From Ambition to Purpose with Kelly Caldwell

Kelly began her journey with a clear vision of who she wanted to be, but as she achieved her goals, Kelly realized that the path she was on didn't align with her true passion. Until she took a step back and reflected on her journey.

This realization that she wants to help others and make meaningful impact on their lives transformed her career, fueling her dedication to fostering strong, compliant workplace cultures and using her expertise to uplift those around her.
Kelly excelled in every role she took on, earning numerous accolades for her contributions to HR management, workplace culture, and beyond.
Get to know more about Kelly Caldwell and the work that she does in this episode of the podcast.
To learn more about myself, Michael Esposito, and find out about public speaking workshops, coaching, and keynote speaking options, and - of course - to be inspired, visit www.michaelespositoinc.com
The Michael Esposito Show is hosted by Michael Esposito and produced by iHeartMedia Hudson Valley. Be sure to subscribe on iHeart Media, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn, Google Play, YouTube, or the podcasting app of your choice.
This podcast is powered by DenTen.io

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:21):
Hello all, my entrepreneurs and business leaders, and welcome to
the Michael Esposito Show, where I interview titans of industry
in order to inform, educate, and inspire you to be great.
My guest today serves as board president for the Mid
Hudson Human Resources Association, where she delivers HR information to

(00:44):
HR practitioners. She's also a partner at Visions HR, where
she helps employers make sense of HR compliance, which I'm
sure we could all use a little help in. I'd
like to also share with you that she certified senior
level Human Resource Management professional, and we're going to talk

(01:05):
about how that all leads into her whole life. She
builds strong, compliant workplace cultures through a combination of exceptional
interpersonal communication skills, employment and labor law knowledge, and employee
relations experience, working seamlessly with all levels of employees, executive

(01:29):
and board members. She's had tremendous experience in the area
of HR, but she's also had a lot of other
experiences in banking and in other type of management roles.
We're going to learn a lot from my guests today.
Please welcome Kelly Caldwell.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Thank you, Michael.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
All right, we've been talking about it. Did I say Caldwell? Right?

Speaker 2 (01:54):
You didn't, but I'll forget it.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
Oh my goodness, it's Caldwell.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
It's Caldwell.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. And
that's why we don't edit this show so you could
hear all of the faux paus that Michael makes.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Don't worry, I'll share with the others.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
Right, So, Kelly, you and I we just met about
what did we meet? About two years ago or so
about that and we met in a networking setting and
I got to learn a little bit about you. But
today I had the opportunity to learn so much more
about you. And it's because you and I just recorded
sexual harassment training. It's pretty like mind blowing to think

(02:30):
that I met you, hired your organization to be the
HR consultants for my company, and then soon you reach
out to me and say, hey, Michael let's do this
really cool thing and record an HR training together. And
I was like, Okay, I don't know how cool it is.
And you said, well, we're going to make it cool.
And I was like, all right, we're going to make
it cool. So I feel like we made it really cool.

(02:51):
But I also got to know you in that process,
which is so different. And I bring this up because
I think so often we meet people in our lives
and we're like, you know, we know them in a
networking setting, we know them in a professional setting, and
we shake hands and we hug and we're how's life,
How's life, but we don't really get to know someone.
And while setting up for our HR training today, we

(03:13):
really got to know each other. We spoke about some
personal issues which we're not necessarily going to talk about
on the air, but we really got to know each other.
And I think it's so nice that we were able
to connect on that level because it just extends our relationship.
And when I think of this show, I really think
of the Mica Lostposito Show as a way to extend

(03:34):
your relationship and my relationship with our communities by getting
to know each other on air, And so I really
want to learn more about you now that you've shared me,
You've given me this like little scratch of the surface
of who Kelly is and her awesome and amazingness. I'm
really interested in, like where you came from and how
you grew up.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
Yeah, so I am a Hudson Valley native. I grew
up in Kingston, went through the kings the school districts,
graduated I won't tell you what year, but graduated from
Kingston High School with some honors. And then I moved
away for a little bit. And in that time frame
I found the weather to be wonderful in North Carolina,
but I was really homesick, so I came home and

(04:18):
instead of going back to college, I decided that I
would just start working right And I ended up working
for a little company called peer One Imports.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
Okay, I remember that one.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
Yeah, I still some wonderful ornaments that I put up
every year from their store. But in that timeframe, I
met some really amazing people who taught me a lot
of things about people in general, how they interact with you,
how to sell, how to merchandise, how to do everything
that you would do in a retail setting, even little

(04:54):
things like keeping track of the weather to justify your
sales results. So yeah, the sun of your days always
brought in more customers and the rainy ones didn't. So
by keeping track of this information, we could justify exactly
what was going on all their sales. I know it
sounds wonky, but little things, I guess I learned that

(05:14):
little things matter and paying attention to details are very
important to not only our customers, but to coworkers and
everybody that we interact with.

Speaker 1 (05:25):
Keeping track of the weather, I'm very interested. So did
you guys have a like weatherboard in the back at
Peer one or something was there? Like I'm picturing my
daughter's kindergarten like weather tracker.

Speaker 2 (05:38):
So again, this is going to aide me a bit.
But we had paper ledgers, and so we would write
down the applicable metrics that we were looking at, and
we would have a last column, and the last column
would be some type of indication of weather. So whether
it was the degrees and the symbol for sun or
some type of distinction for clouds or rain, we would

(06:01):
keep track of that as well.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
That's pretty cool. Yeah, so you said you didn't did
you not go back to college at all? Oh?

Speaker 2 (06:07):
My gosh, my college journey. So I've been to college
a couple times over, and I have an associate's degree
that took me far too long to get. I am
an ever returning Mayrist student, so I have a paralegal
certificate from them, and I think I have about two
more classes to finish my bachelor's. But I kind of

(06:28):
lost my direction when I went to college the first
time around. I was a physics major at East Carolina
University and I got sick. I got pretty ill, and
I was far away from home, and I just didn't
know what to do. So life kind of collapsed around me.
I was in a pre med track, and I didn't

(06:49):
want to do that anymore. I couldn't stay up. I
couldn't even think about doing a residency, even though that
was so far in the future. So just getting to
work really worked for me, and I was quickly. I
followed people's instructions, I did well, and then the money
kind of made it worth staying in right. So I

(07:09):
was now working at the top five stores in the company,
going to New York City every day, thinking that I
could afford to move there ha HAA could not, So
I just fell in love with retail. And then when
finally I left retail to come back home because I
was commuting to New York City and New Jersey at
that point, I came and you know, joined this little
company called best Buy.

Speaker 1 (07:29):
Okay, you always you partner with these small companies. Yeah,
first of all, I'm a Mariskrad So let's go Red Foxes. Yeah. Yeah,
I'm interested in this. As you said about this struggle
with college, and I'm sure so many of our listeners
may have been in a very similar position, and everybody

(07:50):
has different reasons why school might not have been right
for them. I was pushed to finish. I have to say,
if it wasn't for my mother, Like when I graduated
high school, I was set on not going to college
for I was I was going to be one of
those I'm going to take a year off, and I
think everybody knows what happens when you do that, where

(08:10):
a lot of people do right, it's very rare that
you go back. And so my mother said, that's not happening.
My mother's an educator. She's been in the she retired
Board of ED for thirty year, for thirty years of service,
and then she's still working. I was just talking to
her this morning. She was on her way to Brooklyn,
and she said, absolutely not. So she went to the
community college, which was Nasau Community College in Queens Well,

(08:34):
that's in Long Island, and she signed me up and
signed me up for my exams, to entry exams, and
she told me one day, hey, get in the car,
and I didn't know where she was taking me, and
she says, said, come on, we're going to go for
a ride. And so I just got in the car,
just listening to mom, and she brought me to Nasau
and she said, you're taking your entry exams and I'm

(08:55):
going to wait here and I'll be here when you're
done and we'll go home from there. Nasau Community College
is on the island. There's really no public transportation there,
so there was no way of me getting out of this.
And this was before I had a cell phone or anything, right,
So it was like, all right, I guess I'll go
take this test and get in there. And you know,

(09:15):
I'm very grateful that my mother pushed me to do it,
because I did it. I excelled, and you know, then
soon went to Maris College and graduated. But again, if
it wasn't for her, I probably wouldn't have done it.
And I had my own difficulties with school of being
dyslexic and having trouble with I mean, I was very
proud to say that I used to never read, didn't

(09:36):
read one textbook. So I had my own struggles, and
if it wasn't for my mother, I wouldn't have gone
through it. And I look back at college and wonder,
you know, how did that experience shape who I am
today or what I am today? And I guess what
I can say in terms of that answer is prior
to having this podcast, I don't know what kind of
influence it really had. But I did graduate Maris with

(09:59):
a Radio TV F degree in communications, So I guess
I guess here we are and look at what Maris
did for me. So everybody has their own journey and
their own challenges with school and college. And I think
that again a lot of our listeners might might have
bachelors and masters and doctorates, but some of our listeners

(10:19):
may also have never graduated college. And I wonder, you know,
if they if your story might resonate with them. So
what was it about college that was challenging for you? You
also mentioned being sick, and it sounded more medical than
it was just homesick.

Speaker 2 (10:34):
Yeah, there was definitely homesickness. There was definitely medical concerns
and issues that went on. There was a cultural issue
as well, going to a school in North Carolina that
didn't hold the same beliefs that I personally held. My
roommate's name was Jada, and she was a young mother.
She lived about a half an hour away, but she

(10:57):
chose to live in the dorms and her mother took
care of her daughter. But Jada had much darker skin
than I did. And one night I caught her praying
and she was thanking the Lord that I was her roommate,
and I was so confused. I was like, what are
you doing? Like She's like, don't you notice? Like notice
what she's like. People don't come to our room, she goes.

(11:20):
People don't interact with me here. I'm just so blessed
that you treat me like a person. And I started
paying attention. And then I started paying attention how they
treated me as a Northerner, Like this Mason Dixon line,
which I had long forgotten in history classes, was a thing,
and it really resonated with me, so culturally, I was

(11:44):
out of my element. I just had never seen racism
like that before. It kind of made me want to
get back home to things that I was familiar with.
But getting through the classes, I slept through most of
my classes. The only one I passed that year, I
think was my because that's the only one I could
wake up for. So it was really difficult. And then
once you start kind of solidifying your career and making

(12:07):
some money and being independent like an adult and paying
rent and bills and things like that, you're like, oh,
how am I going to manage that thing that I
put on the side burner and why would I be
doing it? I don't even know what I want to do.

Speaker 1 (12:19):
Do you feel that when you're saying you slept a lot?
And I remember this when I went through what now
I can look back at and realize was about of
depression for me? Is that what you think you were
experiencing when you're saying you slapt through a lot of
your classes.

Speaker 2 (12:34):
I would say that depression I think plays a part
in most people's lives at some point or another. And
if not, then congratulations, because it's not the easiest thing
to go through. But that had to do with more
of a physical ailment. That really just hit me hard.
And then I think there were other pieces to it. Right, So,

(12:55):
not being able to accomplish my goals, which at one
point were completely obtainable, uh, they weren't anymore, and my
rebound was not quick. In the scholastic setting, I moved
a different direction. I did really well in my professions right,
and learned a lot and led amazing teams, accomplished so

(13:16):
many things. One trips to Disney World, you know, all
the fun stuff that comes along with working in retail
and sales, and it fulfilled me for a while.

Speaker 1 (13:26):
Yeah, Disney World can fulfill you for a while. Yeah
we did. We did a nice little family trip down
to disney World. And disney World, right is in Florida.
It is, and it was like it really is like
living in a fantasy land for a couple of days
and it's and then and then you come back to
the real world, which is the airport, and you're like, oh, okay,
so this is not Disneyland anymore, Disney World anymore. It's

(13:49):
pretty wild. You mentioned something about goals, and I know, again,
like so many of us struggle with goals, and of
course the overused word of pivoting from our goals and realizing, Okay,
this is not the direction for me. And you just
mentioned that you know you were in I mean, first
of all, can we can we acknowledge that you were

(14:09):
like physics what you say, physicist physics? Yeah, physics and
medicine and all. This is some really intense, high pressure
work that you were involved in. So first of all
acknowledging that, but also understanding that you said, well, you
realized it was unattainable, And I'm interested in what were
some of the signs for you that it was kind

(14:33):
of out of reach for you, or that you just
it wasn't right for you anymore.

Speaker 2 (14:37):
In that moment, pushing through with coursework was difficult. I
can't really go back there so much in that, you
know it just when you let go of dreams. Sometimes
it's a little painful right to do that. But I
will say that letting go and realizing it wasn't for

(14:59):
me at that time was great, Yeah, because it opened
up a life that I've enjoyed living. Right, So I
wouldn't be who I am where I am today had
everything gone the way that I had planned.

Speaker 1 (15:12):
And do you think that it was more of the
way that you had planned versus what you really dream of.
And I asked this in this way, like, this is
why I asked this. I see you smiling. Do you
want to answer that?

Speaker 2 (15:23):
No, I just I'm just going to give it to
you how I give everybody else. Right, So, God has
blessed me with the ability to do a lot of
different things, but has cursed me with not knowing where
my passion lies.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
Oh so maybe we'll uncover that today.

Speaker 2 (15:40):
That would be wonderful and I would be immensely thankful
to you for that. But I pick up on things,
and every once in a while a smidge and a
smart comes through. But passion is where it's difficult for
me to find what really gets me going. I do
know underneath it all, I love helping people, and that's
why I was going to be a doctor, and that's

(16:02):
why I enjoy what I do in human resources, because
it's all about helping others.

Speaker 1 (16:07):
So this is where I was going with that. Which
is very interesting that you said that about passion because I've,
like I said, known you for the past couple of
years now, and I've always felt a passion from you.
I've always felt that you're passionate about your work, that
you're passionate about the people that you serve and the
things that you do, and it's just something that is
about you. So it's interesting that you're saying that it's

(16:29):
hard for you to identify it, but I feel like
you just did, which is a passion in helping people,
and you and I share that similar passion. For me,
it's helping people. But here's what I'm talking about in
terms of plan and dream and what the plans and
dreams look like. Is that for me? My story is
when I was a kid, I thought like I wanted

(16:49):
or my dream was to be an actor. That was
my dream, it was to be an actor. At the
same time, so this is where passion comes in right
at the same time, I also so thought I wanted
to be an inventor. I remember thinking of, like, you know,
Leonardo da Vinci as a little kid and learning about
him and all the different inventions that he made, and

(17:10):
the Ninja turtles were popular. So Donna Tello was an
inventor and that was pretty cool. Of course, my guy
was Michael Angelo. You could imagine why. It was the
pizza and the name and it still is the pizza
and the name. But I had this other thing right
where it was, well, I want to be an actor,
or I want to be an inventor. And then as

(17:31):
I started playing basketball, I want to be in the NBA.
I want to be a basketball player, and there was
all these different things that started happening. Later on in life,
of course, we get the you have to get a
real job thing, and so I got a real job,
and then I'm going to fast forward here to where
I want to go with which is eventually going through

(17:53):
the rollercoaster of life with jobs and everything and landing
where I am today. I once had a guest on
my podcast where we were discussing this, and what she
said was being a multi passionate individual, and I thought,
whoa wait a second, let me understand what you're talking
about here, And it was having more than one passion

(18:15):
that we, I think sometimes as a society feel that
you have to have one passion and for you and
I we identify to helping others, and that might be
at the core, but it doesn't mean that's the only thing.
That we could be multi passionate individuals. We can enjoy
for you, retail sales. We can enjoy learning about the

(18:38):
weather maybe, or physics or all these other things. All
of these can be passions. And then it's how do
we bring it to what we do daily. And I
think it comes back down to our core values and
who we are as an individual and as a person,
and then we can use it in different ways. So
when I go with planned of like, I plan to

(18:59):
be an actor, but I'm still an actor. I'm not
on the big screen. I'm not in a TV show,
although I have starting background roles. I'm just kidding, but no,
I was a background actor in some TV shows. But
my point that I'm making here is that I can
still be an actor at the heart of it of
what I wanted to get out of acting, which was
to entertain others and do what I'm doing right now

(19:23):
with you on the air right now, right which is
to give back to others something that I have. And
so I get to still live in that passion. And
I think for you, that's probably why you still come
across as passionate, because whether it's HR or retail or
being a doctor, you're still helping others and so you're
just taking that passion and you're just putting it in

(19:45):
all these other places.

Speaker 2 (19:47):
I love the idea of multi passionate. Right, So that's
amazing and wonderful to hear. When I'm in something, I
will give it my all, and I think that we
all should, right, Why be in it if you're not
going to it and the passion may come across there.
But as you were talking, I was thinking about my
yearbook and how they write underneath your elementary school what
do you want to be when you grew up? And

(20:08):
it was teacher? And I think that everything comes around.
I'm not a teacher, and God help those teachers. I mean,
you guys have some kids, including mine, in your classes,
and I can't imagine being a teacher nowadays with everything
that goes on. But I teach every day. I love
learning and I love giving it back, and I think

(20:30):
you do that exceptionally well with these podcasts, and it's
giving information that people either need or want to help
them lead the lives that they want.

Speaker 1 (20:40):
Yeah, and I love that you bring up the teacher
thing too, because so yesterday we were just talking about this.
Earlier yesterday, I did all a full day workshop. Philips
facilitated a full day workshop that's teaching, you know, and
it was so enjoyable. But I don't know that I
would ever call myself a teacher. But I do have
these versations with my daughters because my wife is a teacher,

(21:03):
and my daughters look up to her and say, we
want to be teachers. They both one of them she
just knows. Denise is like, I am going to be
a teacher, but we also have this insurance company and
I have this other thing going on. And I let
them know, like, hey, you could also do this, and
they said, but I want to be a teacher. And
I explained to them what you just said. I'm like,
but you could still be a teacher. It doesn't have

(21:24):
to be in the formal role of being a teacher.
You could be a teacher like how I just was
a teacher yesterday. I was a teacher yesterday, or you
were a teacher today.

Speaker 2 (21:31):
We did sexual harassment prevention training. Congratulations on that.

Speaker 1 (21:35):
There we go and I got my certificate for it,
which is pretty cool. And that's what I'm saying is
that you know, you can find all these different ways
that you can, which is which is when I when
I go back to when this woman said this, I
think it was Brittany. I'm trying to remember which podcast
guest it was, but I believe it was Brittany who
had said that to me, which is multi passionate individuals.
And I love the way she said it. She because

(21:55):
we're all familiar with Leonardo da Vinci, right, and all
of his different works, from the Mona Lisa to the
Flying Wings to the Anatomy of the Human Body and
all these drawings and all these different things, right, And
she said, could you imagine if someone said to him
just stick to painting or just stick to the human like,
could you imagine if we didn't get all these other

(22:16):
works from Leonardo da Vinci? It would be awful.

Speaker 2 (22:21):
It's terrible to keep somebody in a box that doesn't
deserve to be in a box.

Speaker 1 (22:24):
Right. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:25):
So I'm happy every day that I get the flexibility
and what I do to do a little bit of
everything that makes me enjoy living.

Speaker 1 (22:32):
Yeah. And so you mentioned that you were homesick and
you dealt with some racial tensions down in North Carolina,
And this was North Carolina And it can't have been
that long ago because I think that you're younger than me.

Speaker 2 (22:46):
So, yeah, it was back in the nineties. Okay, so
we won't put a year on it, but it was
back in the nineties, and it just kind of points
out that there are still these things that people go through, right.
I have lots of friends in my circle, and when
Black Lives Matter came up, right, it was It's a thing.

(23:06):
It's not something that everybody sees all the time. And
you can be the quote unquote blind to it, but
that's only because you're choosing to be because there are
some things going on out in the world which needs
some intervention from people that can help in other ways.

Speaker 1 (23:26):
What's interesting about you bringing that up right now? And
again I gets so weird. You know, so many of
the things that we talked about in the training that
we just did together, and that you just bring up
now is one of the things that we talked about
in the training is just because I think of that
one case study where that woman says like, well, it's
never happened to me, and that person's never been like
that with me, so I don't know it to be true.

(23:48):
And to your point right now, like just because it
didn't happen to you doesn't mean it's not true.

Speaker 2 (23:51):
The ability to see through other people's experiences. To take
a moment and really get in their shoes or as
close to their shoes as you can get to see
what they're going through, empathize and sympathize and all of
those pieces is a real skill that I wish more
people had. And when I find people that can do that,

(24:13):
I stick close to them because I know that the
judgment's not going to be there and we're going to
have a great relationship and they're wonderful people. But just
being able to take yourself out of you and put
yourself and walk a mile in that person's shoes is
a tremendous ability to have. So I think as I
continue on, I try to do that more and more.
It helps me in every aspect of my life, both

(24:35):
personally and professionally, to be able to go, okay, can
we talk about this in a way that removes the
personal stuff but captures what you're feeling or what your
experience is.

Speaker 1 (24:48):
I like the way that you said that. It makes
me think of someone that you might have leaned on
or had gone to as a mentor when you were
in that time when you were experiencing this, Was there
anybody that you were reaching out to on your way
back coming home.

Speaker 2 (25:04):
Not in that situation, but in the years to follow.
One of my best friends named Glinda. So Glinda is
more Irish than I am, but she also has quite
a bit of Native American background and some African American
and nobody knows those other pieces because she looks dark, right,

(25:25):
And so her experiences are unique to all of those pieces,
because everybody had to deal with backgrounds of that stuff.
You know, every population there that I discussed had some
things coming to this country that they dealt with. But
she said to me, she goes just checking in, just
seeing if I'm okay. Just giving a place for me
to talk through so that you better understand helps the world.

(25:51):
And it came years later, but it helps so often
because people just don't get it. I've had friends say
that their interactions with certain members of the population is
completely different. They actually have to kind of not be
themselves to stay safe. And I don't generally get off

(26:13):
on this tangent, but being in North Carolina and dealing
with someone who actually, I mean, who's going to thank
God that I'm their roommate. I'm messy and unorganized and
everything like that. Sometimes at least I was in college, and.

Speaker 1 (26:28):
Who wasn't in college?

Speaker 2 (26:29):
But that to be the supreme being to be thankful
that I am your roommate. That will always stay with me.
The fact that someone had to deal with prejudices and
discrimination to the extent that that was what they're thankful for,
that they had a New Yorker who was willing to
look at them as a person like you weren't looked

(26:52):
at as a person before I came along. It's just
crazy to me.

Speaker 1 (26:56):
I mean, what a great experience for you to have
and to bring into your life today, especially with the
work that you do with HR and HR trainings and
all these different things that you're you're dealing with. And
I think that, you know, people come into our lives
for a reason, and you know, you came into her
life for a reason and provided a safe place for her,
and she came into your life for a reason and
taught you something that maybe you would have never learned,

(27:19):
you know, until later on in life. Perhaps. I'm sure
at some point.

Speaker 2 (27:23):
Right college isn't all about the grades and the graduation,
But I mean, I couldn't have gotten that experience anywhere else.

Speaker 1 (27:28):
It's that idea of you know, I think, you know,
you were there for that degree, but you were there
for really something else and something bigger and something greater,
which is what we're kind of talking about right now.
You know, I feel like I really feel that about
you right now in this moment of you sharing that.
But I want to move into that career.

Speaker 2 (27:50):
Then.

Speaker 1 (27:50):
So you were in New York City, You're kind of
going back and forth between Jersey and New York City.
You want to be back in the Hudson Valley and
just I mean a lot of our listeners are probably
Hudson Valley natives and are very familiar with it. But
I mean for those who aren't, you know, the and
the city as well, you know, just to kind of
just just paint a picture for everybody. New York City

(28:13):
is just like they portray into movies. It is fast pace.
It is I don't think people are intentionally rude. I
think people are just moving at the speed of light
and they don't feel that they have the time to
communicate or be polite, and so therefore it is a
little crude sometimes, and it is a little dirty more

(28:36):
than a little I'm being polite here, I'm being kind
to my city, but it's very fast pace. It's very
like keep on your guard, keep on your toes. There's
a lot of cars, there's a lot of movement, there's
a lot of people. And then you can either drive
up or take the train up to the Hudson Valley,
which is I mean, we say a breath of fresh air,

(28:58):
but it is more true than you could imagine, from
the air in the city to the air up state
to where you don't have as much traffic. You don't
have all the trucks. I mean we have them on
the State Thruway and in certain roadways, but not to
the degree that you have in New York City. And
then you have this beautiful scenery that we have here

(29:20):
of all of the trees and the mountain ranges and
the Hudson River, depending on where you are in line
with the river. I mean, it really is a huge
contrast from each other. And when people come to New
York and they go to visit the city, I so
encourage them to come upstate and see this. And now
I'm from Queens and I never really ventured past Hawerman

(29:42):
State Park, which is in Rockland County, which is about
like sixty miles south of US from where we were
sitting right now. So I mean, it really is such
a huge contrast, and I wanted to just paint that
picture for all of our listeners in case they haven't
gone to either one of those or listening from somewhere else,
Because this was the life you were living. You were
living a life of and Jerseys, New Jersey in the

(30:05):
areas that surround New York City in Jersey and the
surrounding burrows are very similar to Manhattan in that hustle
and bustle space. You're you're kind of like, you know,
straddling these two lives and these two lifestyles, and just
after leaving North Carolina. So I'm interested in what that
was like for you as this young business woman, this

(30:29):
young executive, Like, what was that like?

Speaker 2 (30:32):
Listen, life is fun in your early twenties, you know,
I was. I was blessed with the opportunity to be
in New York City and be around things that I
had never seen at home. Right. So Bodega's with flowers
that you can get any time, and they mix up
your salads and chicks them and make everything beautiful, right,

(30:53):
And I don't even know who would make me a
salad at that point in my life up here except
for Adams right right, So it was just amazing. The commute.
If you ever think you're going to commute from the
Hudson Valley to New York City on a regular, daily,
everyday basis, please don't. I ended up hating the city actually,
right because it was two and a half ish hours.

(31:16):
I lived in Kingston at the time, so and then
two and a half ish out and then you're catching
the train on the hour, so you may have more
time involved in that. So it was a lot. But
I wouldn't have traded it for anything. And I'm familiar
with the city. I can drive down there. I feel
comfortable down there, not quite a second home, but it
doesn't freak me out like it's some of some other

(31:37):
people I know.

Speaker 1 (31:38):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, it certainly could be intimidating if
you're not from the city, if you're not from that
area or haven't lived there for an extended period of time,
it is an intimidating place, you know. I'm very fortunate
in that it's a place that I grew up in
and know it very well. But even now, like, especially

(31:58):
since I'm so far removed up here now, twenty years
going back down there. You know, some things are second
nature to me, but some things are foreign to me.
Now it's a totally different place. And just like anywhere
in our world, things change. I mean our Hudson Valley
region is changing tremendously. Yeah, tremendously. So you were an executive?

(32:18):
Was that when you were at Peer one?

Speaker 2 (32:20):
So at Peer one I was a retail store.

Speaker 1 (32:22):
Manager manager And when did you move into that executive role?

Speaker 2 (32:26):
So I would say that that's more recent. So I've
had some vice president roles and now I'm a partner
at Visions Human Resources. But there's always been the stepping
stones along the way, right, So you have to do
the work to know the work.

Speaker 1 (32:39):
Yeah, what was that like for you?

Speaker 2 (32:41):
I love it? So I think my transition was with
best Buy. I went from retail to a corporate employee
and I managed some large scale projects for them. So
as a project manager New York City, Long Island, parts
of Lower Hudson Valley at certain points, and dealing with
multimillion dollar vendors and projects and timeframes. Project managements. Management's fun, right,

(33:08):
Like you're just always moving and hoping that everything goes
your way. But that's really where it kind of moved
over to a different strategy, a different thought process, a
different way of doing business. Things were more interconnected, right,
So I have needs from my retail managers, and I
have needs from my corporate staff, and then I have

(33:29):
vendor needs. It's just a balancing act. And after that
experience with Best Buy, everything became a lot easier.

Speaker 1 (33:37):
I'm interested in this balancing act that you just brought
up because as entrepreneurs, as executives, as partners, you say
it became a lot easier. I'm sure, but maybe became
a lot different. But balancing act. How did you balance
at all? What were some of the processes that you
followed to You know, project management is crucial in any

(33:59):
success of any business, So what was the balancing act
for you? What was your processes?

Speaker 2 (34:04):
So getting buy in from stakeholders is key and making
sure that we're going to stay compliant with our commitments. Right,
So a lot of our vendor relationships had money behind
certain product placements, so making sure that we did what
we needed to do and sometimes we would have to
verify that or they get a surprise walk. The thing
about the New York City market is a lot of

(34:25):
people go and visit New York City. So you get
key executives from like Sony or Samsung or any of
the major electronics retailers, and they would come in and
did you set up the display exactly the way that
we wanted it where we wanted it. So those were important.
But then you had the store managers who had a
bit of cowboy in them and they wanted their placements

(34:45):
in their store, So we moved things around that were
not tied to specific locations for their needs and their customers,
because certain stores sell headphones more than others, right, And
so we looked at that customer centricity and where customers
were in their shopping experience and really change things based
on all the stakeholders, making sure to hit on everyone.

Speaker 1 (35:07):
What's something that you think you learned from that experience
that you've carried into today.

Speaker 2 (35:13):
I think from best buying, project management planning is key.
Listening to the voice of people. So listening to the
voice of those people that are be your end consumers, right,
So making sure that your clients, your customers, whoever it is,
that you take into consideration what they want and need,
but still value and cherish the partnerships that you've entered

(35:37):
into there's a reason that you get further ahead, and
you generally don't do it alone, so you have to
be true to those relationships as you go along the way.

Speaker 1 (35:45):
To That's interesting. Yeah, the relationship piece, I feel like
is just a common theme in most success stories, right,
like having relationships. You know, in that training yesterday, I
was just saying that this is a leadership class, and
we talked about it earlier. It's a leadership class. And

(36:05):
these every year, every class year, they're proud of their
class year, and they call themselves alumni, which I think
is really wonderful. And I was speaking with them about that, saying,
you know, you're going to be alumni of this class,
and you're going to have relationships with each other and
to lean on each other. So for me, this was
a public speaking training I was giving, and there was
about two or three people out of the forty that

(36:27):
came up that you could I could tell were natural speakers,
and they were just very comfortable. They spoke very well.
They didn't have too many crutch words that you were
so worried about before, they didn't have too many non
filler words. They just were very well spoken. And confident.
When I asked them, some of them said they had
some training, were teachers, things of that nature. So what

(36:49):
I said to these this class, I said, you know,
I'm here for the day and I'm available to you,
but this is your alumni, right. You have this person
in your class, Stay in touch with them and communicate
with them, because they're going to be the person that
you could lean on and ask, hey, can you listen
to this presentation and give me your feedback. And it
was interesting because one of those people came up to

(37:10):
me afterwards and she said, I never thought of myself
as a mentor for others. I need to learn how
to do this, and it was she got this sense
of pride. But really, what I want to say in
this is that it's these relationships that we form with
each other as we go through experiences in life that
help us overcome challenges and help us excel and help
us grow. So I love that you bring up the

(37:31):
relationships in this Best Buy experience.

Speaker 2 (37:34):
Well, I think I left out one of the most
important ones, and that was my team of fellow project
managers and the team that I managed. Right, So my
project team, none of the projects that I worked on
would have been done were it not for the help
of those people. So while we had all these things
to manage as far as external noise, right right, Really,

(37:55):
the team that I had, or the teams that I
worked with, were phenomenal. It's still friendships to this day
and I can't imagine not having that experience in my life.
And it is all about relationships and relationships. You know
that we could probably tough for hours on relationships, but
they're critical, trust, respect, all those pieces that need to

(38:19):
come through. If you're not working on relationships on a
regular basis, then you need to reevaluate what you're doing.

Speaker 1 (38:26):
Yeah, And I love that that you bring that up
about the team because that's collaboration. So I think that again,
you know, in order to get buy in from a team,
youve got to collaborate with them. And collaborating is, like
you just said, is listening to the needs. You know,
it's not just saying this is what we're going to
do and oh we're collaborating. That's not collaboration. It's listening
to the needs. It's what are the needs? Right? You

(38:49):
mentioned relationships, and I do think they're so important that, yeah,
we don't have to spend an hour on them. But
you mentioned trust, and I think that that's one of
the hardest things to understand, is how to form that
trust in a relationship. I think there's people that immediately
from the moment you meet them and the moment they

(39:10):
meet you, you have one hundred percent trust and it's
up to you to kind of break it or up
to them to kind of break it. And then you
have people who just don't trust at all and you
have to really gain their trust. I know, for me,
I'm one of those people where you meet me, you
got my trust, I got your trust. You know you
truyt I'm gonna trust you right off the bat. You
got to give me a reason to break it, right.
That's my personality. But with these two dynamics and kind

(39:32):
of going between them, I'm interested in your thoughts and
your theories on how to be able to form relationships
to where you can establish that trust.

Speaker 2 (39:39):
Yeah, so trust can be easier than you think. You
need to find out what's important to the person that
you want to gain that relationship with, and then you
do everything in your power to make that a little
bit easier or a little bit more obtainable, or make
sure that the time is off for the kids. Thing, right.

(40:00):
So I worked with a manager named Dan and walking
around the floor with him, and there was this employee
don't remember his name, but he was complaining about missing
that little wedge, you know, that wedge that goes under
a phone that takes it from flat to like, oh,
kind of inverted you. So he was missing the wedge
on his phone in his particular department. So Dan and

(40:23):
I are walking, We walk by his office and we
grab his wedge off of his phone. He returns it
to this employee who I dismissed as somebody who was
whining about nothing. And I said, why did you? Why?
Why he goes? If it took that little to make
him happy, then why wouldn't I do it? And that
really changed that servant leadership position. If you can do

(40:46):
something to make someone's life better, especially if it's small,
but even if it's large, why wouldn't you?

Speaker 1 (40:54):
Right, Yeah, the little things in trust, like is what
I think about. Like what you're just saying too is
is it's really just a little things. It doesn't take
a big, overwhelming thing for you to gain someone's trust
or to give someone trust. It's really the little things.
I think in a networking setting, it's the subtle things
of just listening to somebody as they're speaking to you.

(41:14):
So often in networking settings, you and I experienced this
all the time, where you can literally tell that the
person is just there to get your business card or
give you theirs, and the conversation is pretty much going nowhere.
And it's that. It's probably why people hate networking events, right, It's.

Speaker 2 (41:32):
Probably one of the reasons. I would say that having
good relationships leads to collaboration like this. Yeah, right, So
I could definitely do certain things on my own, but
so much better when there's other people involved. You get
different diversity and thought, you get different availability to equipment,
you get different perspectives on how things can be done.

(41:54):
I don't know why you'd want to do it alone
when you can have great participation relationships with people.

Speaker 1 (42:01):
Yeah, and you know the participation Part two is that's
like that inclusion, right, So you included me in something
that you're doing. And I think it's so important too
in terms of those relationships, is that it's not just
we're here and we're talking networking right now. I think
to some extent is you know we're here to at
a business function to network with each other and get referrals,

(42:24):
and you kind of break that barrier down by inviting
me to do something with you, and you know, same
thing with you know myself and doing something whatever. It
is the example, but this is the example right now
of breaking the barrier down from hey, let's you know,
here's a good referral for me, here's a good referral
for you. It's no, no, no, let's why don't we do
something together here? And I feel like it changes the

(42:45):
dynamic from there were networking partners too. We're partners, we're friends,
we're like I just said earlier, like I got to
know you personally today more than just business. And I
think it's like breaking that down and it forms, like
you said, these deep connections and these deep relationships with
people where when you get through all of that, it's
pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (43:05):
And you want to seek them out, you want to
do business with them. I just went to an ornament
decoration party on Sunday. That's cool, right, somebody I met
on a networking cruise, right, Because you can't go anywhere
when you're on the networking cruise unless you're jumping into
the Hudson, which I wouldn't recommend, and she had invited
her friends and she rents out this small space and
every year she puts this on. And I ended up

(43:27):
knowing quite a few people at the table already, but
then new people or they brought their kids and I
learned something more about them. And out of that ornament session,
I have some great ornaments. But I also have some
relationships that I want to dive into further. I'm like,
I never knew you did that? What? Yeah? And those
are opportunities not only for my personal enrichment, right because

(43:49):
I love what you're doing, but there are business opportunities there.

Speaker 1 (43:53):
Yeah. It's so cool. It's so cool when you meet
somebody and then you find like this the one little
thing out about them and you go, wait a second,
I need hour with you. See. Unfortunate, I got a podcast.
I get to say that. I'm like, I want to
come on my podcast.

Speaker 2 (44:05):
I love that, Thank you very.

Speaker 1 (44:07):
It makes it fun. I'm like, Kelly, want you to
come on a podcast.

Speaker 2 (44:10):
We get to play with big microphones over here.

Speaker 1 (44:13):
So you know, we were just talking about the relationships
and Best Buy and how that was like a really
great takeaway for you, and then you moved into the
HR space or the banking space actually first, right, so
you went from retail to retail at a whole other level.

Speaker 2 (44:30):
Right, Like, Yeah, So I had a megabank say hey,
you have some transferable skills. It's the first time I
ever heard this, and I was like, what do you mean. Well,
you sold widgets here, come sell widgets here, and some
banks are into selling widgets. And I did really well.
But I did love that banking is a service. It's
not a sales opportunity. And I felt at certain times

(44:55):
I cared more about selling unnecessary products than I did
about helping a person with their finances. And I'm really
passionate about Oh talk about passion, really passionate about helping people,
and finances in particular can be really difficult for people.
So when I transferred that skill over, I gained a

(45:16):
whole bunch of skills that allowed me to go from
that really big bank to a small hometown bank, which
I loved, absolutely loved that.

Speaker 1 (45:25):
Yeah, the transferable skills, I'm interested in speaking a little
bit more about this. And you know, that was the
first time you heard of it, and for me back
in the day. It would have been the first time I
heard of it, but more recently for me, I'm thinking
about I was in a I'm in a speaker course
or a speaker mastermind, that is. And in there I
had a gentleman say he was in the army, in

(45:48):
the military for many years. He was a sergeant master commander.
Trust me, he'll be coming on the podcast soon too.
I invited him after hearing his story because I was like,
I need to learn He was one of those people, right, like,
I need to learn more about you, sir. Uh So
he was this, this high personnel in the military, and
he's in this mastermind with me. And he raises his

(46:10):
hand to the for the moderator and says, here's my issue.
I want to be a keynote or I want to
be a speaker. That's why we're all there. We want
to move into that realm. And my issue is I
don't know what to speak about. He said, I have this,
you know, this military background, but I'm no longer in

(46:30):
the military. I'm now a civilian. I mean, he didn't
call himself that, but he was saying it in so
many words, I'm no longer in a military, you know,
I coached basketball, and you know I'm doing this other
work and you know, I'm a father and all this
other stuff. He goes, So, I know, I want to
speak about something, but I don't know what to speak about.

(46:51):
And I quickly had to interject. You know, my coaching
hat went on. All the all the sirens were ringing
for me, and I said, can I Because in these masterminds,
the host is just there as a host. I mean,
they're there to offer coaching and advice and guidance, but
we're all there to help each other. And so I said,
can I jump in? And of course they said yes.

(47:13):
And I said, you know, your military background, although you
might be retired now and he is retired now, plays
such a huge role in your life today and is
such a part of your story and your leadership qualities.
And that was part of what he was saying, is
you know, he wants to speak about leadership to companies,

(47:35):
but he doesn't know how because he doesn't know how to,
you know, help them understand that you know what leadership
is because he's not been a leader in a civilian world.
What he was saying eventually right, and I'm like, you
were a leader in the army, like you've been to battle.
There is no place more real as a leader than that,

(47:58):
you know, like whether you agree or disagree with war
or battle and peace and all that other stuff like, look,
you know, I want peace on earth for one hundred percent.
The point that I'm making here is he was a
leader in a life or death situation, not in a
is this business going to succeed or fail situation? Or

(48:20):
do I terminate or not terminate situation an employee. That is,
he was in situations where he had to make calls
for people's lives. That is the heart of leadership. And
we talk about transferable skills. I pushed so hard for
him to understand that that is a transferable skill. Maybe

(48:42):
at that level when you're speaking with corporations, but it
certainly is a transferable skill. And so I bring it
back to our conversation here about transferable skills and understanding
what transferable skills means for you and how you see
it work in your life today.

Speaker 2 (49:00):
My life is all about transferable skills, just because I've
transferred from industry to industry or type of jobs. At
best Buy, there is a manager named Glenn, and Glenn
said that best BUYE would teach you to sell forever.
And in every role that I've ever had, I've had
to sell something. Whether it's myself, whether it's a product,

(49:23):
whether it's a pitch or an idea, I've always had
to sell. You will always need to sell something to
a spouse, to a child, to a teacher, to a colleague.
You'll have to sell. So sales and the ability to
talk to people, all those things, that's all interpersonal skills. Leadership.
Leadership is amazing, right, and if you have witnessed good leadership,

(49:49):
it can be plopped into almost any industry. They have
to learn the nuances, but the leadership is there. So
transferable skills. They're the things that sometimes can be taught,
but really if they're solid. We talk about this in
workforce development. These are the skills that they're not teaching
in school because you really can't to the biggest degree,

(50:11):
but they're the ones that really mean the most. They're
the ones that will keep humans in jobs instead of
computerized right. So you need to master these soft transferable
skills to stay relevant in what you do.

Speaker 1 (50:25):
Yeah. I like that you bring up the sales part too,
because I think I forget where I heard this, but
they said, being a parent is the If you're a parent,
you have the biggest and most important sales job there is.
And it's so interesting because you know, as a parent, right,
you can't kids are smart. You can't sell them like

(50:48):
you could sell a widget. Right. You can say here's
the features and benefits and ooh, look at this, and
we're just going to discount it today, and then the
person buys it. You know, obviously I'm making a very
simple situation there. Kids are like you could tell them
all the features and benefits and they're just like, nah,
not doing it. It's like, hey, this broccoli is super
healthy vitamins, it's going to make you strong. Yeah, well

(51:10):
it doesn't taste good.

Speaker 2 (51:11):
So now sometimes you have to assume the sale like
your mom did. She had to put you in a
place and say this sale is happening. You're going to college, right,
so no no options around that. And all of those
sales strategies come into play in so many ways.

Speaker 1 (51:26):
Yeah yeah, and and well I go back with kids
and negotiation, right, So there's this there's this like nice
little balance, like so what I've learned with my kids
and they're really wonderful leaders. So, but I'm just going
to use this as an example in that they're wonderful leaders.
I say this, and I'm like, we eat chicken nuggets
at least three times a week, but score right. But

(51:46):
what I'm saying is, you know, in sales, we talk about,
you know, holding some some of the features back or
some of the Let's say, like I don't know the
reasons why somebody should buy back a little bit and
the right, the key, the key things back a little
bit only because we don't want to overwhelm to where

(52:06):
now they're having trouble with decision making. And also so
that you know, as they're questioning whether to buy or
not buy this thing, you can start peeling these out.
You can start handing out okay, well what about this
and what about that? And so with kids, it's kind
of similar in that, like I know that if I
want them to eat certain foods first, like broccoli or
carrots or whatever, those are the things I put out

(52:28):
first before we start putting out the stuff that's yummier
and everything. Right, it's like, let's put this out first.
Let's see how you do with that. And it's like
I'm gonna take a couple bites, but I don't really
want it. Okay, Well I'm bringing this nice one out here,
and they're like, oh, okay, I'll finish that so I
could have this. So I think about it in the
sales in the same way of like, well, let me
just tell you, let me get your interest, and now
I got your interest, and are you with me at?

(52:50):
You're not with me at? Okay, I got this other
cool thing for you. So they really teach you on
how to kind of really negotiate the sale and move
forward and be patient in the sale, like not just
put it all out right, because we all know everybody's
just gonna want the delicious chicken nuggets.

Speaker 2 (53:06):
The delicious chicken nuggets. I can't disagree with anything that
you've said there. When it comes to sales, and going
back to some of our previous conversations, I always found
it as what do you need as a customer? How
am I fulfilling what you came in to talk to
me about? Right? So it's really really good at selling

(53:26):
stuff because I would say things like, hey, you're going
on a trip, you have a camcorder. Great, I'll sell
that to you today. Where is the next closest store
when you're on the beach and you wanted videotape something.
Do you want me to get you some extra batteries? Now?
Do you want me to get you some extra tape? Now?
Do you like all the ads ons? Because you can
paint a picture for a person, and quite frankly, if

(53:49):
you are doing it correctly to their needs, you're actually
doing them a service because then they're not going to
be stuck out there someday looking for the thing that
you didn't offer to them. My mother would come home
from places and she would say, but they didn't tell
me I needed that wire, right right. People are afraid
to ask. But you're doing a disservice to somebody if
you're not giving them what they need and letting them

(54:11):
make the decision.

Speaker 1 (54:12):
Yeap, right, yeah, Because even if they don't buy that
wire like you said, your mother would say, oh, I
wish I would have bought that wire where she know
it goes. I know next time I will, right so,
And I love that too that you said paint the picture,
because again, that's really really important that you paint that
picture for them, because if you just told them you're
going to need an extra battery. It's why are you
trying to sell me another battery? But if you explain
to them like you just did of you know, you

(54:33):
might be on this island and you're going to really
want to record this and your battery power will be
done and you're not going to go back to the
room and charge it. You want to record it now,
exactly pull the battery out.

Speaker 2 (54:43):
And that comes over and consulting though, too, because when
I work with companies, I'll give suggestions, paint them the
picture of anything that could happen so that they can
make an informed decision, right right. That's the tricky part
with compliance in general. And I always tell people that
you have I'm not running your business. You need to
run your business, but you need to be educated because

(55:05):
you can't just say ignorance is bliss in this regard.
There are too many pitfalls of legal compliance that falls
into the HR world and deal with employees. But I'm here,
I'll steer you the direction that you need to go
and you make the decision.

Speaker 1 (55:20):
Yeah, And I was going to bring that up in
terms of what you do now in HR, because it
sounds very much like that's a transferable skill. What you
did there of painting the picture of helping them out.
And so you went from banking to hr And you know,
we're while we're doing while we're talking about these different
companies that you worked at, you're climbing the corporate ladder

(55:41):
as you go, climbing, climbing, climbing, and then you work
with someone who was an entrepreneur in her own right
or is an entrepreneur her own right. And now switch
from these larger companies like you said, small little company,
Peer One, small little company Best Buy, and then you
go to this big bank and you go a little
bit more local bank and then you work with an entrepreneur.

(56:02):
And tell us about that experience from transitioning from these
different types of corporations into working with our friend Janet.

Speaker 2 (56:10):
Yeah, working with Janet a is amazing. I know you've
talked to her on numerous occasions. But her energy, her charisma,
the way that she gets behind people and develops people.
Talk about true mentorship and really caring about people. We
were talking the other night about just how many people
have been in their careers or their roles because of
her influence. They've all got there on their own, but

(56:32):
she's helped pave the way for so many people working
with her in an entrepreneurial arena is fantastic. And I
would say we're not perfect that the business part of it.
We're really good at helping people, but how much to charge,
how to market all those pieces where partners come in,
and that we're starting to really expand and grow and

(56:54):
look at those partnerships. That's where it's exciting to work
with her because she's got great idea and just implementing
them is where we're working towards now.

Speaker 1 (57:05):
Yeah, she does. And I mean I remember when I
first met her and I was like, man, this woman
is a ball of energy, like super energetic. The other
thing that I love about her, and I'm sure it
could also be challenging for people. It's something that you
love and it could be challenging, especially when you don't
know somebody well enough yet is she doesn't. She doesn't.

(57:28):
She cuts right through the mud. She doesn't hold back
at all. And I remember, actually she might not even
know this, but I remember first hearing her dialogue like
that and being very I withdrew for a second because
I didn't understand. And it wasn't until I got to

(57:50):
know her that I understood, especially in your roles as
HR representatives, that sometimes things have to be said black
and white. She can't you can't stay in this gray area,
you know. I like to stay in the gray area
sometimes of like I don't want to say anything, or
I don't I don't want to say that, and I
don't want to do that, you know, And I think,
you know, I'm learning a lot by doing that. That

(58:11):
training with you just now too, of that gray area
sometimes can lead to bigger problems. And that's what I
learned about Janet and why she cuts through the mud.
And so she has this way of you know, she's
really sweet, she's a sweetheart, she's a doll. She's energetic,
she's enthusiastic. But then she's just like, oh no, that

(58:31):
person cannot and will not do that. And for me,
I remember we sat on the board together of the
new Paulse Chamber, and that's what I heard her say it,
and I was looking at her. I was just like, well,
why can't we just be nicer about it? You know,
It's just like, why can't we play nice? And it's
not till later on that I realized, Oh, I see
why we can't play nice? And it's not about not
playing nice. Let me let me not say that the

(58:52):
right way the wrong way. It's more of I see
why things have to be Sometimes a line has to
be drawn and it has to be very black and white,
and she's very good at that.

Speaker 2 (59:03):
So Janet knows her stuff, right, We both do. But
Janet has different experiences that I do. Different background, right,
everybody has different places they come from. She has the
ability to just make it easy to digest. Again, choices
are still the people that are out there. Right. She's

(59:24):
never going to twist your arm and make you do something,
but you're going to be crystal clear at the end
of the conversation where there's liabilities and where there's risk,
because she doesn't want anything bad to happen to anyone.
She doesn't want things to happen to the employer. She'd
like to make it the best place for the employee.
She'd like to get to that happy spot. But we

(59:46):
need to make sure that we're fair. The hr words
of the day, fair and consistent, and that keeps a
lot of people out of trouble. So she will tell
you what is fair and consistent, and I love it
because I know what I'm getting when you deal with
Janet or someone like Janet, you really know that you're
getting solid information in a no sugarcoating kind of way,

(01:00:09):
but in a way that you can digest and make
decisions based on.

Speaker 1 (01:00:12):
Yeah, and you just said that you know someone like her,
but here you are. You are right, right. And I
think of that panel that you were on, and I
had the opportunity and privilege to moderate. It was pretty cool.
I was going between you and all these other professionals.
But what was cool for me was you were sharing
so much information. And I'll be honest, a lot of

(01:00:33):
it went over my head and a lot of it
probably went over some of the audiences had. But what
I'm sure everybody got from it and I got from
it is that in the HR world, in many professions, right,
but we're speaking HR world. Here in the HR world,
there are so many laws and compliances and regulations that
take place. And I just remembered when I was listening

(01:00:54):
to you speak, thinking, I'm just so happy I know
Kelly and Janet because I could lean on them for that.
And this is why I bring this up, is that
there's a lot going on in the HR world, and
so to have someone like yourself as a part of
an organization can remove so much weight on an employer's back.

Speaker 2 (01:01:18):
Yeah. So we won't put ourselves out there. We're not
attorneys and we're not CPA's right, we won't delve into
their world. And we have great partnerships if you ever
need those. But we help a lot of people that
don't have the expertise in their own staffs. Yeah, when
you're a smaller company and you can't hire someone, or
when you're a little bit larger, medium sized company and
maybe you have someone who's newer or not experienced in

(01:01:41):
the thing that you're going through at that particular moment,
it's a good time to give us a call because
we've probably gone through it. And if we haven't, we
have the network that is humungous. I mean, I can't
even tell you how many people we can call upon
to help an employer with a situation.

Speaker 1 (01:01:57):
Yeah, and then you do other things like you serve
on that board for SURM right, Like, I mean, you
know that's a pretty cool one too. Where what I
think is really cool about it at least is it's
it's a board that it's an organization that helps other
HR people. Right. So what I think is so cool
about it is it's like I'm not just getting an

(01:02:17):
HR person telling me something. I'm getting the HR person
that teaches HR people the information. So it's pretty neat
working with you.

Speaker 2 (01:02:25):
Well, we do it not only for you know, HR
helping HR, but we bring in the sources, right, So
we bring in people from Immigration to talk about iis
because that's the agency that's dealing with i's right. We
pull in attorneys who have to litigate these cases to
talk about what's going on really in the courts. So
we bring all of the resources that HR professionals and

(01:02:48):
owners and supervisors need to do their jobs in a
safe way. That's that's good for the business and good
for the employees.

Speaker 1 (01:02:55):
Yeah, and bringing them in these different people is where
you build this huge network because you're constantly like building
relationships with these different types of organizations and industries and
resources that are coming in for this organization that you
work with.

Speaker 2 (01:03:14):
Yeah, once we get past the compliance part, which is
fun for me, I know it's a little giky for others,
then we get to strategy like partners like you who
can teach about leadership and communication, succession planning, and other
things from other partners. We have all sorts of levels
of HR, right, because compliance is only getting your foot
in the door. You got to do a certain amount
right to just get off the block. But once you

(01:03:35):
do that, you want your employees to be engaged. You
want them to stay. You don't want to be looking
for people in high turnover. You want to offer a
workplace where people are selling the workplace to future employees
for you so that you don't have to worry about it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:49):
Yeah, it gets it gets tricky, for sure. So it's
it's an interesting place, that HR place. But I'm happy
I know you people, that's for sure. When I think
about the work that you do, and I know that
you're part of a lot of different non for profits
and different work I'm interested in. You know, again, you're
a multi passionate individual, right, I'm interested in some of
the work, the non for profit work that right now

(01:04:11):
you're engaged in.

Speaker 2 (01:04:12):
Yeah. So I've been a member of Junior League for
I want to say a dozen years or so, and
it's really focusing on community issues generally handled by the
women in the community. Okay, founded you know, and they
are early nineteen hundreds in New York City and we
go out and do projects around the community that really

(01:04:32):
give back. A lot of them focus around women and children.
And then I've been lucky enough to work with Kawanas
and their mission is helping the children in the world,
so building funds for scholarships, teaching opportunities, camp opportunities. Those
are some of the fun ones that I work with,
and then a whole bunch of professional ones that are
kind of boring. So I got those.

Speaker 1 (01:04:51):
Yeah, Kawanas is a great one. I've heard of that one. Yeah,
I know that one. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:04:55):
And they have affiliate organizations. So if your children are
growing up through the school district, Key Club is an
affiliate of Kawanas. It's the children's portion or the high
school portion of Kahanas. So that's a lot of fun.

Speaker 1 (01:05:07):
That's cool. And I know that you have a theater background,
so I can't I'd be remiss if I didn't learn
a little bit about that. And what you did, was
there a big play that you were in a big production?

Speaker 2 (01:05:17):
So my father has been involved with CoA Chess Players
in Kingston and a variety of different other organizations throughout
Hudson Valley for a very long time. And I can
remember him taking us to rehearsals as a six year
old and being in shows that I can't remember the names,
like Showboat, you know, type of the tunes, Oklahoma's all

(01:05:39):
those type of things. Ever since I can remember, I
love what it's taught me. It's given me a confidence
to be in front of people that I don't know
that everybody gets at an early age. I like singing.
I like entertaining people too, But that also transferred into

(01:06:00):
my love for Avy. So I was actually an Avy
technician in high school. Oh wow, I know all sorts
of geeked out and doing all soundboards and writing and
all those pieces. Then listen, I haven't played with one
of those in a very long time. The last time
I did it was on the Diary of Anne Frank
And that is a very challenging track to kind of
play a lot with with all the stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:06:22):
But we're talking about the soundboard here at the studio.

Speaker 2 (01:06:24):
Yes, But I really every experience in life, it just
brings a little bit of joy. And somebody asked me
not too long ago, well do you miss this? Do
you miss that? And I'm like, yeah, but I can't
do it all in this moment.

Speaker 1 (01:06:36):
Yeah, oh I love that. Yes, yes, my coach Marat
always talks about that of like here's the good news.
You can do it all, but you just can't all
do it all at once. Yep, which I love. I
think that's so cool. In terms of like theater, I
thought this was pretty neat and I want to share
this and that. My parents also exposed us to the
theater at a very young age. Now, I didn't have

(01:06:58):
the opportunity to be on stage like you did, although
I did in my ballet classes, but not in the
same avenue as you. But my parents used to take
us to see the Nutcracker every Christmas. For every Christmas
we would go to Lincoln Center in the city and
we would go see that. We'd get all get dressed
up in our little suits and pretty dresses, and we'd

(01:07:18):
see the Nutcracker. And we did that all the way
until probably like our early teen years, until it was
no longer cool for us kids, you know, But my
parents still went and still went, still invited, still invited
us to go, and eventually started going more on the
community theater type of stuff because there were some really
good productions and what's interesting in what you were just sharing.

(01:07:41):
What you were just reminding me of is now that
my parents are retired, they were looking for other things
to do. And my father had this passion for learning
to dance, like he was never really a good dancer,
and you know, wanted to learn how to dance, so
he took dancing classes or take dancing classes with my mother. Well,
one of the community theaters went to this studio and

(01:08:03):
asked for some extras to be in their production of
The Nutcracker. And so this past weekend, and I know
that this episode is an airing till this is probably
the summertime. By the way, this is December right now,
right before the holidays, but when you know, right this
production they came and they asked for some volunteers to
be a part of The Nutcracker, and my father signed

(01:08:25):
my mother and him up and it was a really
beautiful production. So we went. I went down to the production.
It was at Mercy University in Long Island, in this
beautiful theater, and my parents were stressed out, but I
got to see my parents perform on stage. My father's
seventy five, my mother's seventy three, and they got to

(01:08:46):
be the families that come in in the opening act
of The Nutcracker that play with the Nutcracker and the
child and all this other stuff, and they had their
own solo dance on stage. I snuck my my phone
in to record them. Yeah, we won't tell anybody. So
I got a nice recording of it. And I thought
it was so cool to kind of like see it

(01:09:08):
come full circle of them taking us as kids to
see the Nutcracker and then us coming back to see
them in the Nutcracker. It was so cool that theater.

Speaker 2 (01:09:19):
Special I still in all every time I see my
dad on stage. Yeah, but to see that, to have
that type of circle, I'm like gushing over here for
that experience for you, that sounds amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:09:33):
So you got to get on stage for your dad
so you can see you come full circle now.

Speaker 2 (01:09:36):
Yeah. Yeah, he's seen me on stage a few times.
I gotta tell you, it's not necessarily the most comfortable
place all the time.

Speaker 1 (01:09:44):
Yeah. Yeah, it's challenging. I mean I remember, so I
did a theater production in Fishkill. I don't know if
you know Clove Creek Theater YEP. So I did a
theater production there, and my very first time doing it
was everything was going great. I had all of my
lines memorized. Every was wonderful. And I get on stage
for our dress rehearsal the night before the production and

(01:10:08):
everything was going well. And I think it was the
second act and I get on and I completely blank out,
completely blank out nothing. There's nothing going through my mind.
I remember Amy, who was one of the people in
the play next to me. She was the person that
was playing off of me. She's trying to lead me.
She knows the next lines because it's her lines, right,

(01:10:31):
So she's trying to lead me to get to say something.
And I'm like, nope, nope, I'm not even I got nothing.
But what I learned in that experience was was one
it is extremely frightening when you really think of it.
But then when you could just take a step back
and just realize, hey, you know what, like you're here
for them. You know you're not here for you and

(01:10:53):
show how great you are. You're really here for the people.
You realize, okay, you take that dress off of yourself.
You don't have to carry that weight anymore. And then
the director pulled me aside and just said, Michael, they
don't know the lines right. All you got to do
is just convey the message. So you do that and
you'll be fine. So we did. We ran smoothly. After that,

(01:11:15):
everything was all right, but yeah, it could be frightening
to get up there and have to know the lines.

Speaker 2 (01:11:21):
Yeah, it changes changes, right because we're just talking freestyling.
Whatever comes out comes out. But when you have memorization
to add to the mix of a performance, it does
change it quite a bit. With the blocking, with the
blocking and every other piece that's going on and the
lights and somebody coughs and you're like, oh, that threw
me off. Yeah, it can get a little nerve wrecking.

Speaker 1 (01:11:39):
I remember walking into the theater one of the nights,
one of the bigger nights, and I'm saying that there's
I think it was like ninety or one hundred people
in the audience, and I was like whoa. And I
was like, all right, stop thinking about that.

Speaker 2 (01:11:51):
Never know how many are in the audience. Just go
out and do it and do every day of rehearsal right.

Speaker 1 (01:11:56):
And I realized that right, like, because most on average
in that theater, because it's small, one sixty people was
like the average. But in terms of looking out, sixty
or one hundred was the same outlook. It didn't change much.
Maybe there was an empty seat between people and this
time it wasn't. But it really didn't change much.

Speaker 2 (01:12:14):
It's only going back to what we were talking about before
we got on, was feeding off the audience. The audience
feels a little different every time you have it, but
it can feel different.

Speaker 1 (01:12:21):
For different reasons, right right.

Speaker 2 (01:12:23):
You know when I did Kuwanas Productions to build money
for scholarships, there was a night it was the Senior
Citizen Discount Night, right, and that audience felt different than
any other. They got the jokes differently, they laughed differently,
they engaged differently, and really kind of bringing it full
circle to what we've been talking about networking and sales

(01:12:43):
and all the pieces that come into business. Know your audience, yeah, right,
So it's applicable anywhere, transferable always. Yeah, you know your audience.

Speaker 1 (01:12:52):
So speaking of little things like know your audience, I'm
interested in do you have like a mantra or some
sort of quote that you follow or that you like
to live You.

Speaker 2 (01:13:00):
Would think that I do, but I don't. I just
I think the golden rule should be something we all
strive to live by, and there are so many wonderful
things that people have said. But if I just try
to go out and do better than I did yesterday,
then I feel pretty good.

Speaker 1 (01:13:17):
I love that. I love that. This has been pretty
awesome learning more about you today. Same, that's awesome. Well,
thanks so much for coming on the show today.

Speaker 2 (01:13:23):
I appreciate it. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:13:25):
Thank you for listening to The Michael Esposito Show. For
show notes, video clips, and more episodes, go to Michael Espositoinc.
Dot com backslash podcast. Thank you again to our sponsor
dan ten Insurance Services helping businesses get the right insurance
for all their insurance needs. Visit Denten dot io to

(01:13:45):
get a quote that's d n ten dot io and remember,
when you buy an insurance policy from Denten, you're giving
back on a global scale. This episode was produced by
Uncle Mike at the iHeart Studios in Poughkeepsie. Special thanks
to Lara Rodrian for the opportunity and my team at
Michael Esposito in