Elena joins the podcast for the first in a two part conversation where she shares her journey from the world of professional opera to coaching and founding her own business. Elena and Jason talk about the power of inclusion and the impact that it has on all of us.
"The goal is to see what you in this seat can bring to the table."
Elena Armijo, Master Certified Coach (MCC), Founder and CEO of The C-Suite Collective, and Certified Dare to Lead™ Facilitator has a strong track record of supporting clients and organizations in creating impact, culture shifts and leadership development. Her unique ability to identify common patterns while generating new awareness and re-invention leaves clients with the ability to make stronger choices, clearer decisions and powerful steps toward their desired outcomes. Elena offers in-depth and customized executive programs for high performers who are at the top of their respective fields – from CEOs of leading businesses to professional athletes, policy-focused individuals, entertainers, and artists, and more. Partnering with Elena, these clients have created and achieved the professional and personal impact in the world they once perceived unattainable. As a former leader and trainer with Accomplishment Coaching©, and a CHIEF Core Guide Facilitator, Elena continues to expand her work with teams across the world. Elena also hosts the podcast The Collective Corner.
Elena Armijo was inspired to become an Executive and Leadership Coach through her work as a professional opera singer. Drawn to work with ambitious top performers like herself, she realized she could bring unique insight to the coaching business after spending many years “on the other side of the table.” Elena’s ten-year career in opera spanned across the globe and included work with many prestigious opera companies as well as performances at Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall. Elena holds a B.M. of Music Education from New Mexico State University and an M.M. in Vocal Performance from the University of Washington.
When not traveling domestically and internationally for speaking engagements and workshops she lives in Los Angeles, CA with her partner Aaron and their sweet pups Nalle and Bailey.
htttp://www.Elenaarmijo.com
https://www.thec-suitecollective.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/elena-armijo/
https://www.facebook.com/coachingwithelena
https://www.instagram.com/elena.armijo/?hl=en
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jason Frazell (00:11):
Hey everybody, my guest on the show today is the
amazing Elena Armijo.
Elena, she has already had abrilliant smile and it's early
where you are.
She's already smiling.
So for those who are justlistening, which would be all of
you because this is a podcast,Elena is an executive coach.
She is a three time businessowner.
She's an opera singer.
I think it might be the firstopera singer I've had on here.
(00:33):
And you're also a certifiedDared to Lead facilitator.
We might talk a little bit aboutthat today.
So Elena is an all encompassing.
She does a whole bunch ofthings.
In other words, business badass,executive coach and artist.
Elena, welcome.
Good morning.
Elena Armijo (00:46):
Thank you.
Thanks so much for having me.
I'm excited to be here.
Jason Frazell (00:50):
Yeah, I'm excited to have you on, Elena.
Elena, first things first.
I was like, where are youjoining us from today?
Elena Armijo (00:56):
I am joining you from my home office in Los
Angeles, California.
Jason Frazell (01:00):
Yeah.
And we're recording this at 1115Eastern time.
So thanks for being up.
I don't know if the dogs wokeyou up or this is just your
normal time, but yeah.
Morning.
Yeah.
She's got her morning coffee.
So Elena, we've got a lot totalk about today, so let's kick
off and let's talk a little bitabout your journey and you have,
you are a professional operasinger.
(01:22):
I mean, like you perform, youget paid to do it, something
that not many people do.
And.
Well, I'd love to hear a littlebit about that and then how you
transitioned from that work intoOwning businesses, owning
coaching businesses.
And we're going to talk aboutthe C suite collective and how
you became a coach, because thatto me, that's a really
interesting transition.
Elena Armijo (01:42):
Yeah.
A lot of people ask me aboutthis, so I love speaking about
it.
I was, am a professional singer,but really was training to be a
singer and on stage for about 22years.
When you are a singer in theclassical space, you start
training really, really young.
So my first voice lesson I canremember having in middle
school, and that's sort of thegrowth in the trajectory that
(02:06):
you need to be an opera singer,you know, in your thirties or
even your twenties.
So I fell in love with musicfrom a very young age.
It was always something that Iwas curious about and spending a
lot of time in when I was young.
I had some incredible parentswho nurtured that talent and put
money behind it with lessonsPiano lessons and singing
(02:28):
lessons.
And what I love about that isthat wasn't comfortable or easy
for them because they never hadthat growing up, but also it was
a stretch for us to be doingthings like that.
In New Mexico where I grew up,so all roads lead eventually to
New York, which is where myjourney led me.
And singing and doing the paththat opera singers do.
(02:49):
So for those who don't know,there's a little bit of a system
and a path that you follow,although that's not so true
these days, but back then in2007, when I moved to New York,
there was a series of steps youcould take to try to get to sing
to the bigger houses.
So I was on that journey and Iremember at one point I was
singing.
(03:10):
Four years straight on the road.
I was gone 10 months out of theyear from New York.
So I would literally just comeback to New York to change my
clothes for the season and gowherever I needed to go.
And that grind, that lifestyle,it seems pretty foreign now
after everything we've all beenthrough, but.
It was a hustle and I loved it.
(03:31):
I loved being all over the worldand meeting different people and
cultures and singing withdifferent people from walks of
life.
And I was exhausted.
I was burned out.
I was lonely.
I was missing a lot of thingswith my friends and family, like
birthday parties and weddingsand sometimes funerals.
(03:52):
And it was very much a systemwhere if you were on a contract,
you were on a contract.
If you didn't sing and show up,you didn't get paid.
And so for me, it started tofeel a bit constricting to be in
a system like that.
And then you add in all thethings on top of it that were
hard back then.
The industry is very, Slow interms of inclusion and belonging
(04:14):
and diversity of thought.
And back then it was not so easyto be a biracial woman singing
in certain arenas.
So there was a lot of misogyny.
There was a lot of control orpower over dynamics in the
system.
And I was just not about that.
I was, I was a disruptor evenback then, sometimes.
(04:37):
And, and I just rememberthinking, man, I don't think I
can do this for the next 30years.
I don't know that I can dedicatemy life to this.
So I hired a coach myself and ona recommendation from a friend
and got to work.
And within six months, Irealized I had built my entire
performing career from provingmy worth in the world.
(04:58):
And it was fascinating to methat I could build a whole
career that way.
And so so yeah, I worked withthe coach and then I decided to
do a coach training program tobecome a coach, but really I
didn't want to become a coach.
I just thought in my head, well,if I can learn the methodology,
then I can fix myself thequickest and it'll be done.
And I'll have a tool, which islike a very high performance
(05:22):
thing to say.
Yeah, normal hyperpersonality.
But it's also a huge joke,right?
Because so much like ego inthat, but also This is the
Jason Frazell (05:30):
edge.
This is the edge that's gonnaget you.
I can do it.
Elena Armijo (05:33):
I can fix my life forever.
Jason Frazell (05:35):
Elena, I do have a, before we go in, this is
fascinating, and, I didn't knowthis, but you and I have a
fairly similar path.
Minus the singing.
That's not happening.
Nobody wants to hear that.
They love it,
Elena Armijo (05:47):
they love it.
Jason Frazell (05:48):
Yeah, when, so yeah.
I hear this a lot.
So you got recommended a coachand you hired the coach.
What did you think you werehiring them for?
What were your, what was yourinitial thought of what am I
looking to get outta this?
Probably not to join the coachtraining program.
Elena Armijo (06:02):
Yeah.
no, definitely not to join thecoach training program when I
hired the coach, you know, I, Iwish I had a beautiful answer,
like, I think I can look at mygoals, or I can, you know, do
some deep inner work.
The real answer is I wasdesperate.
I was at the end of my rope.
I didn't know where to turn.
And I had so many judgmentsabout coaches back then.
(06:25):
I probably still do if I'mhonest.
But you know, like I, I didn'tunderstand life coaching.
I didn't understand executivecoaching.
I, where I come from, that waslike, you know, people laughed
at those industries.
Jason Frazell (06:38):
Yeah.
You figured it out yourself.
Elena Armijo (06:40):
Yeah.
You figured it out yourself.
You just it was, it was thementality of work harder, stop
complaining.
Get through it.
And so I was desperate and Ireally was like, well, I've
tried everything else because Ihad tried talking to friends.
I tried talking to family.
I tried talking to othersingers.
I tried exercise.
I tried changing my diet.
I tried all the things.
(07:01):
And I thought, well, why not trythis?
Because I, I literally did notknow what to do next.
And I was, you know, when peoplesay you hit rock bottom, I don't
know that I hit rock bottom,although financially I was
hitting rock bottom.
And there were some very big redflags for my life then
relationship wise, I was rockbottom, but it was a moment in
life where it was like, look.
(07:23):
You ain't got nothing else todo.
So this is it.
Try this, you know, like you'vetried everything else.
So what are you going to
Jason Frazell (07:30):
do now?
Very empowered.
Very empowered.
Elena Armijo (07:33):
It wasn't, but, but it was like a Hail Mary.
That's actually the perfect wayto describe it.
It was a Hail Mary.
Jason Frazell (07:40):
I marked that.
Are you, did you, did you cutout for a second?
Elena Armijo (07:43):
I, I think, I don't know if it was you or me,
so I'll just say it again.
It was definitely.
Yeah, it's all good.
I just, I
Jason Frazell (07:47):
marked it.
Yeah.
Elena Armijo (07:49):
Yeah, it was just a Hail Mary.
When I think of football gamesand like the very last hope in
the world, it was a Hail Mary.
Jason Frazell (07:56):
You're, I, I, I wish I could tell you that this
story doesn't resonate for me ormany other people I know.
They're like, coaching's soempowered.
You're like, and many people doit because they're like, I don't
have anything else to go after.
Like, well, the thing I hear inall of that, Alayna, is All the
advice in the world and coursesand reading books and my first
coach called them shelf helpbooks.
(08:17):
All the being told what to dodoesn't really work if you're
not open to it.
Elena Armijo (08:22):
No.
It doesn't work.
It does not.
Jason Frazell (08:26):
I would say, I would say to Clyde said if, if
we all knew intellectually whatwe should be doing, we'd all be
super in shape and billionaires.
Elena Armijo (08:34):
Yeah, really, really.
I mean, really.
Jason Frazell (08:38):
Yeah, everybody'd have it handled and we know that
that's quite the opposite ofhumanity Amazing.
So really cool really cool andreally interesting journey.
It's so fascinating to me Justwant to make a comment on that
as I look as I think aboutsomebody who's not an artist I
don't relate to myself as anartist never got paid to do
anything to do with art in, inlike a singing or performing
(09:01):
type of thing.
It's so interesting because Ilook at those, I look at folks
like you and I go, wow, thatmust be really fulfilling
because you're doing what youthink you should be doing.
But then you see, well, thenmark that again.
I don't know what's going on.
I'll switch to my hotspot if weneed to be marked that I said,
it's really fascinating to me assomebody who I don't relate to
myself as an artist.
(09:21):
I've never been paid to do anysort of what I would say is pure
art.
Music or or any sort of visualarts.
I find it really interesting AndI think you see this a lot with
actors and musicians as well asfrom the outside looking You're
like, oh, wow, they're kind ofdoing what they should be doing.
It's their natural talent.
You're on the road You'retraveling but man, it's just so
many people.
I know it's so dark
Elena Armijo (09:42):
Yeah, I really, and, and, you know, now on the
flip side, I don't support a tonof artists.
I would say most of my work isin C suites with executives who
are in lots of differentindustries, but I do have a soft
spot still for my, my artists.
And so I have a small piece ofmy business that I save for them
because I really do believe, andI talk about this all the time
(10:04):
with them, that if you don'thave the internal foundation or
tools to be good with you, thenthe dark side of that business
will get to you.
So I always tell people, if Iknow, if I knew now.
Like what I know now, if I knewthen it would have gone much
differently for me and Iprobably would still be singing,
but I didn't have any of thatknowledge or grounding or
(10:28):
foundation in myself that wouldsupport me.
In being the artist I want to bein the face of some of that
stuff in that industry.
And and, and the people thattake the time to get it, man,
they really sore, but they getto also experience themselves
instead of giving up so much ofthemselves for their art, which
is often what we're taught.
(10:49):
And that's just not true.
You know, it doesn't have to go
Jason Frazell (10:53):
that.
So thanks for sharing that.
That, you know, I didn't knowthat story and I think that's
really fascinating.
So you come out, you graduatecoach training program, you go
out, you become an executivecoach, as they say in Seinfeld,
yada, yada, yada.
You're working with executivesand artists and all sorts of
folks around the world.
And I know one of a couple ofthings you're really focused on.
(11:14):
Are that is the concept ofinnovative leadership.
That's one thing that you, you,you talk a lot about.
I look, could you define thatfor us and what that means to
Elena?
And then let's talk aboutinnovative leadership because
that's, I love that terminologyand it's not, it's something
that I think gets thrown aroundin the marketplace.
Somewhat.
Elena Armijo (11:33):
Yeah.
But
Jason Frazell (11:33):
I don't think it's well defined or it feels
like marketing speak withoutsome meat behind it.
I know you have a lot of meatbehind it.
So yeah, I'm just curious.
What does that, what does thatmean for everybody listening?
Elena Armijo (11:43):
What it means to me is a new style of leadership
that is pushing the edges and ispioneering into the future.
And a lot of it requirescreativity, thinking outside the
box, being willing to be in theunknown, being in the mess, a
lot of what I do in my style ofleadership and the companies
(12:04):
that I've built have beencreation.
I think of myself as like ascientist in a science lab where
we're doing a bunch ofexperimentation and not being
attached to the right waylearning from the old ways.
But really incorporating a newfrontier and to me, the
innovative leadership has toinclude anything about culture,
(12:27):
community, belonging,inclusivity, diversity of
thought.
So what I've had a lot of funplaying with the last three or
four years in experimentationhas been.
Really stepping intoconversations that raise
everybody up into the next levelof growth.
And, you know, even when we talkabout DEIB, especially in
(12:51):
America, I think it's a verypoliticized terms.
When you hear DEIB in Americaright now, everybody kind of
itches and twitches and goes,Okay, I'm getting ready to enter
a conversation now that hasbeen, you know, Around for a
long time.
And a lot of people have a lotof thoughts and feelings about
that.
And even in that conversation,it's like, no, this is
(13:12):
innovation requires thinkingabout all areas and all
conversations at once.
And so to me, that is exciting.
It, there's so much possibilityand what people can create when
we have a holistic view, awholehearted view of.
Jason Frazell (13:33):
Yeah, thanks, Alina.
That, that clarified it for me.
I was just talking yesterday toa new client.
He's a mid level manager at abig company.
And this came up, he said he'smoving into a new role.
It's a lateral lateral move forhim.
And one of the things that hewas working on his development
plan with his boss who's quitehigh up was that he needs to be
(13:55):
more forward thinking.
He's really good at the doing.
He's good.
He's actually quite good at thepeople, the day to day, the
people things, but he needs tobe more forward thinking in
order to grow his career furtherbecause he's been at, he's been
at a director level for aboutfive years now at a big company.
It's a good job.
And one of the things he said,and I really would love to get
your take on this, and I'm sureyou've heard this a million
times as he goes, I'd love to domore of that.
(14:18):
And then what happens is we'reon a quarterly, we're, you know,
we're, we're a publicly tradedcompany.
And we like to think.
And I like to think in the longterm, I like to start to
practice those and flex thosemuscles or want to be more
innovative.
And then I do a few things andthey go, thanks for trying.
Go back to doing how you'redoing it because we have these
business results that hit everymonth or every quarter.
And I would guess you hear thisfrom most of your clients as
(14:39):
well.
You're working with.
So what, what would, what do yousay, or how do you coach folks
that want more of this, but areinside of a system, which I
would argue that mostcorporations are They say
they're for this, but they'rekind of against this, especially
if they're publicly traded.
How do you, how do you work withsomebody like that around being
more innovative in theirleadership?
Elena Armijo (15:00):
Yeah, it's a really beautiful question.
I I have this, this scenario allthe time in my practice.
And the place that I get curiousabout first with each leader,
because each leader isdifferent, right?
Their innovation is veryspecific to them, is what is
the, the legacy, the dream.
(15:21):
The purpose that you want toexperience in your life first as
a leader.
Cause at the end of the day, ifyou're in the system, just like
we're all in systems, you get tochoose when you're out of that
system to some extent, right?
I mean, not, not everybody getsthat choice, but you get to
decide.
If you're in a leadership rolein the system, what's this ride
going to be?
It's almost like a rollercoaster ride.
(15:42):
I think of roller coasters whereyou're on this roller coaster,
you get to determine this one.
So what are you going to do withit?
Right?
So there's a, there's a flavorin my coaching of bringing
people to the edge of whatthey're here to pioneer and do
and reminding them that that'sgoing to create a lot of mess.
(16:03):
It's going to create massdisruption, uncomfortability
people being uncomfortable and,and really looking at, are you
willing to make that mess inservice of your experience of
yourself as a leader and seeingwhat you can do in this
position?
Because at the end of the day,the company is going to still
keep going whether you're thereor not.
And you got this time, like,let's say you're a CEO, right?
(16:25):
You get this, these next five to10 years in this seat to make it
yours.
So what will you play with?
Because the goal isn't to fixthe system, to never have it be
broken again, to have it beperfect forever and ever and
ever and ever and ever.
The goal is to see what you inthis seat can bring to the
table.
So in the face of all of thatfeedback, can you actually be
(16:49):
with the feedback and still haveyour purpose and your voice
front and center and see whathappens?
Because regardless, the seat'snot there forever.
Jason Frazell (16:59):
Yeah.
And you're replaceable no matterwho you are.
As you know.
Everyone's replaceable,
Elena Armijo (17:03):
right?
Jason Frazell (17:04):
Everybody's replaceable, yeah.
So,
Elena Armijo (17:05):
instead of trying to play a game where you make it
perfect for the system, what ifyou're actually choosing an
experience for you that willthen support your purpose or the
business growth or the ROI forthat year or any way you want to
frame it?
Jason Frazell (17:21):
That's beautiful.
We need more of thoseconversations.
I, I have two questions.
The first one here, and I'm justgoing to ask you one at a time
because I'm, that's what we doin interviewing.
Mostly, it's not perfect.
The first question I have is,let's start with this one.
You have somebody youngerearlier in their career.
(17:44):
They, that sounds great, Elena,but I'm an individual
contributor and I'm pretty muchtold what to do.
And I work at a company that'spretty like operationally
efficient is my, the positiveway to say it.
And I'd love to be moreinnovative, but quite frankly,
my boss doesn't support it or myjob.
It doesn't feel like my job hasthat ability.
(18:04):
What, like what kind of, youknow, where would you go with
somebody like that?
I understand with CEO, CEOs canset the vision.
Elena Armijo (18:11):
Yeah.
A lot of folks
Jason Frazell (18:12):
don't have that capability in their current
roles.
Elena Armijo (18:16):
One hundred percent.
My young leaders, some of myfavorite conversations to have
with my young leaders includelooking at, again, where do you
want to be in 10 to 20 years,five years, three years, you can
put a year you want, the yeardoesn't actually matter, right?
But
Jason Frazell (18:33):
where
Elena Armijo (18:33):
are you growing to?
And also with young leaders,these are the people where we're
still developing leadershipmindset, right?
So innovation can come in that,but you got still building to do
in young leaders.
So where we start is looking atWhat are the gaps in your
leadership that you need toexpand in to have a different
experience of yourself?
(18:55):
So oftentimes we'll look atyoung leaders have usually one
way of leading cause that'swhere we all start.
Right.
My way.
And then if you're looking toexpand that, how do you look at
having different levels ofcommunication, speak different
languages, be with differenttypes of people.
And this is where I think likemy opera training comes in
really handy because I had tolearn that fast.
(19:17):
There's nothing like being in adonor party in the middle of
Europe where you don't speak thelanguage.
You got to figure out how toconnect to people.
Right.
Jason Frazell (19:25):
Yeah.
Elena Armijo (19:26):
So for me, that is the, that's a really great place
to start is what would expandyou and what would expand your,
your leadership in the world tosee what you like.
And then the second piece ofthis conversation with young
leaders that I really love isyou got a lot of play time.
So if you know your values withthem and you're clear on who you
(19:48):
are, which is some of the workto do when you're starting as a
leader, once you know yourvalues and what you stand for in
the world, then you get to gofind the companies that align
with them because you got time,you got time to experiment, you
got time to grow and there are 8billion people in the world.
So when a leader, a young leaderis telling me I'm stuck here and
I don't have anywhere to go.
(20:09):
I'm like, Whoa, let's, let'sslow down that conversation for
a second, all the companies inthe world, we've forgotten that
there's a whole world out there.
And so those are, those are someof the places I start with young
leaders.
Jason Frazell (20:22):
Yeah.
I wish I would have had somebodyasked me those questions earlier
in my career.
Cause I came from, you know, Istarted up right out of college
and did some things and I wasnever really that what's the
word?
Yeah.
I kind of just made it happenthrough whatever, but I never
had anybody ask me those things.
(20:43):
Other than the standardinterview question, where do you
want to see yourself in fiveyears?
Like, I'll, you know, nobody'spaying, probably paying
attention to that.
Elena Armijo (20:50):
Yeah.
Jason Frazell (20:50):
The second question I have is.
Would you be willing to share anexample of something that you
see as really innovative inleadership?
Keeping confidentiality, ofcourse, we can keep it
anonymous.
We don't need to know productservices, just something that,
like, if you speak at highlevel, what's something that you
either worked with somebody onor just an example, or maybe if
(21:12):
you want to not keep itconfidential, a public example
of something that you're seeingin the world today.
Let's keep it to the U.
S.
U S business marketplace thatyou find like innovative
leadership and either one,either, you know, choose
something from your practice,it's confidential, or we could
break it public and talk aboutwhat's something that we all
know about.
Elena Armijo (21:29):
I think the one, well, I think the one that I can
talk about just openly andtransparently is actually the C
suite collective.
You know, when we built thiscompany, What I loved about it
is there were a couple of placesthat I looked.
There there's all kinds ofreasons why I launched it and
built it.
But for this questionspecifically, what I would say
(21:51):
is I wanted to experimentbuilding a company from the
ground up that had humanityculture, belonging.
People first mentality from theground up.
So before there was even aproduct to sell or before there
was even clients to serve, if wecould start a company from that
(22:12):
lens, what would happen?
That was like my experimentalquestion.
Number one.
And what I love we, we justentered our third year and what
I love on the C suite collectiveis that we have spent two solid
years and look, we've workedwith clients.
We still build.
500, 000, both the first yearand the second year.
Which isn't like not great, butit's also like for, for people
(22:35):
that weren't really having aproduct or, or clear on what we
were doing yet, pretty good.
Jason Frazell (22:39):
Yeah.
Elena Armijo (22:39):
You know, for walking in the door and
everybody got served at a veryhigh level, but, but what we
were focused on was ourfoundation and if we could get
our foundation to a place.
Where everybody's viewpointswere heard.
Everybody is clear why they'rethere.
Everybody's clear on what theyhave to contribute to the world
from superpowers and how thatall works towards our mission
(23:01):
and vision in the world.
What's emerged after two yearsis such a community of trust.
Everybody's fully enrolled or inright for the cause and the
mission.
Yeah.
Nobody feels discounted.
a number that their productivityis more important than their
(23:23):
humanity, that our business ismore important than humanity.
Like everybody is on the samepage.
And to me, that is like, whoa,it's so cool.
And look, we had to do somestuff that some traditional
businesses might not have theluxury of doing, right?
Like we each, each CEO on ourplatform has their own business.
(23:43):
So this business wasn't createdfor people to eat and pay their
bills off of, right?
Like it literally is a thinktank business where everything
here feels like it's, you know,Innovation and creativity and
experimentation.
And I don't know, I mean, I knowsome companies that are doing it
that way, but I still seecompanies, especially in the U S
(24:05):
centering it on metrics that areall that are number one, first
and foremost about revenue,which is not our, our methods,
first and foremost.
And they're, they're looking attheir products as the most
important thing, which isn'twrong, but I wonder how powerful
it could be if your people wereyour most important thing and
the products were second andthey support each other in a
(24:28):
really big way for any industry.
Jason Frazell (24:32):
Yeah.
That would be, that would beinteresting.
That would be interesting.
Wouldn't it?
It would be.
Because a lot of companies, alot of companies talk about this
as a concept, but their actionssay otherwise.
Elena Armijo (24:44):
Yes.
Jason Frazell (24:45):
Your actions say otherwise.
Elena Armijo (24:47):
And look, I want to own, we, we were in a very
privileged conversation to beable to even experiment with
this.
Right?
Yeah.
And starting point.
And again, I get not allbusinesses start that way.
So it is looking at the modeland seeing what works and then
going in and implementing itwith organizations who maybe
didn't have a chance to startthat way and want to either
(25:08):
change course or redirect, oreven start something new from
this lens with their industries.
That's, that's kind of wherewe're at now.
Jason Frazell (25:18):
My, I have a, I have a challenge question for
you, Elena.
And let's clarify for theaudience, the C Suite
Collective, you're the CEO,you're the founder and CEO of
the C Suite Collective, which iseverything you just described.
So you're the person who, like Isaid, it's your brainchild, you
came up with it.
The challenge for you, thechallenge question I have is,
You just mentioned a lot ofthings that sound amazing as
(25:41):
somebody who's part of thiscollective.
How do you actually know thatthose things are true, that
they're empowered, they'reenrolled, that they're, that
they're liking it?
And I'm, I'm not reallychallenging you cause I know you
actually know the answer tothis, but this is the thing that
as coaches, we hear all the timefrom people that we coach that
work in other companies.
Oh my gosh, the company thinkseverybody's so happy, but we
know they're like, it's likewith the late stats, like 42
(26:03):
percent of all people in the jobmarket are looking at any given
time or something like that.
Elena Armijo (26:08):
Yeah, it's really it's so good because, well, the
first thing I want to say isjust because we're all jamming
and happy right now doesn't meanwe don't have messes or issues.
Of course.
One of the, one of the mostbeautiful metrics I have is that
we actually can bring toughconversations to each other,
(26:28):
excuse me, and we all, we allstay in.
So there's no Like we're prettyreliable to all bring feedback
to each other and to be with thefeedback and then collectively
come up with an answer.
Right.
Or defer to people like, youknow what?
I don't, I don't have strongfeelings about this.
So I would rather this persontake it, take this and run with
the choice or the ball.
(26:50):
And so I think that's instead ofeverybody being happy and
telling me that they're happyall the time, which, you know.
That's nice to hear for, foregos, you know, and, and your
self worth,
Jason Frazell (27:00):
your self worth part.
You must love that.
Elena Armijo (27:02):
Yeah.
My self worth loves all of that.
And it's not, the metric isreally, can people bring what
they see and not be made wrongfor it and be like, feel like
they're seen, heard, and valued.
In the face of what they'rebringing.
And to me, that's a very clearmetric because I would say, I
(27:23):
mean, I hope, but to myknowledge, there isn't anybody
in the collective that doesn'tfeel that way that they can't
bring something to the table, torumble with it or wrestle with
it and get to a place where weall move forward.
And that is like one on one,right?
Like that's foundational for me.
If we can't have thoseconversations, then what are we
(27:44):
going to do when stuff getsreally scary in the world?
Or when we're up againstchallenging things.
So that's one of my metrics.
I'm trying to think anothermetric is, is every person
feeling like they are growing intheir life and their leadership
and their businesses.
If you're not growing as aperson working in this
(28:05):
collective, then.
Then the organ, the organism isgoing to stop growing too.
So really our metrics are basedon spending a lot of time
looking at each individualperson and saying, what are they
excited about?
What are they expanding into?
Does that, is that aligned withtheir values?
And they tell us all of this orthey tell us when we're off,
(28:27):
right?
Like, no, I don't really want todo that.
That's, that's not great for me.
Okay, good.
Then let's find where you are,where the seat is in this
organization for you.
Or is it a conversation thatwe're not values aligned
anymore?
And that's okay too.
Right.
Then we're, then we're havingauthentic conversations about
supporting that personnel, whichis a very different feel than,
(28:47):
You know what?
You didn't meet our metrics andyou said you were going to do X,
Y, Z by the end of quarter oneand we didn't make it.
So now we're going to put you ina pip, but really we're just
kind of documenting to get youout so that we're all safe.
Jason Frazell (28:59):
Yeah.
Like
Elena Armijo (29:00):
those conversations don't happen in
our collective because wehaven't set it up that way.
Jason Frazell (29:05):
Yeah.
I think the thought, thank you,Elena.
The followup question I havethere is.
I'm sure there's lots of peoplelistening that say, Hey, I'd
like, you know, entrepreneurs,such I'd like to do that.
And I can do that.
I'm the CEO, I'm the founder.
I have the ability to createthat.
What do you see as the, theopportunities and the challenges
as you scale a company doingthat, as you start to lose the,
(29:29):
I don't as the CEO and founder,I don't necessarily get to talk
to everybody every day or seethem on calls as you start to
build in layers.
You, you hear this a lot in thestartup world and they, it
starts great and then they hitthis inflection point of either
a certain number of funding orcertain number of employees.
And then a lot of that just getslost.
So how do you, and this might besomething that you coach folks
(29:49):
on.
This might be something you havejust had general thoughts about
or, and, or how do you maintainthat as you continue to grow an
organization?
Elena Armijo (29:59):
Well, I just want to own right up front that we
haven't reached this point yet.
Right?
So in our experimentation pools,we are still small.
And so we have the luxury ofkeeping it small right now.
And the scaling conversationsare on our radar, but we have
always said instead of scaling,we want to have impact and make
sure the product and our.
(30:21):
Mission and vision are intact.
So the way that I've approachedthis conversation in the very,
very beginning stages is protectthe integrity of the work,
right?
So but again, that's, that is aconversation for people that are
staying small.
So when you're scaling, thething that I've noticed with
other organizations that I'vecoached and worked in is that
(30:42):
when money and investment toprove scalability or your impact
in the world become the centerof focus, You've lost the focus
on the product and, and soanything that you can do to
decrease dilution of yourproduct is, is imperative in my
(31:04):
view.
And look, that's a, that's atall order and a tall ask.
When you've got a lot of peopleat the table, you've got a lot
of mouths that are, that arelooking to be sourced and fed.
And board members that aretalking to you about what they
think is right or wrong.
And founders like me, they'relike, Oh, my baby, it's
changing.
No, like you got all that at thetable.
(31:26):
And the best shot you've got isif your people are first.
And your product is, is veryclear and you continue to hold
that as sacred.
Then I imagine that there'sgoing to be a lot of different
new innovations that could comeforward.
Unfortunately, the mistake I seea lot of companies make is they
take investment.
(31:47):
They're forced to grow fasterthan they want to grow.
Products get diluted.
And then all of a sudden it'slike a massive.
Internal issue in theorganization.
It's sort of like bleeding out.
And then by then we're in crisismode.
Right.
So so, you know, again, I don'tknow, we haven't gotten there.
So I do want to own, like, thiscould be my naiveness talking at
(32:10):
this stage, but.
My intention as I move forwardis to always protect the
integrity of our work overanything.
And I trust that it will groworganically from there.
And that's, that's going to beour approach.
Jason Frazell (32:25):
Yeah.
Thanks Alina.
What a wrap today.
We, I mentioned earlier, you'rea certified dare to lead
facilitator and you, we're notgoing to talk specifically about
dare to lead too much today forthose who don't know what that
is.
That's Brene Brown's brand andyou can watch her Netflix
special and read her books andall.
She's, she's amazing.
And listen to a lot of podcasts.
I will say one thing I loveabout Brene is she swears a lot
(32:47):
on podcasts, which I really
Elena Armijo (32:49):
love.
Jason Frazell (32:49):
I find it very endearing because I'm like, Oh,
you're just real.
I love that.
I love, I love how she cusses.
It's great.
I want to talk a little bitabout DEIB.
Because you, you mentioned it aspart of your work, but I was
also struck by how you mentionedthat you experienced a lot of
things that would be considered,like, in your career as a
(33:09):
singer, you, you saw a lot ofthings that didn't feel good to
you, which I guess is part ofthe reason that you are so
passionate about it, because youpersonally I felt it.
You know, you're looking at amiddle aged white American here,
male.
So, you know, I have theseconversations with people all
the time.
I don't, I don't feel that.
It's just like, not somethingI've experienced just by who I
(33:30):
am, just by how I was born andthe color of my skin and where
I'm from and everything.
So I'm really curious.
What kind of work do you seethere?
And to wrap this, I'm curiouswhat kind of innovations you
might see in that space.
Because, well, yeah, sorry, goahead.
That's it.
Elena Armijo (33:46):
No, you got it.
What you got?
Jason Frazell (33:48):
No, I was just going to say, you know, I think
we, for those who are here inthe U.
S.
We saw a real, with George Floydin 2020 and the pandemic, we saw
a real swing.
And then it seems that there's alot of swing back the other way,
which is discouraging.
For a lot of folks, like peopleare removing those teams from
their internal, internalresources, or it's not seeing as
(34:09):
valued as much.
So I'm curious, what kind ofinnovations are you seeing in
that space?
Cause for a while it's, it feltlike.
It was less innovation, morelet's throw a lot of resources
at it.
And to me, that usually followson with, it's still important,
but now we're going to innovatein the space instead of just
throwing a lot of resources atit.
Elena Armijo (34:27):
Yeah.
And look, I think this is whatwe do as humans, right?
When we see a problem, we swingback and forth and fix it.
We read our books.
We read our books and get
Jason Frazell (34:35):
advice.
Yeah.
Elena Armijo (34:36):
Exactly.
We overcorrect.
We swing one way, we swing theother.
And what I would sayspecifically is look, these
conversations have beenhappening forever and whether
they get heightened or lessenedusually is a direct reflection
of the loudest voices and youknow, they're, they're speaking
at the time.
(34:56):
And I have a lot of feelingsabout the politic, the
politicized versions of DEIB inour country and,
Jason Frazell (35:03):
and
Elena Armijo (35:04):
how even these, these tiny little letters.
They're letters, you're all D EI B.
Right.
Have been so coerced and used indifferent ways.
And now people are just reallyconfused by a lot of it.
So the innovation that I see isreally, and this is something I
talked to a lot of people thathave been doing this work
(35:25):
forever and people that know waymore about it than I do that are
studied in it, researched in it,have tracked it for many, many
years.
Is the pieces that need to cometo light first and foremost, of
course, we want it to be a heartbased human conversation about
why we should.
And that's great.
That will always be at thecenter of my heart.
(35:46):
And until we start provingbusiness cases that are directly
related to innovation andcreation of business.
Most people are not going to getthis, right?
So the innovation I see in thescene is now people are really
doubling down on data that isROIs that are directly attached
to cultures of belonging.
And the other thing I want tosay that's innovative is people
(36:10):
for a long time, I think peoplehave seen this as a separate
conversation, especially peoplewho just want to throw money at
it or put people in thesepositions and now people are
leaving and they don't know whatto do when people get there.
There's skill gaps and lack oftraining and, you know,
everybody's confused.
And the thing that I lovespeaking about is DEIB is not a
(36:31):
separate conversation from anyconversation you're having in
your world ever.
It can go into the way, the kindof clients that you're working
with, the products that you'redeveloping.
All of this is diversity ofthought.
And that's just one, oneexample, diversity of thought.
If you have lots of thoughtsthat disagree at a table,
(36:52):
imagine what innovation can comeout.
If you're willing to be asembedded and threaded through
every conversation you have, asopposed to this separate
initiative that we need toovercorrect.
And what I want to sayspecifically around, cause you
brought in the space, you know,a white male sitting here in
business in America is this issomething that breaks my heart
(37:14):
as a biracial woman is that alot of white males and I would
say white females too in ourcountry don't realize how much
it's costing them and how muchthey're losing themselves.
This is not a problem that'sfor, for everybody else who is
diverse and that you're on theoutside.
Remember all means all.
(37:36):
So I really would invite peopleto get curious about what it's
costing them, because there's ahuge cost to you.
And unfortunately, in the waythat we've created power
dynamics in our, in our countryand the people that are winning,
don't actually see the cost.
And that's really all that I'minterested in is can everybody
see what it's costing everybodyinstead of who deserves who and
(38:00):
who's winning and who's losing.
Everybody's losing in thisconversation.
So really looking at it fromthat lens, I think is going to
be innovative.
Jason Frazell (38:08):
Yeah.
I'm going to.
We're gonna, we're gonna wraphere today and later, but I feel
like that's probably a part twoand that'll be an hour long
conversation in and of itself.
Elena Armijo (38:16):
Sorry.
I lost you again.
One more.
Jason Frazell (38:20):
I did too.
I just marked it.
You looked very passionate.
I just marked that.
The good news is it's Riverside.
So we got it.
But did you hear me say, I feellike this is part two of a
conversation that's we're goingto have.
That's going to be an hour inand of itself.
Elena Armijo (38:30):
Okay, cool.
Yeah.
No, I didn't hear that part.
Jason Frazell (38:33):
No, that's what I said, but I'll, I use Descript
too, so I can, I can edit this alittle bit, but I'm going to say
it again.
Let's turn on, let's actuallyturn on, I'm going to turn my
camera off.
I do not know what's going onbecause your audio is perfect
and your video is extremelychoppy.
Elena Armijo (38:47):
Okay.
So I don't know.
Jason Frazell (38:49):
Yeah, no, it's, it's cool.
It could be very well be me.
I'm up in the cat skills.
So, you know,
Elena Armijo (38:55):
we,
Jason Frazell (38:55):
we barely have doubt.
So what I'm going to say is I'mgoing to say, Hey, Elena, thank
you so much for all that.
I'm going to give you an openinvitation right now.
If you'd like to come back topart two, we're just going to
talk about that for an hourbecause there's like, that's
obviously a huge, juicy topic.
So I'm just going to say that,and then you say whatever you
want and then we'll, we'll wrapit up.
All right.
I'm going to turn off my cameranow.
(39:16):
Okay.
All right.
Turn, try turning your cameraoff too.
Let's see what it, what it does.
It's strange because I'm lookingat the uploading and the
uploading is fine.
Can you say something?
Elena Armijo (39:25):
It says 99 percent on mine.
Jason Frazell (39:27):
Yeah.
I've.
To be honest with you, it mightbe Riverside.
I've seen Riverside be reallyannoying before.
Yeah.
Anyway.
Yeah.
Test, test.
You sound great.
You can hear me fine.
Yep.
Cool.
All right.
I'm going to mark this righthere and then I'm just going to
say, I'm just going to thank youand then say, have you back on
part two of this?
This is a really interestingconversation.
You ready?
(39:48):
Yep.
Elena Armijo (39:49):
Okay.
Elena.
Jason Frazell (39:51):
Thank you so much for saying all that.
You've got me thinking and I'mgonna own that I am one of those
people who doesn't know thecost.
Elena Armijo (40:01):
Cool.
Jason Frazell (40:02):
And I want to know more.
I actually want to know the costbecause I care.
So to me this feels like thefirst, the opening, the open,
the opener of a whole separateconversation that we can have on
the show.
Mm hmm.
And so if you're interested, wecan come back on for part two
and really dig in on that topicbecause I know you've done so
much work in that and you'reobviously very passionate about
(40:24):
it and I would love to talk withyou about it.
So that's just an offer, you canthink about it, but I really
want to thank you for yourpassion around that and you've
got me thinking over here.
Elena Armijo (40:33):
Aw, thank you.
I love that, and I would behonored to come back anytime.
It's so fun just talking aboutanything with you, Jason.
So, thank you for
Jason Frazell (40:40):
having me.
Yeah, thanks, Alina.
Yeah, well, the other thing is,I request that you do a little
cussing.
I mentioned I like the cussing,so if you bring the cuss I'm
kidding.
You bring your authentic style.
Elena Armijo (40:51):
Yeah, that part Your authentic style.
Do I cuss?
You know, it's pretty rare.
Actually, maybe
Jason Frazell (40:56):
I don't that don't cost.
I don't want you.
Yeah.
Can you increase your
Elena Armijo (40:59):
practices in that?
Now?
I'm thinking maybe I need tojust walk outside and cuss all
the time.
If
Jason Frazell (41:03):
anybody, if anybody, if anybody's interested
in learning to increase theirvulgarity, just feel free to hit
me up and you can come to theshow and we'll just swear it all
the time.
Yeah, that's great.
That's great.
Well, Elena, I want to thank youso much for being on before
before we wrap up today.
I'm sure that people listeningtoday want to know more about
you.
You're talking about the C suitecollective.
What's the best way for peopleto reach out to you if they're
(41:25):
interested in connecting withyou and learning more?
Elena Armijo (41:28):
Yeah, you can reach me at coaching with Elena.
At gmail.
com.
That's my private practice one.
And then the c suitecollective.
com is the company one.
So feel free to reach out onthose platforms.
Jason Frazell (41:40):
Yeah, LinkedIn and we'll put all of those
things in the show notes.
Elena.
Thank you so much.
This has been a long timecoming.
I'm really glad that we got achance to have.
The first part of a longerconversation on something more
specific next time.
Thank you so much.
Enjoy the rest of your Fridayout there in LA, and we will
talk to you again very soon.
Elena Armijo (41:59):
Thank you so much.
You too, Jason.
Jason Frazell (42:01):
Thanks, Lena.
Thanks for listening to anotherepisode of Talking to Cool
People with Jason Frizzell.
If you enjoyed today's episode,please tell your friends, follow
us on Instagram and Facebook,and give us a shout out, or take
a moment to leave a review oniTunes.
If something from today'sepisode piqued your interest and
you'd like to connect, email usat podcast at jasonfrizzell.
(42:26):
com.
We love hearing from ourlisteners because you're cool
people too.
Hey everybody, my guest on the show today is the
amazing Elena Armijo.
Elena, she has already had abrilliant smile and it's early
where you are.
She's already smiling.
So for those who are justlistening, which would be all of
you because this is a podcast,Elena is an executive coach.
She is a three time businessowner.
She's an opera singer.
I think it might be the firstopera singer I've had on here.
(00:33):
And you're also a certifiedDared to Lead facilitator.
We might talk a little bit aboutthat today.
So Elena is an all encompassing.
She does a whole bunch ofthings.
In other words, business badass,executive coach and artist.
Elena, welcome.
Good morning.
Elena Armijo (00:46):
Thank you.
Thanks so much for having me.
I'm excited to be here.
Jason Frazell (00:50):
Yeah, I'm excited to have you on, Elena.
Elena, first things first.
I was like, where are youjoining us from today?
Elena Armijo (00:56):
I am joining you from my home office in Los
Angeles, California.
Jason Frazell (01:00):
Yeah.
And we're recording this at 1115Eastern time.
So thanks for being up.
I don't know if the dogs wokeyou up or this is just your
normal time, but yeah.
Morning.
Yeah.
She's got her morning coffee.
So Elena, we've got a lot totalk about today, so let's kick
off and let's talk a little bitabout your journey and you have,
you are a professional operasinger.
(01:22):
I mean, like you perform, youget paid to do it, something
that not many people do.
And.
Well, I'd love to hear a littlebit about that and then how you
transitioned from that work intoOwning businesses, owning
coaching businesses.
And we're going to talk aboutthe C suite collective and how
you became a coach, because thatto me, that's a really
interesting transition.
Elena Armijo (01:42):
Yeah.
A lot of people ask me aboutthis, so I love speaking about
it.
I was, am a professional singer,but really was training to be a
singer and on stage for about 22years.
When you are a singer in theclassical space, you start
training really, really young.
So my first voice lesson I canremember having in middle
school, and that's sort of thegrowth in the trajectory that
(02:06):
you need to be an opera singer,you know, in your thirties or
even your twenties.
So I fell in love with musicfrom a very young age.
It was always something that Iwas curious about and spending a
lot of time in when I was young.
I had some incredible parentswho nurtured that talent and put
money behind it with lessonsPiano lessons and singing
(02:28):
lessons.
And what I love about that isthat wasn't comfortable or easy
for them because they never hadthat growing up, but also it was
a stretch for us to be doingthings like that.
In New Mexico where I grew up,so all roads lead eventually to
New York, which is where myjourney led me.
And singing and doing the paththat opera singers do.
(02:49):
So for those who don't know,there's a little bit of a system
and a path that you follow,although that's not so true
these days, but back then in2007, when I moved to New York,
there was a series of steps youcould take to try to get to sing
to the bigger houses.
So I was on that journey and Iremember at one point I was
singing.
(03:10):
Four years straight on the road.
I was gone 10 months out of theyear from New York.
So I would literally just comeback to New York to change my
clothes for the season and gowherever I needed to go.
And that grind, that lifestyle,it seems pretty foreign now
after everything we've all beenthrough, but.
It was a hustle and I loved it.
(03:31):
I loved being all over the worldand meeting different people and
cultures and singing withdifferent people from walks of
life.
And I was exhausted.
I was burned out.
I was lonely.
I was missing a lot of thingswith my friends and family, like
birthday parties and weddingsand sometimes funerals.
(03:52):
And it was very much a systemwhere if you were on a contract,
you were on a contract.
If you didn't sing and show up,you didn't get paid.
And so for me, it started tofeel a bit constricting to be in
a system like that.
And then you add in all thethings on top of it that were
hard back then.
The industry is very, Slow interms of inclusion and belonging
(04:14):
and diversity of thought.
And back then it was not so easyto be a biracial woman singing
in certain arenas.
So there was a lot of misogyny.
There was a lot of control orpower over dynamics in the
system.
And I was just not about that.
I was, I was a disruptor evenback then, sometimes.
(04:37):
And, and I just rememberthinking, man, I don't think I
can do this for the next 30years.
I don't know that I can dedicatemy life to this.
So I hired a coach myself and ona recommendation from a friend
and got to work.
And within six months, Irealized I had built my entire
performing career from provingmy worth in the world.
(04:58):
And it was fascinating to methat I could build a whole
career that way.
And so so yeah, I worked withthe coach and then I decided to
do a coach training program tobecome a coach, but really I
didn't want to become a coach.
I just thought in my head, well,if I can learn the methodology,
then I can fix myself thequickest and it'll be done.
And I'll have a tool, which islike a very high performance
(05:22):
thing to say.
Yeah, normal hyperpersonality.
But it's also a huge joke,right?
Because so much like ego inthat, but also This is the
Jason Frazell (05:30):
edge.
This is the edge that's gonnaget you.
I can do it.
Elena Armijo (05:33):
I can fix my life forever.
Jason Frazell (05:35):
Elena, I do have a, before we go in, this is
fascinating, and, I didn't knowthis, but you and I have a
fairly similar path.
Minus the singing.
That's not happening.
Nobody wants to hear that.
They love it,
Elena Armijo (05:47):
they love it.
Jason Frazell (05:48):
Yeah, when, so yeah.
I hear this a lot.
So you got recommended a coachand you hired the coach.
What did you think you werehiring them for?
What were your, what was yourinitial thought of what am I
looking to get outta this?
Probably not to join the coachtraining program.
Elena Armijo (06:02):
Yeah.
no, definitely not to join thecoach training program when I
hired the coach, you know, I, Iwish I had a beautiful answer,
like, I think I can look at mygoals, or I can, you know, do
some deep inner work.
The real answer is I wasdesperate.
I was at the end of my rope.
I didn't know where to turn.
And I had so many judgmentsabout coaches back then.
(06:25):
I probably still do if I'mhonest.
But you know, like I, I didn'tunderstand life coaching.
I didn't understand executivecoaching.
I, where I come from, that waslike, you know, people laughed
at those industries.
Jason Frazell (06:38):
Yeah.
You figured it out yourself.
Elena Armijo (06:40):
Yeah.
You figured it out yourself.
You just it was, it was thementality of work harder, stop
complaining.
Get through it.
And so I was desperate and Ireally was like, well, I've
tried everything else because Ihad tried talking to friends.
I tried talking to family.
I tried talking to othersingers.
I tried exercise.
I tried changing my diet.
I tried all the things.
(07:01):
And I thought, well, why not trythis?
Because I, I literally did notknow what to do next.
And I was, you know, when peoplesay you hit rock bottom, I don't
know that I hit rock bottom,although financially I was
hitting rock bottom.
And there were some very big redflags for my life then
relationship wise, I was rockbottom, but it was a moment in
life where it was like, look.
(07:23):
You ain't got nothing else todo.
So this is it.
Try this, you know, like you'vetried everything else.
So what are you going to
Jason Frazell (07:30):
do now?
Very empowered.
Very empowered.
Elena Armijo (07:33):
It wasn't, but, but it was like a Hail Mary.
That's actually the perfect wayto describe it.
It was a Hail Mary.
Jason Frazell (07:40):
I marked that.
Are you, did you, did you cutout for a second?
Elena Armijo (07:43):
I, I think, I don't know if it was you or me,
so I'll just say it again.
It was definitely.
Yeah, it's all good.
I just, I
Jason Frazell (07:47):
marked it.
Yeah.
Elena Armijo (07:49):
Yeah, it was just a Hail Mary.
When I think of football gamesand like the very last hope in
the world, it was a Hail Mary.
Jason Frazell (07:56):
You're, I, I, I wish I could tell you that this
story doesn't resonate for me ormany other people I know.
They're like, coaching's soempowered.
You're like, and many people doit because they're like, I don't
have anything else to go after.
Like, well, the thing I hear inall of that, Alayna, is All the
advice in the world and coursesand reading books and my first
coach called them shelf helpbooks.
(08:17):
All the being told what to dodoesn't really work if you're
not open to it.
Elena Armijo (08:22):
No.
It doesn't work.
It does not.
Jason Frazell (08:26):
I would say, I would say to Clyde said if, if
we all knew intellectually whatwe should be doing, we'd all be
super in shape and billionaires.
Elena Armijo (08:34):
Yeah, really, really.
I mean, really.
Jason Frazell (08:38):
Yeah, everybody'd have it handled and we know that
that's quite the opposite ofhumanity Amazing.
So really cool really cool andreally interesting journey.
It's so fascinating to me Justwant to make a comment on that
as I look as I think aboutsomebody who's not an artist I
don't relate to myself as anartist never got paid to do
anything to do with art in, inlike a singing or performing
(09:01):
type of thing.
It's so interesting because Ilook at those, I look at folks
like you and I go, wow, thatmust be really fulfilling
because you're doing what youthink you should be doing.
But then you see, well, thenmark that again.
I don't know what's going on.
I'll switch to my hotspot if weneed to be marked that I said,
it's really fascinating to me assomebody who I don't relate to
myself as an artist.
(09:21):
I've never been paid to do anysort of what I would say is pure
art.
Music or or any sort of visualarts.
I find it really interesting AndI think you see this a lot with
actors and musicians as well asfrom the outside looking You're
like, oh, wow, they're kind ofdoing what they should be doing.
It's their natural talent.
You're on the road You'retraveling but man, it's just so
many people.
I know it's so dark
Elena Armijo (09:42):
Yeah, I really, and, and, you know, now on the
flip side, I don't support a tonof artists.
I would say most of my work isin C suites with executives who
are in lots of differentindustries, but I do have a soft
spot still for my, my artists.
And so I have a small piece ofmy business that I save for them
because I really do believe, andI talk about this all the time
(10:04):
with them, that if you don'thave the internal foundation or
tools to be good with you, thenthe dark side of that business
will get to you.
So I always tell people, if Iknow, if I knew now.
Like what I know now, if I knewthen it would have gone much
differently for me and Iprobably would still be singing,
but I didn't have any of thatknowledge or grounding or
(10:28):
foundation in myself that wouldsupport me.
In being the artist I want to bein the face of some of that
stuff in that industry.
And and, and the people thattake the time to get it, man,
they really sore, but they getto also experience themselves
instead of giving up so much ofthemselves for their art, which
is often what we're taught.
(10:49):
And that's just not true.
You know, it doesn't have to go
Jason Frazell (10:53):
that.
So thanks for sharing that.
That, you know, I didn't knowthat story and I think that's
really fascinating.
So you come out, you graduatecoach training program, you go
out, you become an executivecoach, as they say in Seinfeld,
yada, yada, yada.
You're working with executivesand artists and all sorts of
folks around the world.
And I know one of a couple ofthings you're really focused on.
(11:14):
Are that is the concept ofinnovative leadership.
That's one thing that you, you,you talk a lot about.
I look, could you define thatfor us and what that means to
Elena?
And then let's talk aboutinnovative leadership because
that's, I love that terminologyand it's not, it's something
that I think gets thrown aroundin the marketplace.
Somewhat.
Elena Armijo (11:33):
Yeah.
But
Jason Frazell (11:33):
I don't think it's well defined or it feels
like marketing speak withoutsome meat behind it.
I know you have a lot of meatbehind it.
So yeah, I'm just curious.
What does that, what does thatmean for everybody listening?
Elena Armijo (11:43):
What it means to me is a new style of leadership
that is pushing the edges and ispioneering into the future.
And a lot of it requirescreativity, thinking outside the
box, being willing to be in theunknown, being in the mess, a
lot of what I do in my style ofleadership and the companies
(12:04):
that I've built have beencreation.
I think of myself as like ascientist in a science lab where
we're doing a bunch ofexperimentation and not being
attached to the right waylearning from the old ways.
But really incorporating a newfrontier and to me, the
innovative leadership has toinclude anything about culture,
(12:27):
community, belonging,inclusivity, diversity of
thought.
So what I've had a lot of funplaying with the last three or
four years in experimentationhas been.
Really stepping intoconversations that raise
everybody up into the next levelof growth.
And, you know, even when we talkabout DEIB, especially in
(12:51):
America, I think it's a verypoliticized terms.
When you hear DEIB in Americaright now, everybody kind of
itches and twitches and goes,Okay, I'm getting ready to enter
a conversation now that hasbeen, you know, Around for a
long time.
And a lot of people have a lotof thoughts and feelings about
that.
And even in that conversation,it's like, no, this is
(13:12):
innovation requires thinkingabout all areas and all
conversations at once.
And so to me, that is exciting.
It, there's so much possibilityand what people can create when
we have a holistic view, awholehearted view of.
Jason Frazell (13:33):
Yeah, thanks, Alina.
That, that clarified it for me.
I was just talking yesterday toa new client.
He's a mid level manager at abig company.
And this came up, he said he'smoving into a new role.
It's a lateral lateral move forhim.
And one of the things that hewas working on his development
plan with his boss who's quitehigh up was that he needs to be
(13:55):
more forward thinking.
He's really good at the doing.
He's good.
He's actually quite good at thepeople, the day to day, the
people things, but he needs tobe more forward thinking in
order to grow his career furtherbecause he's been at, he's been
at a director level for aboutfive years now at a big company.
It's a good job.
And one of the things he said,and I really would love to get
your take on this, and I'm sureyou've heard this a million
times as he goes, I'd love to domore of that.
(14:18):
And then what happens is we'reon a quarterly, we're, you know,
we're, we're a publicly tradedcompany.
And we like to think.
And I like to think in the longterm, I like to start to
practice those and flex thosemuscles or want to be more
innovative.
And then I do a few things andthey go, thanks for trying.
Go back to doing how you'redoing it because we have these
business results that hit everymonth or every quarter.
And I would guess you hear thisfrom most of your clients as
(14:39):
well.
You're working with.
So what, what would, what do yousay, or how do you coach folks
that want more of this, but areinside of a system, which I
would argue that mostcorporations are They say
they're for this, but they'rekind of against this, especially
if they're publicly traded.
How do you, how do you work withsomebody like that around being
more innovative in theirleadership?
Elena Armijo (15:00):
Yeah, it's a really beautiful question.
I I have this, this scenario allthe time in my practice.
And the place that I get curiousabout first with each leader,
because each leader isdifferent, right?
Their innovation is veryspecific to them, is what is
the, the legacy, the dream.
(15:21):
The purpose that you want toexperience in your life first as
a leader.
Cause at the end of the day, ifyou're in the system, just like
we're all in systems, you get tochoose when you're out of that
system to some extent, right?
I mean, not, not everybody getsthat choice, but you get to
decide.
If you're in a leadership rolein the system, what's this ride
going to be?
It's almost like a rollercoaster ride.
(15:42):
I think of roller coasters whereyou're on this roller coaster,
you get to determine this one.
So what are you going to do withit?
Right?
So there's a, there's a flavorin my coaching of bringing
people to the edge of whatthey're here to pioneer and do
and reminding them that that'sgoing to create a lot of mess.
(16:03):
It's going to create massdisruption, uncomfortability
people being uncomfortable and,and really looking at, are you
willing to make that mess inservice of your experience of
yourself as a leader and seeingwhat you can do in this
position?
Because at the end of the day,the company is going to still
keep going whether you're thereor not.
And you got this time, like,let's say you're a CEO, right?
(16:25):
You get this, these next five to10 years in this seat to make it
yours.
So what will you play with?
Because the goal isn't to fixthe system, to never have it be
broken again, to have it beperfect forever and ever and
ever and ever and ever.
The goal is to see what you inthis seat can bring to the
table.
So in the face of all of thatfeedback, can you actually be
(16:49):
with the feedback and still haveyour purpose and your voice
front and center and see whathappens?
Because regardless, the seat'snot there forever.
Jason Frazell (16:59):
Yeah.
And you're replaceable no matterwho you are.
As you know.
Everyone's replaceable,
Elena Armijo (17:03):
right?
Jason Frazell (17:04):
Everybody's replaceable, yeah.
So,
Elena Armijo (17:05):
instead of trying to play a game where you make it
perfect for the system, what ifyou're actually choosing an
experience for you that willthen support your purpose or the
business growth or the ROI forthat year or any way you want to
frame it?
Jason Frazell (17:21):
That's beautiful.
We need more of thoseconversations.
I, I have two questions.
The first one here, and I'm justgoing to ask you one at a time
because I'm, that's what we doin interviewing.
Mostly, it's not perfect.
The first question I have is,let's start with this one.
You have somebody youngerearlier in their career.
(17:44):
They, that sounds great, Elena,but I'm an individual
contributor and I'm pretty muchtold what to do.
And I work at a company that'spretty like operationally
efficient is my, the positiveway to say it.
And I'd love to be moreinnovative, but quite frankly,
my boss doesn't support it or myjob.
It doesn't feel like my job hasthat ability.
(18:04):
What, like what kind of, youknow, where would you go with
somebody like that?
I understand with CEO, CEOs canset the vision.
Elena Armijo (18:11):
Yeah.
A lot of folks
Jason Frazell (18:12):
don't have that capability in their current
roles.
Elena Armijo (18:16):
One hundred percent.
My young leaders, some of myfavorite conversations to have
with my young leaders includelooking at, again, where do you
want to be in 10 to 20 years,five years, three years, you can
put a year you want, the yeardoesn't actually matter, right?
But
Jason Frazell (18:33):
where
Elena Armijo (18:33):
are you growing to?
And also with young leaders,these are the people where we're
still developing leadershipmindset, right?
So innovation can come in that,but you got still building to do
in young leaders.
So where we start is looking atWhat are the gaps in your
leadership that you need toexpand in to have a different
experience of yourself?
(18:55):
So oftentimes we'll look atyoung leaders have usually one
way of leading cause that'swhere we all start.
Right.
My way.
And then if you're looking toexpand that, how do you look at
having different levels ofcommunication, speak different
languages, be with differenttypes of people.
And this is where I think likemy opera training comes in
really handy because I had tolearn that fast.
(19:17):
There's nothing like being in adonor party in the middle of
Europe where you don't speak thelanguage.
You got to figure out how toconnect to people.
Right.
Jason Frazell (19:25):
Yeah.
Elena Armijo (19:26):
So for me, that is the, that's a really great place
to start is what would expandyou and what would expand your,
your leadership in the world tosee what you like.
And then the second piece ofthis conversation with young
leaders that I really love isyou got a lot of play time.
So if you know your values withthem and you're clear on who you
(19:48):
are, which is some of the workto do when you're starting as a
leader, once you know yourvalues and what you stand for in
the world, then you get to gofind the companies that align
with them because you got time,you got time to experiment, you
got time to grow and there are 8billion people in the world.
So when a leader, a young leaderis telling me I'm stuck here and
I don't have anywhere to go.
(20:09):
I'm like, Whoa, let's, let'sslow down that conversation for
a second, all the companies inthe world, we've forgotten that
there's a whole world out there.
And so those are, those are someof the places I start with young
leaders.
Jason Frazell (20:22):
Yeah.
I wish I would have had somebodyasked me those questions earlier
in my career.
Cause I came from, you know, Istarted up right out of college
and did some things and I wasnever really that what's the
word?
Yeah.
I kind of just made it happenthrough whatever, but I never
had anybody ask me those things.
(20:43):
Other than the standardinterview question, where do you
want to see yourself in fiveyears?
Like, I'll, you know, nobody'spaying, probably paying
attention to that.
Elena Armijo (20:50):
Yeah.
Jason Frazell (20:50):
The second question I have is.
Would you be willing to share anexample of something that you
see as really innovative inleadership?
Keeping confidentiality, ofcourse, we can keep it
anonymous.
We don't need to know productservices, just something that,
like, if you speak at highlevel, what's something that you
either worked with somebody onor just an example, or maybe if
(21:12):
you want to not keep itconfidential, a public example
of something that you're seeingin the world today.
Let's keep it to the U.
S.
U S business marketplace thatyou find like innovative
leadership and either one,either, you know, choose
something from your practice,it's confidential, or we could
break it public and talk aboutwhat's something that we all
know about.
Elena Armijo (21:29):
I think the one, well, I think the one that I can
talk about just openly andtransparently is actually the C
suite collective.
You know, when we built thiscompany, What I loved about it
is there were a couple of placesthat I looked.
There there's all kinds ofreasons why I launched it and
built it.
But for this questionspecifically, what I would say
(21:51):
is I wanted to experimentbuilding a company from the
ground up that had humanityculture, belonging.
People first mentality from theground up.
So before there was even aproduct to sell or before there
was even clients to serve, if wecould start a company from that
(22:12):
lens, what would happen?
That was like my experimentalquestion.
Number one.
And what I love we, we justentered our third year and what
I love on the C suite collectiveis that we have spent two solid
years and look, we've workedwith clients.
We still build.
500, 000, both the first yearand the second year.
Which isn't like not great, butit's also like for, for people
(22:35):
that weren't really having aproduct or, or clear on what we
were doing yet, pretty good.
Jason Frazell (22:39):
Yeah.
Elena Armijo (22:39):
You know, for walking in the door and
everybody got served at a veryhigh level, but, but what we
were focused on was ourfoundation and if we could get
our foundation to a place.
Where everybody's viewpointswere heard.
Everybody is clear why they'rethere.
Everybody's clear on what theyhave to contribute to the world
from superpowers and how thatall works towards our mission
(23:01):
and vision in the world.
What's emerged after two yearsis such a community of trust.
Everybody's fully enrolled or inright for the cause and the
mission.
Yeah.
Nobody feels discounted.
a number that their productivityis more important than their
(23:23):
humanity, that our business ismore important than humanity.
Like everybody is on the samepage.
And to me, that is like, whoa,it's so cool.
And look, we had to do somestuff that some traditional
businesses might not have theluxury of doing, right?
Like we each, each CEO on ourplatform has their own business.
(23:43):
So this business wasn't createdfor people to eat and pay their
bills off of, right?
Like it literally is a thinktank business where everything
here feels like it's, you know,Innovation and creativity and
experimentation.
And I don't know, I mean, I knowsome companies that are doing it
that way, but I still seecompanies, especially in the U S
(24:05):
centering it on metrics that areall that are number one, first
and foremost about revenue,which is not our, our methods,
first and foremost.
And they're, they're looking attheir products as the most
important thing, which isn'twrong, but I wonder how powerful
it could be if your people wereyour most important thing and
the products were second andthey support each other in a
(24:28):
really big way for any industry.
Jason Frazell (24:32):
Yeah.
That would be, that would beinteresting.
That would be interesting.
Wouldn't it?
It would be.
Because a lot of companies, alot of companies talk about this
as a concept, but their actionssay otherwise.
Elena Armijo (24:44):
Yes.
Jason Frazell (24:45):
Your actions say otherwise.
Elena Armijo (24:47):
And look, I want to own, we, we were in a very
privileged conversation to beable to even experiment with
this.
Right?
Yeah.
And starting point.
And again, I get not allbusinesses start that way.
So it is looking at the modeland seeing what works and then
going in and implementing itwith organizations who maybe
didn't have a chance to startthat way and want to either
(25:08):
change course or redirect, oreven start something new from
this lens with their industries.
That's, that's kind of wherewe're at now.
Jason Frazell (25:18):
My, I have a, I have a challenge question for
you, Elena.
And let's clarify for theaudience, the C Suite
Collective, you're the CEO,you're the founder and CEO of
the C Suite Collective, which iseverything you just described.
So you're the person who, like Isaid, it's your brainchild, you
came up with it.
The challenge for you, thechallenge question I have is,
You just mentioned a lot ofthings that sound amazing as
(25:41):
somebody who's part of thiscollective.
How do you actually know thatthose things are true, that
they're empowered, they'reenrolled, that they're, that
they're liking it?
And I'm, I'm not reallychallenging you cause I know you
actually know the answer tothis, but this is the thing that
as coaches, we hear all the timefrom people that we coach that
work in other companies.
Oh my gosh, the company thinkseverybody's so happy, but we
know they're like, it's likewith the late stats, like 42
(26:03):
percent of all people in the jobmarket are looking at any given
time or something like that.
Elena Armijo (26:08):
Yeah, it's really it's so good because, well, the
first thing I want to say isjust because we're all jamming
and happy right now doesn't meanwe don't have messes or issues.
Of course.
One of the, one of the mostbeautiful metrics I have is that
we actually can bring toughconversations to each other,
(26:28):
excuse me, and we all, we allstay in.
So there's no Like we're prettyreliable to all bring feedback
to each other and to be with thefeedback and then collectively
come up with an answer.
Right.
Or defer to people like, youknow what?
I don't, I don't have strongfeelings about this.
So I would rather this persontake it, take this and run with
the choice or the ball.
(26:50):
And so I think that's instead ofeverybody being happy and
telling me that they're happyall the time, which, you know.
That's nice to hear for, foregos, you know, and, and your
self worth,
Jason Frazell (27:00):
your self worth part.
You must love that.
Elena Armijo (27:02):
Yeah.
My self worth loves all of that.
And it's not, the metric isreally, can people bring what
they see and not be made wrongfor it and be like, feel like
they're seen, heard, and valued.
In the face of what they'rebringing.
And to me, that's a very clearmetric because I would say, I
(27:23):
mean, I hope, but to myknowledge, there isn't anybody
in the collective that doesn'tfeel that way that they can't
bring something to the table, torumble with it or wrestle with
it and get to a place where weall move forward.
And that is like one on one,right?
Like that's foundational for me.
If we can't have thoseconversations, then what are we
(27:44):
going to do when stuff getsreally scary in the world?
Or when we're up againstchallenging things.
So that's one of my metrics.
I'm trying to think anothermetric is, is every person
feeling like they are growing intheir life and their leadership
and their businesses.
If you're not growing as aperson working in this
(28:05):
collective, then.
Then the organ, the organism isgoing to stop growing too.
So really our metrics are basedon spending a lot of time
looking at each individualperson and saying, what are they
excited about?
What are they expanding into?
Does that, is that aligned withtheir values?
And they tell us all of this orthey tell us when we're off,
(28:27):
right?
Like, no, I don't really want todo that.
That's, that's not great for me.
Okay, good.
Then let's find where you are,where the seat is in this
organization for you.
Or is it a conversation thatwe're not values aligned
anymore?
And that's okay too.
Right.
Then we're, then we're havingauthentic conversations about
supporting that personnel, whichis a very different feel than,
(28:47):
You know what?
You didn't meet our metrics andyou said you were going to do X,
Y, Z by the end of quarter oneand we didn't make it.
So now we're going to put you ina pip, but really we're just
kind of documenting to get youout so that we're all safe.
Jason Frazell (28:59):
Yeah.
Like
Elena Armijo (29:00):
those conversations don't happen in
our collective because wehaven't set it up that way.
Jason Frazell (29:05):
Yeah.
I think the thought, thank you,Elena.
The followup question I havethere is.
I'm sure there's lots of peoplelistening that say, Hey, I'd
like, you know, entrepreneurs,such I'd like to do that.
And I can do that.
I'm the CEO, I'm the founder.
I have the ability to createthat.
What do you see as the, theopportunities and the challenges
as you scale a company doingthat, as you start to lose the,
(29:29):
I don't as the CEO and founder,I don't necessarily get to talk
to everybody every day or seethem on calls as you start to
build in layers.
You, you hear this a lot in thestartup world and they, it
starts great and then they hitthis inflection point of either
a certain number of funding orcertain number of employees.
And then a lot of that just getslost.
So how do you, and this might besomething that you coach folks
(29:49):
on.
This might be something you havejust had general thoughts about
or, and, or how do you maintainthat as you continue to grow an
organization?
Elena Armijo (29:59):
Well, I just want to own right up front that we
haven't reached this point yet.
Right?
So in our experimentation pools,we are still small.
And so we have the luxury ofkeeping it small right now.
And the scaling conversationsare on our radar, but we have
always said instead of scaling,we want to have impact and make
sure the product and our.
(30:21):
Mission and vision are intact.
So the way that I've approachedthis conversation in the very,
very beginning stages is protectthe integrity of the work,
right?
So but again, that's, that is aconversation for people that are
staying small.
So when you're scaling, thething that I've noticed with
other organizations that I'vecoached and worked in is that
(30:42):
when money and investment toprove scalability or your impact
in the world become the centerof focus, You've lost the focus
on the product and, and soanything that you can do to
decrease dilution of yourproduct is, is imperative in my
(31:04):
view.
And look, that's a, that's atall order and a tall ask.
When you've got a lot of peopleat the table, you've got a lot
of mouths that are, that arelooking to be sourced and fed.
And board members that aretalking to you about what they
think is right or wrong.
And founders like me, they'relike, Oh, my baby, it's
changing.
No, like you got all that at thetable.
(31:26):
And the best shot you've got isif your people are first.
And your product is, is veryclear and you continue to hold
that as sacred.
Then I imagine that there'sgoing to be a lot of different
new innovations that could comeforward.
Unfortunately, the mistake I seea lot of companies make is they
take investment.
(31:47):
They're forced to grow fasterthan they want to grow.
Products get diluted.
And then all of a sudden it'slike a massive.
Internal issue in theorganization.
It's sort of like bleeding out.
And then by then we're in crisismode.
Right.
So so, you know, again, I don'tknow, we haven't gotten there.
So I do want to own, like, thiscould be my naiveness talking at
(32:10):
this stage, but.
My intention as I move forwardis to always protect the
integrity of our work overanything.
And I trust that it will groworganically from there.
And that's, that's going to beour approach.
Jason Frazell (32:25):
Yeah.
Thanks Alina.
What a wrap today.
We, I mentioned earlier, you'rea certified dare to lead
facilitator and you, we're notgoing to talk specifically about
dare to lead too much today forthose who don't know what that
is.
That's Brene Brown's brand andyou can watch her Netflix
special and read her books andall.
She's, she's amazing.
And listen to a lot of podcasts.
I will say one thing I loveabout Brene is she swears a lot
(32:47):
on podcasts, which I really
Elena Armijo (32:49):
love.
Jason Frazell (32:49):
I find it very endearing because I'm like, Oh,
you're just real.
I love that.
I love, I love how she cusses.
It's great.
I want to talk a little bitabout DEIB.
Because you, you mentioned it aspart of your work, but I was
also struck by how you mentionedthat you experienced a lot of
things that would be considered,like, in your career as a
(33:09):
singer, you, you saw a lot ofthings that didn't feel good to
you, which I guess is part ofthe reason that you are so
passionate about it, because youpersonally I felt it.
You know, you're looking at amiddle aged white American here,
male.
So, you know, I have theseconversations with people all
the time.
I don't, I don't feel that.
It's just like, not somethingI've experienced just by who I
(33:30):
am, just by how I was born andthe color of my skin and where
I'm from and everything.
So I'm really curious.
What kind of work do you seethere?
And to wrap this, I'm curiouswhat kind of innovations you
might see in that space.
Because, well, yeah, sorry, goahead.
That's it.
Elena Armijo (33:46):
No, you got it.
What you got?
Jason Frazell (33:48):
No, I was just going to say, you know, I think
we, for those who are here inthe U.
S.
We saw a real, with George Floydin 2020 and the pandemic, we saw
a real swing.
And then it seems that there's alot of swing back the other way,
which is discouraging.
For a lot of folks, like peopleare removing those teams from
their internal, internalresources, or it's not seeing as
(34:09):
valued as much.
So I'm curious, what kind ofinnovations are you seeing in
that space?
Cause for a while it's, it feltlike.
It was less innovation, morelet's throw a lot of resources
at it.
And to me, that usually followson with, it's still important,
but now we're going to innovatein the space instead of just
throwing a lot of resources atit.
Elena Armijo (34:27):
Yeah.
And look, I think this is whatwe do as humans, right?
When we see a problem, we swingback and forth and fix it.
We read our books.
We read our books and get
Jason Frazell (34:35):
advice.
Yeah.
Elena Armijo (34:36):
Exactly.
We overcorrect.
We swing one way, we swing theother.
And what I would sayspecifically is look, these
conversations have beenhappening forever and whether
they get heightened or lessenedusually is a direct reflection
of the loudest voices and youknow, they're, they're speaking
at the time.
(34:56):
And I have a lot of feelingsabout the politic, the
politicized versions of DEIB inour country and,
Jason Frazell (35:03):
and
Elena Armijo (35:04):
how even these, these tiny little letters.
They're letters, you're all D EI B.
Right.
Have been so coerced and used indifferent ways.
And now people are just reallyconfused by a lot of it.
So the innovation that I see isreally, and this is something I
talked to a lot of people thathave been doing this work
(35:25):
forever and people that know waymore about it than I do that are
studied in it, researched in it,have tracked it for many, many
years.
Is the pieces that need to cometo light first and foremost, of
course, we want it to be a heartbased human conversation about
why we should.
And that's great.
That will always be at thecenter of my heart.
(35:46):
And until we start provingbusiness cases that are directly
related to innovation andcreation of business.
Most people are not going to getthis, right?
So the innovation I see in thescene is now people are really
doubling down on data that isROIs that are directly attached
to cultures of belonging.
And the other thing I want tosay that's innovative is people
(36:10):
for a long time, I think peoplehave seen this as a separate
conversation, especially peoplewho just want to throw money at
it or put people in thesepositions and now people are
leaving and they don't know whatto do when people get there.
There's skill gaps and lack oftraining and, you know,
everybody's confused.
And the thing that I lovespeaking about is DEIB is not a
(36:31):
separate conversation from anyconversation you're having in
your world ever.
It can go into the way, the kindof clients that you're working
with, the products that you'redeveloping.
All of this is diversity ofthought.
And that's just one, oneexample, diversity of thought.
If you have lots of thoughtsthat disagree at a table,
(36:52):
imagine what innovation can comeout.
If you're willing to be asembedded and threaded through
every conversation you have, asopposed to this separate
initiative that we need toovercorrect.
And what I want to sayspecifically around, cause you
brought in the space, you know,a white male sitting here in
business in America is this issomething that breaks my heart
(37:14):
as a biracial woman is that alot of white males and I would
say white females too in ourcountry don't realize how much
it's costing them and how muchthey're losing themselves.
This is not a problem that'sfor, for everybody else who is
diverse and that you're on theoutside.
Remember all means all.
(37:36):
So I really would invite peopleto get curious about what it's
costing them, because there's ahuge cost to you.
And unfortunately, in the waythat we've created power
dynamics in our, in our countryand the people that are winning,
don't actually see the cost.
And that's really all that I'minterested in is can everybody
see what it's costing everybodyinstead of who deserves who and
(38:00):
who's winning and who's losing.
Everybody's losing in thisconversation.
So really looking at it fromthat lens, I think is going to
be innovative.
Jason Frazell (38:08):
Yeah.
I'm going to.
We're gonna, we're gonna wraphere today and later, but I feel
like that's probably a part twoand that'll be an hour long
conversation in and of itself.
Elena Armijo (38:16):
Sorry.
I lost you again.
One more.
Jason Frazell (38:20):
I did too.
I just marked it.
You looked very passionate.
I just marked that.
The good news is it's Riverside.
So we got it.
But did you hear me say, I feellike this is part two of a
conversation that's we're goingto have.
That's going to be an hour inand of itself.
Elena Armijo (38:30):
Okay, cool.
Yeah.
No, I didn't hear that part.
Jason Frazell (38:33):
No, that's what I said, but I'll, I use Descript
too, so I can, I can edit this alittle bit, but I'm going to say
it again.
Let's turn on, let's actuallyturn on, I'm going to turn my
camera off.
I do not know what's going onbecause your audio is perfect
and your video is extremelychoppy.
Elena Armijo (38:47):
Okay.
So I don't know.
Jason Frazell (38:49):
Yeah, no, it's, it's cool.
It could be very well be me.
I'm up in the cat skills.
So, you know,
Elena Armijo (38:55):
we,
Jason Frazell (38:55):
we barely have doubt.
So what I'm going to say is I'mgoing to say, Hey, Elena, thank
you so much for all that.
I'm going to give you an openinvitation right now.
If you'd like to come back topart two, we're just going to
talk about that for an hourbecause there's like, that's
obviously a huge, juicy topic.
So I'm just going to say that,and then you say whatever you
want and then we'll, we'll wrapit up.
All right.
I'm going to turn off my cameranow.
(39:16):
Okay.
All right.
Turn, try turning your cameraoff too.
Let's see what it, what it does.
It's strange because I'm lookingat the uploading and the
uploading is fine.
Can you say something?
Elena Armijo (39:25):
It says 99 percent on mine.
Jason Frazell (39:27):
Yeah.
I've.
To be honest with you, it mightbe Riverside.
I've seen Riverside be reallyannoying before.
Yeah.
Anyway.
Yeah.
Test, test.
You sound great.
You can hear me fine.
Yep.
Cool.
All right.
I'm going to mark this righthere and then I'm just going to
say, I'm just going to thank youand then say, have you back on
part two of this?
This is a really interestingconversation.
You ready?
(39:48):
Yep.
Elena Armijo (39:49):
Okay.
Elena.
Jason Frazell (39:51):
Thank you so much for saying all that.
You've got me thinking and I'mgonna own that I am one of those
people who doesn't know thecost.
Elena Armijo (40:01):
Cool.
Jason Frazell (40:02):
And I want to know more.
I actually want to know the costbecause I care.
So to me this feels like thefirst, the opening, the open,
the opener of a whole separateconversation that we can have on
the show.
Mm hmm.
And so if you're interested, wecan come back on for part two
and really dig in on that topicbecause I know you've done so
much work in that and you'reobviously very passionate about
(40:24):
it and I would love to talk withyou about it.
So that's just an offer, you canthink about it, but I really
want to thank you for yourpassion around that and you've
got me thinking over here.
Elena Armijo (40:33):
Aw, thank you.
I love that, and I would behonored to come back anytime.
It's so fun just talking aboutanything with you, Jason.
So, thank you for
Jason Frazell (40:40):
having me.
Yeah, thanks, Alina.
Yeah, well, the other thing is,I request that you do a little
cussing.
I mentioned I like the cussing,so if you bring the cuss I'm
kidding.
You bring your authentic style.
Elena Armijo (40:51):
Yeah, that part Your authentic style.
Do I cuss?
You know, it's pretty rare.
Actually, maybe
Jason Frazell (40:56):
I don't that don't cost.
I don't want you.
Yeah.
Can you increase your
Elena Armijo (40:59):
practices in that?
Now?
I'm thinking maybe I need tojust walk outside and cuss all
the time.
If
Jason Frazell (41:03):
anybody, if anybody, if anybody's interested
in learning to increase theirvulgarity, just feel free to hit
me up and you can come to theshow and we'll just swear it all
the time.
Yeah, that's great.
That's great.
Well, Elena, I want to thank youso much for being on before
before we wrap up today.
I'm sure that people listeningtoday want to know more about
you.
You're talking about the C suitecollective.
What's the best way for peopleto reach out to you if they're
(41:25):
interested in connecting withyou and learning more?
Elena Armijo (41:28):
Yeah, you can reach me at coaching with Elena.
At gmail.
com.
That's my private practice one.
And then the c suitecollective.
com is the company one.
So feel free to reach out onthose platforms.
Jason Frazell (41:40):
Yeah, LinkedIn and we'll put all of those
things in the show notes.
Elena.
Thank you so much.
This has been a long timecoming.
I'm really glad that we got achance to have.
The first part of a longerconversation on something more
specific next time.
Thank you so much.
Enjoy the rest of your Fridayout there in LA, and we will
talk to you again very soon.
Elena Armijo (41:59):
Thank you so much.
You too, Jason.
Jason Frazell (42:01):
Thanks, Lena.
Thanks for listening to anotherepisode of Talking to Cool
People with Jason Frizzell.
If you enjoyed today's episode,please tell your friends, follow
us on Instagram and Facebook,and give us a shout out, or take
a moment to leave a review oniTunes.
If something from today'sepisode piqued your interest and
you'd like to connect, email usat podcast at jasonfrizzell.
(42:26):
com.
We love hearing from ourlisteners because you're cool
people too.
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