The Scalability Code

Head, Heart, Briefcase: Creating Leaders, Not Followers, with Amy Holtz

• Sinclair Ventures • Season 1 • Episode 25

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 33:13

Scaling a business is exhilarating—until it isn’t.

In this episode of The Scalability Code, host Matt Haney is joined by EOS Implementer Amy Holtz, who shares her journey from accidental entrepreneur to scaling a multi-location retail empire with hundreds of employees—and the leadership lessons that shaped her along the way.

Amy reflects on what she learned building and selling one of Party City’s largest franchises, and how running her later businesses on EOS completely changed her experience as a leader. Together, Matt and Amy explore the most common breakdowns they see inside growing companies, including hiring mistakes, poor onboarding, and the absence of true accountability.

Key topics include:

  • Why visionaries often struggle with hiring and people management
  • The “Head, Heart, Briefcase” hiring framework
  • The danger of putting the right person in the wrong seat
  • How onboarding failures derail even strong hires
  • Why accountability isn’t punitive—it’s empowering
  • The critical role of the integrator in scaling a healthy organization

Amy also shares a deeply personal leadership philosophy centered on building others up, creating leaders (not followers), and designing organizations where people—and businesses—can truly grow.

This episode is a must-listen for founders and operators who want to scale with clarity, structure, and humanity.

🎙️ Follow The Scalability Code for more insights from entrepreneurs, EOS implementers, and operators building businesses that last.

Contact Amy Holtz:
https://implementer.eosworldwide.com/amy-holtz/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/amykholtz

#operationsmanagement #eos #fractionalcoo #podcast

Feeling stuck in your business?

It’s ok. We’ve all been there… You simply don’t have time for vision and growth. You feel frustrated, anxious, and stuck because goals aren’t being met, processes aren’t followed, and your team isn’t on the same page. Time after time, you’re putting out fires only fast enough for the next one to pop up.

Get OUT of the Sh*t Show 

Let’s build your team and guide them to the next level.

Amy Holtz

you wanna hire on head, heart, and briefcase. So, head is your behaviors. Heart is, are you a core values match and briefcase is your experience.

Welcome to The Scalability Code, the podcast that helps you get out of the sh*t show and start growing your business. A few times each month, you'll hear stories and commentary from visionary entrepreneurs, EOS implementers, and fractional COOs about how they've taken businesses to Level 10. And now for your host, Matt Haney.

Matt Haney

Here we are again. Another episode of The Scalability Code. I'm joined today by a fabulous EOS implementer, Amy Holtz. Amy, thanks for joining us.

Amy Holtz

Matt, it's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.

Matt Haney

Amy comes from, New York, but now Philly and, um, has been an implementer for several years and is gonna give us a little bit of her backstory. So Amy, we start out the same way. I always ask people to go back. Give me some backstory. I find every time I meet somebody, I feel rushed to give my introduction. I gotta give my two minute elevator pitch. I gotta get in, I gotta get out and be succinct. This is our chance to not be rushed. and one of my favorite parts of, doing this podcast is learning how people. got to where they are today and what their entrepreneurial journey was and who were impactful in that. So I want you to think back, and take your time to, to, to remember what started your journey as an entrepreneur.'cause ultimately every, entrepreneur had some sort of influence that said, Hey, this is how I got here. So I don't know if anything pops into your mind immediately. But if you could recall back to those early entrepreneurial days, people that impacted you, or things that made you an entrepreneur, I'd love to hear about it.

Amy Holtz

So it happened by accident. I think it's crazy that when you're 18 you sort of have to pick what you're supposed to do, I picked all the wrong things.

Matt Haney

There we go.

Amy Holtz

I was a banker lawyer, and hated both of those things. I joined a family business, which when I joined, we were a chain of eight independent party stores doing about$8 million in revenue, and I fell madly in love with the business. I loved building something. It was just so much fun. Um, when we sold 15 years later, we had become Party City's largest franchise. I had 900 employees, 25 stores, over$75 million in revenue, and I just fell in love with being an entrepreneur.

Matt Haney

That's fantastic. Wait, wait, wait. So much done pat here. So many questions. Sorry I won't let us go off on too many tangents, but I do love a growth story. I love a retail sales story in stores when retail used to be fabulous. Um, but who started the business originally? Who was the first

Amy Holtz

father, my father started the business. And well actually my mother, my mother started the business. She had a void in her life. She had a little stationary store and my father got one shelf and it was paper goods. And from that, with the, actually my father's credited with starting the entire party industry and he ended up opening the first party store on

Matt Haney

That's fantastic. Where in New York?

Amy Holtz

in Florida. We were in

Matt Haney

In Florida. Okay.

Amy Holtz

and then Party City knocked us off. And it's a crazy story because they went public, they were doing amazing, and then when they had 200 stores, we had 25 stores, but the industry was so small so that, you know, I was probably the third largest in the industry, but. And every time I opened a store, they opened across the street and tried to put us outta business. And um, then what I think became one of the best days of my life, they weren't paying attention to their inventory. The auditors wouldn't sign their financials. So their stock quickly went from$30 to 50 cents. They got bought. The people that bought them said all their stores across from us weren't doing so well. So we end, we were gonna buy them. We ended up joining Party City and I got to be a part of Rebuilding Party City and then ultimately we sold to them.

Matt Haney

That's amazing how, that's amazing. And do you know, are some of those stores still, like some of your stores still operating in the same locations that you

Amy Holtz

well, sadly, party City has got, went outta business in the last year. I sold 10 years ago.

Matt Haney

I didn't know they closed. I know that actually, now that you say that, I did think about it, but when they closed, were some of your locations still open,

Amy Holtz

Oh yeah. All of them. I mean, not all of'em, but pretty much all of

Matt Haney

them. That's so cool. What a great story. So did your dad, was your dad an entrepreneur and you watched him sort of build businesses or, or what was, are your mom

Amy Holtz

He was an he. Yeah. He was just an entrepreneur. I didn't, I, I just fell in love with the building of it, you know? It's like. I always say running a business is a lot of fun till it's not, because then I built two other businesses and it's such a high, you know, there's the deal high, there's the bill creating something out of nothing. You know, there's all of a sudden you turn around. I remember both times I was running my business, I turned around and I'm like, when did we get so big? Like it happens without you even realizing It So yeah, it's, it's really fun.

Matt Haney

I love that story. I mean, retail businesses, I, I have a special place in my heart for them just because the world's gone so digital and, and that experience that you have with a retail store worker and touching something and feeling it and being able to get a subject matter expert, in this case, the party world, like understanding what's good and great and making sense and on trend. Like that experience. We just don't, we don't get it as much anymore in the way that we're operating as humans. And that's a little sad to me, but it's also change, right? And you can either embrace it, you can either bitch about it or you can bitch about it and embrace it and not choose to do that. So,

Amy Holtz

Yeah. You gotta, you gotta deal with it. You gotta

Matt Haney

How many employees did you manage at one point or have

Amy Holtz

We had, I didn't thank God manage them all 900.

Matt Haney

Unbelievable.

Amy Holtz

Unbelievable. Right.

Matt Haney

My mind immediately goes to what's the payroll number on 900 employees every two weeks and ah,

Amy Holtz

A lot.

Matt Haney

it's just A lot. to deal with. That's really

Amy Holtz

A lot.

Matt Haney

And then how did you get into becoming an implementer? Like what was that

Amy Holtz

I ran a second business and I always, as I said, running a business is fun till it's not, and then you get burned out. And I just thought that was the entrepreneurial journey. And then I ran a business on EOS, and it was the first time I ran my business. My business didn't run me. First of all, I didn't think it was possible. It was so powerful. And then when I reflected on my leadership journey, while I've been very blessed with a lot of success, I made a lot of mistakes along the way. And I really believe every mistake I made, I could have avoided had I been using EOS or a system like it. So it was a no brainer to become an EOS implementer because I love helping people.

Matt Haney

That's fabulous. And how long have you been a full-time implementer?

Amy Holtz

For about five and a half years.

Matt Haney

That's awesome. So you had some, some COVID days there where you were probably working with clients through some really challenging times.

Amy Holtz

Yes. Yes. the entrepreneurial journey is a lot of ups and downs. It's, there's nothing easy about it. It could be when it's fun, it's really fun and really rewarding, but there's nothing easy about it.

Matt Haney

Well, and the lows are low, especially when you're a visionary entrepreneur by yourself or feeling that way. And you know, I've had more conversations with my clients where they're like. I'm just happy to have somebody I can be honest and vulnerable with as we're talking through their journey with them. Just like when you guys meet with them in session, you, you have to be a certain way in a session room as a visionary because your rest of your team's there with you. They're expecting you to be this solid leader. But, a lot of these entrepreneurs I know cherish their relationship with their implementers because you become much more than just an implementer. You're an advisor, you're a coach, you're a confidant, you're somebody that. That knows their world and has been in their shoes before, and that's a incredibly comforting place to have, uh, you know, an advisor with

Amy Holtz

But they have that with you too, because the most important thing is that visionary integrator relationship. It's rocket fuel when you get it right. So U2 U2 or

Matt Haney

I, I always say, and I don't know if you relate to this, it's like, as an integrator, you and a fractional as well, you wear a lot of hats and I know implementers that wear a lot of hats too. It's part relationship coach with relationship between the integrator and the team, or the visionary and the team. It's, it's part psychoanalyzing how people are acting and reacting. It's, it's part accountability, it's part business plan execution. It's part P and L management. I mean, we really get to have. a, ton of fun because we get to have so much interaction with various teams, um, and team members, and it's, it's awesome. And I know you guys get to see some of that too, and send them off into the next 90 day journey with their rocks, um, in front of them. hopefully smart rocks by the way.

Amy Holtz

Well, when they have you, I expect them to be smart with, with rock planners and you know.

Matt Haney

Have you seen some of the AI tools? I don't know. I'm a big fan of ninety.io. Do you know 90,

Amy Holtz

Of course. Yeah,

Matt Haney

has made their, they've had some really big changes in making the process of creating rocks Smart. They have a, I don't know if you've seen this. They have this AI tool that says, help me make this smart. I have had. So much success with that because it takes away that kind of blank paper analysis. If you remember back to college or or law school, you write a paper and you start with this blank page, and the first sentence is the hardest sentence, and then once you get going, you're like, all right, I'm in flow. I feel like setting milestones for rocks, a lot of people have that same fear. They start and they're like. Man, I don't even know where to start making this. and having that ninety.io integrated tool has really helped people at least get going. And then we as fractionals can come in and help them, you know, polish it and get better dates and make sure it's smart and so forth. So that's cool. Anyway, that's a tangent.

Amy Holtz

I love ai. I love ai. but you know, it's not always right, but I love it.

Matt Haney

It's not always right, and it has made a huge impact on, in our business as well. Well, let's go back. I'd like to kind of dig in a little bit on, some of the challenges that, that you're seeing with some of your clients. So if you could think back to your last session, it may have been before the holidays, so it may have been a minute, whether that was a quarterly or an annual. And I want you to, see if you can pull out. a theme that that particular business or visionary was, struggling with that you've seen before. and there's a lot of recurring themes that implementers see, and I like pulling'em out and talking about'em.

Amy Holtz

Yeah, well, there's definitely I am thinking of an annual that I just had before the new year, and it became abundantly clear. That the visionary, like I think many visionaries is terrible at hiring and he just, some visionaries are amazing at hiring. But if you get that hiring right, it's a game changer. this visionary hired a salesperson for a process job. So guess how that worked out?

Matt Haney

not, well. A lot of, a lot of confusion in the ranks here.

Amy Holtz

yeah. So basically what was discovered by everybody was that the person is better in a sales job. And he actually made the decision to leave to go to a company that was, more in line with what he wanted to do, and I think it's better for everybody. And what, what was the root cause of the issue? The root cause of the issue was really the hiring process.

Matt Haney

let's dig on that for a second. So like, job description was inaccurate. thought we needed an apple, but really we needed an orange. What do you mean? In, in terms of

Amy Holtz

I think in this particular case it, a lot of my experience comes through mistakes, but I think this particular guy did it the way that I did it. You could give me any job and I'll figure it out. And he's an owner and he's super smart and he sits in 10 seats and he just assumed that the guy said he could do it, so he would do it, but he didn't understand that you really need to get people working in areas of their strengths.

Matt Haney

yeah. they use Kolby or any other, any other personality assessment tool?

Amy Holtz

I'm a big predictive index girl because yeah, it's fantastic and I love that it's a five minute assessment. So he came out as a promoter. Which is, you know, a great salesperson and he, his, he didn't match his job target at all. But what we teach in predictive index is you wanna hire on head, heart, and briefcase. So, head is your behaviors. Are you capable of, you know, thinking like a process person? How do you behave? Could you do repetitive tasks? can you take risks? Are you risk averse? Heart is, are you a core values match and briefcase is your experience. But, so we added that into the, um, we added it back into the sales process,

Matt Haney

So I'm gonna go back'cause this is what I get to do. okay. So we created a job description, which we've done. We, we, we, I'm, I'm hearing that it was the right job description for the role that's needed. Did they then put em through Predictive index?

Amy Holtz

partly the right job description because he didn't understand. What behaviors he needed. He just said, I need somebody who's gonna do process. So the job description would require somebody who, you know, has that type of process, brain, you know, they think lot in logical steps. They're not somebody who's all over the place. Somebody who could follow is highly accurate, who could follow up with details. So the job description was partly right.

Matt Haney

And did he put them through the predictive index? No.

Amy Holtz

No, it was after, it was, you know, hindsight's 2020.

Matt Haney

It sure is. Aren't we? Perfect. Looking backwards. But let me ask you, did the, did the visionary, he probably never admitted he should have done something differently.'cause that's

Amy Holtz

Absolutely admitted he should have done. That's the key. he that's the, there's a very big difference. Yeah. Yeah. That's a very big difference between people who are growth oriented and willing to be open, honest, and learned.

Matt Haney

Well said, so, well said. I have had more success with personality testing assessments, however you wanna look at them, because it, it takes a lot of the emotional feeling out of, an interview. You know, you and I interview each other. We like each other, right. Amy and I like each other. We'll be a great fit. Well, liking each other is one piece of the process. The other seven pieces of it are, like you said earlier, what would you say? You said heart.

Amy Holtz

Head, heart, briefcase, Head,

Matt Haney

Head, heart briefcase. I've never heard that. That's fabulous.

Amy Holtz

But it's also, but you have to think what people do is they make a judgment within 30 seconds. I like this person, so they're good. But that's not what you're hiring for. You're not. Going on a date, you want somebody who could consistently do the job well. And I'm always teaching manager energy, not your time. Everybody could do everything, but when you're in a job that's a natural match for your energy, time and space expands. You go into that state of flow. So it's not that this guy couldn't do the job, it wasn't giving him energy, and energy is contagious and it

Matt Haney

Yep.

Amy Holtz

system.

Matt Haney

It certainly does. Head, heart, briefcase. I'm gonna use it, I'm gonna use it. I'm gonna give you

Amy Holtz

Do it. Okay.

Matt Haney

I'm gonna use it. Well, predictive index, they don't get the credit. You brought it up. I didn't hear it from

Amy Holtz

I don't know. I'd like to give the real source

Matt Haney

I know, I know. That's awesome. I have a lot of those things I've, I've grabbed onto over the years and to your point, I need to go back and think about where I heard it first and reference the, the person I learned it from.'cause we're all, we're all learning from it. Okay, so what you're saying is. And I agree, there's a consistent theme with, hiring the wrong person for the, wrong seat. or or the wrong, per the right seat. The wrong person,

Amy Holtz

Right. Well, there's all kinds of, you know, there are a million issues, but what we both do is we help people. IDS, what's the root cause? In this particular case, there were several routes that we had a right person, wrong seat, as you're saying. We had a higher, the root cause was a hiring process issue.

Matt Haney

right?

Amy Holtz

both and it worked out better for everybody.

Matt Haney

but still a false start and still cost some disruption in probably both parties life. The person who who was hired for a job then was unsuccessful. And then the visionary. The visionary, hiring someone and they were unsuccessful. It's truly a lose lose and ideally you're hiring for the right, hiring the right person to avoid that.

matt-haney_2_02-06-2025_192447

You are listening to the Scalability Code. I'm your host, Matt Haney, founder of Sinclair Ventures, and we help visionary entrepreneurs like you get out of the shit show and focus on growing your business. We offer fractional COO and leadership coaching services that free up that brain of yours to focus on what's next. Learn more about us at SinclairVentures. com. Now back to it.

Matt Haney

I'm gonna take it one step further and ask you sort of about onboarding.'cause onboarding is one of the things I'm passionate about. I think we as entrepreneurs, I'm one. You're one. The visionaries you work with are, are certainly ha Do you see a lot of challenges with onboarding? Meaning we get the ride hire, okay, here you go. Here's your, here's your desk and your computer.

Amy Holtz

Yep. All the time. All the time. I'll tell you the most extreme story is I introduce this visionary to the concept of an integrator, crazy, crazy visionary, and I introduce him to the concept of an integrator and he is all excited. He's like, great. I get to do the fun stuff I get to do, make the deals and let somebody else, you know. Did the stuff you do all day long, Matt, which you can't live without, so he gets all excited. He hires and in, integrator and he says, okay, bye. Drops the keys. There was no onboarding. Guess how that worked out?

Matt Haney

Yeah, like a dumpster fire, I'm guessing.

Amy Holtz

Yeah, right. What starts well, ends well. So I applaud you. How do you get people onboarded? Right?

Matt Haney

Yeah, it's a great question. Onboarding is one of the things that I, tend to obsess over. and mainly because there have been many scenarios in my, my previous businesses that I've owned and operated where. and in businesses that I, we've consulted with as fractionals where the best of intentions are there, right? We make a good hire, but we don't set them up for success. and the simplest way of saying it is setting expectations and managing against them. Making sure that we are telling that person what our expectations are for them. They're telling us what their expectations are for us as a leader, as a visionary, as an integrator, and then we're checking in on them. We're managing against them. People like structure. People like structure, and the main reason I see people liking structure is because they want to know if they're doing a good job. Everyone likes to be told when they're doing things right, and most people don't like being told when they're doing things wrong, but the reality is, is that's. That's what our jobs are, is to set expectations and manage against them. And when you start that out on the right foot, uh, what starts well, and ins well as you said, but just people checking in with them, having a weekly one-on-one, making sure you have an L 10. And what I've found with visionaries is that most times they don't want to deal with accountability. Now, that's obviously an exception, but in my experience, I don't know about yours. Holding people accountable is not innate to a lot of people.

Amy Holtz

It's not innate for visionaries and that's why they need integrators. I was just on the phone with one today. He has no. Desire to hold people accountable. It's a visionary thing. It's, I think it's written in rocket fuel, but the, the, you can't get away without an integrator,

Matt Haney

Yeah, well a lot of people do and they sit in two seats and we look at'em and we say, I, you know, I'm giving you my opinion, um, which is you need someone to do these, these things. And, onboarding, a lot of it is just accountability. It's like, what's my job detail? We spend a lot of time as Al integrators pulling out job descrip. And sitting across the table from somebody we're managing, we're saying, this is what you were hired to do according to the job description. Is this what you're doing? And if you're not, we can work with it, but this is what the role was. And have we as a company. Done you right by helping manage you against that job description. And a lot of times the answer is no. Well, what are you doing? Well, I'm doing this over here. Okay, well we gotta get you back to this piece of paper because this is what we hired for. And if it's because you're being pulled over there, it's my job as the integrator to make sure that we come back to the middle and center up and make sure that you're focused on the priorities, uh, for the role that you're working in.

Amy Holtz

Yeah, super important. You know, I can't emphasize enough the need for an integrator. I just wanna share a little personal story. I always joker, I was a visionary who was sitting in the visionary integrator seat because I didn't know about EOS. I didn't know about it. And when we talk about, we have the famous tool delegate and Elevate, and we tell people, put, write down everything you do and put it in one of four quadrants. I'm just saying this for the audience. I know you know things you love to do and you're great at. That's ideally where you wanna spend all your time, things you like to do and you're good at also. Okay. Things you don't like to do and you're good at. That is what we call hell. And what's the problem with that? That's where I lived my entire career. Nobody wants you to, nobody wants you to give it up because you're good at it. And why hire somebody when you're doing a good job? But what happens? It drains your energy. And my kids used to jokingly call me the bitch, CEO, and they were actually right. And the reason was. My energy was so drained because I spent all day being an integrator, when really I should have been a visionary. So I wasn't so nice to a lot of people. I was frustrated, draining their energy, which was terrible. And then I really believe in my heart of hearts had I sat in the right seat, living in my unique ability. Our business would've sold for more money. We did not save money. It was expensive. So for everybody who's considering a fractional or an integrator, get one.

Matt Haney

That's so awesome. God. That what? A PSA public service announcement for all the visionaries out there that are struggling. I had this call, I had this conversation this morning, Amy, with a. Landscape architect who is in every sense of the word, a, a visionary. I mean, come on. You couldn't be any more than a visionary as a, as an art artist or an architect, and He's busy running his business, but he's busy delivering work. Not building the business. He's in the business, not on the business, and he's in the projects, and he's in it, and he's in it, and he's successful. He's doing well, but I'm telling him, Hey, just hire somebody, maybe us as a fraction integrator to help you figure out what you need. He doesn't know what he needs as an operator. He doesn't know how much experience they need. And I always tell him that's the beauty of a fractional is we are not the long-term marriage we're a short-term relationship that's gonna help you find your long-term spouse. And that's what we get to do. And, and I just said, Hey, I promise you. You're not giving up control of your business. You're not relinquishing the operating task. You kind of are to someone else, but we're here. We're working alongside it with you to make sure that you don't go through that frustrating piece of of entrepreneurship that you had to go through as not having someone to help you execute.

Amy Holtz

Yeah, it's a no brainer and the advantage of a fractional is you hit the ground running. I mean, you're such a, I've used fractionals many times and it's always been great every

Matt Haney

Well, you, the, the, the onboarding process, the on ramp, I mean, we just start running. We just get in there. We start having conversations with folks and, you know, it's, it's also, I think visionaries have told me over the years, it's nice. To have someone hold themselves accountable and produce accountability to the visionary.'cause most times, remember they're responsible for doing that. We as fractionals come in and say, this is what I'm gonna do, here's how I'm gonna report on it. These are my rocks, these are my to-dos. And we're taking task and executing against it. So they don't ever have to wonder what we're doing because we're pushing that up to them and then teaching everyone else to do the same thing. It's really cool.

Amy Holtz

a no. It's a no brainer.

Matt Haney

It is a no brainer. Let me, let me keep going. what is the, a loaded question on intentionally, what's your thought? Some of the, if you can narrow it down to one thing, great. But if you've got a couple things that's great around managing people, what do you think the hardest struggle you had to, to deal with? We talked about accountability and that might be it, but is there any other things that pop up that you could share wisdom with us around? ways you've struggled to manage people and overcome it, or just things that suck about managing people?

Amy Holtz

Uh, managing people is complicated and hard, but first you have to actually be willing to do it. So, uh, so I recently had an experience where it's a personal experience, but it really brought home the, the most important thing of why we need to really lead, manage, and drive accountability. So I wanted to. I wanna lift weights three times a week. I'm getting older. I have osteoporosis, so I put it on my scorecard, 0, 0, 0. So really, if I had a good integrator or I had somebody holding me accountable, I wanted this goal. It's something I wanted. If I had somebody holding me accountable, they would say, Hey, Amy, you're below. You didn't hit your scorecard item. What could I do? Could I hire a trainer? Could I block time out on your calendar? What could I do? Because nobody was holding me accountable. I'm not getting where I want, and the company is not getting where I want, so It's not holding people accountable. Uh, being great leaders and managers and you create an environment where accountable people thrive. You're helping people achieve their goals and the company's goals. So I look at it as I'm trying to get my clients to create an environment where they're constantly coaching and constantly growing their people because great leaders are creating leaders, not followers.

Matt Haney

Ah, so well said.

Amy Holtz

but it's true. So therefore, if you're gonna grow, you need everybody in your organization to grow with you. So therefore, you're helping them grow. You're enabling yourself to delegate and elevate. You're letting them elevate and you're doing everybody a favor.

Matt Haney

You are and you're, you're doing what you should be doing as a leader and as a, as a visionary, which is. Not doing everything yourself. and like we said earlier, accountability is also affirmation and confirmation that people are doing their job the right way. And, and, uh, I love leaders, leaders. Building leaders is, ultimately it's our job to do. And that's a, privilege I've had for my whole career is looking at making sure I'm looking. You know, down the line in terms of age or seniority or, experience and, and working to build that next person up. What an honor to have say that you helped build someone's career. I mean, that's, that's so fantastic.

Amy Holtz

Yeah. Uh, can I share something with you? It's Jewish, but, but it's my what's what My whole leadership journey has been inspired by the Hanukkah candles

Matt Haney

Well, let's, that's amazing.

Amy Holtz

Well, the flame of a candle represents your soul. And what the Hanukkah candles teach us is if you light another candle. Your flame doesn't diminish at all. You just bring more light into the world, and that's what I love to do is help bring more light into the world. And it sounds like you like it too. You just have never heard the Hanukkah candle story.

Matt Haney

heard the Hanukkah reference to it. I, now that you put it together, we, we lit our menorah a few weeks ago and my kids love that and it always gives us an opportunity to, to share stories and bring things back and be grateful. And, but I haven't seen the, haven't heard about that. It's like you're lighting another candle, your still stays bright.

Amy Holtz

It doesn't diminish at all. Doesn't diminish at all. You're just

Matt Haney

at all. It's exactly, you're just adding more light to it. Wow. What a great, uh, symbolism of, of just making sure that by building new leaders, we're still great leaders ourselves, and we're creating new leaders moving forward. What a really

Amy Holtz

And it's also the only way you're gonna build your company.'cause with the pace of change today, people need to be empowered to think, they need to be empowered to do. And you need a culture of constant learning today because things are just move, the disruption is

Matt Haney

by the way, I, I think people that don't have a journey or a path or a career plan in their mind or a pathway inside your company as a, as visionary, you're just training them to go work for someone that does. I mean, you are, you're just giving them experience, which is fine, but if you don't give them a path, they're gonna go get it somewhere else. And part of people growing as humans is that they. Want that path. And if, if you don't have a spot for them or a seat for them on the accountability chart, then it's our job, in my opinion, as leaders and as entrepreneurs, to help them find that spot because they're gonna leave you high and dry one way or the other. Maybe not high and dry if you help them, but if you don't help them, they're probably just gonna leave you holding the bag. Instead, it would be like, Hey, how do we create this journey for you where if you do need to leave, we have mutual time, we're figuring it out, and guess what? I'll be the first one to help someone get to their next spot. I love serving as a reference for someone who's crushed it. What an honor to be able to get on the phone and say, I helped this person get where they're going. They were incredible. They're absolutely gonna be the right person for you. Here's what they need to thrive and survive. That's how it should be. Amy. We should be setting people up.

Amy Holtz

and then you have happy alumni

Matt Haney

Absolutely.

Amy Holtz

it helps your, hiring brand. Hiring is like a brand now too, and it, it's

Matt Haney

Yeah.

Amy Holtz

right thing to do. It's

Matt Haney

Well said, it is the right thing to do. Wow. well, let's see. I had another question. Oh, I always ask this. Tell me what you do outside of work as a visionary yourself, you have to have energy. You've gotta get energy from somewhere. What, what, other than session rooms all the time, what do you do outside of work for fun or, or to keep you energized,

Amy Holtz

always say I am not fun, but, um, I'm writing a book about, yeah, about the fact that we're really actually souls. On a journey called life and life is an obstacle course, but that obstacle course is designed for your growth. So even though we have many, many challenges and life is really hard, I think one of the problems today, if people think life is hard, people think life's supposed to be easy, and it's hard, but every challenge you overcome makes you stronger. It's terrible. Saying it's not terrible, but enables you to grow. And, um, but also we are way more powerful than we think, and we could achieve way more than we ever thought possible. I know that I have in my career, and I believe people are way stronger than they've ever

Matt Haney

That's so well said. So, uh, as, as someone who likes to hold people accountable,

Amy Holtz

Uhhuh.

Matt Haney

are you in your book journey

Amy Holtz

Oh, I'm not so accountable.

Matt Haney

Ah, well maybe, how's it going and when?

Amy Holtz

I need a fractional integrator. You know, any,

Matt Haney

I know a few. I know a few. Do you think it's something you'll get done this year?

Amy Holtz

it's on, I just put it on my issue on my annual goals for 2026. We'll see.

Matt Haney

Well, here's my request. You and I get to touch base at some point in the near future. We get to check in on your progress, and maybe I'll ask you a hard question or two about some deadlines or smart goals that you have around

Amy Holtz

Uh, yeah. Yeah. I gotta, I gotta try that. 90 a o Smart Rock.

Matt Haney

Yeah, exactly. Well, Amy, I'm gonna wrap us up. I really, really enjoyed our time today and I find your background fascinating. I find your demeanor, your energy, as something that's very inspiring. And I've done this 40 or 50 times, and you will be one of the ones I remember and think about and reflect back on. And I think you've got a lot of wisdom that, you're wise beyond your years.

Amy Holtz

Oh, thanks. Thank you. It's hard earned. Hard earned through mistakes

Matt Haney

Thank you for joining us on the scalability code and I look forward to talking with you again soon.

Amy Holtz

okay. Take care.

Thank you for listening to The Scalability Code. If you made it this far, please follow the show on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's get out of the sh*t show together. We'll see you next time on The Scalability Code.