Airing Out Your Vagina

Should I Stay or Should I Go? – The Moment I Reclaimed My Leadership

• Allie Trimble-Lozano • Season 1 • Episode 1

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Download my free mini-ebook: It's About Damn Time: The Self Check for Women Leaders Who Work Their Ass Off, Play By the Rules, and STILL Get Passed Over.

Airing Out Your Vagina is hosted by Allie Trimble Lozano, hospital CEO turned author, speaker, and executive coach. Airing Out Your Vagina The Podcast is the unfiltered conversation women in leadership have been waiting for.

This is where we unpack the messy, the meaningful, and the downright ridiculous parts of being a woman with ambition. From boardrooms to breakdowns, motherhood to mic drops, Allie brings raw truth, dark humor, and the kind of wisdom that only comes from burning out, starting over, and finally leading on her own terms.

Pull up a chair, pour a drink, and get ready to laugh, cringe, and maybe even cry a little.

It’s time to air it all out.

SPEAKER_00

Welcome to the very first episode of the Airing Out Your Vagina podcast.

SPEAKER_01

The podcast. The podcast. It's finally here.

SPEAKER_00

I know. Holy shit.

SPEAKER_01

How do you think?

SPEAKER_00

It's been a big week. Lots going on.

SPEAKER_01

It's been a great year.

SPEAKER_00

Also true.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Should have been probably the hardest year of my life, and yet somehow it's been one of the fucking best ones.

SPEAKER_01

Holy shit.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Cheers. Here it goes. Actually, cheers. Actually, cheers.

SPEAKER_01

Cheers. Look it in the eye.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely. Because we're not jinxing that. Well, cheers, my friend. I'm very happy for you. I'm happy for me too. And grateful for everything that's come with it. Very much so. I think to have gone from what I was doing before and what I thought kind of my life path was, working all the way up from a frontline nurse through various leadership areas in the hospital systems and then the opportunities that came my way to learn and grow, zero regrets. But I think I got basically to the top as a CEO and a regional VP of ops and found myself kind of looking around wondering what else is out there. And so sometimes one of my favorite things to say is that sometimes the only mode of transportation is a leap of faith. And boy, did I leap. And so I actually wore, I didn't even show you this. So the inside of my blazer is Wonder Woman. It's Wonder Woman. And I wore it on purpose because I feel like it's kind of been magic. So I ain't a superhero, never gonna be, but I'm real. And I think that's what has really helped resonate with people.

SPEAKER_01

It's badass. So how did the whole podcast idea like guide us?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So I think, you know, the first big step was deciding to share what I journaled about. And um when I decided to publish and go um, I guess share my story with the world via my first book, also called Airing Out Your Vagina, Being a Real Woman in an Unreal World, um, I was shocked. It was one, it was the audacity, if you want to say it that. And two, it was the amount of real raw vulnerability in that book. And I think the feedback that I got from that from people that have known me my whole life, some that I'd never met, never will meet, perhaps, saying, Oh my gosh, the story about X really resonated. Or one of my favorites, I was at a swim meet, um, and a mom came up and said, and then it actually happened again with you when we were speaking at the um the women's, what was that group from El Paso? The the feminist media group media group, yes, and I loved that experience. But one of the the women there that night came over and said, and she got tears in her eyes, and she said, When I read the piece about you at your son's event, and that he literally stopped swimming in the middle of a swim meet to look up to try to find you in the stands, and that that's when you realized in that moment that he didn't need a perfect mom, he just needed his mom. And so when other people have shared stories that I shared in that book that have resonated with or helped them in some way, that fed that passion. And so I think for me it was okay, well, I did the book, I kind of blew up my career and started something new and fresh. And so it was what was next. And I think um everybody that has read it that shared feedback wanted more on this or more on that. Um and so I am writing again, which I never in a million years, the first time somebody called me an author, it was like cringe worthy. I just looked at him and went, no.

SPEAKER_01

It was like, thank you for your service. Yeah, exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_00

And I laughed and I was like, no, no, no, just Allie. Um, and I think through this year, um, I've really done a lot of work on finding who that Allie is. And so sharing um stories from my life, whether it's family, friends, navigating a career, um, being a single mom, all of those things, I think in the end, when you share that, that's your superpower. And so the Wonder Woman in me is the fact that I found a way to be brave and share stories in a way that other people could resonate with. Um, and I said when I published the book, if one woman reads this book and feels a tiny bit less batshit crazy, mission accomplished. And so I don't know if they feel more or less crazy after reading my book, but it's resonated. And so I think the podcast for me is more freedom. So it's the ability to talk to other women, to interview other people, either in the community here or elsewhere, um, that have noteworthy stories, um, whether it's overcoming something, right? So your career blows up and you rebuild. What does that look like? It's um, you know, people that have been through things that we can't even imagine and somehow navigated that. And so I talk a lot about um grit, grace, and gratitude, and those really being kind of the three key pillars of how I've gone from surviving my life to now living my life, and I feel like I'm right on the brink of going from living to thriving, and that to me is the most exciting part of all of it.

SPEAKER_01

I love that, and I was there for that El Paso feminist group. Yeah when I remember like super nervous. Oh, big time because it was our first event, yeah. And yeah, thank you. Well, Clarissa, uh-huh, she's fantastic. Uh so it's a bunch of a group of women in El Paso that are in the business or in education, etc. And walking in, I remember how we we were both nervous. I was nervous, but I could not even I mean, understand how nervous you were.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I'm like, shit, she needs to talk to all of these women right now who come from all paths of life, and educated, badass, done their own thing, um, very feminine values, feminist values. And I remember thinking, I even told you, like, okay, test number one.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, we'll see. And if we survive this, yeah, we can survive everything, then I'll be good. And you know, then going back to your anecdote, like it's so true. And what she did, I saw her, because she did the due diligence, she read the book, yeah, and she prepared for the for the event. And I remember her sharing her personal story in front of everybody, and I saw that as soon as everything finished, you got up and she walked to you. And when I read the book, I feel like that's what most women do, right? Especially like the first, and I always because that's my favorite part of the book, like the first paragraph. Yeah. Tell me a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Well, I joke that the you only get to write your first book once, and so you only get to write the first line of your first book once. And once I decided I was gonna do it, um, I don't have ask anything. Either I'm in or I'm out. And so I went even further in um and decided on the first line being fuck this shit. Because in the end, I was unhappy where I was, I was unfulfilled. I thought I would climb to the top, you know. I was never a title person, never will be a title person, but there's um authority that comes with that. There's the ability to build teams, there's the ability to do a lot of the things that do feed my soul. But then you end up in a situation in corporate America where you are kind of forced into a world of profits over people. And it never resonated with me. And so I think having these other opportunities come my way. Um, meeting with the feminist media group, um, Clarissa was fantastic. And I think that night proved to me that I could still be me, I can be real, I can be myself, I can be authentic and vulnerable in any room because I'm past the point in my life where I really held on to what is everybody gonna think? Are they gonna think I'm nuts because I published this book? Are they gonna think I'm crazy because I did this thing? And so now it's like if it's feeding my soul and it's helping me um navigate life in a way that helps my son do better in his, um, then I really don't care what anybody thinks. And I think that night was fantastic. The conversations that ensued that night blew my mind. Um, the level of uh really vulnerability amongst the whole group that was there, everybody kind of started sharing little things, um, little tidbits from their story. And so I think for me it was powerful because in that moment I realized like, holy shit, like I have valuable things to share that I think can positively impact other people. And really, from my perspective, that's been the goal all along. So it was the icing on the cake for sure.

SPEAKER_01

When you say like fuck this shit and think about everybody in corporate, like sitting behind a desk that just finished a board meeting, yeah, or that not even it doesn't even need to be like people above you or your bosses sometimes, it's your co-workers. It can be, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00

The people on your team, even at times.

SPEAKER_01

Correct, like how many women in America are feeling the same right now, right? So what was your final like fuck this shit? This is it. This is it. What is your what was kind of like the turning point?

SPEAKER_00

So I think if I'm being totally honest, rip the band-aid off. It was probably almost nine months before I published the book. And there was a position that it opened um that I didn't really want. Um, I loved working with my team. I was running multiple facilities as it was and was responsible for seven hundred, several hundred people. Um, but a position opened up uh out of corporate or out of home office. And I thought about it and I thought, oh hell no, I don't want to do that. Um, but then I got calls from several people. And even some people on my own team were like, dude, you have to do that. There's nobody, you know, from a market. And I think what happens nowadays in large corporations is the people that are at the top um are unfortunately totally out of touch with the reality of what it is to run a facility, what it is to lead a team of hundreds of people. Um, and so there's a there's a disjointedness there.

SPEAKER_01

Do you think it's because they're not really physicians or like medical. I think that's part of it. It's more like a venture capitalist. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And I think, I think there's an opportunity. I actually did a consulting thing on Monday for um a joint venture capitalist firm on this exact topic. And I said, you know, I think you can have a CEO that's a banker. That's fine. Most, in fact, a lot of hospital CEOs aren't nurses, aren't doctors, aren't whatever. I feel like that was a superpower for me because I knew the clinical side, I knew how to engage and speak with healthcare individuals, but I had the business side too with an MBA. But I think at the end of the day, if you are a leader who listens, you can be successful leading any type of organization. If you surround yourself with really strong people in the field you're leading, I think what happens oftentimes is you get somebody as a leader in a role that doesn't have that experience. And because of that, instead of leaning on their team and the team's expertise, they become what I call a weaponized incompetent, which means at the end of the day, in my, and there's lots of definitions for it. So I'll give you the alley definition. But the alley definition for weaponized incompetence is just that rather than leaning on the expertise of the nurses and the doctors and the people that know healthcare, um, you choose to be threatened by it instead. And so um I describe a game, what I thought was the breaking point for me was the game of whack-a-mole, where I said, you know, how many times are you gonna speak up and get hit over the top of the head for speaking up before you quit saying anything? And the organization I was with had gone silent. And so for me, I think that's when I decided, okay, well, I've written this book without really the intent of ever publishing it. But in that moment, I thought, you know what, if there's stuff in here that could help another leader see this for what it is and not go, God, if I just work harder, if I put in more hours, if I beat, you know, EBITDA by more next month's budget, it's not you. And you're not going to be able to fix it in the traditional ways that we think of. And so now being able to help other women navigate that, God, I would have killed. Well, maybe not killed, maybe throat punched, but I would have done something drastic to have had that level of support and somebody to say, you're not crazy. It's not you. This is not a good working environment. Um, and we either need to figure out how to minimize the pain you're suffering or find a way out. And so for me, finding a way out really was the publishing of the book and the launching of what I call and what I loved in the El Paso Inc. when they did the story about my second act. I loved that because it really is the second act. It's now I'm 47 years old, and if I'm lucky, I've got another 40 some odd years ahead of me. Um, and I'll never dull my shine and dim my light and shove myself back into a box again. And so the ability to share that message with other people, help them navigate it better, faster, with less pain, that's really the goal for me.

SPEAKER_01

I love that. Yeah, I remember being back in Houston in a corporate setting, in a non-profit full of women. Yeah. I think we had this conversation with about like 85 women, one male CEO. Oh my gosh. Amy Key was losing his mind. I bet. Because every board meeting, well, there was males in the board, but every like staff meeting, it was an hour and a half of drama and then very little productivity.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, nothing accomplished.

SPEAKER_01

Nobody liked each other.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, nobody drinking along.

SPEAKER_01

In other departments, other directors, other staff members, nobody liked each other. In every single meeting, they were talking about the other director. And now, you know, for the longest time, I was thinking, like, do they all feel how I feel? Like because you feel alone. Yeah. Like you feel like you're not good at your job. Right. You feel like it must be me. It must be me. Like, and and at some point it feels like you're not part of that girl group. Yeah. Right? Like they're the cool chicks that get to hang out with the directors. Right. Or the woman that says hi to the board member. And you're like, shit, he didn't get it.

SPEAKER_00

But nobody else.

SPEAKER_01

Nobody else.

SPEAKER_00

They're gonna walk past the teams, they're gonna walk past their direct reports. It's the holiday party or it's the strategy retreat, and they don't have the time a day to even acknowledge their own team members. Yes. But they're gonna go straight to that CEO and smile and nod and put on the show. Yeah, 100%. I think for me, probably, and it makes me sad as a woman, you know that to say it. But I think, you know, we all have experience. I won't say we all, many of us that have climbed corporate America have had experiences with what we know as the glass ceiling, right? Or the fact that it's a male-dominated industry or it's a male-dominated world. I mean, even healthcare at the senior executive level, you look at it, 80% of healthcare workers are female. And yet the top echelon, the people that sit on the board, the CEOs running the show are still very, very predominantly male. And so you have this idea, and I experienced it a bit. I worked um in San Antonio for a while, and it was all men at that level. What was surprising for me is I struggled far less with the men at that level than I found I struggled with the women once I arrived. And I think there's a couple things. I talked about weaponized incompetence, right? So instead of collaboration, it's competition. Like I'm not gonna work with you on a project that might make you look good because then you're beating me. They they miss the opportunity. And so one of the things I talk about is if women, and I can say that as a woman, but if women would figure out how to retract the cat claws, right, and start collaborating instead of competing, there would be no glass ceiling. Because I think at the end of the day, yes, there's things that we still have to overcome when it comes to equal pay, equal opportunity. I mean, hell right now, equal say over our own bodies. But at the end of the day, if women would quit battling each other and come together with a bigger purpose and a higher message and supporting each other, I think the rest of that, that in my mind is kind of left over stuff from years before that other women had to fight. I don't think that's our fight. I think a lot of that has been fought. Um, and if we join together as women, we can we can finish that fight. I firmly believe that.

SPEAKER_01

So, what do you think is the issue? Because men compete with each other all the time.

SPEAKER_00

Sure.

SPEAKER_01

And that's totally normal. Like I can, I feel like as a man, like I have I'm gonna be better than you, I'm gonna sell more than you, I am going to climb off the ladder faster and screw you. But after we can go have a drink and be friends and everything, you know. So there's a healthy competition in the corporate world. Um, as you see, you know, I think as as they bring us up as children, right? Like girls are supposed to be nurturing and are supposed to be inclusive and polite and smile, and guys are like, you're gonna be the best T ball player, you're gonna win that race. So how as women in corporate world or in a regular or everyday life, how can we make that switch to be con we can still be competitive, but not be like as you say, like drag the claws.

SPEAKER_00

So I think you you hit the nail on the head with how we are raised. And so I think part of it is that it's a gender difference, right? I mean, it is, but I think with men, the difference, and you nailed it, you know, a man will tell another man, I'm gonna kick your ass. I got this, I'm taking you down. Women will be like, Okay, guys, here we go. And then she's got the knife behind your back, right? Or I hope you get that job. Yeah, exactly. I hope you get that job that you applied for. But once she gets up there, instead of helping you up the ladder, she pulls the ladder up behind herself. And so I think part of it is honesty. So when you're when you know you're competing with someone, your approach is different, right? So if you and I are climbing this thing and you and I have said, I'm gonna kick your ass, I'm beating you to the top. My approach to climbing that is gonna be different than if I think we're in it together and we're trying to accomplish something. And so I think what happens is a lot of times in that dynamic, you've got somebody that's a decent human that thinks, okay, we're in this together, we're gonna get to the top. And you've got the other one going, screw you, man. If I have to kick you off your ladder, I'm gonna beat you. And I think women, unfortunately, don't tend to necessarily be upfront and honest about what they're feeling or what they're thinking. Um, and I think that lack of honesty or transparency, maybe is the better word, right? Um, I think that's where those situations either stall out or somebody falls off that ladder and they fall hard. Um, I think with men, and I talked about this a little bit as an example actually in the book where I said, you know, Bob wants the job. So Bob calls his friend Joe and they go have lunch because Joe already works there. And so Bob tells Joe, I really want to work at that marketing firm. And Joe says, you know what? Let me get in touch with the right people and we'll set up a meeting. And by the next Friday, they're having lunch at the country club, and Bob's got the job. I go to lunch with my friend Fernanda, who I think is my friend, and we sit down, and I tell you, I really want to go work at such and such. I know you know the CEO. You know, what are your thoughts? And you're going in your head, oh shit, I didn't know that position was available. And you're smiling at me and you're saying, Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna reach out to everybody. Let me see what I can do. A week passes, Ali calls Fernanda, you're like, I don't know, dude. I called, they never called me back. You put in for it.

SPEAKER_01

They're hiring internally.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

They change their mind.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, that's and that to me is the epitome of the reality of the difference. And I think until we can figure out how to change that amongst ourselves, um, ever getting to a place of you know gender equality, who cares? Because at the end of the day, if the gender equality is there, but all the women are still crying, you know, climbing over each other, it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_01

So do you think this is more prevalent in the health industry or in do you think it's across the board? Is it high uh earning executives? Like who do you think?

SPEAKER_00

I don't know. I mean, I don't I will tell you, and um, I actually just recently went to a band reunion and I had some friends. I was a band dork in high school, proud of it, thank you.

SPEAKER_01

You went to a what?

SPEAKER_00

College too. My high school band reunion. Band marching band reunion, yes, like total dork, had the best freaking time. Um, but it was I realized then that even then I had a very small group of really amazing girlfriends, right? But the majority of my friends, even in high school, were dudes. And it was because if I did something stupid, they were gonna go, like, bro, that was really stupid. Why'd you do that? I loved the honesty of it. I didn't have to pretend, I didn't have to fake it, I didn't have to pretend to like something I didn't. I never felt that pressure. And so I think I think there's some of it everywhere. But I do think, and my experience is in healthcare. So it's hard for me to comment, but when I talk to other women in some of the executive groups that I'm in, they're not in healthcare. You know, I've got attorney friends that work for utility companies. I've got um fr lots of friends in education, the nonprofit world, um, lots of friends that are executive directors of nonprofits. And it's the same there. I've got a dear friend that you know we laugh about in the book because she's known in the book by AJ as Nicole, the human trafficking business owner. Um and she actually runs the anti-human trafficking nonprofit for the city.

SPEAKER_01

She runs some she runs a business for human trafficking business.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, according to my son. She does. It's fantastic. Um, but even in talking to her, there's some in the community and elsewhere that are very supportive and mean it, right? And share resources and hey, I heard about this grant, you should apply for it too. Things like that. And then there's the opposite of that. And so I think it's everywhere. And I think that's why sometimes, even though I might think healthcare, because that's my world, that's you know, I was a nurse, I graduated from nursing school from UTEP in 2002, and then got my MBA and then continued from there. So I tend to go the healthcare route when I'm analyzing things or looking at things because that's my world. But in speaking to other people and and to other groups, I think there's some of it everywhere, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_01

How do you think you recognize if you are the problem? What if, like shit, what if I am the meaning?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And it's tough because I will tell you, um, that's one of the reasons, and I I developed a checklist. Um, and it's it's overly simplified probably, but the idea was to really go in and sit down with it. And so I called it the should I stay or should I go checklist. And my goal with it really was I pictured myself sitting at my desk, sitting in my office, going, Is it me? If I just work harder, if I just do more, if I just smile and nod and get along, or I agree to roll out the thing that I know is going to be a disaster and just keep my mouth shut, then do I I could be successful here, I could stay. But I didn't want to do that. And so I really broke it down into kind of two categories. And the idea behind the checklist is, and it's sassy because it's very much me, but the idea behind it is okay, if you identify with more things on this side, then maybe you are the problem. But I can help you with that because I can help you figure out how to have tough conversations. I can help you figure out how to negotiate, I can help you figure out how to use your voice and stand in your power. Things that took me a long time to learn because I never had a coach. I talk a lot about I've worked for a couple people I admire very much, but I never got to spend enough time with them and learning from them to consider them a long-term mentor. I worked for a lot of people that I just said, I don't ever want to be anything like who you are. Um and so the checklist is if it's mostly on this side, then let me figure out how to work on some of your challenges and the things that you're struggling with.

SPEAKER_01

You might be the problem.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. The second part is if you identify more with things in this section, then you might be in either the wrong job or the wrong industry. It's the environment you're in. So is it a toxic work environment? Is it a male-dominated environment? Are you working with the mean girls from high school? They just happen to be wearing stilettos in the boardroom now. It's the organization. And then really, most common, often it's a little bit of both. You may be in a in a crummy environment, right? But there are little things that you can do to tweak how you carry yourself, how you behave, set boundaries, what you put up with, what you don't, that can help turn that. Now, if it's a horrifically toxic environment, I tell people, run. I mean, get out of there as fast as you can and find something that's going to feed your soul and not break your heart. Um, but that was really the goal behind the checklist was that first question, right? Like I used to teach about um team building. And part of it is, are you on the right damn bus? If you're sitting in the driver's seat, right, you're the CEO of the hospital, but you're sitting in the driver's seat and you're looking around and going, oh shoot, I wanted to go to Florida and this bus is going to California. Well, you're on the wrong bus. And so you're in the wrong organization. Um, if it's the people piece, do you have the right people on your team, right? So same bus, you're on the right bus now. You're looking around going, Do I have the right people on my team? And some of it's managing them, like you mentioned earlier. Sometimes it's your leaders, sometimes it's your coworkers, and sometimes it's the people that are on the team working with you. And so my goal with the checklist is that first question, are you even on the right damn bus? Because if you're not, all the work on you in the world isn't going to change the fact that you're sitting in the wrong position at the wrong at the wrong company.

SPEAKER_01

What are some of the questions? I'm trying to find out if I am the problem.

SPEAKER_00

So diagnostics, got it. Well, and really it does go down. Um, and it is it's a decent list, but it's, you know, questions like are you being left off of important calls or important meetings? You know, do you feel like you're kind of you're trying you're running something blind? So I talk about business silos where you're responsible for this business and this facility or this market or whatever it is, but you're not even given all the background information to what you need to do that. Um, that would be a company problem. Um, are you re or a boss problem? Are you realizing that um, you know, there's all these lovely core values written on the walls, but the people in the leadership roles don't subscribe to them.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, the ones with the Everest. Yes, love that. Yeah. We should bring those back.

SPEAKER_00

Let's. Resilience. But um, and one of my favorite examples, um, and that's why some of that's where some of those questions came from. I was sitting in a retreat and I've got a leader up there preaching to the whole leadership team of the company about what it is to be a servant leader. And I'm looking at this person going, You've never been to my market, you've never met any of the people on my team, I've never heard of at a girl, or uh, wow, that was really well done, or when COVID hit, did you come help? But you're gonna preach to all of us about what it means to be a servant leader. That's not servant leadership. Um, and so that's kind of the company side of the checklist, right? Then the me side of the checklist. Well, is there growth left for me here? If I'm looking to grow and and advance and promote, is this a family-run business where the mom and the dad are the CEO and the CFO and there's no room for you? Well, that's a you thing. So we got to find somewhere else. Um, you know, are you going back? And I talked about that a little bit with the team, have you surrounded yourself with the right people? Um, to me, one of the best examples of that is if I used to tell people all the time, if I'm the smartest person in the room, we are screwed. Like this is not gonna work. I need somebody that's great at Excel because I fucking hate spreadsheets. So I need the person that's gonna knock it pivot tables. I need that person. Um, but you have people that call themselves leaders that are terrified of surrounding themselves with people that are better at something than they are. Instead of letting that support build them, they're terrified of it. And so they either beat it out of the person or they don't hire the person in the first place. And so you end up, I joke around about the room of smiling, nodding yes people that get nothing accomplished because the only person speaking or with value in the room is the leader. And that's how you know you're in really big trouble if you're reading those and you realize, oh shit, that's me. I don't hire the person that's awesome at this or awesome at that, because I know I suck at that. It should be the opposite. Surrounding yourself with people that are smarter than you or better than you at certain things is a sign of strength, not weakness.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So once because you can download these checklists from your website. What is your website?

SPEAKER_00

My website is my name. So it's AliTrimblezano.com.

SPEAKER_01

Excellent. Then you can download this checklist. You can find out if you're the problem or if everybody else else is the problem.

SPEAKER_00

Is it me or is it you people?

SPEAKER_01

Is it the rest of the people? Yeah. Um, and then once people go through this checklist, then what's next?

SPEAKER_00

My goal is to work, like I said, with as many people as I can. And so I'm offering, I'm doing healthcare consulting. Um, but where my passion is and what I'm loving is doing coaching. And so I've identified my coaching group as, you know, women in executive level positions or in executive roles or very senior roles with the idea of getting to the executive roles and really helping them figure out what to do with what they got from that checklist. So it takes a lot of courage to go, it's me. Like I'm scared to surround myself with really smart people because they're gonna outshine me and get promoted over me. Um, but helping people, helping women understand how surrounding themselves with strength is a strength. So really going through the coaching process. Um, I have an eight-week program um that I'm working on, which is coming, but for now it's working with individuals one-on-one. Um, and then helping them figure out that first and foremost question. Am I even in the right company? Am I even in the right field? Sometimes we get into a field or an area and it's like, this is not what I thought it was gonna be. Um, you know, now I was talking to my son, he's 13, he'll be 14 in two weeks, which is terrifying. But anyway, I was talking to him and he goes to high school next year. So we had a meeting this week where it's like, okay, well, what do you want to do when you grow up? Because this high school's for this, this high school's for this. And I'm thinking, shit, I'm 47 and I don't know what the hell I want to do. So I think at the end of the day, to ask that, and it's more and more common now. I mean, you've got the magnet programs and stuff that start in elementary school. And so I think a lot of people end up in careers or industries that's really not their thing. So I think helping women figure out where are you, is it where you want to go? Um, or pardon me, where you want to be. And if not, where is it that you're headed? Where can I help you get? And so um that's been a lot of fun. Um, and the things that I've discovered as I've had some of these calls and gone through some of these processes, um, I think it's getting that's where I decided, okay, well, maybe a longer program, maybe, you know, group type stuff. But I think that's what I'm thrilled about right now. So it's downloading the checklist to take that first step. And I encourage you, my choice is beer or wine, but I would encourage you, if you do drink, to have a beverage and go about it from a very gutturally honest place. Because if you just go through and check all the, oh, it's everybody else boxes, that it may be. But if you don't really take the time to assess where you are and what you're bringing to the table, you know, um, it's not gonna do you the good that it could. So take your time, fill out the checklist, and then there's a space on there, you can go to the website, there's a space on there that'll help you book time with me. Um, and I would love to do more of that. It's exciting.

SPEAKER_01

I am thinking it's kind of like a like an addiction program, right? When you don't, if you don't recognize your own fault, you're never gonna get better. Right. And it doesn't matter where you go in life, incorporate another job, then you'll start realizing, well, I am the problem. And it's 10 years, and you can't fix anything. Yep.

SPEAKER_00

I had an amazing team that I learned a whole lot from. And one of my favorite things about that group of people was the fact it's always respectful, right? Like they wouldn't look at me in a room full of 50 people and say, Ellie, that was an asinine idea. But they knew that I had their backs and that it was a team, and so they had the courage to be able to come to me and say, Hey, I know you're thinking about this, but have you thought about XYZ? So it was either a better idea, often a better idea, or it was a potential or perceived consequence that I hadn't necessarily considered. And um, you know, I say that a lot of healthcare companies during COVID had mass exodus, mass exodus. And one of my favorite things um that I like to talk about when I share about what it is to build a team and be a leader is that we enjoyed in the market that I ran, we had more than 92% overall retention in hospitals during COVID. And I think at the end of the day, it was because I'd get my hands dirty. If it meant I needed to drive oxygen around town in the back of my infinity, that's what I did. If it meant, you know, going in and making sure that the staff was had toilet paper. Remember when you couldn't buy toilet paper anywhere, everybody was freaking out about toilet paper and bottled water. We bought pallets of toilet paper and bottled water to make sure the team had stuff to take home at the end of the day so their families were okay, so they could come back and keep taking care of patients. And so sharing those nuggets is I love that you said it's almost like an ad treating it as an addiction. To me, almost doing this is feeding an addiction of sorts, but it is. It's you've got to be willing to do the ugly work of looking inside and figuring out what I can improve on, how can I manage the situation better to get to where I'm headed, um, and growing through those those growing pains. That's the whole point. We're all gonna screw stuff up. Um, I used to tell my staff, I screw something up almost every day, but I'm gonna own it. I'll apologize for it if I need to, and then I'm gonna try to pick something different to screw up tomorrow. And I think um when you can be that sort of kind of fearless leader, then your team feels the same lack of fear. They know they can try different things, they know they can, you know, figure things out because you're gonna support them. And so helping other women figure out how to do that, um, to me it's magic.

SPEAKER_01

I love that. Yeah. So you have your book, I do, you have your website, I do, and also you have a big announcement to make that we just heard today.

SPEAKER_00

I want to scream, but I won't. I know. It took for freaking ever. I mean, I remember we high-fived when I finished recording it. Yes, and then months and months. It was almost like when I published the book, and then Amazon wouldn't it you had to have a specific link because God forbid it had the word vagina on it.

SPEAKER_01

This episode is not brought to you by Amazon.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, exactly right. That is exactly right. And I think, you know, at the time it was like it's not adult content. What are you talking about? And so that was the first fight, right? And then with the audiobook, it was just one thing after another after another. But to me, resilience, right? It's that grit. I'm gonna freaking find a way, and thank you to you for helping me do that. But the announcement is the audiobook is finally out and it is available and it is on Audible already. I looked today, um, and it's coming very shortly to anywhere else you can download an audiobook. Um, and if you're listening to the podcast and you hate my voice, don't download the audiobook because I'm reading it myself. So I joked when I put the picture on the front of the book, it was my life story, and so there wasn't gonna be size two model on the front of my book. It was gonna be me spread eagle at the plaza theater. So the audiobook was very much the same. Some other person is not reading my story, and so yeah, I'm thrilled and I couldn't believe on my way here to record the first podcast episode, the freaking audiobook we've been trying to get done for six or seven months now also dropped.

SPEAKER_01

It's out there. Yeah, it's happening.

SPEAKER_00

It is, baby. It is.

SPEAKER_01

What else are we going to expect in this podcast in the future for future episodes?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so I'm excited about it. I already have my um first guest lined up and I can't wait to have her on. But really, my idea is to have people on that have experienced different things in their lives, that are um women who have overcome something, women who have had that, anybody familiar with tarot, have had that tower moment where you just stand there going, holy shit, is this happening to my life? Um, and have come through it and come out of it. And I say a lot of times I feel like my life blew up and I'm so much better for it. So that's the direction. Um, really, at the end of the day, airing it out, talking about anything and everything. Um, I would love feedback if there's things that people want me to talk about or you know, think so-and-so'd be a great guest, let me know. Um, but I think really highlighting some of the amazing badass women we have right here in El Paso. Um, business runners, people that are are doing something different or a little bit outside of the box. I mean, that's my jam for sure. I can't wait. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Cheers, my friend.

SPEAKER_00

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

Here goes something.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly. Here goes something.

SPEAKER_01

Cheers.