Built to Bounce Back: How Resilient Leaders Shape Stronger Teams and Businesses

What if the key to success in business isn’t avoiding failure—but learning how to rise from it? In this episode, we explore how resilience, curiosity, and strong leadership can transform both individuals and organizations.

In this episode of Nexus at UCF, host Natalie Broadhurst sits down with Dawn Sipley, President of “Sipley The Best”, to explore resilience in the workplace and how it’s shaping the future of business. From navigating workplace challenges and building strong team culture to developing emotional intelligence and effective leadership strategies, this conversation dives deep into innovation, leadership, and the evolving role of human resources.

⏱️ Timestamps

00:00 Teaser

00:31 Welcome to Nexus + Meet Dawn Sipley

01:36 What is resilience to Dawn? + How she started in HR leading to her company’s genesis

05:22 Resilience to rebound: How to keep going & what not to do

08:51 Human resources: Friend or foe?

10:26 Danger of gossip in the workplace + Importance of good character in an employee

17:14 Your character is shown in the storm

18:44 With great risk comes great reward

20:09 The importance of having a support circle to get through difficult times

25:37 The importance of strong community bonds

27:59 Professionalism in the workplace: Don’t overshare yet remain genuine + Lead by example

31:43 How to be a good mentor / boss

34:37 Human interaction: a lost gem in the workplace 

36:44 How to become a resilient employee & person

42:36 Outro: Thank you for Listening!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

What I find is those folks that are resilient aren't the ones that take an obstacle as a stopping point, but really take that obstacle as a moment to learn and explore as an HR director, as a professional, to allow some of those softer conversations to happen and allow that transparency to be there because we're whole people. Our trauma doesn't clock out when we clock in. A person's ability to stand back up quickly after getting knocked down is really a good part of resilience.

SPEAKER_04 0:32

Welcome to Nexus at UCF, where we connect you with the future of business. Today we have an amazing guest joining us to explore this interesting topic. Don Sippley, president of Simply the Best, the HR consulting firm with further experience in staffing and recruitment, obtained from acting as co-owner of Technology Professional Incorporated, as well as other many professional endeavors. Don, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_02 1:13

Thank you so much for having me. This is fun.

SPEAKER_04 1:15

Yeah, we're glad to have you. Dawn is a seasoned professional in the world of human resources, having dedicated her entire career to it, such as with the work experience I mentioned, or also as a public speaker, but is especially knowledgeable in how far resilience in the workplace can take you in the impact it has. Don knows what to search for and what good performance looks like because I'm sure she's seen plenty of the opposite. To start us off, Dawn, would you be able to explain what resilience means to you in a professional versus maybe personal setting?

SPEAKER_02 1:43

Yeah, absolutely. I I think I first learned resilience in my childhood. Uh I was born to two crazy kids who were a little bit of a mess, and by the time I was 16, I emancipated myself. And um, between my sophomore and junior year, I moved out and was essentially on my own. And that's really what taught me how to be resilient, how to figure out the questions to answers that I didn't know and where to get those resources from, and really how to leverage my community to help me get kind of along the way. And I really think the same is true for business. What I find is those folks that are resilient aren't the ones that take an obstacle as a stopping point, but really take that obstacle as a moment to learn and explore where I can find the solutions, who can help me with these solutions, and how do I move the ball kind of forward? And so I think just being creative and being curious is the key component to resiliency.

SPEAKER_04 2:42

Yeah. Did you always know that you wanted to go into HR and help people find those aspects of themselves?

SPEAKER_02 2:48

No way. I was homeless as a child. I just really wanted to have a job and have housing and have stability. I had no idea the Lord was going to take me into human resources. And so for me, what that looked like was when I was attending here at UCF, I got my real estate license and I sold real estate at 20 years old to grown-ups, as I like to say. And that really taught me the world of business and negotiation and asking really great, great questions because people think they know what kind of house they want to buy, but they really don't. It's all very abstract to them. And then from there, um, when my mom passed away when she, when I was 23, she was just 44, I came custody of my 16-year-old sister. And that threw me into the world of retail. And that's when I learned out I was really good at hiring, um, was in that retail space, asking good questions, being curious, watching body language, which I didn't know then, but that was really a talent that I had picked up through my childhood, living in some of those colorful situations that my parents had kind of put me in. So I recruited for retail, I recruited for technology, I recruited for nonprofits. And then that's kind of what set me up for the staffing environment. And so I ended up at the staffing company part-time,$15 an hour. It was how they hired me. And by the end of my 12-year-tenure, I was an owner and I was running the business and I was a rainmaker of a multi-million dollar company. And it was then that I kind of realized that people have to hire staffing companies because they're not good leaders and people keep quitting on them, and they wanted a solution to that revolving door of high turnover. And I found myself aggravated, it's like, if I could just teach them how to do better, they wouldn't need us, but I need to get paid. And so that's kind of when the Lord gave me this idea of you can teach a man how to fish instead of giving him the fish. And I thought Siply the Best, which had no name, it was only a concept, was going to run parallel to my staffing um career. And then lo and behold, uh, I ended up exiting that staffing company, ended up with a great payout, and started SIPLI the Best. And so now I get to teach small business owners how to fish for their employees rather than just plugging a hole and you know, creating a very short-term solution.

SPEAKER_04 5:18

Right, more preventative settings.

SPEAKER_02 5:20

Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 5:20

And now you're here.

SPEAKER_02 5:21

And now I'm here.

SPEAKER_04 5:22

Um, how has being resilient made you a better business professional?

SPEAKER_02 5:26

Yeah, I I think a person's ability to stand back up quickly after getting knocked down is really a good part of resilience. What I've noticed is some younger people they take a lot of time to like rebound. They have to think about it, they have to process it, they have to understand what just occurred rather than going, ugh, that sucked, and and march on and not really allow it to stick to them heavily. So for me, um, just that ability for quick rebound is a really important part of business resilience because you're gonna have a bad day, you're gonna have hard conversations, especially when you're the HR director.

SPEAKER_04 6:08

Oh, I bet.

SPEAKER_02 6:09

And you can allow other people's problems, other people's bad days, or even business problems stop the mission and vision that you've been given for the long-term health of your business.

SPEAKER_04 6:21

Right. Um, what are some examples of the I I know you mentioned the being able to brush it off, but what are some examples of other unhealthy habits that you've seen backfire in these high stress situations? Um, and then how have you like observed or coached them to redirect their energies?

SPEAKER_02 6:36

I think a lot of people stumble when they feel like they have the right to completely understand everything, or they feel they have the need to be heard. In business, it's business. Your feelings and your needs and your questions aren't always pertinent to the task at hand. And a lot of leaders will not move qualified employees forward because of their emotional instability and their lack of resilience in difficult situations. And often we see that like in the form of gossip. I'm dealing with a situation right now where there was something that happened. Be careful about what I say.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

Sure, sure.

SPEAKER_02 7:25

I can only tell half of every great story, and something happened, and instead of the employee, upon discovering it, going straight to leadership and saying we've had a breach uh in a situation that is against company policy, instead, he went and told all of his coworkers first and then let leadership in on it. Where, and now everyone's offended, everyone's upset. I've made some money.

SPEAKER_04 7:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:52

And now I've been hired in to kind of diffuse and do a discovery process on how we got to be in the situation, who all knows of the situation, what are the liabilities? Now, what do we do from here? We're obviously going to need some training, we're gonna need some protocols and things like that. Whereas he had he, upon discovery, just gone straight to leadership and said, leadership, we have a situation, they could have done the thing, taken action quietly, and no one would have been the wiser to the messiness of the business. Um, and now that person who is in a leadership role, ownership is looking at them like can they be trusted?

SPEAKER_04 8:34

Because that's on their right.

SPEAKER_02 8:35

They did they didn't look out for us as a company. Yeah, they were looking out for their bros in the office. And that's not what leadership, that's not, you know, a sign of good leadership.

SPEAKER_04 8:49

Right. That makes sense. Yeah. Um, I feel like maybe some people uh in a business landscape might see it as like us against HR or us against management. Yes. Do you ever have those people that are resistant to the changes or the discovery process?

SPEAKER_02 9:03

Of course, of course. You know, I mean, even God couldn't even control Adam and Eve in the garden. And you think HR or ownership is going to control the employees? Yeah. No way, Jose. There is this society, especially American society, has a us versus them mentality. Long gone are the days of the seeking to understand or you can you can have that viewpoint, but I still love you as a person. People really attach. If you have that viewpoint, now you are my enemy. Um, and the best employees understand that they're employed and paid by an organization because the organization is in existence, because the organization has profits. You know, sometimes employees will be mad, well, well, I only get$25 an hour, and my company's charging$75 an hour for the services that I solely perform. Well, yeah, because you drove the truck to get you there. You're sitting in an office that's paid for by then them, someone got the customer to begin with. There's all these other auxiliary costs, but all they see is that spread and markup in the in a selfish, you know, uh a selfish organization. And so I think the best employees really fully understand that if their business is healthy, then then they're gonna have job security.

SPEAKER_04 10:26

Going back a little bit to what we were talking about, being able to brush, brush it off your back. Um, do you think there are any maybe hangups or specific hangups that might prevent these emerging professionals from reaching their fullest potential?

SPEAKER_02 10:40

Gossip is a big problem in the workplace. And gossip happens when people feel unsafe. And so the best thing that businesses can do is to ensure that they truly have an open door policy and that there is a reaction to concerns. Oftentimes people will take their concerns to leadership and leadership just quietly brushes it off, or doesn't do anything, or doesn't explain maybe the why behind why things are happening. And so it's natural for people to congregate together to keep themselves safe. And then that just ensues a toxic work environment and whatnot. And then just the inability to see the larger picture, I think, is something else. People are very inward focused and not organizationally focused. Like I always thought that my job is to make my boss look good and to make their life easy. I've been in the room of lots of conversations around layoffs and terminations. And I have to say, your overall character, not your competence, often dictates who is safe from a layoff and who is vulnerable to a layoff. They will take a less competent person that is easy to work alongside of than someone who has a contrarian argumentative personality that is brilliant. It just how many times we all know those people that are just agitators in the workplace. Oh, absolutely. And that we we only deal with because we have to. And when push comes to shove, oftentimes leadership will take that softer road. And so then when you're laid off, you don't understand because you were the smartest person in the room.

SPEAKER_04 12:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:29

Well, now it's the time for some self-reflection on what were your relationships like? What value did you bring? How well liked were you among your peers, among your leaders, among your subordinates? Um, your reputation and your character really matters. And then when you do mess up, it's not a symptom of an ongoing issue. It's an outlier. And it's a it's really seen as a mistake and a correctable mistake. Like, can I talk to you about this mistake? And you go, you're right, I shouldn't have. I I messed up. Can you share with me? Can you coach me? Can you invest in me on how I can do better next time because I obviously had a weakness here or an immaturity or something like that? Those are the people that I can work with and I can move forward. But the ones who always want to turn it back around and be like, well, I did it because or this is ridiculous, or they just can't like have the inward thought of maybe I contributed to this in some way. I can't teach those people you can't change personalities. Personalities are uh formed before the age of eight.

SPEAKER_04 13:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 13:41

And and you're just not gonna, you're not gonna change those things.

SPEAKER_04 13:45

Is it hard during the hiring or staffing process to identify those individuals? Like it it sort of presents itself when they're already in that situation.

SPEAKER_02 13:53

It's a great question. Um it is not hard, but unfortunately, business owners are often not taught how to hire. Um, they're not taught how to interview, they're not taught behavioral um indicators of uh challenging personalities. They're not doing personality assessments, period. I think personality assessments should be a part of any onboarding process, just so you know what motivates people, what demotivates people, where do they operate out of a place of fear? How do they operate when they're in a place of fear? Because who Dawn is at her best is not who Dawn is when she's operating in survival mode. And so when I hire folks, I actually share that with people. Hey, listen, when I get stressed, I will become very authoritative. I will not ask you how you are, I will not care how you are. I will be in um repair mode and I'll be very directive on my communication. Whereas where I'm at my best, I'm how are you? How is your weekend? You what are you feeling? What how can I support you on this project that we're working on? I'm very much more relationally driven and wanting to start with the person first and the project second. Whereas once I'm in um in a place of fear, I am process over people. And and that can often feel very uh upsetting to people who like me and like the way that I show up for them and I make sure that they're okay before we get into business. And so I'll often tell them it's not about you, it's about me. And so by setting that stage prior, they go, Oh, maybe it's not something in business, maybe it's something personally Dawn is dealing with because I see her operating in that very highly directive role. And I give them permission to ask. I might not come to the table and be like, just so you know, my husband really tipped me off this morning and I'm coming into the office, but feel permission like, hey, you seem a little off today. Well, thank you for for asking. I actually I had a little bit of an argument with my husband, and I'm feeling a little agitated. Let me just kind of take a break and reset myself. Thank you so much for pointing that out. But for a lot of us, we don't talk to our boss like that.

SPEAKER_04 16:08

No. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:09

But I try to create an atmosphere as an HR director, as a professional, to allow some of those softer conversations to happen and allow that transparency to be there because we're whole people. Our trauma doesn't clock out when we clock in.

SPEAKER_04 16:22

Right.

SPEAKER_02 16:23

It we carry it, even though we put on our big boy pants and stuff like that, it's still weighted in us. Um, one of my favorite books is um uh it talks about the physiological impact of trauma and stress and things like that. And it's not just something that you can step outside of because your environments have changed.

SPEAKER_04 16:45

Right.

SPEAKER_02 16:46

How the body keeps score. That's it. How the body keeps score. Okay, cool. I'll have to look at it. It's a hard read. It took me about a year to read it. It's wild, wildly technical and very deep. Um, and unless you I mean, I'm just very average on IQ. I've always said I'm more diligent than I am intelligent. Um, but it is a complicated read, but I think it's a a read that's definitely well worth it.

SPEAKER_04 17:09

Right. But in reading it and finishing it, you showed resilience. And that's that's what's important.

SPEAKER_02 17:13

I like it. I like it.

SPEAKER_04 17:14

How does resilience uh make someone a more trustworthy employee?

SPEAKER_02 17:18

Right. Character isn't shown in the good times, character is shown when you have the full right to misbehave. Right? So you can gain trust one of two ways, over a long span of time or during a storm. And when your team witnesses you take the high road, protect them, ask questions, not act out of emotion, not act out of a short-term strategy, but rather a long-term strategy, you'll gain their trust. Um, and in that resiliency, in that storm. That's why soldiers are in our military create such deep bonds. I mean, that battle buddy is everything. You might not like the guy next to you, but you know he'll die for you.

SPEAKER_04 18:07

Wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:08

Because you have a greater mission. And so if you're able to instill that kind of environment of we have a greater mission, I don't have to like the things you like or agree with the things that you agree with, but we understand that we serve a higher purpose, then you can get work done. But so many times we get so involved in who said what and in their communication style and how we're offended and things like that that we really get lost in what I call these micro missions rather than the overarching mission of serving customers well or our community well.

SPEAKER_04 18:43

Yeah. What influence does um risk tolerance and adaptability have on performance in a business, as in whether it's demonstrated by the employees or even like all the way up to management?

SPEAKER_02 18:57

I love living a risky life. There's nothing to be gained by sitting on your couch and scrolling through Instagram. You know, there's there's no risk there. There's risk in love, there's risk in profit, there's risk in business, there's risk in promotion. Someone's gonna be mad that you got that job, that you got that promotion. So there's risk in l literally everything that we kind of navigate, and there's a cost opportunity there. So I think for me, if you're unwilling to take risks, you better be very comfortable with complacency. Um so all the fun things that I've done in life had had great risk. Um, with great risk comes great reward. Um and what I what I fear for kind of the youth of our days is their memories are gonna be social media posts and not actually going and doing and experiencing the world. They're more viewing the world and experiencing the world.

SPEAKER_04 20:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:04

Wow. Man, that's tough. I have to go delete Instagram now. Um do you believe that most in leadership roles have experienced whether it's that complacency you mentioned, or they haven't yet, or do you think they have mastered resiliency and they don't experience that burnout as much as um their employees may?

SPEAKER_02 20:23

It's something that we're always honing. Um and it's something that we always have to continually kind of be working on because one thing that I've noticed is a lot of people think the older I get, the more experience I get, the more money I'll earn. But they don't understand the the impact of biology, they don't understand the impact of life. Um, you know, I I have a girlfriend that was wildly passionate about her job and her children, and her career was on a huge upswing. And then her sweet baby boy went off to college at the age of 18, smoked a joint and died because someone put in it. And what she thought was her priorities are no longer her priorities. And she's experiencing a season of resiliency just to exist that she never thought that she was gonna experience. So that's a very dramatic viewpoint on what that looks like, but but it's going to happen. You are going to get sick, you may become disabled, your spouse, your children, people are gonna die all around you all of the time. And so we talk about business and resiliency and leadership and regular employees, and and we want to just talk about business, but it's really that whole person kind of atmosphere on how we are able to deal with our entire life. Um, and that's why it's important when you're when you're hiring folks to understand who they are in totality. Their herd of humans that are around them supporting them because if they don't have a tribe, they're not doing life with some people, life will be 10 times harder on that individual than those who have a tribe that are walking through those really difficult times. And sometimes that tribe is your workplace. We have workplace besties, and it is shown that if you have a workplace best friend, you're much less likely to quit. You're much less likely to get fired because you're going to work on behalf of the person that is next to you, that battle buddy that is next to you, and you'll go through hell and high water for them and not dip quite as quickly as you would if you were living kind of in that silo. Um, and and quitting is just kind of easy because this is easy to break, but this is has a much stronger bond. And so if you have that integrated system, so when you're recruiting, you're not hiring off indeed because that person only has one link to your business. You're hiring off of recommendations of your current employees, of your church family, of your institution that you graduated from. Like you have other like things in common, you have other um tassels that keep you kind of together. I think the world lived more honestly when the neighbor lady is going to rat you out to your mom when they saw you skip in school earlier. But now society is like, not my business, not my problem. Yeah. And they turn a blind eye to wrongdoings, or they just get out their camera and record it and talk about it rather than actually stopping evil from happening. We're just voyeurs of disaster. We're not crusaders of righteousness anymore. So it really is a cultural shift on how people see how they impact their own community and how they represent their community as a whole. Like as I'm operating as a UCF graduate, I am a product of this university. I am a product of a third-generation Central Floridian. I am a product of two addicts. I am representing all of these different paradigms in my life when I go out into the community. Um, and not everybody thinks like that. They think that they live in that silo and that they're what they do doesn't impact 15 other people around them.

SPEAKER_04 24:30

Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting what you said about like the mindset shift in like the workplace. I feel like maybe myself or maybe other people my age have sort of changed their perspective on like like you said, quitting or how um, I don't know, I feel like it's it's much easier now to just like quit without repercussion.

SPEAKER_02 24:48

Yeah, yeah, because we live in a very privileged society and getting the new job is very easy. Yeah, yeah. Where other countries, if you've ever traveled internationally, that job is your everything, it is it is your livelihood, it is feeding your family, it is housing you, it is, it is revered. Where here it's like, screw them, they're rude to me. Next, and they just very easily getting something else lined up and it not being, and if they don't, then the government will step in and provide them social services, or a church will provide something, or a nonprofit will do something. We have a lot of safety nets, and I truly believe people will misbehave to the level of consequence they can bear.

SPEAKER_04 25:36

Right. Do you think um, as far as like uh you mentioned like workplace buddies and workplace culture? Do you feel like there's been more of an emphasis on people wanting to prioritize that workplace culture and the work life balance rather than maybe like the monetary aspect of it?

SPEAKER_02 25:52

A hundred percent. And that is because people lack community that they've never had before. So now they expect their employer to be their safe place and to be where they feel comfortable and they can be expressive and they can speak their mind. And so it's a whole new thing where before you went to work, you did your job, you kept your mouth shut and you came home. And then you had your church family and you had your bowling league, and you had your small town where everybody knows your name. And if you misbehave, everybody's gonna know your business. And now we live in this world of femininity and disconnection where we have digital connection, but not true intimacy. I mean, the suicide rate of young people these days is the highest that our nation has ever seen, has ever seen. And it's like, but how? They had 5,000 Facebook friends and so many followers on Instagram, and everything looked good when I scrolled, but they were they were deeply and darkly isolated, and they lived a curated life, not an authentic, intimate life. Like you need to have people that when you're in crisis, they respond with, we ride at dawn.

unknown 27:06

Right.

SPEAKER_02 27:07

Like, I am here and I am showing up. I don't need a um uh I'll pray for you text message. Oh I need a I'm coming to your house right now and being with you. Someone recently asked me what is friendship, and I said, I honestly don't have a lot of friends. I have a lot of people I do stuff with. Sure. But my friends are my ones that come over to my house and I don't have to clean before they show up. And those people who will help me move, and those people who know the messier side of me and love me in despite of those things, rather than conditionally being around when when there's good times.

SPEAKER_04 27:48

Yeah, you know, being able to be authentic.

SPEAKER_02 27:50

Yeah, yeah. Absolutely, absolutely. Your friends aren't found at your birthday party. That yeah, they're found on moving day.

SPEAKER_04 27:56

Right. They show up, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:58

Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 27:59

Where does like authenticity and vulnerability vulnerability belong in the workplace?

SPEAKER_02 28:04

Well, I think we should always be authentic if we're living inauthentic lives, then we're living an isolated life. Right. And vulnerability should be to the um to a place of appropriateness. I don't want your whole self at work. Please don't. I want your professional self. That you should be wearing a little bit of a mask at work. Not to be inauthentic, to be real, but the the word vomiting that happens in the workplace is astonishing to me.

SPEAKER_01 28:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:40

I don't need to know the nitty-gritty of your weekend. I'll take a highlight reel.

SPEAKER_04 28:45

Right, sure.

SPEAKER_02 28:46

You know, um, it's amazing to me what people overshare about their personal time. I've done so many terminations because of just what people said. If people would just shut their mouth and do their job, if it's not compensatable by the employer, you probably don't need to be talking about it. Wow. Or doing it in the workplace. So oftentimes people get fired at work for doing things that are outside of their job description. And I know that sounds crazy, but no, it's it's when the rubber meets the road, reorganizing the break room on a Saturday without your boss's permission, it's not on your job description. You and you'll get written up for that.

SPEAKER_01 29:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:30

Having um sexual relationships in the office, even off the clock, right? It's not part of your job description.

SPEAKER_04 29:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:40

That's not why I bought that desk.

SPEAKER_04 29:43

Oh wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:45

Um, you know, uh having alcohol or drugs on premises. I'm sure I'm paying for your fully cognitive self, not your emotionally detached self. So those types of things people do at work every single day. Every single day. And then they're shocked that there's repercussions. There's repercussions for it. And so just kind of do your job, keep it PC. You can have work friends, but those should never be your best friends. Your best friends should be outside of outside of the workplace and whatever community that you find, whether that's religion, whether that's education, whether that's philanthropic, yeah. Those best friends, those most intimate friends that know everything about you, it's best to have those. There's an old saying, don't poop where you eat. And you so whoever's feeding you should not be the same place that you take your disasters to.

SPEAKER_04 30:44

Yeah, no, that makes sense. That was actually gonna be my next question because I feel like a lot of people do, um, whether it's you know, pure of mind or not, cross that professional boundary and maybe say more than they should. Yeah. Um, so how do you get ahead of that preventative wise uh and like communicate to employees like, hey, I don't want this to be an issue?

SPEAKER_02 31:05

Yeah. I think one by demonstrating it yourself. Okay. Oftentimes leaders will ask other people that they have not done themselves. They'll come in flustered to a meeting and be like, oh my God, blah, blah, blah, blah. This is why I'm so flustered in the, you know, and it's like, oh, okay, well, that's that's the level of which what we share around here. But then when an employee does the same thing, there's no excuses. You shouldn't have been late. You should have been on time. I pay you to be here. Boss lady, you can barely get here on time.

SPEAKER_00 31:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:33

You know, so don't ask your team to play by rules that you're not playing by.

SPEAKER_00 31:38

Right.

SPEAKER_02 31:38

And then be shocked when they're only mirroring the culture that you've established.

SPEAKER_04 31:43

You mentioned in one of your speaking engagements on forentification uh how great bosses know their employees' origin stories and are able to coach them to be their better selves. So, what are other benefits from either party in having that that close uh mentor relationship?

SPEAKER_02 31:57

Yeah, absolutely. Um, one of the antidotes that I use is a good boss knows how your weekend was, you know. Um, not the nitty-gritty, but just kind of generally speaking, they come in on a Monday, hey, how is your weekend? Do you need anything? Do you feel prepared for the work week? Whether that's technology or support or answering questions. Um, but a great boss knows where you came from. They know your social economic status that you grew up in, they know how many siblings that you had, they they know what your college career kind of looked like, and they know a little bit about the jobs that you've had previous that have kind of led you to this point and your journey and and what motivates you and what you're driven by and kind of what you're afraid of, because that allows them to lead you in a way that takes you so much further. Because if you don't know what motivates your people, um, the Five Love Languages book is a is a great book on what motivates people in romantic relationships. Is it words of affirmation? Is it physical touch? Is it gift giving? The employee who who is monetarily motivated, show me the money. Right. They don't care. You can you can give them accolades, you can do everything else. Unless you're paying me, it don't matter. Right. You know, and they will go to hell in high water for that cash. Whereas someone else who maybe grew up very affluent and that money and the prestige doesn't really have any impact because they already have everything that they need, but their father never told them they were pretty, or their parents never stopped to acknowledge them because they were so successful and so wealthy. You stopping and saying, the way that you worked on that project, I saw all the effort that you put into it. And it has helped our company come so far. I just want to tell you I appreciate you. We are where we are today because of what you did and how you've shown up. And I acknowledge the hard work that you put in. Keep up that good work. That's why you're here and that's why you're going places in this company. They don't want your money, they want that moment, they want, they want that acknowledgement, and that's worth a million dollars to them.

SPEAKER_01 34:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:10

Um, so you need to know is that the employee that you take to lunch and just spend time with, or is that the one that you go, here's a thousand bucks, bro? Good job you landed that client. So that's what I mean by really knowing their origin story, because then you can show up in a way as a leader that makes them feel connected and seen without being overly intimate in their nitty-gritty stuff.

SPEAKER_04 34:35

Um say you were to look into the future. Uh, what would you see in terms of maybe trends or attitudes towards the more like human aspect of human resources? I know you mentioned like more digital stuff earlier on. So, how will that play into the future? Do you feel?

SPEAKER_02 34:50

Yeah, yeah. I think people are going to crave human reaction, where right now we're trying to push off human reaction. Everything, I believe, will become so automated that the uniqueness will be in the genuine human experience. We're already seeing recovery centers open up for technology addiction. Um yes, it is it is already happening. Um where uh I mean ChatGPT is leading children to commit suicide. And so when technology starts robbing a society of their babies, that I mean, that is that is a society that's headed in in the wrong direction. Um, and people, you'll start to see that real life experiences, I think, are gonna be marketed as the ultimate, whereas up until this point, um experiencing what technology can do for your life, how it can automate your life, how it can make it so much easier, people are gonna be, they're gonna want to become more grounded. That's why you're seeing more chicken moms. That's why you're seeing more um outdoors experiences really exploding that come to this retreat, unplug. And so I think that is gonna be people are gonna start right now. Everybody like, I want remote work, I don't have to go to off to the office to be blah, blah, blah. I think in 10 years from now, people are gonna say, I don't want to work from home. I want to go sit in in a cubicle next to my coworkers and ham it up and and have those those experiences rather than just be digitally efficient. And so I think the pendulum will swing the opposite way because we were built to live in community. We were never built to live in isolation. Right.

SPEAKER_04 36:40

I can see that. Um if you so so this whole this whole conversation we've had is like if you're resilient in your career, there's bound to be some benefits on your end. So from what we've heard, it's likely not something you're born with or a skill that's innate. Um so what are some steps that our listeners can take towards building and strengthening that muscle?

SPEAKER_02 37:03

Oh, that's such a good question. I think b being more curious um and asking more questions uh will help you build resiliency because I think resiliency becomes when you have a more mature picture of the situation. And also understanding that outcomes don't dictate your worth. You know, whether you f failed in college or succeeded in college, whether your business survived the recession or didn't survive the recession, whether you own a house or rent a house, what what type of car you drive, those are not parameters of success. And I think once we realize that a life well lived is only a compilation of a bunch of really good Tuesdays, like the most boring day of the week.

SPEAKER_04 37:58

Whoa, shots.

SPEAKER_02 38:00

Then the high mountain points, right now we're going for those Instagram moments that are beautiful and curated and unique and different, but the lack that's in between um is what creates uh complacency, and complacency does not breed resiliency. So going out and and striving um for just a life well lived that's that's that can seem quite ordinary, that it's just another Tuesday that you're excited about, and you don't have to have a mountaintop moment to find honor and grace and contentment in existing. Um and uh that the struggle, the mission is the goal, not the achievement at the end. Oftentimes you'll hear of people who have um fallen into a deep depression after winning the Olympics, after writing their book, after selling their wildly successful company for millions. They have that pinnacle, I've worked 10 years, 20 years for this moment. And then it happened, and then it's Tuesday.

SPEAKER_04 39:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:27

And you're like, well, who am I now? And they've completely lost their identity to this thing that they attach themselves to rather than realizing that their existence is the it is the pleasure, it is the success, not not the things that we check off on our resume.

SPEAKER_04 39:48

Right. So don't be resilient, don't be stagnant, yeah, uh take risks. Growth, take risks. Yeah. Uh and I feel like those are pretty good, uh, pretty good ways to start. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:59

You can't improve what you haven't already done. So just do something.

SPEAKER_04 40:02

Just do something, right? Um as we come to a close, are there any parting words or insights that you'd want to share that you haven't yet?

SPEAKER_02 40:09

I think with living in a world so divided, if we can just stop for a moment and just be curious about those around us, I think that we will find that we have 98% of things in common as a as humanity, then the one or two percent of the things that we might not be in full reliance on. You can be friends with people on a different political aisle, a different religion, a different continent, a different um whatever that that is. Don't allow the little bit of difference to make you feel like you're worlds apart because we are really all in this together. And at the end of the day, we're just walking each other to our graves. And a lot of people take a lot of this this life stuff way too serious. They take themselves way too serious. I've had, you know, big arguments with my husband that were a decade ago that I thought were a big deal, and today, 18 years married, I can't even tell you what that argument was about. Right. And so what feels really big and hard in a moment will be tomorrow's what had happened again? So just don't take anything too serious and try to just be curious about the people around you and have a try because life is gonna happen, it's gonna be hard, and you need to have people around you already that have walked the path before you. They don't have to be light years ahead of you, but if they're just one step ahead of you, don't take advice from people you wouldn't want to switch places with. Right. And so oftentimes I see folks paying for consultants that have never done what they're trying to do, or taking advice from a girlfriend who has never been married on how to treat their relationship. Yeah. And it's like, don't take advice from people who haven't already been successful in the area that you're trying to improve yourself on. But having that community, whether it's whatever segment of life it is, you should have have true friends in those different areas of life. Your work friends, your church friends, your social friends, your community friends, your philanthropic friends. You should be well networked because that makes your life um easier to carry.

SPEAKER_04 42:36

Well, Don, thank you for sharing your knowledge. It's been a pleasure having you on the show.

SPEAKER_02 42:40

Thank you so much for having me. It's fun to be back on campus. Yeah, of course. All right.

SPEAKER_03 42:45

Thank you for tuning in to Nexus at UCF. If you enjoyed this episode, you can find more on your favorite podcast platforms. Make sure to follow us across social media at Nexus at UCF. My name is Isabella, and I produce this episode. On behalf of the entire team, I thank you for tuning in to Nexus, where we connect you with the future of business.