This podcast episode delves into the transformative power of kindness in leadership, featuring the insights of Christy Pretzinger, CEO of WG Content. Christy elucidates how cultivating a workplace culture grounded in kindness, personal growth, and inclusivity not only enhances employee satisfaction but also drives organizational success. Through her experiences and the principles outlined in her book, "Cultural Balance Sheet," she emphasizes the necessity for leaders to prioritize the well-being of their teams. Our conversation explores practical strategies for fostering an environment where individuals can flourish and emphasizes the significance of living one's organizational values rather than merely articulating them. Join us as we unravel the profound impact of compassionate leadership on both individuals and organizations alike.

In this episode of the Trailblazers and Titans podcast, host Keith Haney speaks with Christy Pretzinger, CEO of WG Content, about the importance of kindness in leadership and workplace culture. Christy shares insights from her book, 'Cultural Balance Sheets,' emphasizing the need for personal growth, the role of culture in business success, and the challenges women face in leadership roles. The conversation explores how to create environments where people can thrive, the significance of hiring for culture fit, and the impact of kindness on organizational performance.

The discussion with Christy Pretzinger, CEO of WG Content, delves into the profound impact of cultivating a workplace culture characterized by kindness and inclusivity. Drawing on her extensive experience, Christy articulates that the essence of leadership is not merely to direct but to nurture an environment in which individuals can thrive. Through the lens of her book, 'Cultural Balance Sheet,' she proposes a framework that emphasizes the importance of cultural assets over mere financial metrics. Central to her philosophy is the notion that leaders' personal growth directly correlates with their organizations' success. Christy encourages leaders to embrace vulnerability and authenticity, fostering connections that transcend traditional hierarchical structures. This episode serves as a clarion call to recognize the intrinsic value of human capital in shaping not only the workplace but society at large.

Takeaways:

• The podcast emphasizes the significance of fostering a culture rooted in kindness and inclusivity within organizations to enhance leadership effectiveness.
• Christy Pretzinger advocates that leaders prioritize personal growth and self-awareness as essential components of business success and employee satisfaction.
• The conversation highlights the need to create environments where individuals feel valued, enabling them to thrive both personally and professionally.
• The Better Leader Project serves as a resource for leaders seeking to cultivate empathy and connection within their teams, ultimately leading to more cohesive and productive workplaces.
• Listeners are encouraged to recognize that a company's culture can significantly impact financial performance, with culture often being overlooked as a crucial business asset.
• Christy stresses the importance of hiring individuals who embody curiosity and a willingness to engage with colleagues in meaningful ways, thereby fostering a collaborative workplace.

Links referenced in this episode:

• christypretzinger.com
• wgcontent.com

Welcome to Becoming Bridge Builders podcast where we share stories and strategies that inspire connection, leadership and transformation. I am your host, Keith Haynes. Today we have an incredible guest who has redefined what it means to lead with kindness. Christy Pretzlinger.

He is the owner and CEO of WG Content, an industry leading agency delivering exceptional content and strategy to healthcare and brands nationwide. But Christy's impact goes far beyond business success. She's built a workplace culture rooted in kindness, personal growth and inclusivity.

Her mission is to help leaders create environments where people thrive. And she's here to share her journey and insights with us today. Christy, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you so much for having me, Keith. I'm looking forward to our conversation.

I am too. I'm always looking forward to meeting other leaders who are, who are transforming the world. So it should be a fun conversation.

Yes.

I'm going to ask you my favorite question. What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?

The best piece of advice I received given the fact that I'm a business owner. So I have to kind of caveat that was you are your business and your business is you and it won't grow until you do.

I like that. That's true of all leaders, right? Isn't it?

Yeah. I mean, it is. I think that none of us will grow in any way, shape or form until we grow. You know, your professional career can't grow.

All these different, the things you have to be able to start from within.

I love that. So I'm going to talk about your book because I ran across your book and your book really seems really interesting. Let's. So let's dive into that.

What inspired you to write Cultural Balance Sheet?

Well, it's kind of a, a story. I am a part of a group called Entrepreneurs Organization, which is a global organization made up of business owners.

And I was sitting with some friends from that organization, several of whom have had successful exits, you know, selling their business or, you know, getting PE money or whatever.

So we're having this conversation and, and there's always a lot of talk with business owners about EBITDA and what's a multiple you could get for selling your business.

And I was listening to them and I said, you know, of course I look at my financials monthly, but it's almost like I look at my business through the lens of a cultural balance sheet. And one of my friends looked at me and he goes, well, there's the book. You have to write it now because you've been wanting me.

I was like, okay, Gosh. So that was the beginning of it.

And then actually through the process of writing the book, which we did not do this quickly, but through the process of writing the book, I learned even more about myself and about what I find brings me joy and meaning. And I really want to help other especially younger generations like Gen Z find that same kind of meaning in the workplace.

And I believe that it all has to start from within. And so that's why I have founded another business called the Better Leader Project.

And that is all about teaching people to access their bq, which is your better quotient, the capacity we all have to become better, not perfect.

And so that's, that's really my passion of taking what I did with my company and building that environment for people and then taking it out further to say, well, how can we create other people who will do the same thing, only better?

I love that. Let's dig into that a little bit more because I think that's really cool.

The idea of culture, you've said culture is critical for financial performance. Why do leaders often overlook that key aspect of that?

I think it's really easy to overlook it because it's a hidden cost. On a balance sheet, you don't see it anywhere.

And if people show up at all on a balance sheet, they show up as a liability, not an asset, which is completely upside down world. And also I think that I see a lot of people paying lip service to culture but not having the actual attention.

They have the intention to have a culture, but they don't pay any attention to it. I even had a business owner once ask me how I had done something and I was talking about it and she said, I don't have time for that.

And I was like, okay, but don't, don't act like you care about culture if you don't have time to coach somebody in this manner.

I love the fact you talked about the fact that kindness is a big part of other culture. How do you make sure as a business person that you make room in your culture for kindness and compassion?

Well, you know, the thing about kindness is that I think a lot of people mistake it for weakness. And nothing could be further from the truth. Kindness isn't nice. Kindness is clarity. It's boundaries.

It's all sorts of things that are more measurable, actually.

But in terms of building an environment where kindness can thrive, it's something, what I always say is we engineer the structure and the processes to allow for the weaving of the tapestry that is the culture.

So we have first of all, we're all virtual, but we have kindness counts events that we do every quarter where we either get together personally, I mean, in person, or we do something virtually together. But usually it's something in person and we'll go do something in the community.

We also have our four values are we are empowered, curious, kind and fun. And what we do with those is several things to make sure that people live them out.

One of them is I have our company newsletter and I do an article once a month. It's every other week. And once a month I do Christie's Corner.

And I will choose a value to talk about and I might tie it to the book, something that's in there and just really focus on what that is. So kindness would be one of those.

And then what we also do in our monthly all hands meeting is we have prior to the meeting, chosen one value, whatever, as we rotate through it, and we solicit nominations for employees that have demonstrated that value. So who has demonstrated being empowered? Who has demonstrated kindness? How did they do so?

And then, you know, we draw a name out of a hat of the people that were nominated and everyone applauds. And then they get like a gift card or something that that corresponds with the value. So it's really about keeping them top of mind.

And just in my own experience, I like the fact that we just have one word values. I mean, yes, we have further explanation, but the one word, it makes it empowered, curious, kind and fun. It's easy to remember.

Whereas I do have some clients have really complicated, you know, values, and they don't really do anything with it. I've also seen ones that have complicated values that actually live them out.

And they have engineered processes to make sure that people do live those out. But then I've seen a lot of them where people are like, I don't know what our values are. I have no idea, you know?

Right. Which is so helpful.

Right, right.

Like, why waste all your time probably hiring a consultant and paying them big six figures to come up with words, and then nobody even knows what they are.

And they can hire me to do that. I can make a big word.

I could do that. I'd be happy to do it. I'll do low six figures.

That's right. I am curious. I love where this is going.

Can you give me some examples of where you've seen cultural assets and liabilities in organizations besides your own?

Well, I mean, I don't have as much exposure to other organizations with the exception of our clients, which are large hospital systems, generally speaking. And I definitely see the breakdown in culture in a lot of those in that industry.

There's a lot of shifting sand right now in the healthcare industry here in the US So that results in a lot of uncertainty, a lot of layoffs and a lot of chaos.

And I don't think from what I hear, the people that I talk to, I'm not sure it's being managed effectively and that the human aspect of that is kind of left by the wayside.

Like for example, even I have a friend in the industry and she wrote a book about being a healthcare marketer and she was talking about during COVID when they talked about the frontline workers and she was like, we in marketing are frontline too. Even though we're not doing patient care, we're dealing with people all the time.

I mean they would send out, they, they would send out mass emails to their, their customer, client, patient base saying oh, you are eligible now for the COVID vaccine. And people would actually take the time to reply with obscenities and tell people they should die and do whatever.

And they're like, I mean, no one told you you have to do this, I'm just telling you. And they were constantly getting beat up and yet they were not treated as frontline workers.

You know, it was just a big miss for, for the contribution, the very meaningful contribution that just for an example the marketing folks make and, or you know, we call it education, but it really is communication and marketing and they make a huge contribution.

I am curious, you mentioned that a lot of your workers are virtual.

I was just talking to a business owner who said that they're struggling with this idea of virtual workers because they're so used to people being in person. But the group of workers that they're hiring really want to work from home. They don't see the value of the in person connection.

How do you build a cohesive team around your values when you don't have that as much of the in person everyday work side by side?

Well, when I started building the business about 20 years ago, I wanted to build a place where I would want to work. And that was one that didn't have an office because I didn't want to have to go there. So that was how it started.

And then as I kept adding people and you know, it's been 20 years, so obviously things have changed in the world. That was pretty unusual 20 years ago.

And, and I would hire people who had always worked in an office and they were like, what, how, how does this work Like, I remember my. One of my salespeople who's still with me 15 years ago, she.

We had a meeting in person at, like, a Panera or something, and I think I had probably had on workout clothes, and she was kind of dressed up, and she goes, am I allowed to wear workout clothes? And I was like, yeah, I don't care. You know, Makes no difference to me.

And the funny thing is, now that's all she wears, which is pretty funny because we call it, like, party on the bottom and, you know, business on the top, because she'll put on something for a call with clients. Meanwhile, she got her leggings on with slippers.

But in terms of building an environment, a cohesive environment, virtually, again, I think it's something I talk about a lot. You have to have the intention to do so, but then you have to pay attention to how to bring that intention to life.

The attention to it is where the rubber meets the road, is where the magic happens. So really thinking of ways to. To allow people to connect in a meaningful way and whether that means sometimes people get together.

I'm in Cincinnati, Ohio, and we have some employees that are in Columbus, about an hour and a half north. And so sometimes people from Cincinnati will drive up to Columbus and cowork with the people in Columbus just to be hanging out with one another.

And we do the same thing. We have book clubs that people participate in virtually. But that gives something. A commonality, something to talk about.

Again, I think it really has to be intentional or. And. And I did it that way from the beginning. So I honestly don't even know any other way.

But I have heard people say, well, how do you know people are working? Well, if you're asking that question, you need to back up, because you have a hiring problem that's way before work.

You know, it's like you got a hiring problem, because I don't. We've never hired anybody that I would question their commitment or their trust. And I always look at output anyway.

It's like whatever your output is, is the result. And I don't care if you do it in the morning, night, noon. I don't. It doesn't matter to me as long as you're available when you need to be. And it's.

I think the thing for me that has probably been the most meaningful and has allowed it to succeed is because I'm very vocal about the fact that as I was building this and I continued to operate this, that I don't want people to have to apologize for living Their lives. And I don't want them to ask permission to go to the doctor or permission to pick up a child from school or go to a school event.

That's our lives and you shouldn't ask anybody for permission to do that. And especially women.

I feel like a lot of women and I happen to have a company of all women, although we do have contractors that are men, but the employees are women.

And I think that a lot of them have felt in corporate America they have to hide their personal life that, you know, they get a lot of side eye because they're the mother. And I think that's a shame because if you want something done, give it to a busy mom.

Right, Exactly. I had another guest on. We were talking about this idea you just mentioned about hiring the right people.

And their philosophy was hire slowly, fire quickly. Tell me a little bit about how you go about the process of making sure that you hire people that fit your culture that you're trying to build.

Yeah, I am. I love that. Hire slow, fire fast. I think that we have a couple people that actually vet people and we start with contractors.

So a lot of the employees that we have now were contractors at one time. So we had worked with them, they were familiar with the culture, they knew how we do things, and then they end up joining the team full time.

In terms of hiring people that are a fit, you know, when it comes to culture, I think you know pretty quickly whether it's going to be 10 days or 10 years, you know, you, you meet someone, you can tell if they, if they kind of vibe with, with the, the organization. One of the things that, that I've always said, and then I found an article in Harvard Business Review that validated it.

So I was very proud of myself is that we hire for curiosity. So we hire for the T. The T of hiring is a T shape.

The vertical part of the T is the deep knowledge about whatever it is, whether it's content, strategy, project management, writing, whatever it happens to be very deep knowledge there. But then the T, the cross part is, well, how does my role interact with that? What effect does what I do have on those people?

How do we work together in that curiosity of wanting to know instead of just being in your lane and blinders and not caring, really looking for people that are like, wow, I wonder what they do. I'd like to know more about that. You know, that that isn't, that's. Well, curiosity is one of our, our values.

So hiring for curiosity, it's not surprising we would do that.

So you have these four core values, and I love these. Empower, curiosity, curious, fun, kind and fun. How did you develop those four? Were they just part of.

Like, was this just Christy and you was like, this is me and this is what my company is, or was there something you were aiming for that became those core for you?

Well, I would. I. I would caution leaders against coming up with their own values. I mean, your personal ones, that's a whole different story.

But company values or team values, because you really want to crowdsource them. You want agreement and buy in that this is the way we behave. This is how we look at the world.

This is.

This is what we do. So sitting in.

In fact, I remember one time talking to another business owner in a small group I was in, and she was talking about, yeah, I've been locked in my office rewriting our values. I'm like, that's probably not going to go well. You know, first of all, I think that your values should remain constant.

I'd say they're like a thread that should go throughout your entire organization and upon which every action can hang. The expression of those values may change with time, but the consistency of those values is very important. So people know how to behave.

They know what good looks like. That's really important. In terms of. Tell me again what we were. Cause I was just thinking about the.

Yeah, no. How did you develop your four core values? I'm just.

Oh, yeah, it was. It was. It was crowdsourced for sure. And actually, at the same time, we were working on our mission, and we just did this all internally.

We didn't hire, you know, you can hire people consultants again, you know, and pay them lots and lots of money to do this. But we just kind of worked on it together. It was a long time ago.

It was probably 12 years ago, at least, maybe longer, because the mission that actually we landed on was something our salesperson actually said, and it was building relationships one word at a time. Because at the time we were called writer girl. So it was like building relationships one word at a time.

And that is then what grew out of the values grew out of that. Like, what constitutes a good relationship? You know, what does that look like?

What does it feel like to be building relationships with each other, with our vendors, with our clients, with our clients, patient populations, you know, what does that feel like? And you think, well, you want empowerment, of course. You want to be empowered.

You kind of want to be curious about the other person or, you know, curious about what problem your client is trying to solve. And kind is, that's just the way we are, all the way down to our being. Kind is just way underrated as a value.

And I think people, like I said, mistake it for weakness. It's not, it's, it's vastly different. But kindness is just an underpinning of the way we behave with one another.

And one of the things that I say in our organization we all know about, you don't want to assume, right? Because what it does, I say the only thing you're allowed to assume in our organization is that the other person has good intentions.

That's it.

They're not doing anything to drive you crazy. They're not trying to gaslight you, they're not trying to manipulate you. We all want to solve the problem together.

We may have different ways of getting there. So that's the only assumption that I allow people to make. And that's a kind assumption.

And then fun, of course, we like to celebrate, get together, do fun things and just make sure that we, even though we're doing meaningful work, and sometimes it's hard, we work to seek moments of joy in that.

I love the fact that your book is broken down into like three different parts. You have assets, you have liabilities, and then you have equity.

And I love especially cultural key number two is rip your values from the wall and live them instead. We just talked about that, like having values that you just develop and never use or don't implement or live them out are pointless.

So of those key assets that you had there, which one was, was the one that you kind of resonate with the most, if there is one?

Well, I mean, I think that, I think it's pretty much a no brainer that it's people, you know, And I think that that's the whole underpinning of all of it, right?

The importance of creating an environment where people can thrive, that you can the work and do meaningful work and satisfy your clients and have a business if you don't have the people that do it and those people. The thing that I've learned over time is that a common human need is to know that you matter. Everybody needs to know that they matter.

But the interesting thing about knowing that is you have to do it in community. You can't matter alone. So that's something that is very much a part of our culture as well, is really, you know, acknowledging the whole person.

And if somebody has issues at home or something, that we step in and fill the gaps for the other person. We have a lot of grace around things like That.

I love that. How challenging is it for women to excel in the field that you're currently in?

Because I know I've run across a lot of CEOs, especially female CEOs, who said, you know, it's really hard to get women to qualify women to be in the field that I'm in. So how do you make sure that you include women upwardly mobile in your company?

Well, you know, for what we do, working largely with hospital marketing departments, those tend to be women.

Once you get to the CEO CMO level, those might be more men, but in hospitals, they tend to be women that are like, VPs and directors of marketing on down are all women. So.

And then in my particular business, I can speak from an entrepreneurial perspective and say that it's very, very difficult to find a woman business that is more than a million in revenue annually. And if you go up to 5 million, it's like you can count them on one hand practically. It's just not something. There's a lot of reason for that.

A lot of things way beyond my pay scale. But I think that. I mean, not everyone is an entrepreneur, nor should they be, or we wouldn't have employees. And that's fine.

But, you know, for example, when I was building this, my bank, that I had worked with forever and had watched the business grow, every time I would go to renew or increase our line of credit, they treated me like I was running a craft business in my basement. It was not explicit, but it was implicit that that's pretty much like. Well, you know, I was like, unbelievable. Unbelievable.

In this day and age, the kind of things that women are still subjected to in the workplace. I actually had another accounting firm that I no longer work with who. The same thing. They tried to.

They looked at, like, all my finances because I was going to do an increase in the line of credit. And they started asking me questions about my spending. I'm like, I'm sorry, are you a partner? Do you have a financial stake in this business?

Because unless you do, I suggest you stand down, you know, And I really. I wouldn't answer any of the questions. And they were ridiculous. And I left that bank. It was like, you know, yeah, that was a bank. Yeah.

Then the accountant one time when they told me what my tax bill was, I'd been talking to them since summer about, we're gonna have a big tax bill. We're gonna have a big tax bill. What are we gonna do to mitigate this?

Come around February, they're like, oh, by the way, here's your tax bill, big six figure tax bill. And I said, that is not mitigated. That, that's not good. And they looked at me and said, well, make less money. I mean, okay, all right.

Yeah, that kind of stuff happens. And I really honestly don't think that happens as much to male business owners as it does to female business owners. Although I could be wrong.

All I can do is speak from my own experience, but there's still a lot of that. It's just. It's unconscious bias. I don't think it's intentional sometimes, but it happens a lot.

Wow, that's shocking to know that to hear that story, you kind of perceive that that's happening. But to actually hear someone tell those stories is.

Well, here's a better one. I was on speaking to a group of entrepreneurs, and the facilitator, rather than facilitating, actually participated, which is not really great.

You shouldn't do that. But it was three men, including the facilitator and myself.

And this was a few years back after, you know, shortly after Covid or even kind of as it was winding down. And somebody asked the question of the panel, tell me how you address female burnout.

And I thought, well, I'll wait to answer that because it's a little on the nose. I'll let them answer. And I know all of these men, they're lovely men. They have daughters, you know, they're good people. And they all answered.

One of them, the facilitator said, well, first we acknowledge that everyone has burnout. I'm like, oh, no, no, you did not just say that. And then he finish speaking and said, well, that's all the time we have.

And I didn't get a chance to speak. I couldn't believe it. And it was a woman who asked the question. And then we ran into each other in the bathroom.

We just kind of looked at each other like, I don't know what to tell you.

And the interesting thing, the lesson, the takeaway from that for me was when I told my son, he's now 24, he was probably, I don't know, 20 something at the time. When I told him that, you know, you want someone to jump on the bandwagon with you and be there bad.

And instead he was like, mom, quit asking for permission to speak. Those people needed to hear. You've literally built your business around that.

And they didn't get to hear your experience because you didn't say, wait a minute, not done yet. And he's like, stop asking for permission. So I Share that a lot with other women.

And I'm like, whether or not you are asked the question, answer it anyway.

I love it because you're right. You probably have to step up and not wait for people to include you in the conversation.

Yeah, very much so. Very much so.

So what are you excited about going forward?

What I'm really excited about is my new business, the Better Leader Project.

I'm really excited about that because I feel like the world, and especially in the United States, of course, but in the world that we are screaming for connection and I firmly believe that we have, that we are more alike than different. But if you follow the money rage and, and division makes money for people.

And it's easy to do, right, because all you have to do is hit that amygdala and make people angry. And next thing you know, you've got a following.

So looking at the world and the world that I want my son to continue to live in and hopefully maybe grandchildren someday, I think that we have to figure out how to fix that. Because the way I see it, we are bound and determined to annihilate ourselves. And, you know, we can stop it. It's in our power to stop it.

And so I decided to start this business around the premise of better leaders make better organizations and better organization, Better teams and better teams make better organizations. But the real thing about the Better Leader Project is helping people to access their humanity in the safety of a small cohort.

Because we can, you know, read about vulnerability all you want, but until you practice that in a safe space and it's reflected back to you, you don't know what it feels like. Because until you do it, it feels scary, it feels like weakness, it feels like wrong.

But then when you do it and people are like, oh, empathetic, I get it.

I see you, you're like, oh, well, that's interesting, you know, and then after, through the practice of that, you're able to take that into your life. So that's what you do in the cohort of the Better Leader is you practice those skills, our human skills of kindness, empathy, curiosity.

All of those skills that are the things that I believe will be what makes us survive and thrive with AI. But the problem is we're pretty bad things like as human, you know, we haven't rewarded that. We are very left brain about our reward system.

And so much of what makes people work are the right brain soft skills, you know, that's, that's the real predictor of success, not your score. You know, on a test or your grade point.

So I love it. I'm gonna give you a chance to actually answer that question. When you get a chance to answer on the panel.

How do, how do you, how do you deal with female burnout?

Well, I think that burnout, there's a lot of causes for burnout. I mean everybody, there's a lot of people have to work and sometimes work is hard.

But I don't really, in my experience, that's not really what causes burnout. I think that drudgery certainly causes burnout. But I think what really the way that we address that is through boundaries.

Because a lack of boundaries.

Meaning like, you know, if, if you, if you ascribe to the belief that the client is always right and you are at their beck and call, first of all, that's codependent. You know, the only way I can be happy is if I keep them happy. Well, that, that's right. There a problem.

But also if that's, if that's the premise, you haven't set the boundary that, for example, we are in east coast time and we have clients that are in west coast time. So I say when we start working with them, we're very clear that we work on east coast time. Our day ends at 5:30 Eastern.

If you have an emergency, we are happy to help you, but that should be the exception, not the rule. You know, that just to set that ahead of time. And that's kindness. And that's a boundary.

If you don't do that, what happens is you start, you're doing things, people ask you to do it, and you're like, yeah, okay, sure, I'll do it. That's the response. And it's really, you're really building resentment in yourself. And that resentment causes passive aggressive behavior.

And if, unless you're a sociopath, passive aggressive behavior is exhausting and it can just lead to burnout. You're like, I just can't do this anymore.

You know, So I think that one of the things is to really bring everything to the surface, bring it to the forefront and acknowledge the challenges, acknowledge the, the, the need for boundaries of, of many types. That was just one example. And how that alleviates the potential for some of the burnout.

I love it. So what do you hope readers take away from your book, the cultural balance sheet?

Say that again. What do I hope?

What leaders take away. Readers take away from your book?

You know, what I really hope and really everything I do is designed to point out to leaders of all stripes, whether you're in a corporate environment Whether you own a business, it doesn't matter, but that if you are in some sort of role of management, that that is a very noble profession. It's very noble if you appreciate the privilege that you have of feeding into the lives of those you lead.

And that's the undercurrent of the entire book, is all of these little things that you do really the bottom line is that you are affecting the lives of these people.

And what I've said through my organization is that it's my sincere hope that because again, all women at my company, but that the children of our employees see how kindly their parents have been treated and will set higher expectations for their own workplace.

They won't put up with the, you know, being a cog in the wheel and being used up and spit out and being told to leave your emotions at home and, you know, put on some sort of a mask when you go to work. And I think that's where you have to start.

And I know I personally have the privilege of creating that kind of environment that then can bleed out into people's personal lives as well.

So for leaders hearing this and going, the Better Leader Project sounds like something I want to be part of, how can they learn more about that?

They can go to christypretzinger.com and there is information there about the Better Leader Project as well as about the book and about the Better Leader Project. There's a form that you can fill out if you want to join the movement and you can just put that in there and then we will get back in touch with you.

Great. I love to ask my guest this other question too. What do you want your legacy to be?

You know, my legacy truly is helping people be the best they can be and also acknowledging that we are deeply flawed and deeply human. I want people, it's all part of the Better Leader. I want people to be better, not perfect.

And to be, to be good with that, to not only accept it, but to celebrate it, that I'm never gonna be perfect, but I can get better at all of these things. I actually had an employee tell me not too long ago, she said, you know, I've never worked anywhere that made me a better person until.

And I was like that. That right there, that's my legacy.

Because that has a cascading, rippling effect to everybody that comes in contact with her as well as on her own personal day to day life.

Wow, that's neat. So in season six, we have something new for the podcast and it's a surprise question. Pick a number between 1 and 10 for your surprise question.

8.

What's the worst job you've ever had? It's kind of fits the way you're

just talking about, I think probably working at Long John Silver's. No offense, I love their fish.

But I was in college and I worked at Long John Silver's, and he had this polyester shirt that always smelled and you could never get rid of it. And I remember I was like a sophomore in college and they wanted me to be an assistant manager.

And I thought I was really big that they wanted me to be an assistant manager.

So I told my dad that, and he looked at me and he said, christy, you are going to college, so you do not have to be an assistant manager at Long John Silvers. I was like, oh, okay, good. Point taken. Point taken. I mean, there were nice people that worked there, but it was not, it was not a. It was not fun.

There was a lot of joy, a lot of meaning in that work.

So it wasn't your career goal to be assistant manager at the Long Johnson Silver? Well, Christy, thanks so much.

Again, working people once again connect with you and find your website and your book and all the resources that you have.

Yeah, you can find it christypretzinger.com, also on LinkedIn. Follow me on LinkedIn, please. You can reach out to me on LinkedIn. You can also find me@wgcontent.com and all my contact information is there.

And it's also on christypretzinger.com I'm happy to hear from anybody.

Well, Christy, thanks so much for sharing your insights today.

Your book, the Cultural Balance Sheet Keys to Creating an Environment Where People Can Thrive is a powerful reminder that culture isn't just a buzzword. It's a foundation for healthy, thriving organizations for our listeners.

If you want to learn more about Christy's work or grab a copy of her book, check out her website, which will be in the links below. You'll find resources like the Better Leader Project to help you start building a culture where people truly can flourish.

If today's episode didn't really move you, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review and share this conversation with a leader who cares about creating a better workplace. Until next time, remember, culture isn't an expense, it's an investment. Let's keep building environments where people can thrive.

Thank you so much again, Christy.

Thank you, Keith.