Amanda Van Gyseghem

Michael Maitre sits down with Bluebird Leader Amanda Van Gyseghem at The Executive Sales Forum

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to Flight Path, the podcast where we explore the journeys behind bold leadership, innovation, and lasting impact. Each episode we sit down with leaders, innovators, and goalbreakers who build their success by doing the work, learning the lessons, and sometimes ignoring the map altogether. Whether you're navigating leadership, healthcare, technology, entrepreneurship, or simply trying to figure out what's next without losing your mind, you're in the right place. Before we take flight, we'd like to thank our sponsor, EFAC. Helping businesses and professionals get connected with your documentary. Facts online with e facts. Now facts be built. Adjust your altitude. And get ready for stories, insights, and complications. Adjust my angels. Welcome aboard. This is Flight Path.

SPEAKER_02 0:51

Hey everybody, it's Michael Natri. Welcome to Flight Path Bluebird Leaders. I am so excited. I'm here joined by Amanda. Amanda. And your last name?

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Oh, Van Geskum. It's a mouthful.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

Van Geskum.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Yes. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

Okay, very cool. The Flight Path brought to you by EFAX. Are you ready to get into this?

SPEAKER_01 1:11

I'm so ready.

SPEAKER_02 1:12

So tell the people a little bit about who you are and what you do.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

Ooh, okay. So I am now on the other side of the healthcare world. I support organizations from a sales healthcare IT perspective, but my original path was actually to be a performing arts physical therapist. What? Yes. Oh wow. About seven years about clinical experience. And then I still joke today. First ROI I did was on grad school. And lo and behold, I moved into sales after that. So here we are.

SPEAKER_02 1:42

Fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:44

Well, since you're already on that path, no pun tended. Tell me about what was actually your first job.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Ooh, first job. I mean, are we going all the way back to babysitting?

SPEAKER_02 1:56

Very, very first one.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

Babysitting all the way. Or if we're going even further back, it's Girl Scout cookies.

SPEAKER_02 2:02

Okay, what about first like functional, professional job?

SPEAKER_01 2:06

Uh, I was an assistant for the alumni association at the university I worked at.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:12

Awesome. And was there any like leaders that you would say kind of shaped you along the way with if you could go back and say this person's leadership is what got me to where I'm at, who would that be?

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Yes, it was actually through the alumni association. There was um a new program that we had for it was the future alumni network. So we're the fans, right? The students who are gonna become alum. And since I was working there, um Amy Tate tapped us on the shoulder and we helped build it from scratch. And I'm pretty sure it's still running today, about 15 years later.

SPEAKER_02 2:46

Wow. Wow. Shout out to Amy Tate. All right, we're gonna have some fun. You ready? Sure. All right, rapid fire. Okay, okay. So I'm gonna ask a series of questions. Um, and these are kind of fun. Okay. All right. What kind of summer person are you? Are we city lake mountain or city lake mountain or beach?

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Beach? Well, before we hopped on, I told you I just moved to Tampa two years ago. So I think the obvious answer is beach. But the more realistic one is everything. I can't just do one thing. I get bored, so it's how do we switch it up? If it's the beach one weekend, then the next we're in the city, the next weekend after that, we're up north in the Crystal Springs trying to swim with mamatees.

SPEAKER_02 3:43

So that's awesome. If there was uh a song, one song that would be the soundtrack to your career journey, what would that song be?

SPEAKER_01 3:52

Ooh, don't stop me now.

SPEAKER_02 3:54

Why, why?

SPEAKER_01 3:56

Why? Okay, well, the beat is fantastic, right? If you need a motivator, but you're always your number one fan, and it's reminding yourself you can do hard things. So the only one that's gonna stop me is me. Yeah, so uh that's my anthem for me.

SPEAKER_02 4:11

Awesome. Awesome. If you could host a podcast anywhere, where would it be?

SPEAKER_01 4:17

Anywhere. You know, I love international travel, so I'm gonna stay back in Tokyo. I've been itching to go back, and I just feel like if we did it on the street, all the things walking behind us would be half the entertainment.

SPEAKER_02 4:31

What was the biggest takeaway from Tokyo?

SPEAKER_01 4:34

Well, I did get engaged there, so that was fun.

SPEAKER_02 4:37

Okay, you gotta talk about that. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

Uh so my cousin is my hero. Um, she was living and working in Tokyo at the time, and um my husband now husband and I were together 10 years, best friends since high school. And we went there, we're huge studio Ghidley fans, went to the museum, and it was secure season, so all the cherry blossoms. And we found the one tree with the cherry blossoms that bloomed, and he proposed. And it was the beautiful rainy day, clear umbrellas, very Japan. And it was amazing. And I've been itching to go back ever since.

unknown 5:15

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 5:16

Yeah, that's amazing. Okay, two two bonus questions. You're ready to all right.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

You decided to get into the career that you got into because we all go into healthcare to help patients not do the 95% that is the day-to-day operations of what the world of healthcare is today. Yeah. So with the way that my brain works from that strategy and just operation standpoint, I can really help those clinicians and healthcare providers get back to patient care, and I can help guide them through that administrative burden or guiding through all the CMS changes or whatever is going on in their world.

SPEAKER_02 6:07

That's awesome. One last one. You go back and talk to the earliest version of yourself when you first got started with all this. What do you go back and say?

SPEAKER_01 6:19

Uh, you can do it. Just pick up the phone. It's a lot easier. All you gotta do is get the ball rolling and then rest from there. It's easy. And hey, you're gonna meet a lot of feet pull and you're gonna have a lot of fun, and you're gonna find your home on Bluebirds.

SPEAKER_02 6:36

Powerful.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:37

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

Of course. Thank you.