August 27, 2025 • 34 mins
In this episode of EdUp L&D, Marnie Stockman and Nick Coniglio discuss the transformative journey from education to entrepreneurship, drawing inspiration from the popular show Ted Lasso. They explore the importance of self-reflection, personal growth, and creating value in one's career. Marnie and Nick share insights from their new book, 'The Business of You,' which encourages individuals to take charge of their lives and careers. The conversation emphasizes the significance of leadership, resilience, and the challenges of leaving stability for entrepreneurial pursuits.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of Ed Up L&D, where we dig deep
into the world of learning, leadership, and career
transformation. Today's episode is an awesome
one because I'm joined by two powerhouse guests, Marnie
Stockman and Nick Cornelio. Between them, they have been
high school teachers, Ed tech leaders, entrepreneurs, and now
(00:24):
authors. Their latest mission?
Helping people lead themselves and others with the same heart,
humor, and humanity that's made to have Lasso, a global
sensation. We talk about why they walked
away from stable corporate jobs to build something of their own.
How their book Lead It Like Lasso became a leadership
(00:46):
framework for life and business,the launch of their brand new
book, The Business of You, and how to truly become the CEO of
your own life. Plus, the lessons they've
learned about risk, resilience, running your life like a
business. Whether you're a leader looking
to level up, a teacher thinking about making a big transition,
(01:08):
or just someone who needs a little push to finally take that
leap, you'll find so much insight and plenty of laughs in
this conversation. Let's dive in.
Hi, we're ispring, an international team of e-learning
enthusiasts who help more than 60,000 clients across the globe
succeed with better online learning.
(01:30):
Our two flagship solutions are ispring Suite and ispring Learn
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(01:52):
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Go to www.icepringsolutions.com to learn more about us, download
(02:15):
our resources, and connect. Hello everyone, and welcome to
another amazing episode of Add Up L&D.
My name is Holly Owens and I'm your host and I have two amazing
guests with me today. I have Marnie and Nick, and
they're going to talk about all things leadership leading it
(02:37):
like Lasso. But first, before we get into
all the details about that, I would love to start with you,
Marnie. Tell us your story.
How did you get here? And then we'll pass it off to
Nick so he can share his as well.
Yeah, absolutely. So I started out as a high
school math teacher. So in the land of folks
transitioning, I definitely did.I made that happen, went into
(02:59):
administration, and there I found myself using an assessment
platform for the school system Iworked for, and that assessment
platform decided that maybe I should come run customer success
for them. So I landed in the world of
edtech that way. So as you know, when you leave
the classroom, people say you goto the dark side when you go to
(03:20):
the board office, and then when you leave the board office and
go to a vendor, that's like the double dark side.
I can tell you I love it here. And and that is actually where I
met Nick. So the company that I worked for
when I landed on my very first Zoom call of the support team,
Nick was running the support team.
(03:41):
And as a secret side note, that's not so secret in the
company, everyone put in ticketsto clone Nick because they all
wanted another Nick on the team.So I knew I was walking into a
superhero when I met him. So I'll let him take our story
from from there, because our paths are very parallel from
there. Yeah, parallel, but they were
very different from the beginning.
(04:03):
So I was, I was a programmer, I was computer science major, I
was a programmer. I was that guy who sat in the
corner office with his doors closed, drinking 14 Cokes a day,
not talking to anybody. But eventually I, I broke out of
my shell. I, I went into consulting from a
technology perspective and landed in Ed tech just like
(04:23):
Marni said. And not only did I run support,
I also ran the engineering team of what is now Power School
product. But really our, our paths
intersected at a point where we were working for a small company
at the time. And we kept on getting acquired
and acquired and acquired. And at some point, yeah,
(04:48):
absolutely, absolutely, very old.
And Marni was responsible for customer success.
Like she said, I was customer support.
That was one of my responsibilities.
And we kept on getting asked to do so much more with so much
less. They were.
They kept paring down our teams,smaller, smaller, smaller, all
at the same time saying, hey, our #1 core value is raving
(05:12):
fans. And Marni and I kind of looked
at each other. We were asked to come up with
these plans, which we did. And we were pretty successful at
it. We're like this, this clash,
this, this stinks. This is no fun.
There's no fun at all. And at that point, we decided to
what did, what did we say? What did I say, Marty?
(05:32):
So Nick said we should start a company to see if we can start a
company for one and see if and run it so that our employees and
our customers never feel the waywe feel right now.
And that's exactly what we did. Yeah.
Yeah. Wow.
And Marnie, I was a high school teacher.
(05:54):
I taught government, so we have a similar background.
Yeah. And I also fell in love with
that tech. And I didn't jump into that tech
until recently. I kind of stayed away from the
dark side a little bit. But now.
But now I'm making that transition out on my own.
Yeah. But I was.
Yeah. It's just.
It's just, it feels like the right time.
(06:14):
It feels like the right time. You know, they say it's never a
right time to do things, but at a certain point I feel like I
feel it like even when. You're ready.
You will never. Be ready, yeah.
Yeah, like Nick said, I mean, heand he said we should start a
company to see if we can. And because we were working for
the largest Ted tech company in the world, we had to build a a
(06:37):
company outside our space so that we could eventually come
back to the world of education, which is part of our parallels
with Ted Lasso, you know, born in a strange land type of thing.
Yeah, absolutely. So tell me about the business,
tell me about the lead it like Lasso book and all all the
different things that you're doing.
(06:57):
Share with their audience like how how you support them.
I want to hear it from both of you.
Give us the give us all the goods and the details.
I think Nick will start with thelasso part of it, and I'll hate
the second part of it because he's the one that found Ted
Lasso and frankly hooked us all.Yeah.
So the short story is when we left at tech, like Marnie said,
we ended up starting a business and it was the world of IT
(07:20):
technology providers. We provided a customer success
platform and we didn't really want to do that for the rest of
our lives, but we did. We did it for a couple years and
we started from scratch, we scaled it, we built it to a
multi $1,000,000 business and weexited to really pursue what we
(07:41):
wanted to do, which was that honestly to help people become
the best versions of themselves.We, we are fascinated and we,
our passion is, is truly personal development and how to
help people do that. So we have we have large plans
to do that, but we knew what we needed to start somewhere.
(08:01):
So that somewhere ended up beingwriting a book called Lead it
like Lasso. And for those that have not seen
the show, it's it's, it's Ted Lasso.
He's an American football coach who goes over to the UK to, to
coach European football, which we know is soccer.
And he's truly a fish out of water.
But as I was watching that show while we were building that
(08:24):
business, I'm, I'm watching it, I'm like, my God, I know Ted
Lasso. I work with her every day.
And it's Marty Stockman. She is, she is goofy like him.
She's positive. She, she is all about helping
people become their best versions, which is our passion.
And we thought, wouldn't it be great to relate kind of the, the
(08:48):
lessons that we learned, our personal approach to not only
personal leadership, but building a business to the
stories and the personal development arcs in the show.
Because we love to tell stories and we, we think that's the best
way to learn. And that's exactly what we did.
And, and we didn't have really any idea because we've never
(09:09):
really written a book like that before, what would happen.
And Fast forward, I mean the book has sold over 40,000
copies. People we've met all.
Sorts of interesting people, yeah.
It's been such a fantastic experience for us.
That's great, that. Part of our journey, we, I don't
think we expected to last a fullyear before or you know, a year
(09:31):
plus it that launched October 2023 because we always knew we
wanted to get back to find a wayto help educators and students.
One of the reasons that Nick feels like I was Ted Lasso.
I mean, aside from the goofy, that'll be obvious.
It was that I, he knew that whenI interviewed to be a teacher,
(09:52):
that when I asked my philosophy of education, I said that I
think it's every teacher's responsibility and privilege to
help each student become the best version of themselves.
Which Ted Lasso said years later, right?
It's not about wins and losses. It's about helping each person
become the best version of themselves.
So with that in mind, we were looking for a way to be helpful.
(10:14):
So as we started talking with all of these folks that had used
our the leadership framework andlead it like Lasso that had been
successful, had been on our podcast, etcetera, we really
started seeing parallels, not just in our own lives.
We built Lead it like Lasso around the parallels and
frameworks. We'd seen a long personal
development, but we really started noticing that the folks
(10:35):
that were successful, whether they realized it or not, were
running their life like a business.
And if you hop on LinkedIn for half a minute, you're going to
run across, especially now that this is being said out loud so
that all of our phones hear it, you're going to run across
somebody that says you're the CEO of you.
You need to run your life like abusiness.
You need to, you know, be the CEO of yourself.
(10:57):
But where they get it wrong is alot of people, especially kids
today, when they think of ACEO, right, they think of somebody
that's just making all these bigdecisions and everything else
just happens for them. They don't realize that if
you're going to be the CEO of your own life, you're the head
of your own HR, marketing, finance, right operations.
(11:18):
Accounting, bookkeeping, All thethings.
All the things. All the things.
So how can you do that in a way that helps you stand out and
differentiate yourself in an extreme, extremely crowded world
of automation and digital everything?
And so that is actually on August 15th, we're launching the
(11:39):
Business of U book which addresses exactly that.
So. That announcement, people.
Big announcement. Very.
Excited about that? Yeah, by the time this drops, it
will already be out. Perfect.
So you can hunt this down. Yeah, on LinkedIn, where Blue
the business of you, when you get to the end of the book,
you'll see a secret about what blue is.
(12:00):
So. Oh, cool.
Well, Marty, I love your LinkedIn post, especially today
you did the about the emojis. I'm really trying to think of
some good stuff to to comment onthat.
And you know, one of the things I like to ask, especially you've
been in Ed tech, you've, you know, programming, teaching, you
know, supporting client success stuff.
(12:20):
So, you know, what are you bringing from that world really
into what you're doing now? Because I think sometimes people
feel stuck. They're like, you know, I think
that one of the main barriers for me was like the constant
paycheck and the health insurance.
Those are the 2 main barriers that people think about when
they're going out on their own or doing their own business.
(12:42):
So also too like not the supportof like a team, it's just you 2
or whoever is you're hiring to support you in the contract
roles or, or things like that. So I would love to hear your
perspective about what you're bringing with you, but also how
do you deal with that, like thatshift from kind of consistency
to kind of the roller coaster ride that is being like an
(13:02):
entrepreneur? We're probably good people to
ask on that only because we're both pretty risk averse, so it's
not like we're like woo Hoo. Let's give up all this.
Nick, what was your first thought on that?
Well, I, I think for one, I knowI used to identify kind of, you
know, my title. I was, I was, I was promoted a
(13:23):
lot, you know, and I never really sought out leadership
positions. And, and to me, it was all about
my identity was my title, vice president, what have you, what
you know, you know, leader of development team, so forth and
so on. And I'm going to answer your
question, Holly here. But ultimately what I realized
is how I did anything is how I do everything.
(13:43):
And, you know, understanding what drove me personally is
really what grounds me in almosteverything I do.
And, you know, at the core of what I what I did as a
programmer, I was a problem solver.
I love to figure things out and you know, moving on through this
entrepreneurial journey that is always been my center, my focus
(14:06):
and everything that I do. While my title might change from
a, a very consistent job in corporate America to an
entrepreneur, it's all still thesame to me.
It's about helping figure out a problem.
It's, it's, it's helping others problem solve for themselves and
how to become that. And I think one of the things
(14:27):
that that we have learned is that there's a lot of ups and
downs with, with entrepreneurship.
I mean, we've, we've had momentswhere we're like, what in the
world are we doing this? This is, this is not working at
all. But what, what we do find is
(14:47):
that if we're centered and we, Iuse the word centered, but we,
we actually use kind of our corevalues as our bumper pads to
make sure that the decisions that we're making keep us on
track and we think about the, the future.
And that's been critical to us because whenever you feel down,
you know, you seem to get lost in the noise quite a bit.
(15:11):
You know, this is another roadblock.
This is something that is is toorisky.
Are you still centered on what makes you what makes you tick as
a person has been really important with dealing with
those ups and downs. Marty, you can probably that
answer much better than I just. Well, that was good.
No, that was actually good. And I want to, I want to comment
that a lot of what you're sayingis resonating with me because,
(15:33):
you know, at a certain point youjust get to you're like, what's
the, what are the benefits here?Like what am I really leaving?
Like toxic work cultures, you know, like paycheck and health
insurance. Yes, but a lot of people can get
health insurance off the marketplace.
They can get health insurance through their spouse, you know,
and then the, the consistent paycheck, I find like that is
(15:56):
something that I'm going to miss.
But I, I, I, I'm so much more motivated to work for myself and
do the things that I'm passionate about and help people
in a way that is different than actually just like just doing
the mundane work of the same thing every day.
It's just not, it's not invigorating, it's not
inspiring. It's just like, and I'm, when
(16:17):
we're working for somebody else,we're helping them achieve their
dreams. It's not necessarily aligned
with our dreams and values. I mean, from a very tactical
point of view, I think doing theresearch so that you understand
and plan for like, what is the worst case scenario?
Like we jokingly laugh. I play volleyball with my adult
(16:37):
children on Friday nights. We always go to the pub
beforehand and my husband will always say like Marnie's happy
to waitress right? Like like the backup plan is all
right. So if I have to waitress for
health insurance, I can do that And I haven't had to waitress
for health insurance. But just so you know, I'm a
really good waitress should pushcome to shove.
So I did you know to in the tactical matter of paycheck and
(17:02):
health insurance, especially if you have a family, you do have
to think through. But if you start thinking of
like this has happened, I don't have a paycheck anymore, I don't
have health insurance anymore, solve that problem.
Like Nick said, he's a problem solver.
Work the problem and figure out several different routes and I
bet you can find a way to make it happen.
So that's a tactical piece of it.
(17:22):
The other part of your question was what did we bring from who
we were to where we are now? So I went from high school math
teacher to running customer success to being the CEO of our
software company. And like Nick said, we built a
customer success platform for ITbusiness owners.
So I was typically standing in aroom of 250 men doing a
(17:43):
presentation. And I would say I started out as
a high school math teacher. So you're probably wondering why
you should listen to me. And they all would, like, sit up
a little straighter, afraid theywere going to get detention.
But they kind of nodded, like, yeah, I am kind of wondering.
And I would say I sold precalculus to 16 year olds.
So you can bet I can help you sell customer and the importance
(18:06):
of it. And they're like, yeah, all
right, I'm listening. So Nick mentioned the phrase how
you do anything is how you do everything.
When we realized that teaching is really selling and customer
success and marketing right thento bring that into the world of
Ed tech was not hard. To bring that into the world of
it was not hard because it's allabout helping others.
(18:29):
Again, customer success is abouthelping customers get value from
whatever service you're suffering, exactly what you're
doing in the classroom, right? It's all of the same pieces.
And now we are helping individuals figure out how they
bring value to others so they can pick a career that does
light them up and fire them up every day.
(18:50):
And they're delivering their they're getting their dream
accomplishing their goals, not somebody else's.
And their goal might be working for somebody else doing
something else, which is a greatgoal, right?
But you all you need to know that for yourself.
Right, I think it's really aboutreflection too, like reflecting
on like where, where you're at in life.
It's, it's always different. And I'm, I'm going to tribute
(19:11):
this to middle-aged, becoming a middle-aged woman that I'm just
like questioning and, and havingthese conversations with myself.
Like, is this something I want to do for the rest of my life?
And in relationships, we do thistoo.
Like is this somebody who I wantto be with for the rest of my
life? You know, those kinds of
situations and thinking about like, what am I?
What am I doing? Like, what am I actually doing?
(19:32):
Like, why am I not getting up excited to go to work?
Like definitely having the Sunday scary's definitely having
like those thoughts of like, canI just call out today and, and
take a day for myself? And I was finding too that, you
know, working, I've been workingfull time, you know, for a very
long time, like almost 20 years.But I'd always have these side
(19:53):
things. Like I teach adjunct in higher
education and I know a lot of our listeners do other side
hustles, like I'd start the podcast and some other contract
work and stuff. And I found that my main work,
and I'm OK to admit this now, itwas distracted by those side
hustles because that's where I was getting, where I was
feeling. My joy from your passion.
Yeah, yeah, that's where my cup was getting filled from.
(20:16):
It's like the full time job became the side hustle what it
wasn't supposed to be. You're dialing in on that one.
Not not people weren't getting the job done, but it wasn't
passion driven. Yeah, it wasn't really passion
driven. And as much as I want to help
people and like, you know, through working in a tech, I
definitely understand about the success, the programming aspect
and just all these different things.
I was just like, what am I doing, you know?
(20:38):
So it's. Funny and that's I just say I, I
think, you know, we talk about self reflection all the time
and, and I'm imagining for you, Holly, yes, that that kind of
got you where you where you're going right now.
But what we find is asking thosequestions is really awkward and
it's hard. And because you don't a lot of
times you don't like the answer or it's, it's not it's scary.
(21:03):
Yeah, it's risky. And you know, our, our we talk a
lot in our new book, the business of you, you know, one
of the subtitles ask the right questions.
And so many people avoid those questions because they don't
really want to address and deal with the answers that they know
are honest and true. And I think that's a big hurdle
(21:23):
for people to get over. I agree, my puppy is scratching
out the door. So you what you have to do to
the same point around self reflection, I think it was
Harvard Business Review did a study, it showed that
self-awareness was the number one indicator of leadership
success. And Nick and I talked about and
lead it like last said, that everyone's a leader, right?
(21:44):
In a classroom, a boardroom, a locker room, a living room, you
have to lead yourself 1st. And the only way you can do that
is to do that self reflection and understand what's important
to you. Like #1.
Yeah, absolutely. And I think at at this point,
and I know like I said, a lot ofour listeners are probably
(22:06):
questioning this, maybe not so much people at the beginning of
their career because they're just trying to break into
something. But like, you know, what do you,
what do you want for the rest ofthe time?
You know, where do you really see yourself, you know, in the
next 5 to 10 years not getting too far away from the present
moment, but just figuring out like where you want to be.
And I had a tough decision to make.
Like you're saying, it's very scary to figure out where you
(22:30):
want to go and ask yourself the hard questions like can I leave
my full time job? Well, basically I have a
conversation with leadership andit was basically, sorry, choose
between my side hustles, which are my true passions or do 100%
full time and the side hustles won, they won.
Approach side hustle. And I'll, I'll say something
(22:53):
kind of circle back to the, the original question about, you
know, the taking on entrepreneurship or, or getting
unstuck and, and moving on to something new and something
different, avoiding burnout, allthose same things.
The biggest shortcut that we have learned through our
experiences are is all about creating value for other people.
(23:16):
And you know, we have something in our new book, The Business of
You, where we talk about learning and development
specifically, and we talk about two ladders.
We talk about the, the credentials ladder versus the
value ladder. You know, the credentials
ladder, you know, where you're learning to get certifications
or you know, build certifications or awards or
(23:37):
something like that, which I wasstuck in myself at some point
during my career. Versus the values ladder where
you're learning to build value for other people for, for to
create opportunities and all. Any success that both Martin and
I have had individually or together has all been about
(24:01):
figuring out ways with our message, our passion to create
value for other. And I think the more people
people keep that front and center of their mind with
anything that they take on afterall their self reflection in
terms of what they want to do. I think that's the greatest
shortcut that any entrepreneur or or any person looking to
(24:22):
change jobs can take is, is using that as kind of the frame
and reference with everything that they do, from learning to
interacting with other people tonetworking, the list goes on and
on. I can honestly say that I have
two master's degrees, a bachelor's degrees, a
certificate in distance education, leadership.
(24:43):
You know how many times I've been asked to show those?
Yeah, 00, yes, 0 * 0 times. And I'm like, I spent all this
money, like I have all this experience now.
Like where does you know, this is a conversation.
We're differently. Where does experience equivalent
to what a degree is? Yeah.
Oh yeah. Yeah.
It's very different in this world today.
(25:03):
It is. It is.
We talked to a lot of colleges who who would have the same
conversation with us around enrollment cliffs and and
problems that they're having because that there seems to be a
sliding scale now in the world of college and career readiness.
Yeah, absolutely. So for the people in the
audience and, you know, kind of wrapping up the episode a little
(25:26):
bit, I would love to hear three pieces of advice from each of
you. And of course, we're going to
have everything and shoot on where to get lead at light last.
So where to find Marnie? Where to connect with Nick and
these amazing 2 humans and theirnew book the the the.
Business of you. The business of you.
Sorry, I also saw something on LinkedIn.
It was the What did it say something about a the work in?
(25:49):
Work in progress. I want to ask you about that.
What does that mean? That is fun.
That is fun. That is our we call it our
satirical sidekick to it is it is a bit of a snarky newsletter
for folks that are stuck need some career advice, but maybe
aren't just listening to the same message.
(26:13):
You need it from a different angle where you're like, oh OK,
I felt seen on. Yeah, I love it.
I was like, oh, they didn't spell it wrong.
That's awesome. I love that so.
We have a great time with that. Yeah, that is, it is fun for us
too. That is, in our new company,
having fun while we do it is oneof our core values.
(26:33):
Yeah, you should be having fun. I mean, it's your own things,
your own dream. You should be making it as fun
and exciting as possible. Yeah.
So three pieces of advice for the listeners about
transitioning into this world like you, the teaching you've
been at the programmer, you, you, you had all the titles and
now you're shifting into entrepreneurial world, doing
your own thing. Like let's start with you,
(26:54):
Marty. What are three pieces of advice
you would give our listeners on how to actively do that?
So the first thing that comes tomind is aside from self
reflection, like honestly, we'vealready said it, but I have to
say it again. Do the work to do the self
reflection and then, you know, figure out how you want to learn
and grow. What is the next thing that you
(27:17):
want to learn? What challenge that is?
If you looked at LinkedIn, it looks like every seven years I
seem to have a. Like you have an itch, you have
an itch every seven years and. They seem to be shorter now, and
now Nick and I are a year and a half in and we're already, you
know what? But we kind of knew that was
coming. But figure out what challenges
you and how you like to learn and grow and do one of those
(27:39):
things. Next, pick the thing, learn it,
do it, grow. I think that's how folks will
grow. I think the other thing I'll say
is advice is right now it's easyto do.
Figure out your pet peeve. This sounds crazy, but figure
out your pet peeve, why it's your pet peeve.
And then use that to say that means I would be horrible at
(28:04):
this job and it means I might begreat at this type of work
because that unlocks a lot of things we talked to.
I mean, at this point, hundreds,maybe thousands of folks, many
at my kitchen table, more zoom in mentoring.
And by golly, that question right there shakes a lot of
people a little different. Yeah, it really makes you think,
(28:26):
right? Like, what are the things that
bother me the most? Yeah, that's.
Why should I be doing that? Yeah, I have whole stories on
that, but I'll let Nick give hisadvice.
OK, yeah, first on, well, I'm going to say self reflection
too, but I won't even count thatone because Marnie already said
that. You know, I think finding your
(28:47):
Diamond dogs to bring it back toTed Lasso, we call it personal
board of advisors when you, whenwe, we talk about, you know, the
business of you, but those people that will mentor you,
advise you and challenge you, your, your challenge network,
it's critical. I mean, I think it's, it's
amazing how often we lean on other people.
(29:09):
We need other people to kind of bring out those tough questions
that we were talking about earlier.
So that that's definitely one piece of advice.
The other, the other thing I would say is from the standpoint
of anything that you take on, weoften say you can't lead others
(29:29):
until you lead yourself first. And I think so many people,
there's so much noise about their out there in terms of
tactics about how to grow personally, professionally, that
people just jump straight into that, you know, thinking that
this is how I should do something.
You need to focus on yourself 1st, 100%.
(29:50):
You know, I suffered greatly from imposter syndrome because I
acted. I, you know, I acted how how I
thought I was supposed to act instead of being true to myself.
And it led to a real sense of being a fraud because I wasn't
being who I was right out of thegate.
That's a big one for. Our listeners too.
(30:12):
There's a lot of imposter syndrome floating around out
there. It's and it's horrible too,
isn't it? It's.
I think it's terrible. Yeah, it it really does.
And, you know, to rewind back 2520 years ago, I, that was the,
the biggest, the biggest thing that still causes me stress to
this day is thinking about, you know, I was really a fraud.
And I I kind of was because I was acting how I thought other I
(30:37):
was supposed to act instead of who I was treated.
Myself, kind of like doing what the parent is telling me to do
so you can get that approval when really in hindsight, it's
like I'm grown now, yeah. What was going along with what
your friends are doing in school?
Right. There's like, so many books as
this plays out. Yeah.
No doubt. And then last, I'll just end it
(30:58):
with just embrace the journey, right?
It's you know, growth isn't it'snot linear.
I think trust the the same each step, you know, understand who
you are there. We all learn.
And I mean everybody says it. You know, the the story about
the parents says, what did you fail at today?
Failure is feedback. It's growth, I think.
(31:20):
I think having a mindset that that you're not going to be
successful with everything is, is so critical because with
that, without that mindset, you're, you've already lost.
You've been defeated for sure. That overnight success is a
complete anomaly and it is completely a facade.
(31:41):
It is not something that happensovernight.
And when it does happen for people overnight, you know, good
for, great for them. That is not the typical path.
Yeah, takes 10 years to make an overnight success.
They think it's. 100 percent, 100%.
Well, thank you both. We'll have everything in the
show notes so they can get your books, connect with you, have
conversations, go out and see your business, all the things
(32:04):
that you're doing. I really appreciate the
insights, the transparency aboutwhat it's like to shift from
stableness to kind of in this role where you're like, oh, we
might do this today or we might do that.
I think, I think people are scared.
They really are scared of leaving us to stability.
But you 2 are proof that leavingthat stability leads to growth
and leads to things where like, I can just see it in both your
(32:26):
faces. You're so happy and so
passionate about what you're doing that there's no substitute
for that. Like you really, you really feel
great. And you know, that impacts all
parts of your life, that impactsyour family, that impacts, you
know, yourself, all the different things.
So I'm so grateful for both of you for coming on the show and
sharing your experiences. Well thanks for having us,
(32:47):
hopefully you feel the same way I do.
I tell my husband like I don't ever want to go back to work
even though I work 4 hours in a day.
Yeah, I don't, I don't mind that.
I do not mind that part because I'm just, I'm, I'm so focused.
You're so focused now. And yeah, and it's.
A lot more like play. Yeah, exactly.
Well, thank you again for being on the show.
(33:09):
Thanks so much, Ollie. Thanks for spending a few
minutes with Holly. She knows your podcast queue is
packed. If today's episode sparked an
idea or gave you that extra nudge of confidence, tap, follow
or subscribe in your favorite app so you never miss an episode
of Ed Up L&D. Dropping a quick rating or
review helps more educators and learning pros discover the show,
(33:32):
too. Want to keep the conversation
going? Connect with Holly on LinkedIn
and share your biggest take away.
She reads every message. Until next time, keep learning,
keep leading, and keep believingin your own story.
Talk soon. Hi, we're ispring, an
international team of e-learningenthusiasts who help more than
60,000 clients across the globe succeed with better online
(33:54):
learning. Our two flagship solutions are
ispring Suite and ispring Learn LMS.
Welcome back to another episode of Ed Up L&D, where we dig deep
into the world of learning, leadership, and career
transformation. Today's episode is an awesome
one because I'm joined by two powerhouse guests, Marnie
Stockman and Nick Cornelio. Between them, they have been
high school teachers, Ed tech leaders, entrepreneurs, and now
(00:24):
authors. Their latest mission?
Helping people lead themselves and others with the same heart,
humor, and humanity that's made to have Lasso, a global
sensation. We talk about why they walked
away from stable corporate jobs to build something of their own.
How their book Lead It Like Lasso became a leadership
(00:46):
framework for life and business,the launch of their brand new
book, The Business of You, and how to truly become the CEO of
your own life. Plus, the lessons they've
learned about risk, resilience, running your life like a
business. Whether you're a leader looking
to level up, a teacher thinking about making a big transition,
(01:08):
or just someone who needs a little push to finally take that
leap, you'll find so much insight and plenty of laughs in
this conversation. Let's dive in.
Hi, we're ispring, an international team of e-learning
enthusiasts who help more than 60,000 clients across the globe
succeed with better online learning.
(01:30):
Our two flagship solutions are ispring Suite and ispring Learn
LMS. Ispring Suite is an intuitive,
all in one authoring tool for creating engaging e-learning
content, and ispringlearn is an innovative online training
platform for onboarding, upskilling, and certifying your
teams. We also provide tons of free
(01:52):
resources for aspiring and experienced e-learning
professionals, conduct weekly webinars with top industry
experts, and organize annual e-learning conferences,
challenges, and championships. We'd be happy to get to know you
and pick a solution that fits your needs best.
Go to www.icepringsolutions.com to learn more about us, download
(02:15):
our resources, and connect. Hello everyone, and welcome to
another amazing episode of Add Up L&D.
My name is Holly Owens and I'm your host and I have two amazing
guests with me today. I have Marnie and Nick, and
they're going to talk about all things leadership leading it
(02:37):
like Lasso. But first, before we get into
all the details about that, I would love to start with you,
Marnie. Tell us your story.
How did you get here? And then we'll pass it off to
Nick so he can share his as well.
Yeah, absolutely. So I started out as a high
school math teacher. So in the land of folks
transitioning, I definitely did.I made that happen, went into
(02:59):
administration, and there I found myself using an assessment
platform for the school system Iworked for, and that assessment
platform decided that maybe I should come run customer success
for them. So I landed in the world of
edtech that way. So as you know, when you leave
the classroom, people say you goto the dark side when you go to
(03:20):
the board office, and then when you leave the board office and
go to a vendor, that's like the double dark side.
I can tell you I love it here. And and that is actually where I
met Nick. So the company that I worked for
when I landed on my very first Zoom call of the support team,
Nick was running the support team.
(03:41):
And as a secret side note, that's not so secret in the
company, everyone put in ticketsto clone Nick because they all
wanted another Nick on the team.So I knew I was walking into a
superhero when I met him. So I'll let him take our story
from from there, because our paths are very parallel from
there. Yeah, parallel, but they were
very different from the beginning.
(04:03):
So I was, I was a programmer, I was computer science major, I
was a programmer. I was that guy who sat in the
corner office with his doors closed, drinking 14 Cokes a day,
not talking to anybody. But eventually I, I broke out of
my shell. I, I went into consulting from a
technology perspective and landed in Ed tech just like
(04:23):
Marni said. And not only did I run support,
I also ran the engineering team of what is now Power School
product. But really our, our paths
intersected at a point where we were working for a small company
at the time. And we kept on getting acquired
and acquired and acquired. And at some point, yeah,
(04:48):
absolutely, absolutely, very old.
And Marni was responsible for customer success.
Like she said, I was customer support.
That was one of my responsibilities.
And we kept on getting asked to do so much more with so much
less. They were.
They kept paring down our teams,smaller, smaller, smaller, all
at the same time saying, hey, our #1 core value is raving
(05:12):
fans. And Marni and I kind of looked
at each other. We were asked to come up with
these plans, which we did. And we were pretty successful at
it. We're like this, this clash,
this, this stinks. This is no fun.
There's no fun at all. And at that point, we decided to
what did, what did we say? What did I say, Marty?
(05:32):
So Nick said we should start a company to see if we can start a
company for one and see if and run it so that our employees and
our customers never feel the waywe feel right now.
And that's exactly what we did. Yeah.
Yeah. Wow.
And Marnie, I was a high school teacher.
(05:54):
I taught government, so we have a similar background.
Yeah. And I also fell in love with
that tech. And I didn't jump into that tech
until recently. I kind of stayed away from the
dark side a little bit. But now.
But now I'm making that transition out on my own.
Yeah. But I was.
Yeah. It's just.
It's just, it feels like the right time.
(06:14):
It feels like the right time. You know, they say it's never a
right time to do things, but at a certain point I feel like I
feel it like even when. You're ready.
You will never. Be ready, yeah.
Yeah, like Nick said, I mean, heand he said we should start a
company to see if we can. And because we were working for
the largest Ted tech company in the world, we had to build a a
(06:37):
company outside our space so that we could eventually come
back to the world of education, which is part of our parallels
with Ted Lasso, you know, born in a strange land type of thing.
Yeah, absolutely. So tell me about the business,
tell me about the lead it like Lasso book and all all the
different things that you're doing.
(06:57):
Share with their audience like how how you support them.
I want to hear it from both of you.
Give us the give us all the goods and the details.
I think Nick will start with thelasso part of it, and I'll hate
the second part of it because he's the one that found Ted
Lasso and frankly hooked us all.Yeah.
So the short story is when we left at tech, like Marnie said,
we ended up starting a business and it was the world of IT
(07:20):
technology providers. We provided a customer success
platform and we didn't really want to do that for the rest of
our lives, but we did. We did it for a couple years and
we started from scratch, we scaled it, we built it to a
multi $1,000,000 business and weexited to really pursue what we
(07:41):
wanted to do, which was that honestly to help people become
the best versions of themselves.We, we are fascinated and we,
our passion is, is truly personal development and how to
help people do that. So we have we have large plans
to do that, but we knew what we needed to start somewhere.
(08:01):
So that somewhere ended up beingwriting a book called Lead it
like Lasso. And for those that have not seen
the show, it's it's, it's Ted Lasso.
He's an American football coach who goes over to the UK to, to
coach European football, which we know is soccer.
And he's truly a fish out of water.
But as I was watching that show while we were building that
(08:24):
business, I'm, I'm watching it, I'm like, my God, I know Ted
Lasso. I work with her every day.
And it's Marty Stockman. She is, she is goofy like him.
She's positive. She, she is all about helping
people become their best versions, which is our passion.
And we thought, wouldn't it be great to relate kind of the, the
(08:48):
lessons that we learned, our personal approach to not only
personal leadership, but building a business to the
stories and the personal development arcs in the show.
Because we love to tell stories and we, we think that's the best
way to learn. And that's exactly what we did.
And, and we didn't have really any idea because we've never
(09:09):
really written a book like that before, what would happen.
And Fast forward, I mean the book has sold over 40,000
copies. People we've met all.
Sorts of interesting people, yeah.
It's been such a fantastic experience for us.
That's great, that. Part of our journey, we, I don't
think we expected to last a fullyear before or you know, a year
(09:31):
plus it that launched October 2023 because we always knew we
wanted to get back to find a wayto help educators and students.
One of the reasons that Nick feels like I was Ted Lasso.
I mean, aside from the goofy, that'll be obvious.
It was that I, he knew that whenI interviewed to be a teacher,
(09:52):
that when I asked my philosophy of education, I said that I
think it's every teacher's responsibility and privilege to
help each student become the best version of themselves.
Which Ted Lasso said years later, right?
It's not about wins and losses. It's about helping each person
become the best version of themselves.
So with that in mind, we were looking for a way to be helpful.
(10:14):
So as we started talking with all of these folks that had used
our the leadership framework andlead it like Lasso that had been
successful, had been on our podcast, etcetera, we really
started seeing parallels, not just in our own lives.
We built Lead it like Lasso around the parallels and
frameworks. We'd seen a long personal
development, but we really started noticing that the folks
(10:35):
that were successful, whether they realized it or not, were
running their life like a business.
And if you hop on LinkedIn for half a minute, you're going to
run across, especially now that this is being said out loud so
that all of our phones hear it, you're going to run across
somebody that says you're the CEO of you.
You need to run your life like abusiness.
You need to, you know, be the CEO of yourself.
(10:57):
But where they get it wrong is alot of people, especially kids
today, when they think of ACEO, right, they think of somebody
that's just making all these bigdecisions and everything else
just happens for them. They don't realize that if
you're going to be the CEO of your own life, you're the head
of your own HR, marketing, finance, right operations.
(11:18):
Accounting, bookkeeping, All thethings.
All the things. All the things.
So how can you do that in a way that helps you stand out and
differentiate yourself in an extreme, extremely crowded world
of automation and digital everything?
And so that is actually on August 15th, we're launching the
(11:39):
Business of U book which addresses exactly that.
So. That announcement, people.
Big announcement. Very.
Excited about that? Yeah, by the time this drops, it
will already be out. Perfect.
So you can hunt this down. Yeah, on LinkedIn, where Blue
the business of you, when you get to the end of the book,
you'll see a secret about what blue is.
(12:00):
So. Oh, cool.
Well, Marty, I love your LinkedIn post, especially today
you did the about the emojis. I'm really trying to think of
some good stuff to to comment onthat.
And you know, one of the things I like to ask, especially you've
been in Ed tech, you've, you know, programming, teaching, you
know, supporting client success stuff.
(12:20):
So, you know, what are you bringing from that world really
into what you're doing now? Because I think sometimes people
feel stuck. They're like, you know, I think
that one of the main barriers for me was like the constant
paycheck and the health insurance.
Those are the 2 main barriers that people think about when
they're going out on their own or doing their own business.
(12:42):
So also too like not the supportof like a team, it's just you 2
or whoever is you're hiring to support you in the contract
roles or, or things like that. So I would love to hear your
perspective about what you're bringing with you, but also how
do you deal with that, like thatshift from kind of consistency
to kind of the roller coaster ride that is being like an
(13:02):
entrepreneur? We're probably good people to
ask on that only because we're both pretty risk averse, so it's
not like we're like woo Hoo. Let's give up all this.
Nick, what was your first thought on that?
Well, I, I think for one, I knowI used to identify kind of, you
know, my title. I was, I was, I was promoted a
(13:23):
lot, you know, and I never really sought out leadership
positions. And, and to me, it was all about
my identity was my title, vice president, what have you, what
you know, you know, leader of development team, so forth and
so on. And I'm going to answer your
question, Holly here. But ultimately what I realized
is how I did anything is how I do everything.
(13:43):
And, you know, understanding what drove me personally is
really what grounds me in almosteverything I do.
And, you know, at the core of what I what I did as a
programmer, I was a problem solver.
I love to figure things out and you know, moving on through this
entrepreneurial journey that is always been my center, my focus
(14:06):
and everything that I do. While my title might change from
a, a very consistent job in corporate America to an
entrepreneur, it's all still thesame to me.
It's about helping figure out a problem.
It's, it's, it's helping others problem solve for themselves and
how to become that. And I think one of the things
(14:27):
that that we have learned is that there's a lot of ups and
downs with, with entrepreneurship.
I mean, we've, we've had momentswhere we're like, what in the
world are we doing this? This is, this is not working at
all. But what, what we do find is
(14:47):
that if we're centered and we, Iuse the word centered, but we,
we actually use kind of our corevalues as our bumper pads to
make sure that the decisions that we're making keep us on
track and we think about the, the future.
And that's been critical to us because whenever you feel down,
you know, you seem to get lost in the noise quite a bit.
(15:11):
You know, this is another roadblock.
This is something that is is toorisky.
Are you still centered on what makes you what makes you tick as
a person has been really important with dealing with
those ups and downs. Marty, you can probably that
answer much better than I just. Well, that was good.
No, that was actually good. And I want to, I want to comment
that a lot of what you're sayingis resonating with me because,
(15:33):
you know, at a certain point youjust get to you're like, what's
the, what are the benefits here?Like what am I really leaving?
Like toxic work cultures, you know, like paycheck and health
insurance. Yes, but a lot of people can get
health insurance off the marketplace.
They can get health insurance through their spouse, you know,
and then the, the consistent paycheck, I find like that is
(15:56):
something that I'm going to miss.
But I, I, I, I'm so much more motivated to work for myself and
do the things that I'm passionate about and help people
in a way that is different than actually just like just doing
the mundane work of the same thing every day.
It's just not, it's not invigorating, it's not
inspiring. It's just like, and I'm, when
(16:17):
we're working for somebody else,we're helping them achieve their
dreams. It's not necessarily aligned
with our dreams and values. I mean, from a very tactical
point of view, I think doing theresearch so that you understand
and plan for like, what is the worst case scenario?
Like we jokingly laugh. I play volleyball with my adult
(16:37):
children on Friday nights. We always go to the pub
beforehand and my husband will always say like Marnie's happy
to waitress right? Like like the backup plan is all
right. So if I have to waitress for
health insurance, I can do that And I haven't had to waitress
for health insurance. But just so you know, I'm a
really good waitress should pushcome to shove.
So I did you know to in the tactical matter of paycheck and
(17:02):
health insurance, especially if you have a family, you do have
to think through. But if you start thinking of
like this has happened, I don't have a paycheck anymore, I don't
have health insurance anymore, solve that problem.
Like Nick said, he's a problem solver.
Work the problem and figure out several different routes and I
bet you can find a way to make it happen.
So that's a tactical piece of it.
(17:22):
The other part of your question was what did we bring from who
we were to where we are now? So I went from high school math
teacher to running customer success to being the CEO of our
software company. And like Nick said, we built a
customer success platform for ITbusiness owners.
So I was typically standing in aroom of 250 men doing a
(17:43):
presentation. And I would say I started out as
a high school math teacher. So you're probably wondering why
you should listen to me. And they all would, like, sit up
a little straighter, afraid theywere going to get detention.
But they kind of nodded, like, yeah, I am kind of wondering.
And I would say I sold precalculus to 16 year olds.
So you can bet I can help you sell customer and the importance
(18:06):
of it. And they're like, yeah, all
right, I'm listening. So Nick mentioned the phrase how
you do anything is how you do everything.
When we realized that teaching is really selling and customer
success and marketing right thento bring that into the world of
Ed tech was not hard. To bring that into the world of
it was not hard because it's allabout helping others.
(18:29):
Again, customer success is abouthelping customers get value from
whatever service you're suffering, exactly what you're
doing in the classroom, right? It's all of the same pieces.
And now we are helping individuals figure out how they
bring value to others so they can pick a career that does
light them up and fire them up every day.
(18:50):
And they're delivering their they're getting their dream
accomplishing their goals, not somebody else's.
And their goal might be working for somebody else doing
something else, which is a greatgoal, right?
But you all you need to know that for yourself.
Right, I think it's really aboutreflection too, like reflecting
on like where, where you're at in life.
It's, it's always different. And I'm, I'm going to tribute
(19:11):
this to middle-aged, becoming a middle-aged woman that I'm just
like questioning and, and havingthese conversations with myself.
Like, is this something I want to do for the rest of my life?
And in relationships, we do thistoo.
Like is this somebody who I wantto be with for the rest of my
life? You know, those kinds of
situations and thinking about like, what am I?
What am I doing? Like, what am I actually doing?
(19:32):
Like, why am I not getting up excited to go to work?
Like definitely having the Sunday scary's definitely having
like those thoughts of like, canI just call out today and, and
take a day for myself? And I was finding too that, you
know, working, I've been workingfull time, you know, for a very
long time, like almost 20 years.But I'd always have these side
(19:53):
things. Like I teach adjunct in higher
education and I know a lot of our listeners do other side
hustles, like I'd start the podcast and some other contract
work and stuff. And I found that my main work,
and I'm OK to admit this now, itwas distracted by those side
hustles because that's where I was getting, where I was
feeling. My joy from your passion.
Yeah, yeah, that's where my cup was getting filled from.
(20:16):
It's like the full time job became the side hustle what it
wasn't supposed to be. You're dialing in on that one.
Not not people weren't getting the job done, but it wasn't
passion driven. Yeah, it wasn't really passion
driven. And as much as I want to help
people and like, you know, through working in a tech, I
definitely understand about the success, the programming aspect
and just all these different things.
I was just like, what am I doing, you know?
(20:38):
So it's. Funny and that's I just say I, I
think, you know, we talk about self reflection all the time
and, and I'm imagining for you, Holly, yes, that that kind of
got you where you where you're going right now.
But what we find is asking thosequestions is really awkward and
it's hard. And because you don't a lot of
times you don't like the answer or it's, it's not it's scary.
(21:03):
Yeah, it's risky. And you know, our, our we talk a
lot in our new book, the business of you, you know, one
of the subtitles ask the right questions.
And so many people avoid those questions because they don't
really want to address and deal with the answers that they know
are honest and true. And I think that's a big hurdle
(21:23):
for people to get over. I agree, my puppy is scratching
out the door. So you what you have to do to
the same point around self reflection, I think it was
Harvard Business Review did a study, it showed that
self-awareness was the number one indicator of leadership
success. And Nick and I talked about and
lead it like last said, that everyone's a leader, right?
(21:44):
In a classroom, a boardroom, a locker room, a living room, you
have to lead yourself 1st. And the only way you can do that
is to do that self reflection and understand what's important
to you. Like #1.
Yeah, absolutely. And I think at at this point,
and I know like I said, a lot ofour listeners are probably
(22:06):
questioning this, maybe not so much people at the beginning of
their career because they're just trying to break into
something. But like, you know, what do you,
what do you want for the rest ofthe time?
You know, where do you really see yourself, you know, in the
next 5 to 10 years not getting too far away from the present
moment, but just figuring out like where you want to be.
And I had a tough decision to make.
Like you're saying, it's very scary to figure out where you
(22:30):
want to go and ask yourself the hard questions like can I leave
my full time job? Well, basically I have a
conversation with leadership andit was basically, sorry, choose
between my side hustles, which are my true passions or do 100%
full time and the side hustles won, they won.
Approach side hustle. And I'll, I'll say something
(22:53):
kind of circle back to the, the original question about, you
know, the taking on entrepreneurship or, or getting
unstuck and, and moving on to something new and something
different, avoiding burnout, allthose same things.
The biggest shortcut that we have learned through our
experiences are is all about creating value for other people.
(23:16):
And you know, we have something in our new book, The Business of
You, where we talk about learning and development
specifically, and we talk about two ladders.
We talk about the, the credentials ladder versus the
value ladder. You know, the credentials
ladder, you know, where you're learning to get certifications
or you know, build certifications or awards or
(23:37):
something like that, which I wasstuck in myself at some point
during my career. Versus the values ladder where
you're learning to build value for other people for, for to
create opportunities and all. Any success that both Martin and
I have had individually or together has all been about
(24:01):
figuring out ways with our message, our passion to create
value for other. And I think the more people
people keep that front and center of their mind with
anything that they take on afterall their self reflection in
terms of what they want to do. I think that's the greatest
shortcut that any entrepreneur or or any person looking to
(24:22):
change jobs can take is, is using that as kind of the frame
and reference with everything that they do, from learning to
interacting with other people tonetworking, the list goes on and
on. I can honestly say that I have
two master's degrees, a bachelor's degrees, a
certificate in distance education, leadership.
(24:43):
You know how many times I've been asked to show those?
Yeah, 00, yes, 0 * 0 times. And I'm like, I spent all this
money, like I have all this experience now.
Like where does you know, this is a conversation.
We're differently. Where does experience equivalent
to what a degree is? Yeah.
Oh yeah. Yeah.
It's very different in this world today.
(25:03):
It is. It is.
We talked to a lot of colleges who who would have the same
conversation with us around enrollment cliffs and and
problems that they're having because that there seems to be a
sliding scale now in the world of college and career readiness.
Yeah, absolutely. So for the people in the
audience and, you know, kind of wrapping up the episode a little
(25:26):
bit, I would love to hear three pieces of advice from each of
you. And of course, we're going to
have everything and shoot on where to get lead at light last.
So where to find Marnie? Where to connect with Nick and
these amazing 2 humans and theirnew book the the the.
Business of you. The business of you.
Sorry, I also saw something on LinkedIn.
It was the What did it say something about a the work in?
(25:49):
Work in progress. I want to ask you about that.
What does that mean? That is fun.
That is fun. That is our we call it our
satirical sidekick to it is it is a bit of a snarky newsletter
for folks that are stuck need some career advice, but maybe
aren't just listening to the same message.
(26:13):
You need it from a different angle where you're like, oh OK,
I felt seen on. Yeah, I love it.
I was like, oh, they didn't spell it wrong.
That's awesome. I love that so.
We have a great time with that. Yeah, that is, it is fun for us
too. That is, in our new company,
having fun while we do it is oneof our core values.
(26:33):
Yeah, you should be having fun. I mean, it's your own things,
your own dream. You should be making it as fun
and exciting as possible. Yeah.
So three pieces of advice for the listeners about
transitioning into this world like you, the teaching you've
been at the programmer, you, you, you had all the titles and
now you're shifting into entrepreneurial world, doing
your own thing. Like let's start with you,
(26:54):
Marty. What are three pieces of advice
you would give our listeners on how to actively do that?
So the first thing that comes tomind is aside from self
reflection, like honestly, we'vealready said it, but I have to
say it again. Do the work to do the self
reflection and then, you know, figure out how you want to learn
and grow. What is the next thing that you
(27:17):
want to learn? What challenge that is?
If you looked at LinkedIn, it looks like every seven years I
seem to have a. Like you have an itch, you have
an itch every seven years and. They seem to be shorter now, and
now Nick and I are a year and a half in and we're already, you
know what? But we kind of knew that was
coming. But figure out what challenges
you and how you like to learn and grow and do one of those
(27:39):
things. Next, pick the thing, learn it,
do it, grow. I think that's how folks will
grow. I think the other thing I'll say
is advice is right now it's easyto do.
Figure out your pet peeve. This sounds crazy, but figure
out your pet peeve, why it's your pet peeve.
And then use that to say that means I would be horrible at
(28:04):
this job and it means I might begreat at this type of work
because that unlocks a lot of things we talked to.
I mean, at this point, hundreds,maybe thousands of folks, many
at my kitchen table, more zoom in mentoring.
And by golly, that question right there shakes a lot of
people a little different. Yeah, it really makes you think,
(28:26):
right? Like, what are the things that
bother me the most? Yeah, that's.
Why should I be doing that? Yeah, I have whole stories on
that, but I'll let Nick give hisadvice.
OK, yeah, first on, well, I'm going to say self reflection
too, but I won't even count thatone because Marnie already said
that. You know, I think finding your
(28:47):
Diamond dogs to bring it back toTed Lasso, we call it personal
board of advisors when you, whenwe, we talk about, you know, the
business of you, but those people that will mentor you,
advise you and challenge you, your, your challenge network,
it's critical. I mean, I think it's, it's
amazing how often we lean on other people.
(29:09):
We need other people to kind of bring out those tough questions
that we were talking about earlier.
So that that's definitely one piece of advice.
The other, the other thing I would say is from the standpoint
of anything that you take on, weoften say you can't lead others
(29:29):
until you lead yourself first. And I think so many people,
there's so much noise about their out there in terms of
tactics about how to grow personally, professionally, that
people just jump straight into that, you know, thinking that
this is how I should do something.
You need to focus on yourself 1st, 100%.
(29:50):
You know, I suffered greatly from imposter syndrome because I
acted. I, you know, I acted how how I
thought I was supposed to act instead of being true to myself.
And it led to a real sense of being a fraud because I wasn't
being who I was right out of thegate.
That's a big one for. Our listeners too.
(30:12):
There's a lot of imposter syndrome floating around out
there. It's and it's horrible too,
isn't it? It's.
I think it's terrible. Yeah, it it really does.
And, you know, to rewind back 2520 years ago, I, that was the,
the biggest, the biggest thing that still causes me stress to
this day is thinking about, you know, I was really a fraud.
And I I kind of was because I was acting how I thought other I
(30:37):
was supposed to act instead of who I was treated.
Myself, kind of like doing what the parent is telling me to do
so you can get that approval when really in hindsight, it's
like I'm grown now, yeah. What was going along with what
your friends are doing in school?
Right. There's like, so many books as
this plays out. Yeah.
No doubt. And then last, I'll just end it
(30:58):
with just embrace the journey, right?
It's you know, growth isn't it'snot linear.
I think trust the the same each step, you know, understand who
you are there. We all learn.
And I mean everybody says it. You know, the the story about
the parents says, what did you fail at today?
Failure is feedback. It's growth, I think.
(31:20):
I think having a mindset that that you're not going to be
successful with everything is, is so critical because with
that, without that mindset, you're, you've already lost.
You've been defeated for sure. That overnight success is a
complete anomaly and it is completely a facade.
(31:41):
It is not something that happensovernight.
And when it does happen for people overnight, you know, good
for, great for them. That is not the typical path.
Yeah, takes 10 years to make an overnight success.
They think it's. 100 percent, 100%.
Well, thank you both. We'll have everything in the
show notes so they can get your books, connect with you, have
conversations, go out and see your business, all the things
(32:04):
that you're doing. I really appreciate the
insights, the transparency aboutwhat it's like to shift from
stableness to kind of in this role where you're like, oh, we
might do this today or we might do that.
I think, I think people are scared.
They really are scared of leaving us to stability.
But you 2 are proof that leavingthat stability leads to growth
and leads to things where like, I can just see it in both your
(32:26):
faces. You're so happy and so
passionate about what you're doing that there's no substitute
for that. Like you really, you really feel
great. And you know, that impacts all
parts of your life, that impactsyour family, that impacts, you
know, yourself, all the different things.
So I'm so grateful for both of you for coming on the show and
sharing your experiences. Well thanks for having us,
(32:47):
hopefully you feel the same way I do.
I tell my husband like I don't ever want to go back to work
even though I work 4 hours in a day.
Yeah, I don't, I don't mind that.
I do not mind that part because I'm just, I'm, I'm so focused.
You're so focused now. And yeah, and it's.
A lot more like play. Yeah, exactly.
Well, thank you again for being on the show.
(33:09):
Thanks so much, Ollie. Thanks for spending a few
minutes with Holly. She knows your podcast queue is
packed. If today's episode sparked an
idea or gave you that extra nudge of confidence, tap, follow
or subscribe in your favorite app so you never miss an episode
of Ed Up L&D. Dropping a quick rating or
review helps more educators and learning pros discover the show,
(33:32):
too. Want to keep the conversation
going? Connect with Holly on LinkedIn
and share your biggest take away.
She reads every message. Until next time, keep learning,
keep leading, and keep believingin your own story.
Talk soon. Hi, we're ispring, an
international team of e-learningenthusiasts who help more than
60,000 clients across the globe succeed with better online
(33:54):
learning. Our two flagship solutions are
ispring Suite and ispring Learn LMS.
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