:So it's always just this constant like, what's going to work? What phase in your career are you in? And you can like, you can't, you can, and you have to be kind for your kind, I guess that's. The other thing is like I never used to be kind to myself, I never gave myself any grace and and I'm really try to be intentionally kind to myself and and you know it's okay if I screw up for a week and I'll get it right again. I'm religious pride to be really religious about working out, so like doing those things that you know are going to get you started and are going to get you to keep cadence. So that's how I I mean it's messy and you mess up and you say sorry and and you know you make sure that because it's all important, like I love my job right and so I.
Speaker 3:I don't you know like I, but I obviously I love my kids and my husband all the things more like obviously yeah, but a part a lot of who I am is who I am as a professional Right, and I don't think that's bad per se.
Speaker 2:My brother last week looks at me and he goes you know your hobby is working. And I said what? And he's like you need a different hobby, like your hobby is just to work Interesting. And I had never thought of it that way. I haven't either. Yes, I enjoy working Like, I love sitting down and you know, getting into things and coming up with ideas and working Like and I don't see a challenge with that. You're like it works for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I think to your point a book that I read in 23 when I was kind of making the decision of when do I need to start putting some boundaries and things on. It was called Breaking the Glass Slipper and it was really great. It's kind of like Rachel Hollis-ish, but what I would say like more adult. I think it's Elaine Turner wrote it and it just really makes you think through all the different things and being okay with whatever it is that you want. So it's really good about not saying what's right to want and what's not, which some of the books are right, but really kind of what is?
Speaker 2:I'm actually starting to reread it again right now because I was in a different phase. Then I'm like what different tips will I pick up from it this time around? Right, but I think to what you said. I think you had to have the hard conversation. I think it's easy, you know, men or women, I think, as we're working through our careers, to feel like certain things are being done to us right, and that it's required and it's expected. But if we never actually are, if we never set the boundary, if we never articulate the boundary, oftentimes the asks are coming in because you never say no, you never say no Right, or you never ask for help or those kinds of things. So how much of it really is on us as individuals?
Speaker 3:I think a lot.
Speaker 2:You know, to raise our hand and use our voice and put those boundaries up, Because most companies are going to work with that right. They are If you're giving your best whenever you're there and you're present. Most companies are going to work with that and we actually have a client. They have a rule, as you mentioned, and their rule for their entire company is never miss a game, and it doesn't matter if it's a game, a dance recital a gymnastics meet.
Speaker 4:It's the idea. I love that. That's so great.
Speaker 3:So for all their kids, it's always you go. Yeah, I wanted to highlight just one thing, just because it brought up. I had and I think this is something a lot of people really struggle with, younger especially. I remember I was in DC, I was working fora partner, I was trying to work part-time in Big Four. I was the manager of the largest public client for in the DC office and I was trying to work part-time for multiple reasons andI remember I started feeling like I was working more and I was really mad at Larry.
Speaker 3:He was my partner and I remember going in with all sorts of self like you know, like just I'm right, feeling right, being so mad at him. And he's like you know, heather, it's really interesting, he goes. Well, we agreed you were going to work part-time, right? Yeah, that's my point. And he's like I don't work part-time, true, I'm like where are we going, like this is going to be fascinating, where is this going to go? And he goes do you think I have in my brain exactly what your part-time schedule looks like? I'm like no, he's like do you think when I need something, I'm going to like check and make sure am I going to call or send an email and I'm like you're probably going to call or send an email. He's like so whose fault is it if you pick it up? And I was like I just got that. That's because I'm a very accountable person, like if, if I can figure out where I did it wrong, I am going to own it, even if I only should own two percent. And somebody else shown 98.
Speaker 3:I'm like, oh my god it's all my fault yeah, but if we own it we can fix it, yeah right exactly and I.
Speaker 3:Just that was one of the most um, and I use it with my team all the time because I often tell them, like look guys, look guys, I'm not going to control here's the boundaries. Now if you come to me and say you need this and I tell you to go pound sand, then that's a whole other discussion. But I am not going to manage your life for you. And I think learning that at that stage in my career was so powerful for me to like really and I mean, obviously I still had to learn it because I didn't set boundaries and all the things, but then I just blamed myself for it. At least I knew where that belonged. But I think as we work through our careers, making that separation is so important of what should you hold your leader accountable for versus what do you need to hold yourself accountable for? So it was a good one in my learnings.
Speaker 4:Really quick before we wrap up. What was your favorite place to visit when you lived in Europe?
Speaker 3:Oh boy, favorite. There was a place, one I love Rome I don't know. Rome is such an interesting, fascinating, beautiful historic city, and so I really loved Rome. My husband and I spent an anniversary in Monaco. That place is super cool. And then there was a really small town in Switzerland and right now my brain is going absolutely blank, but hopefully it might come to me, but it was. It was basically um, uh, pretty close to us and it was a little town that you had to take a gondola to and and there was no cars up there, and then you could take another gondola, I think it was to the top of the Schilthorn and it was just such a neat little town that made you like it was so Swiss and I loved that town. But there's so many great places, I'm so glad I did it. Yeah, so much. There was so much eye-opening happening when you live in Europe versus being in the US, so it was super great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's amazing. We love traveling and so it's always fun to hear people's favorite places. So, with that, thank you so much for being here. I know that you are hiring and growing as an organization, so if our listeners want to reach out to you or to get in touch with the company, where should they go?
Speaker 3:EvolvedMDcom we are a really people-first, culture-first, mission-driven organization Lots of opportunity, tons of great people trying to do good in the world and solve a really important problem that's facing every age group that we have. And you know, it's just a really incredible place. I'm on LinkedIn and you know we're it's. It's a just a really incredible place. I'm on LinkedIn and yeah, either way, well, thank you again.
Speaker 4:Thank you both.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1:Thanks for tuning in to the Confidence Curve. We hope today's episode left you inspired and ready to embrace your journey confidently. Remember whether you're leading a team, growing your business or pursuing personal growth, each step forward builds your curve. If you enjoyed today's conversation, don't forget to subscribe, share and leave us a review For more insights and resources. Visit us at apexgtscom. Until next time, keep climbing the curve.