We're joined this week on the podcast by Megan Gutierrez, founder and CEO of Taproot Learning Connections. We discuss the Taproot method of measuring the effectiveness of corporate training, her beginnings in corporate instructional design, her passion behind learning and why training is so important, the origins behind her starting a corporate training business, as well as her company's focus on DEI and how to make diversity a staple in your adult learning programs.

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Welcome back to learning matters. I'm Doug Wooldridge, your host. And this week we're joined by CEO and founder of Taproot Learning Connections, Megan Gutierrez. And she has over 20 years of learning and development experience, a master's in instructional design. And we're going to talk about her journey and what makes Taproot Learning Connections an incredible solution for her clients. Let's get to the interview. Awesome. Thanks so much for joining the podcast today with us, Megan. I'd like to f -

start things off with just hearing how you found your way into the world of learning and development. Yeah. So for me, it was very much a chosen career. I know a lot of people kind of stumble into learning and development or training. For me, it was very chosen. I wanted to originally do my studies in social work and that's where I started and then started volunteering in the area and realized very quickly that

my heart couldn't handle it. Yeah. And I was like, this is really hard. And I applaud those who are able to work in the industry because it was way, way too difficult for me. So definitely very quickly had to step back out and say, okay, what do I want to do for a living? I still wanted to have a great impact on the world. And I very quick, well, not very quickly. It took me a while to, to find a pathway to

training and development because I really do believe as Nelson Mandela said, education is the most powerful weapon in which you can use to change. And from the college classroom to the school classroom to the corporate classroom, I really do believe that education is powerful. And even as we work a lot with adult education, we go to work all day.

A lot of our identities are wrapped up in who we are as career professionals. And I believe if we can help people feel more competent in what they do and give them a greater sense in who they are at work and their ability to achieve their jobs and do their jobs well, I believe they can take that back home into their lives and into their communities and put more positivity out into the world.

So even if I'm working on a compliance course that most people hate, I think, you know, I still find great passion in that because that's, you know, at the end of the day, it's about safety, you know, fraud prevention. And those are really truly valuable and very important things and topics. So I love all parts of the L &D world. So. Definitely. I think I like to say that we're always trying to set people up for success. You never want.

someone coming into either a new role or changing into a role higher up within an organization or even just that compliance training. You never want them to feel like they're questioning the next steps. So I think that is why it's so important for training to not only be engaging and insightful, but also just something that they can retain as quickly as possible so they can move on to the next task of the day, which is.

Could be an endless set of tasks. So yes, or never ending, you know I had my daughter ask me the other day like did you get all your work done today? I said no I said at one point in your career, you'll reach you'll you work does not end. that's so funny Yeah, yeah, the goal is to try to at least like shut yourself down a little bit and get a get Just a wee bit of distance between you and that work. So while it's still there in the back of your brain You're just like, okay

focusing on dinner right now, I'm focusing on this new show. Yep, like we got the priorities, the fires done. Definitely. The rest we can table till tomorrow. So when was it that you stepped into corporate and adult learning? God, you know, I've been doing in some form or another, you know, adult education almost my entire adult life.

I've always been drawn to training and development. So even if not in a formal capacity and every role that I was in, I sought out the educational component of it. I was drawn to helping people learn. I was drawn to helping people teach. Even in volunteer work, I was seeking out the education and whatnot. So in more formal roles, it was as I've got my degrees and whatnot, I was started to do the more formal things and training and development and working with clients or working in house.

So probably, you know, over the last 15, 20 years have just been in several different capacities. Yeah. Helping adults learn different things. Very cool. And can you get into a little bit of the origins of Taproot Learning Connections? And when did you decide to start this company and why? Yeah. So that was all an accident. Happy accidents, right?

Happy accidents, right? Like Bob Ross always says. Yes. You know, had you asked me a little short while ago if I would ever own my own company, I would have said, no way. Absolutely not. So I formerly worked in -house learning and development for a mortgage company and had been there for several years and led a team and loved my team. And mortgage is...

are not happy right now. No. And so we saw several years of rolling layoffs just round and round and round. And I had at one point had to lay off several members of my team. Brutal. And then at one point it got to I was laid off and had to lay off another member of my team at the same time. And the day I was laid off and I announced to the rest of my team that I would be leaving that.

with like an hour, 45 minutes later, one member on my team reached out who was staying, reached out and he said, we should start our own thing. And I went, I love you. Give me a minute. Sorry, just still processing this whole day. I need a week. And even like later that day, he's like, no, I'm serious. I'm like, no, give me a minute.

So I started looking for more traditional work and he kept the conversation going over several weeks and several months into the conversation and I kept the conversation with him going. And so while I was working, looking for traditional work, we started just, you know, we'd go to lunch or we'd, you know, have conversations. I'm like, okay, if we were to do this, what would it look like? And at one point I went to lunch with just a friend, a random friend of mine.

and he owns his own nonprofit. And during that conversation, he said, how's looking for work going? And I kind of told him the things I was looking at. And I said, you know, kind of plan B is this. And he's like, why is that? Why is that plan B? Why is that not plan A? Yeah. And so throughout the course of the conversation, he kind of shifted my perspective and I went, fine. Okay. And then,

I set up a series of additional meetings with the person that had been on my team and within probably a month of that call or that lunch, we had stood up the LLC and signed our first contract and we're in business. my gosh. Yeah, just like that. And then it just took off to the point we, at one point we had to say no to some work because we

took on too much. So it took off really, really quickly. And it was really great. A lot of connections in our industry. He ended up, within that month, he resigned from the company we were at. So he left, and I stopped looking for traditional work and said, OK, we're going to do this. But then about five, six months into it, he said, you know, I don't think I want to do this.

Big 180 there from the confidence of being like we should start our own company Yeah, you know he sat down. He said are you enjoying this I said yeah, I actually am he's like you know I'm not okay, all righty then So You know as good friends we tied things very quickly and he he went his way and I took full ownership and

Here I am and here we are and I'm still doing I'm still going and and and loving every moment of it so I'm very thankful that he kind of pushed and and said this is what we should do and I fell in love with it and I'm and still undoing it. That's awesome having the ability to Not only take on the craziness of starting your own company, but also five

to six months after the fact being like, now I have to do everything is what I can only imagine was a harrowing experience. I can't imagine those first couple hours of knowing that and then going into it the next day with the mindset that no, I am gonna take over this company as a whole and we're gonna keep moving on. So it must take a lot of passion to keep moving during those.

what I can only imagine, very troublesome periods of time. So... Yeah, the 22 hour days and not understanding what a P &L is or profit margins and going, okay, I changed from an accounting degree specifically not to do this kind of stuff. So I wanted from a business degree, I'm like, I don't want to do this. So learning very quickly what those things are and how to figure them out and say, okay, we're doing okay. And why Taproot? I think

The name gives a really strong mental image of stability and fostering the intake of learning. I just want to know where the name comes from. Yeah, that was something, you know, my old business partner and I, we worked on together at the beginning. And it really is that idea of fostering that sense of deep rooted knowledge and that foundational knowledge and how important that is as we come together.

in human beings and understanding that that is essential and incredibly valuable. But then as adult learners, as we continue to grow and learn, also fostering that sense of curiosity and continuing to sprout and grow towards the sunshine and to blossom upwards and to have that thirst and that sense of like, okay, I want more. And so to

continue to have that foundation and that solid, yes, this is awesome, but then also to continue to sprout upwards and to thrive and to push for more and continue to just grow and blossom and have all these beautiful opportunities upwards. It's never ending, both in either direction because you can always foster more foundation and more roots underneath. You can always deepen that sense of knowledge.

and at the same time also foster additional curiosity and it's never ending. Yeah, I like to say to folks that you're not having a fulfilled day unless you're learning something. So it could be learning, you know, how to best prepare this this red sauce for tonight's dinner or it could be how do I how do I best prepare myself to walk in

Every morning for work and be at the top of my game, but you never you never done learning and I think that If you do find yourself not learning then you're losing out on the time that we have here. So I think Absolutely. That's why I really really love the idea of taproot as as that strong

that really beautiful picture of folks just constantly growing, constantly learning, constantly taking in the nutrients that is learning. So I also really love that when I was doing a little bit of research for this podcast, that the focal point of your commitment and your mission statement is diversity, equity and inclusion. So I think that a lot of the Fortune 500 companies, while they are doing decent

at finally really embracing this idea of DEI, I think that they still have a long way to go. So why is diversity, equity and inclusion so important to your mission statement as well as just how your company develops training, even if it's, you know, like you said earlier, down to that, the compliance side of things where it's not necessarily so fun to go through, but how

How do you embrace DEI as a company and make sure that that is a massive part of not only just the way that you develop training, but also the way that you run the company? You know, I think it goes back to my roots and wanting to go into social work and having a strong drive towards being a very human -centric and a very people -centric company and understanding that at the root of every training,

are, is people, you know, whether it be a compliance training or a safety training or anything, it's the learner at the end of the day is the person taking it. So understanding that that unique individual is going to be impacted at the end of the day and making sure that you're constantly aware of, you know, the diversity and the equity, that equality that comes with that.

is critical and having that representation is important. And of course, as a woman and a minority in that respect, I also identify in the queer community, which brings a level to it. And then recently, and I wanted to bring this up, I found this incredible inclusivity pledge, and I'll give credit where credit's due, and she created in the L &D community called Ideal.

And I want to start using that more in its inclusion, diversity, equity, accessibility, and then love, which I love. Yeah, that's great. Because it's bringing all of those things together. And it's Kayleen. And it's through... I'll make sure to get the information over to you. Yeah, I'd love to add it into our show notes and such, because I think this is such an important...

side of training and also just life in general. Yes. So it's through Scissor Tail Creative Services is part of where it comes from and was actually a member of my team who found it and she went through some courses and then she brought it to me and I love it. So and that's also goes back to, you know, we foster that on our team and our hiring practices and my team knows that like, hey, this is really important to us.

across the board that we always want inclusivity in everything that we do. And that's important in our designs, in how we work with our clients. And we even, we try to push our clients with it a little bit, which is sometimes hard because they're not always there. But we always try to say, okay, well, what can we do? What's our 10 % that we can bring to the table? And how can we kind of push them to the 10 %?

And one of our recent clients, we were able to almost every course we were able to have scenarios that had characters with gender pronouns that were they them, which was fantastic and they were open to it. And, you know, those kinds of things, we're always trying to just be more inclusive in everything that we do and help our clients there as well when they're open to it, even if they don't know what we're doing. Sometimes we just kind of get try to get them.

It's everything we do, we try to do it that way. Definitely. And do you find that some of the authoring tools out there today have made it a little bit easier to add those type of characters in there where, you know, maybe 10 years ago would have been kind of a more standardized he, him, she, her type of characters. And now you can at least dig into that without too much customization? A little bit. I think there is.

a little bit of that, but you really do have to approach it with more intentionality. You have to be aware of it. It's easy to fall into just the mainstream. So it is with intentionality. You have to go out there. We actually, you have to go out and Google like gender neutral names and bring those into the courses.

And actually even gender neutral names, global gender neutral names, not just gender neutral names, US based because they're very, very different globally than in the US. So there is some intentional extra effort that goes into it. And then of course, just accessibility and those kinds of things and making sure that your courses are accessible. And even

the course that my team member took, it was a webinar. And when the host of the webinar got on, she said, you know, hey, I'm here. You know, this is my name. But then she described what she was wearing. And she described what she looked like. And that's not something I've ever done or that I've ever done on a webinar or a Zoom call for accessibility reasons. But I'm like, I should probably start trying to figure out ways to incorporate that.

for accessibility, like I didn't do it on this call at all. So those kind of things and trying to figure out ways to constantly push ourselves and push our learning. And one of the things on this ideal pledge is that we're not perfect, but we have to start somewhere, right? That's very well put. And my grandmother worked for School for the Deaf and Blind back in the day, so she would absolutely love hearing that folks are

describing the way they look, the way that they present themselves, because they had to do that every day. I mean, it's a true way of communication that allows them to really be a part of the moment that instead of just questioning. So, yeah, exactly. I think a solid portion of our listeners would like to know what it's like navigating.

the world of learning and development as a woman -owned business? You know, it's the best. It's wonderful. And it's something that was unexpected for me. You know, you hear about the difficulties of it and you hear about the barriers that you come up against, which may be true, but what I didn't expect was the support.

and the community and the people I would find that just like came out of nowhere. Because before being in a woman owned business, I just kind of lived my life and I wasn't tapped into that world. And then all of a sudden I was and then everybody was there. I'm like, where did all these people come from? And the mentors and the people that just all of a sudden reach out their hand and say, hey,

Do you need any help or do you need any advice or do you want to just go to lunch or it was astounding to me and all of a sudden I'm like, this is who they are. These are incredible people. Where have you been my entire life? As a woman coming up in my career, I never found, for better or worse, I didn't have like really huge.

strong women mentors. They, you know, I have women leaders and they were, they were great, but not like they are in this space as women owned businesses. It's a completely different thing. And it's absolutely incredible. Why do you think that the community for LND is so much stronger and supportive for women coming into this business as owners, as thought leaders,

great speakers that type of thing? I think there's a little bit, it's the small businesses, it's the small business women owners and it's the L &D business owners and I think there's a mix between I've been there and I know how hard and how isolating it can be

And I see you. And then I also think specifically in L &D, it's that we're learners and we're curious and we like to grow. And so there's this natural inquisitiveness that comes of we like to network. We like to chat with each other because we learn things when we partner, we always learn.

from each other and there's always that element of learning from each other, new and old. It's just like there's always that element of learning. And so there's that. But it's a lot of it, I think, with the women specifically is there is, better or worse, there is that extra kind of burden of you do tend to shoulder a little bit more. And it's nice to be kind of seen.

in understanding that a lot tend to be, some are moms, some are not, but you know, some tend to, you carry extra household, you carry extra weight in the workplace of having to alter how you show up in meetings, alter how you talk, alter how you have conversations and just understanding where you show up and.

having others show up and say, I see you and let me share what I've learned along the way is just an, it's incredibly powerful. And for folks that are just getting into this industry, are there any groups or communities that you would like to shout out here on the podcast for, for people that are like definitely like -minded women coming into this who would love to find a community as soon as they drop into this.

Strange world of learning and development. Yeah, you know, I found the easiest community to tap into for L &D is definitely probably the ATD community, the Association for Talent Development. It's fairly widespread across the United States. It's got chapters almost everywhere. The local chapter is how I got tapped into my network here. And I pretty much can trace almost every job to.

ATD and the networks and the connections. So ATD is really, really great. You can stretch into, if you're into the human resource side a little bit, you know, Society for Human Resource Management and SHRM. SHRM is the acronym there. I used to work in HR for a little bit. Love you, SHRM. Yeah, so, yeah, SHRM and ATD are the two, like, big players. And then I found, like, a really great community just on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn, connecting with people on LinkedIn, that is a very professional community of L &D professionals. A lot of people posting there, a lot of people sharing information there, and just kind of going back and forth and showing articles and blogs and just trying to kind of work your way into LinkedIn and that playground there. So those are kind of the three communities that, and then just branching out from there and making the social networks and the connections from there.

there's a lot of small business networking communities in each state. You know, like there's the Utah business, there's lots of lots, you know, where I am, there's lots of women's communities and L and D communities in each place. So you can always find different networks everywhere. Well, I think, I think it's just a super powerful that, that folks like yourself can go into.

What I can imagine is just a very scary period of time trying to be a woman -owned business coming into your own and finding that the landing is soft the the people are there to to to help you grow to help you connect with potential clients and and really just grow your your ability to

make great training. So tell me a little bit about the Taproot method. What makes your approach so impactful for your clients? You know, I think one is that we care a lot about humans and people and we care about the results. And so one of the things we really push our clients on and they don't love it. And it's really hard for them.

And they fight us. I'm so excited to hear this, by the way. I cannot wait. Yes. They love to hear it, but then when in practice, they drag their feet. So it's kind of a selling point, but then they're like, no, I don't want to do it. Is we really want to establish those KPIs, those key performance indicators on the training results upfront. And they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But then we're like, no, no, no, really. Yeah. No, this is important.

Yes, and it's like we want specific KPIs for all of your training results and your training goals. And how are we going to measure the effectiveness? And more serious, like what are we measuring? And we are wanting to try our specific objectives in our trainings to those KPIs. And furthermore, we're going to establish surveys in the courses that tie back to those results. And we're going to put those surveys in the courses.

and we're gonna monitor those results and we are going to come back into your organization in a determined amount of time, six months, year, whenever, and we are going to check back in with you to make sure we actually accomplished what we set out to achieve. And if we didn't, we are going to ask why. And we are going to work with you to go back and work with you to accomplish those results. So if we are not making that needle changing behavior that you wanted, we will work with you. So as in where most companies or organizations

don't want to see the results, not like learning organizations like us, but the companies don't often want to see the results because they want to drop the training and say, hey, I did it, goodbye. Yes, thanks, we're done, good luck. It's done. The companies, people are scared to actually see the results often because then it's did we do our jobs or not? And not talking, like the actual L &D departments within a company.

Like they're scared often to say, like, did we accomplish what we wanted to? Because if not, then maybe we did something wrong. And they're often scared to take that microscope and look at it. And so, but we're like, no, we really do want to accomplish those results. And so it kind of gets scary when the rubber hits the road because they're like, do we, that's actually really hard to measure. And sometimes it is just like, okay, well,

We're just going to establish the benchmark at this point because they may not have the benchmarks in place. But it's hard work putting all those pieces and systems in place and then committing to coming back in with them and really evaluating those results and saying, did we make those changes and the impact that you wanted? Yeah. And how are you evaluating those results? I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of different ways to try to garner what retention is, success rate for any

particular training, but is there anything that you guys do that stands out among the rest to really evaluate the results? Because I think it's super important. Yeah, it really goes back to what specifically the organization is looking for, right? And what metrics and benchmarks they already have in place. So if they already have a lot of, right, if they're already tracking amazing data, then it's like, okay, well, you're already here. So we're just going to look and

and we pull those data results in six months to a year and see if you're already here. So if you're looking to reduce employee turnover in a new hire training program and say, okay, we are actually, we have a lot of people leave during the first year of our onboarding because we don't feel like we're onboarding them successfully. We have a high turnover in the first year. We want to increase that retention. So we're gonna say, okay, we're gonna...

put this amazing onboarding program in place that has an amazing cultural impact and all these kind of things, and then let's gauge in a year if we've done better on our retention. And they're already tracking retention, so in a year we can come back and look at that retention. Or maybe they're already putting employee survey results out of like, is my manager working with me on a specific performance evaluation metric or something, and then we can

And we do a management training then we can say you know in six months did my manager ask these specific questions during my performance management evaluation and That's a it's a given already right so we already have those benchmarks in place So it kind of depends on what metrics they already have in place, and if they don't have one It's like okay. Well we're gonna put that metric in place, and we're gonna ask that question now And then we're gonna ask it later, so and I'm sure it's like pulling teeth with clients But once you get to that six months post training

Timeline of where you can actually pull the data. I would imagine that they're very surprised with the successful results that are coming from it Yes, yeah. Yeah, they are. They're very very happy and they're like, this is really really great and we're so excited or sometimes it's like This actually didn't hit the metric that we wanted and that's okay seat. That's okay, too It's great information to have because it's like this wasn't the problem that we thought it was

or this training didn't actually hit the right target or we're not pulling the right metric. And we can then evaluate from there and say, okay, well, we didn't roll that out correctly or we didn't do enough change management upfront and the adoption async because we lost our focus and we haven't put enough emphasis on the organization. So we need to do another campaign to push this out again. And it's...

It's just information. It doesn't mean it's good or bad. It's information in which we can use to do better. I love that. That it's not good or bad. It is just data. And let's use that data that you've already most likely been collecting anyway to make sure that we have success in these training programs. And that's our method. You know, it's just what can we, how do we use that information to do better and to get the results we actually want? I love it. So I know that AI

and things like that are very heavy buzzwords these days. But what do you see is the future of learning and development and how can folks kind of try to keep up with that whirlwind of ever -changing technology and then requests from clients who are like, hey, we need to utilize AI here and whatever training that you're doing without actually necessarily knowing what that fully means or what they actually expect from that, mainly

just because they see it online, they're like, we need to do AI. We have to. So what do you see? I think a couple things on that front with clients who come in and are like, I want to do all the things. You say, OK, great. Let's do it. Lovely. Let's go. Lovely. Let's get a purchase order going here. But then say, what do you actually want and what do you actually need? And be a true consultant to the client and find out what they actually need. And then.

make recommendations based off what they truly need in the organization and don't over promise based off the buzzwords. Because what we want to do is remain ethical and remain true to what the clients and the learners specifically need. And AI might not be the solution for them. And we want to remain ethical in what we deliver to our clients.

So that's the first. And then second is as far as how do we stay on top of all the things is remain curious and playful and have fun because it is, it's fun and it's cool and it's exciting and it is overwhelming. Very well put. Yes, it is very much that. So fun until you get into it and you're like, my gosh, this is way more information than I could possibly take in.

But yeah, but there's never there. There's no way you'll be able to stay on top of it because it changes so fast and so just Take it one day at a time and say I'm curious in this piece today and and play with it And use it to your advantage like chat GPT is amazing. You can go in and just say hey, what is new in AI today? And how do I what is the current trends in LND and AI today?

and what is the coolest tool that I, what's a cool AI tool that I should explore right now. You know, you could do all sorts of things. If you're not in it yet, just start somewhere. Pick something, you can take a quick course, you can have a chat GPT teach you. You know, you can start anywhere. There's articles, there's, but it's not something to be scared of.

People get really scared, like, AI is gonna replace all of the instructional designers. It's not, because at the end of the day, we're the humans and like the ideal, you know, pledge earlier. We're the ones that bring love. We're the ones that bring the empathy. We're the ones that see the learner at the end of the experience and AI will never see that learner. So we'll never, AI will never see that learner experience the way we do.

and it will never replace us. It will just help us do it better and faster. I agree entirely. And just as an aside from the last question, are there any developing tools that you're using that are currently kind of in that AI world? I know that for a lot of our folks over at Dash, they use Mid Journey to help kind of

start the process of developing some vibes, some images and stuff, but it is very much like they utilize a lot of Photoshop to take little pieces and stuff and put this here and there. So I'm just curious if you guys utilize any of the AI tools out there for image creation or audio, those type of things. Yeah, I mean, we definitely use ChatGPT like every day.

Me too. Yeah, every day. Not just for course creation, but for my entire life. Yeah. Yes, please. How do I schedule this time to actually make bread from scratch and then have this food be here? And I have to sit at my desk for the majority of the day. So give me a healthier button. Exactly. I had to design. I got a last minute call from my kid's school and like, can you design a relay race for fourth graders? I'm like, huh?

So I went to tattooing and I'm like, I have these tools. I have some cones and I have this and this and this. Designed a relay race for like 20 minutes for 140 kids and it did. And it was awesome. I'm like, cool. Nice. So yeah. There you go. All sorts of stuff. Brainstorming, I like creative writing on the end and I got in writer's block and I'm like, this character is stuck. What do I do? And he gave me psychology on this character that I didn't even know. I'm like, this is so cool. All sorts of fun stuff, but.

You can do amazing things, but in addition to like scenario writing and course writing and like quiz questions all sorts of stuff I We use 11th hour. I think it's 11th hour app for audio To audio AI for 11 labs 11 labs 11 labs for the set a podcast episode on that it is lovely I love their speech to speech function because I've done a lot of

I come from a little bit of an acting background, but I've done have a whole roll decks of folks in LA and in New York and stuff for actors for voiceover but it is a game changer now having the speech to speech function for that because it takes all the guesswork out of doing any of the You know the correct pauses and stuff you really want to try to if you're doing speed text to speech you really want to try to

Nailed down the script enough so whether you're not just sitting there like repeatedly Making it redo the script over and over again because it can't quite hit those pauses But this is I would say a game changer so it's not sponsored by 11 labs by the way. Just really love it Yeah In my you know read AI if you guys have you yeah AI for meetings, which is awesome And then I just discovered in video like two couple weeks ago

I had it recommended to me by somebody and I literally from the moment I'm like, okay, I'm going to check this out. And I created an account and then I'm like, what do I want to make a video on? And I'm like, okay, I'm going to make a video on like how to use AI in your life because that's kind of fun. Why not? From the moment I made a video, like figured it out, kind of threw in some prompts and rendered the video. It was eight minutes and it did the whole thing.

I'm like, this is stupid. And then it rendered it with a male auto narrator. And I'm like, no, I want a female name narrator. And then it took me like 15 minutes to figure it out. So it was like 20 minutes to switch it out to a female narrator. And then I put, I published it on my LinkedIn. now I'm going back to your LinkedIn to go take a look at it. Yeah. And you can go see it. And I even talk about the relay race of the fourth grader in the video. But in video and it's.

It's not for L and D people, it's for content creators and all those kinds of people. But I'm like, yeah, I'm buying this for my team because why? Yeah, we could do an onboarding video in eight minutes for a client. And yeah, clients are going to catch on and they're going to start using it. And that's great. And by all means, they should. And that's fantastic. But again, you know, adult learning theory and

how the learners learn things and how we piece the entire learning structure together and the love that we put into it, instructional designers will never go. That's true. I agree entirely. As a business owner, I'm sure that there are great days and then just okay days. How do you keep pushing forward through and what you've told us here today is that it has been a absolute

whirlwind, if you will, of changes and just trying to keep the dream alive and that type of thing. So what drives you every day? You know, I think first of all, you have to have passion for what you do and you have to have love for it. So I love learning and development. I love people. But then secondary is I have grace for myself. And I understand that some days I

And I understand that mental health is important and I've dealt with depression and anxiety my entire adult life, so I understand that there are going to be good days and there are going to be bad days. And I allow myself to go through those days and I have a therapist who's amazing and helps me through those days. And that's how I get through it. And again, I have passion for what I do. I love what I do. And then I have grace for myself on the days that I...

I have a hard day and then it all works out and we keep going. Yeah. See folks, it is important to give yourself grace, a little bit of time for you to rewind, relax a little bit and then get back into that grindset mindset. What does the future look like for Taproot Learning Connections? Where do you see yourself in the next?

what will most likely be a blink of an eye once you hit that five year mark of running the company? You know, if, if COVID taught me anything or if being laid off taught me anything, you know, I kind of stopped making five year goals or five year plans. And instead I, you know, I was talking to somebody last year and he gave me this kind of metaphor and I kind of adopted it. And instead I,

kind of taken this approach of I look at my life as a train station and I pack my bags and I have my bags packed and those are my skills, my knowledge, I prepare and I have some great destinations in mind and I think, okay, these are these opportunities that may come up, markets, trends, whatever the case may be, personal and professional, and then I watch the trains and whatever opportunities may come, the right one, I'll know it.

and I'll get on it and we'll ride that train for a while. And then we'll explore that opportunity and then we'll take the next one when that one comes. And so I don't know what opportunities will come, but when they arrive, we'll explore those opportunities. And so who knows where I'll be in five years because I did not expect to be here, but wherever it will be, I know it will be exciting and it will be fun. And I will enjoy every moment that it takes to get there. So that's where we'll be in five years.

I think with that beautiful insight on how to take the day to day life, we can leave this podcast here and in all honesty, I hope in five years maybe we'll catch a train together. We'll keep this conversation going and I just can't wait to hear what destinations you found yourself in and what you've learned along the way.

So thank you so much, Megan, for joining the podcast today and we really appreciate it. Thanks so much, Doug. Thanks so much for listening. As always, like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget to sign up for our newsletter, The Buzz, to keep up with all things learning and development. See you next time.