So Taylor, thank you so much for joining me on this episode.
Can you give us a top level view of what it is that you do and your journey so far?
Yes, so I am one of the two founders of Monarch Coaching.
And what we do is we're a leadership development company that focuses on kind of
streamlining entire organizations leadership teams so that everyone's speaking the same
language and the expectations have been set all across the board.
So we do a little bit of training and we do a little bit of coaching and we've got a whole
inclusive six month program that we offer.
Really, really cool.
How did you get into the business then?
What was that journey like there?
So I started in a distant past, in a near distant past in corporate.
And I was on the corporate leadership development team for an organization here in
Michigan.
We're kind of in near Detroit and the US here.
loved what I did.
Absolutely loved working there.
It was a really amazing organization to work for.
And I had never heard of the concept of leadership development before.
when I would share with people what I did for a living and even my business partner too,
because we were coworkers there, we worked together there.
When I would share what we did, people were like, either if they had no idea what it was
or they were like, God, my company could really use someone like you.
And so we decided in 2022 to start offering this for organizations that don't have the
luxury of having in-house leadership development.
So that's why we started what we started.
We saw a niche.
cool.
How have you found the transition going, I guess, from the corporate world yourself, like
working within it to just working then with clients and your own business?
Because I know for some people, even myself, it was such a such a big transition, right?
You have a lot more responsibility and risk, I guess, involved with it.
And it can be a little bit challenging.
So how's it been for you?
I feel delusional some days, so it's just like...
You hear entrepreneurship is hard and you hear people say starting your own business is so
hard and you're like, yeah, but it sounds like so much fun.
And then you do it and you're like, why the hell would anybody choose this?
It is, but also so rewarding in the same time.
I feel like it's like being a parent.
I don't have kids yet, but I feel like this is my baby and I'm so proud of what we're,
what we're doing with it.
So it's a very
interesting shift of like you always knew what to do when you have a corporate job, right?
mean, the expectations are laid out for you for the most part.
And then you just, you do your job, you come home here.
There is no clean cut way of doing it.
So it's a lot of redirection, a lot of pivoting, and you just have to be very patient with
yourself and be very persistent because it's the people that don't give up that are the
people that end up powering through in the end.
Yeah, I completely agree.
And I think I was talking to someone about this recently, where business strategy is where
you have unlimited options, and you've got to pick just a few of those options and go with
it and stick with it for a long period of time without even knowing if it's going to work
out or not.
And so I think that's the challenge, right?
When you get into the business world is just the unknown.
Like you try a load of different things, you've got to see what sticks, but you don't know
if it's going to work.
Whereas in the corporate world, it's like, as you said, you've got your plan laid out, you
know, five years time, okay, I can move to this position.
I can do this, this, this.
but in business, you don't have that luxury.
And so it does add that stress.
But as you said, I think that's a great way to describe it is like having a baby is yeah,
some days are gonna be tough, but then at the same time, it's really, really good and
rewarding.
And I think the main thing is that when you get into business, sometimes it doesn't feel
like work, like what you're doing, it's just, this is just what it is.
And that's what I love about it, where I don't feel like I'm working, I just feel like I'm
just building something for myself, if that makes sense.
100%.
Yeah, I feel like I've never worked so hard in my life, but it's also been so rewarding.
And when you're starting out too, especially as a fresh new entrepreneur, you have
literally no guidance and have no idea what you're doing.
It's like you've never worked so hard for so little, but when things start taking
traction, it's like, God, I'm so glad that I did what I did because I would still be...
complaining about my job or wishing I didn't have to, but it is, it doesn't feel like work
and that's I think the best part.
is genuinely, I just, have to do these things because this is my livelihood.
This isn't just a job.
Yeah, yeah.
No, no, again, completely agree.
I guess it's quite interesting if you can go back maybe to when you first started the
business now, what are some of the key lessons you'll take back to that moment?
Because for lot of, I guess, new entrepreneurs maybe listening, that would be some great
advice of someone who's a few years down in the journey now.
What would that advice be?
build a support system early before you even decide to take the leap.
I think I did a good job with that and Erica, who's my business partner, I'll say her name
a lot, but we both have such supportive partners and other just fellow entrepreneurs that
we've worked with, that we've met with and that we've talked to even before we decided to
make the leap of, we leaving our full-time corporate jobs and actually just the leap of
faith of what's gonna happen.
And then you just, kind of continue to, as you network with people and as you meet new
people, you continue to pick people's brains and learn more about their perspectives.
And especially people that have been in, you know, business or they're entrepreneurs and
it's.
Wonderful to hear what their journeys have been like so if you can surround yourself with
people who?
Like you were just saying you know you're a few years into it But even get people that
have gone past that you know the serial entrepreneurs who constantly have businesses or
startups or whatever get to know what their experience is like and and It's try to see if
your personality is right for it, too because it is really not it's not for everybody and
No.
is very challenging.
So it will test your patience.
It will test the faith that you have in your own vision.
So if you can handle the tests, then you can handle it.
yeah, surround yourself with good people.
yeah, I do not.
That's probably the biggest bit of advice I give to people.
And if I could take it back to myself when I started would be that because when I first
started business for me, like the story behind it is I was very much into like day trading
and that was my core thing.
there is no clients, right?
You're just working by yourself and everything and you raise capital was working really
well, you know, is doing great.
And then I started working more into a startup and I loved the startup environment.
And I was like, let me just, let me go into business.
And I just want to make, you know, a few grand a month, right?
Just, it's just a little bit on the side.
And I didn't really understand what was possible within the realm of business until I
joined like a business group where you had to pay, I think it's like five grand or
something to get into it.
So it's quite significant at the time.
And the people in that group I met as like, hi, how you doing?
yeah.
He's doing 50 grand a month.
Okay.
He's doing 200 grand a month.
Okay.
He's doing 500 grand a month.
And I'm like, what, like, is this
Is this real?
Is this real life?
Like you can make that money on like a monthly basis.
And it was when I surrounded myself with those people is it's amazing what the potential
actually is.
And when you do get into those circles as well, the amount of things you learn just by
osmosis, right?
Just by being in the same rooms with these people is just incredible.
So I agree.
think if anyone is starting out is get yourself into some of those really strong business
groups or just in general, just high performers and just by osmosis, you're gonna learn.
just a ton of information on how to actually keep pushing with this, because it is just
very, very challenging.
Yeah, and I think another once one other piece as you're talking I think is be open to
feedback
Mmm.
other people and about your ideas.
And that's very hard to do too, because your ideas are so personal to you and they're so,
you're so sensitive about them.
But if you have a great, what you think is a great idea and someone and you get feedback
from let's say 10 other people that say, I'm not really sure if that's gonna work or if
there's a market for that.
And if you can't really prove that there is, it's gonna be really challenging.
And.
Like you still want to fight for your vision and you want to fight for what it is that you
want, but be prepared to pivot and be open to feedback and other people's perspectives.
Because if you just are headstrong on what you want to do with no feedback and no, you
know, not listening to anybody, especially people who have experience, you could, you can
fail pretty hard, pretty quickly.
So.
Yeah, I completely agree.
mean, when I first got into the business space, I'm very much a technical person.
So I was like, let me build this out.
Cause I think they have a problem here, spend time, money building it out.
I go to them and they're like, yeah, we don't actually need this.
doesn't solve the problem that they have really.
And so it's that, it's that case of we build what we think the customer needs, but not
actually what they want.
And so we need to go around and actually first talking to people.
I'm very hot on relationships, like relationship building and everything like that.
Because in my opinion, the more people you speak to naturally.
that they can help shape your product, right?
They can help give you the input you need to have.
They can give you the exposure that you need to have and everything else.
And so if you optimize for those relationships and having conversations first, then from
just the information you get, they will help shape your service.
I mean, for me, when I started kind of this realm of things, I had couple people that came
through just relationships that we had built and then they came on as clients.
And because we had that really strong relationship, they've been so instrumental in
shaping what the service looks like because
they're the ones actually using the products and the services.
So they can accurately tell me, okay, this needs to go, this is points of friction, this
is really good.
And so again, as you said, it is like your baby, your business.
And when someone does tell you this is wrong, it's like, you know, someone calling your
baby ugly or something, but you can't, yeah, but you can't be held onto that, right?
You need to just understand what they're saying, understand the point and the lens that
they're coming from.
And then you can use that and adapt it to what you need to do to fit your model or
whatever it is.
So yeah, again, I completely agree with that for sure.
How have you found dealing or working with like a co-founder?
Because I know for some people like myself, I struggled a little bit with wanting just to
have control over things.
And as I'm building a team out, that has become a bit of an interesting thing to work
through.
And so how you found it with a co-founder like you have and what's that been like?
I cannot say enough amazing things about Erica, honestly.
I mean, if you give me the whole podcast, I can talk about her.
so we're lucky in the sense that we actually, met at our corporate jobs.
We worked together on the leadership development team.
So when we were working together and she came on my team, I just was blown away by her,
her ability to learn, her work ethic, her level of passion and empathy that she had for
people.
I just was like, God, this is someone that I'm working very well with right now, but I
think we could be, because I had always toyed with the idea of being an entrepreneur.
mean, my whole life, I've always wanted to own my own business.
I just never really knew what I wanted to do.
But her and I worked on that team and we, know, we both of us kind of grew up the ladder.
And at some point in time, I led the team.
And then when I left that company, she led the team.
And then we kind of joined back together with Monarch.
But honestly, having a thought partner and someone who we are very like minded in the fact
that we have a very, our vision and our values are incredibly aligned.
And that's why we know what types of decisions we should be making, but there have
definitely been moments where she's ready to move forward with something.
And I, maybe I don't feel that confident about it.
So, we've kind of baked it into our partnership agreement that if there is something we do
not agree on, we just don't do it.
Like we, we don't make those decisions until we're
both fully confident in it.
But having someone to bounce ideas off of and like I was saying earlier feedback is so
huge and we are very we came from an environment in corporate where we were able to give
each other feedback very comfortably.
It was just part of the expectation on that team.
So we're very comfortable with giving each other feedback now, whether it's, you know,
social media posts that we're doing, or it's a podcast episode and she's like, next time,
maybe you don't say that, or, you know, or do it this way.
Like we're very confident in giving each other feedback and it's so necessary to bounce
ideas off of and we, we help each other grow and we even each other out a lot.
So yeah, I think it's, it's great.
right?
As long as you even each other out, then it really does work because then you're not like
the exact carbon copy of each other where you're both gonna do the same thing.
And it's like, well, you might as well just work yourself.
But if you do have that person to challenge your ideas and be like, okay, why are we doing
this instead of this?
And things like that, because as a solo founder like myself, it's so easy to be like,
okay, I think I need to do this.
Let me just spend time and money doing this.
Whereas if you have someone you actually have to go through, it's kind of like an
accountability partner in a way.
They hold you accountable to the decisions you're making.
And that can actually really help with the growth of the business, because you're not
gonna just waste unnecessary resources, because you've actually thought through everything
through two layers of thinking really.
Yeah, I mean, so there was the 10 month period in my, beginning journey where I was not,
wouldn't, don't want to say I was fully by myself, but she was working full time at our
corporate job and I had left already and there was like a 10 month span where it was me
doing Monarch by myself full time and her kind of helping out on the weekends.
We brainstormed and.
I don't know how you do it, honestly, because I was so, I mean, there's 10,000 different
directions and so many possibilities and it's like a gamble.
You really don't know what way to go and having someone who validates what you're feeling
of maybe we should start with this.
it's some, you know, that person just saying, that's a great place to start.
Let's start there.
That is so much like, that just gives you so much more confidence in what you're doing.
Yeah, yeah, no, no, I do agree.
I mean, for me, when I first got into the business, because it was it was just me, right?
Me thinking through my all of my ideas and everything.
But the people I have met along the way from like business groups, everything, we've
become very, very close friends.
And so there's one of my friends who every week we do have like an hour long call, we'll
be going through, okay, what we've done this week, what's the plan for next week?
I mean, hold ourselves accountable to that.
And we both know how we we think so we know when one of us is getting off track with what
we should be doing.
Because as I said, I'm very technical, so I can start building out new
product lines and software systems very easily.
And he's like, no, no, no, you need to do this because this was the original plan.
And so I think it's just the accountability side is what you do need to find in someone
when you do start, whether it is a co-founder, which, for some people, yes, a hundred
percent, if you've got the right co-founder, but if you are on your own, then it's finding
who can keep me accountable to the plans that I'm making to keep me on track.
I think is the core thing.
yeah, we have what we call shiny object syndrome.
so we.
And because like I said, there's 10 million different ways that you could go.
it's like, we have outside of just the two of us, we have a couple of mentors too, that
are either retired entrepreneurs or their current entrepreneurs.
they own businesses and we can fight in them when we are feeling stuck.
And if we can't make a decision, we can fight in them.
And they're a great mediator to kind of help us find which direction we should be going
in.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, definitely.
And, and mentors, right?
Mentals, I think are very, very important to, to, to find, find the right ones.
I mean, and the thing is as well, because I've had a couple of mentors, you know,
throughout the, throughout the period that I've, I've been doing this and some of them,
you know, didn't, it didn't quite work out in the end, based on like X, Y, Z reasons, et
cetera.
But whether or not you invest in a mental and you get a really positive outcome or maybe a
negative outcome, you can still take a lot of lessons from that.
And think a lot of people sometimes have a fear of investing in a mentor in a course or
whatever that looks like because of the fact that, you know, they see it as risky or
anything, but you can always take a lesson from no matter the outcome, there's a lesson
there.
Yeah.
I guess leaning more into the courses side of things, because I know that's what you guys
have in terms of your product line and everything.
So how does that work when you go into a company and you put them through your programs?
Like what is the benefit that they're going to get and how does it work when it comes to,
I guess,
implementing that within their company.
Yeah, so I'll kind of talk about the structure, I guess, of the program first, and then I
can kind of dive into why that structure works and is beneficial and what it helps with.
So we have a six-month program is what we offer, which six months seems like a long time,
but I'll tell you now, just having been in the learning and development space, that a
one-time workshop to try and get everybody on the same page is not going to work.
There's, we have a huge focus on knowledge retention and you can't retain knowledge for a
long time if you have a four hour workshop and then you never talk about it again.
So how we have designed our program is that it is a six month program.
There's 11 online courses and you go through these courses.
And let's say you complete course one, you automatically get an email that prompts you to
say, Hey, schedule your coaching session with a Monarch coach.
And in that coaching session, we discussed not only what you just learned from the first
course, which in this case is emotional intelligence, which I think we'll talk about a
little bit more later.
so you don't just talk about emotional intelligence and how, you know, how self-awareness
affects you, blah, blah.
You also talk about.
how is this relevant to your company's values and vision as well in their goals?
Conversations are very organic, so we're not super structured.
So sometimes it's just asking the right questions.
anyway, so they get their coaching session and they complete all those courses.
there's three points throughout where we do group cohort.
round table discussions.
So we call them like leadership checkpoints.
And so on an individual basis, you're going through these courses and getting your
coaching sessions and then with your fellow leadership teams, because we want, we're
implementing this within leadership teams and we want everybody to still be on the same
page, but get their own professional development as well.
So.
Three times throughout the six month period, you meet with your fellow leaders, you have a
round table discussion.
What have you implemented so far?
How is this working for you?
How did you take that exercise?
Because we do facilitation guides for team building and stuff.
How did you implement that on your team?
What was your team's reaction to that?
I did it this way and this way worked better for us.
So.
That program helps you not only you do self paced learning, then you talk one on one with
a coach, then you talk it out with a group of people who are going through the same thing
as you are.
and it starts to build a lot more camaraderie with everybody.
It starts to build a lot more trust.
it starts to just build more relationships.
mean, we talk, you talk a lot about relationships.
We're huge on that.
That's the whole basis of what we're doing is it's not transactional leadership.
is relationship.
leadership.
So and that helps, you know, create it's just it's a butterfly effect, hence the name
monarch coaching, it's a butterfly effect of, know,
It starts with learning about yourself and then you kind of give out more and you're
treating your teams with a lot of respect and you're holding them really accountable, but
you're being very empathetic and they're really bought into you.
And now they're really bought into the company and they're really put into the vision.
And now they're, they're happy and they're engaged and they're treating their customers
and their clients with the same respect and building the same amount of trust.
And it's just an exponential experience of like, there's, there's an increased retention.
people are staying longer because people leave bad bosses, they don't leave jobs.
And that retention is a direct result of leadership.
So when you have really strong leadership in place that really value their team members,
their employees, people are gonna wanna work.
They're gonna wanna stay there, they're gonna be bought into like you as their leader.
And then it also just increases engagement when people want, know, people are more engaged
when they're happy.
It's just, it's your brain chemicals, you're just, you're full of happiness and oxytocin
and serotonin and all that stuff.
And it makes you want to do a good job.
And so that's kind of, I don't know if that really answered the direct question, but that,
you know, yeah.
So that's kind of the process.
because I think a lot of corporate life and I had this experience when I was in corporate
for about a year just after school is such rigid structures in leadership and the way they
do things and all these different things.
And they were very transactional as you mentioned before, not that relationship driven
aspect of it.
But in order to get people to buy into the company, right, buy into the values, as you
mentioned, buy into the goals and the mission and everything else.
is you do need to have those relationships, right?
Understand the people that are working there, get everyone onto that page of pushing the
company forward.
Because Cachurn is like one of the biggest things that will just kill a company.
If you have bad leadership in place and you know, something happens one day, something's
been bubbling up, you didn't deal with it, and then 20 % of your workforce left for
whatever reason, your company's screwed, like you're done.
So it's very important to invest in these things.
And like on the solo entrepreneur level, right?
We spoke about courses before us investing in that learning and everything as well.
But even at the biggest scale with these companies, you can't stop that investment into
the learning aspect because for your staff, it's so, so critical to get them up to speed
and get them on that same page as you mentioned.
In terms of like emotional intelligence, where does that come into play with the structure
of things and what is emotional intelligence to you, I guess?
Yeah, I'll start with what it is.
So it is your ability to really understand your own emotions and understand why you're
feeling the way that you're feeling.
So what triggers you basically, and that could be to feel happy and joyful, or it could be
to be frustrated and angry or whatever that looks like.
There's dozens of more emotions than what I'm saying, but, and then it's also,
your awareness on how your emotions and how your reactions affect the people that are
around you.
And I think that's what people miss when they think about emotional intelligence.
It's like, I'm aware of how I'm feeling, or I can speak to people on their level, but it's
really how do you, it's your brand, it's your personal brand, it's how people are
perceiving you, and it's how you're coming across to people.
So if you don't...
You can't have social awareness without self-awareness, but if you lack in that social
awareness piece, people are not going to want to work with you because you don't know how
to self-manage.
You don't care how what you're doing affects them or you just don't know.
And that's also not great.
So when our focus for all of our leadership content training everything that we do, even
just as monarch employees ourselves, everything needs to have a foundation of emotional
intelligence.
So as we're onboarding clients, the first two courses of that six month program is all
about.
emotional intelligence and the first we kind of go inside out.
Like our process is really focused on leading yourself first because if you cannot control
your emotions and you cannot understand how,
your emotions affect other people, it's going to be very difficult for you to try and help
someone or get someone to be bought into you because they're gonna you're gonna be
inconsistent.
You're gonna be like people are walking on eggshells around you and they're not sure how
you're gonna react to something.
So if you can't get a hold of yourself first emotionally and even mentally, you are not
going to be a good leader.
It's just plain and simple.
So that's where we start is learn about yourself and then you can help others.
Yeah, do you know what, I love that, what you said about emotional intelligence isn't just
about your internal emotions, but also how other people see those emotions within you as a
person as well.
And I think that is something that is missed a lot.
And something that I've not really thought about is like, how do you show up at work,
right?
How do you show up in front of your team members?
And if you are the type where you are emotionally unstable, say, then people won't come to
you.
And as a leader, you need that trust.
for people to come to you confiding in you about X, Y, Z.
Otherwise problems are gonna start bubbling up and they're not gonna report it to you,
which then you can't then help the solution and move that forward.
So I think that's a very, very interesting thing to think through as a leader is well, how
do I show up in front of X, Y, Z, right?
And even if, know, relating back to big business and small business, as a small business,
how you showing up to your clients, right?
How you showing up to some of your team members.
About that large scale is how you showing up to your employees, how you showing up to
middle management, higher management.
whatever it is and understanding the impact that can have on your ability to actually
succeed in the company.
100 % you hit the nail on the head.
Yeah.
Very interesting.
No, very, very cool.
And then in terms of the progression of learning development as an industry, I think, how
do you foresee that changing and shifting over time?
Because as you know, obviously technological advances, right?
AI, whatever.
How do you see those things fitting into the learning development of what it is that you
do as well?
Yeah, I think a lot of people are, it's hit or miss with AI.
I love it.
I think it's an incredible tool to help us.
But I've also, I see where people can get, you you can just Google or chat GPT anything
these days and get like a Google, concise Google search of what you were looking for.
I think that...
Personally, I think the human element of learning is the most effective and I think AI is
going to be a helpful tool in creating content, but it's not going to take over the
learning process.
You can't.
mean, people learn best when they are engaged, when they're having fun, when they're the
ones that are actually talking and teaching other people too and interacting with other,
with fellow learners.
So from an actual learning and development standpoint,
human interaction has got to be there.
It's not possible without it.
Yes, a lot of people can read and retain information there, but doing is learning.
You have to do the thing that you're reading about.
Because one of the things that I've
thought of several times is, know, I've interacted and I've met with, or I've listened to,
let's say podcasts that were hosted by people who have like masters or doctorates in
organizational leadership, but they've only been a student and they've never truly been in
corporate America where they're actually leading teams.
And not that what they've learned isn't valuable.
But the experience of having someone who's actually had a team member come in and say,
hey, I just lost my grandparent and I don't really know if I can work the rest of the day,
or I need to go on short-term medical leave for whatever this is, or I'm really having a
hard time working with Johnny because Johnny and me, we have very conflicting
personalities.
You can give those all a textbook answer, but until you're sitting with someone and
actually experiencing it and and it's so circumstantial because people are so different,
you're going to handle those situations completely different from person to person.
So yes, you can have a textbook answer on how to handle that, but until you're sitting
with someone face to face and saying, I'm so sorry that you lost your grandparent or I am.
so sorry that you're sick, I didn't realize this, and let's accommodate you however we
can.
You are not gonna be able to open a book and be like, let me turn to this page real quick
and see what my response should be.
You just, have to experience people.
You can't learn leadership from a book.
You've really gotta live it and you have to experience it.
yeah.
Yeah, I completely agree with what you said then the theory versus reality.
I think that's something that transcends, you know, every, every department, every
industry and everything, because especially in the marketing world, there's a lot of
people that I know that maybe went to university to study marketing and everything.
And when I speak to them, what, know, what they know as theory is very different versus
reality.
Right.
It's like all the changes in marketing is just that that's my industry.
It's been so profound over the last few years.
that what's being taught is just no longer relevant and is very much outdated, you know,
theory of things.
And it's the same for learning development, right?
As you can read a million books, but until, as you said, you sit face to face with someone
having to go through a big problem that they're having and help them and empathize with
them and figure out the solution that fits for everyone involved.
That's where the real learning and skill comes in for you as a person.
And so if you have an opportunity to go into and actually do it yourself and then take it,
right?
don't just rely on the theory of things because that isn't reliable in nature.
yeah, absolutely.
Okay, cool.
And then with your with yourself in the business, where do you foresee you and the
business going in the next five years or so?
How do you see that evolving?
we want to scale so bad.
we want, cause right now it is Erica and myself and it's manageable, but we want to get to
the point where we can't do it by ourselves anymore.
So.
I think scaling and I think too, because we are leaders and we've been, we've led teams
and right now it's, we're leading ourselves and we're leading our clients.
I mean, don't get me wrong.
We're not not leading people, but it's, it excites me to think of having employees and
having, you know, a group of, and we do have some amazing coaches that we work with, but
we don't have anyone that's full time, you know?
So we're like, we're ready to scale and we're ready to actually practice what we preach on
a team of people.
that report to each other and to us.
So we definitely are looking to scale for sure.
I think the great thing is, as you said, you have that experience with leading a team.
Like a lot of founders, maybe they haven't got that experience, like for myself, I'm
learning this now as I'm starting to build a team out and the things that I need to work
through and everything, because I've never done it before.
And it's the reality of it, right?
I'm starting to learn it, which is great.
But at the same time, because you have that experience, when it comes to that scaling
aspect and finding the talent, retaining them, making sure they're happy in the workplace,
you have that skill set.
already.
yeah, definitely like the scaling side of it is definitely gonna just happen naturally
because you have the skills already.
So it's gonna be very exciting to see what type of like mentors do you have in your life
in terms of the biggest mentors, right?
Like who's helped you maybe see things in a new way and where have you taken your biggest
inspiration from as well?
wow.
So I think as far as my initial instant thought is my old...
My previous, shouldn't say old.
She is kind of old.
She's older than me, but my previous vice president at the company that I worked for,
she's amazing.
So she, I started out at that company on a very entry level position.
and I, I worked my way up from a coordinator on that team to someone who was, you know,
just, was not just, but I was scheduling and I was doing things for the leadership coaches
and trainers.
And I very quickly.
worked up because she gave me so many opportunities.
and I ended up leading that team.
So I genuinely owe so much of my growth to her and the opportunities that she's given me
the, the introductions she made, the pushing me into a classroom and telling me train
these people, you're going to do good.
You made the content now teach them the content.
And I was like, I don't know how to train people.
but now, I mean, she's, she helped me find my passion honestly.
So I think, and she knew I was gonna go into business and she kind of gave me that final
push too of like, you need to do this.
This is gonna be good for you, your future.
I was looking for more work-life balance.
was a big part of why I wanted to.
And that's ironic because I have no life.
So she's like, this will be better for you and your growing family.
I'm like, yeah, after the business baby has grown up and gone, then maybe I'll have my own
babies.
yeah, it's so she's amazing.
And then I can't think enough to, we have, I don't, it's a national program here in the U
S but it's called score.
So I'm not really sure if they do any international things, but
it's a program that's honestly all retired entrepreneurs and they're all volunteers and
it's a free, completely free program of mentorship where they...
have the experience and they're older and they kind of help coach you on like I was
saying, me and Erica, sometimes we come to a crossroads where we're like, I don't, we
don't know what direction to go in and we'll go to our mentor from our score mentor and
he'll just say, why don't we focus on this right now and we can come back to, you know, he
just, he's got a very clear, direction and he has the bird's eye view.
And that's the nice thing is you need people that are from the outside, seeing the
potential.
Because when you're in the woods, you cannot see the trees in front of you.
Like you can't see the forest because the trees are in the way.
So it's like, I don't know what I'm looking at.
it's so, yeah.
So my old VP, she's going to be mad that I'm calling her old.
My previous VP and then our score mentor for sure.
And then Erica.
mean, Erica has been my rock since we started and I'm hers, honestly.
So we, think that and.
both of us having supportive partners.
It's been very helpful, but yeah.
Okay, amazing.
So I mean, if someone's interested in going to you for some of this coaching and this
leadership development, where can they find you?
I mean, we'll put links in the description as well, but where could they find you?
So we are, we have our website is monarchcoachingco.com and you can find our program and
more details on what we offer there.
we also are on Instagram at monarch coaching co and we're very prevalent on LinkedIn.
So we post a lot.
So you'll find us, on LinkedIn as well.
Also monarch coaching co.
But yeah, that will be the easiest way.
And if anyone wants to shoot us an email, we have a fully monitored inbox.
So it'll be hello at monarchcoachingco.com for them to get in touch with us there.
Okay, brilliant.
Well, look, thank you so much for joining me on this episode.
I've loved it and I hope you have as well.
They have.
I love talking leadership.
So this is perfect.
Thank you for the opportunity.