This episode features a profound discussion centered on the transformative power of heart-led leadership as exemplified by our esteemed guest, Lori Igleski. With her extensive background in financial services and as the founder of Heart Led Ventures, Lori articulates the significance of fostering a compassionate and empathetic organizational culture during periods of change and disruption.

Throughout our conversation, she emphasizes the necessity of aligning personal values with professional endeavors, advocating for the next generation of diverse leaders, and the critical role of building trust within teams and communities.

Moreover, Lori shares invaluable insights regarding the implementation of effective change management strategies, particularly in navigating the complexities of mergers and acquisitions.

We invite you to join us as we delve into the inspiring wisdom and experiences that can guide women in business towards creating authentic, impactful transformations in their organizations and beyond.

Our Guest This Week:

Today we have a WISDOM-WEILDING WARRIOR in our midst!  

Lori Igleski is a transformational leader, board director, strategic advisor, and the founder of Heart-Led Ventures LLC, where she empowers organizations to lead authentic, enduring change. After a decades-long career in financial services, including leadership roles at JP Morgan Chase, MB Financial, and Fifth Third Bank, Lori formed her firm to pass forward the wealth of wisdom she gained through over 35 large-scale M&A integrations, reorganizations, and transformations. 

Known for blending operational rigor with heart-centered leadership, Lori has championed the client and employee experience even through the most complex changes impacting hundreds of thousands of people. Today, she serves as a board director for SmartBiz, a limited partner at How Women Invest, and an executive advisory board member of How Women Lead. Lori is a fierce advocate for the next generation of diverse leaders and a guiding force for transformational change grounded in authenticity, logic, and empathy.

Takeaways:

• The episode emphasizes the importance of celebrating the brilliance and resilience of women in business, fostering a supportive community.
• Lori advocates for heart-led leadership, blending operational rigor with empathy to navigate complex changes.
• The episode explores the significance of personal values in evaluating opportunities and making courageous decisions in professional journeys.
• Listeners are encouraged to create a personal board of directors to support their growth, emphasizing the importance of self-care and community in leadership.

Chapters:

04:36 Moments of Transformation: Defining Experiences in Leadership

17:30 Navigating Change: The Emotional Landscape

24:37 Heart-Led Leadership in Organizational Change

35:09 Navigating Growth and Self-Care as a Founder

39:22 Building a Legacy: Uplifting Others and Personal Growth

Burning Questions Answered:

1. What does it mean to lead with both strategy and heart?
2. How do you navigate personal and professional transitions with courage?
3. What is a “personal board of directors” and why should every founder have one?
4. How do you lead a company through large-scale transformation without losing your people—or your purpose?
5. What makes heart-led leadership not just compassionate—but powerfully effective?

Favorite Quotes:

"Sometimes the boldest leadership move is walking away from something that no longer serves you."

"Legacy isn’t built in one role—it’s built in how you show up every day."

"Leadership is not just about metrics. It’s about impact, empathy, and creating space for others to grow."

Closing Thoughts:

Lori’s story is a masterclass in courage, clarity, and conscious leadership. Whether stepping away from corporate life, walking Machu Picchu with her daughters, or guiding major organizational change, she leads from a place of values—and shows us how to do the same.

She reminds every founder that scaling impact doesn’t mean losing yourself. It means knowing when to say no, choosing growth that aligns with your soul, and always—always—lifting others along the way.

GUEST OFFERS & CONTACT INFORMATION:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heartledventures/   

Follow the #WisdomOfWomen show for more inspiring stories and insights from trailblazing women founders, investors, and experts in growth and prosperity.

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RSS Feed: https://feeds.captivate.fm/womengetfunded/ 

Coco Sellman, the host of #WisdomOfWomen, believes business is a force for good, especially with visionary women at the helm. With over 25 years of entrepreneurial experience, she has launched five companies and guided over 500 startups. As Founder & CEO of A Force for Good, Coco supports purpose-driven women founders in unlocking exponential growth and prosperity. Her recent venture, Allumé Home Care, reached eight-figure revenues and seven-figure profits in just four years before a successful exit in 2024. A venture investor and board director, Coco’s upcoming book, *A Force for Good*, reveals a roadmap for women to lead high-impact, high-growth companies.

Learn more about A Force for Good:

Website: https://aforceforgood.biz/ 

Are Your GROWING or PLATEAUING? https://aforceforgood.biz/quiz/

FFG Tool of the Week: https://aforceforgood.biz/weekly-tool/ 

The Book:  https://aforceforgood.biz/book/ 

Growth Accelerator: https://aforceforgood.biz/accelerator/ 

Welcome to the Wisdom of Women show where we honor the brilliance, resilience and rising power of women in business.

This is a space built for women just like you.

Visionary, driven, world changing.

I am your host, Coco Selman, five time founder, impact investor and creator of the Force for Good system.

Thank you for joining us today as we illuminate the path to unlocking opportunities and prosperity for women led enterprises by amplifying the voice and wisdom of women.

Today we have with us a wisdom wielding warrior.

And today I would like to introduce you to Laurie Ingleski, a transformational leader, board director, strategic advisor and the founder of Heart Led Ventures where she empowers organizations to lead authentic, enduring change.

After a decades long career in financial services, including leadership roles at JP Morgan Chase, MV Financials and Fifth Third Bank, Lori created Heart Led Ventures to pass forward the wealth of wisdom she gained through her over 35 large scale M and A integrations.

Holy cow.

Known for blending operational rigor with heart centered leadership, Lori has championed the client and employee experience even through the most complex changes impacting hundreds of thousands of people.

Today she serves as a board director for Smart Biz, a limited partner and at How Women Invest and an executive advisory board member of How Women Lead.

Lori is a fierce advocate for the next generation of diverse leaders and a guiding force for transformational change grounded in authenticity, logic and empathy.

Welcome, Laurie.

Thank you, Coco.

That was quite an introduction.

My goodness.

I'm so excited to have you here and I've had this opportunity to get to know you through, through How Women Lead and you know, you're just, you're, you're wise and brilliant woman and I'm so honored to have you here to talk to our listeners, our world changing founders today.

Well, I'm delighted to be here.

Thank you for inviting me and I'm really excited about what we can cover today.

I hope that it's helpful to your audience in many ways.

So thank you again.

So tell us, what is a book written by a woman that has influenced your life?

Okay.

The book that comes to mind is at the front end of my most recent pivot, which we'll talk a little bit about today and the last five or six years of my professional and personal journey.

So Brene Brown, which many people follow and know about, wrote Dare to Lead and I read that book on audio during the early days of COVID We were all at home.

The one thing we could do was get outside and walk.

I did a lot of walking with audio books on and I started to listen to all of Brene's books, the one that really impacted me the most was Dare to Lead because that's where she talks about heart led leadership.

And that is what inspired my business and the work that I decided I wanted to do for the next chapter for myself the next 10, 15 years.

At the same time I was struggling in my current corporate role.

I was in that, you know, number 35 in terms of integrations and transformations and I wasn't feeling it.

I was struggling a little bit.

Was this what I wanted to do?

Covid brought all this time for space that, you know, without thinking you get up, you go to work, you do all these things.

And Covid created disruption to that.

And so that's where I really started to think about what do I want and am I living it and if not, how am I going to get there?

Brilliant.

And what a great book.

Renee Brown is just extraordinary.

It makes me think just thinking of you walking during COVID I would just listen to all these wonderful books.

It was a good way to use that time disruption and then you created a pivot out of it, which is pretty cool.

So let's talk about moments of your life that have shaped you and guided your path.

I always like to hear about the three most defining experiences that brought you to where you are today.

The moments where you said yes to something bold or something challenging or something where you had to be courageous.

A moment you stood your ground perhaps, or times you felt you had to overcome loss or failure.

And then also like maybe there's a moment of time where you had accomplished something.

So what are those three moments that have most shaped your journey?

Sure.

I'll take you back to early in my career.

I was working in banking, was commercial banker.

I led a team.

So I revenue responsibilities, I had leadership responsibilities and always was going pretty well.

I had had a child and, and integrated that child into my work life and had my process and so forth.

A very committed and supportive husband.

But then I got pregnant with twins.

I had a two year old and twins on the way.

And I knew that life as I knew it, it wasn't going to be so simple to just have these babies and come back to the same corporate life that I had before were.

And what a gift they were as human beings, of course, all three of my children.

But it also was a moment for me to really stop and reflect and think about the path I was on and whether or not that was going to work for me going forward.

So having those twins started me to think about my values, how we were Going to make all of this work.

And that led to my second pivot.

My second moment was stepping away from that role as a revenue generator which had evening, weekend and entertainment expectations.

It was a role that wasn't going to fit for my life for two reasons.

I took a different job, same organization.

The first was these family dynamics.

I found a way that I felt a job would fit better into my new normal.

And secondly, I was really ready to do more strategic work on the organization as opposed to serving clients, which I adore.

I always think of myself as a client service person, but I wanted a different type of experience and I wanted to really work on the organization.

This was back in the early 90s and the banking industry was going through a lot of change.

A lot of those mergers started to occur and I became the advocate for the employee and the client because that's the seat I had sat in for so long.

But I started to work more internally, focused on leading change and developing a skill set that I later monetized in terms of my consulting work.

That was the second moment.

The third moment was when I decided that I just needed a corporate break.

I made this successful transition and merger integration work is backbreaking work.

Maybe I don't have to entertain clients on the weekends or at night, but it is every bit as challenging and consuming as the direct client service role was.

And so at 43 we a 15 year old and those 12 year old twins by college ahead of us, I needed a break.

And so I left my job without another role.

I just decided I'm taking a time out.

I took three months off.

I thought this is going to be great.

I'm going to spend all this time with my kids.

Well, they just wanted me to drive them somewhere.

That's right.

But.

But in any event, at the conclusion of that summer, I did go back to work and I, and I joined a not for profit and I worked on a civic, a public private civic project in the city of Chicago that was very important to me.

It was an Olympic bid.

So Chicago was bidding on the Olympics.

And that was, you know, another major turning point in terms of kind of once you jump that shark and make a big personal change like leaving a job, things that come along after that seem so much more simple and so much easier.

So I think that set me up then for the following 20 years or so of my career.

Amazing.

And so I love this giving yourself permission along the way to make these changes.

And what was guiding you.

What do you feel like as you look back on your Life.

Like, what do you feel like, you know, what do you think the undertones of your journey have been?

And it feels like your family has been a big part of it, but also leaning into new ideas and ways for you to grow personally.

Tell us what you.

What you sort of.

When you look back, like, what do you sort of feel like you've learned as a journey or through life?

Sure.

So a couple things.

I think that certainly my values and knowing how to evaluate opportunities against those values, having courage to say yes, but courage to say no when appropriate.

My professional identity has been very important to me, and it's something that I've worked a long time to develop.

My solid reputation, the trust that my clients have in me, the network that I've built, and all of those things have created so many future opportunities for me.

So I've nurtured and taken care of, who am I?

What are my values?

How can I help?

And then curiosity and a desire to have fun have been part of it as well.

I've had some absolutely great experiences.

There's certainly been low lights and all of that where there's been a challenge, but I've been able to kind of figure, find my way through those with minimal collateral damage and emerge with something new.

And, you know, every new client opportunity is a chance for more learning or a chance to meet new people and have an impact on their lives.

Watching my kids develop into the humans and the adults that they are, I feel very grateful for having an attitude of having a North Star, having values, being strong enough to say yes or no when it's important, and then enjoying it all at the same time.

Well, and you do a fair bit of transformational personal work about helping people find their way and identify where they're headed.

So how has this experience helped you shape that?

Well, what I'm doing now in terms of coaching and helping people on an individual level is really bringing those experiences.

Meeting.

You know, that's my.

You know, I'm not a classically trained IPC certified coach, but I have this business experience through change.

You know, not just the human side, but I also have done a lot of technical work around change as well.

But I think for the purpose of our conversation, the work around the human is what's much more interesting.

When I meet somebody and speak with young people at the beginning of their career, all the way through, executives that are leaving their organization, either as a retired individual or involuntarily, and they need to.

They want to figure out what that next thing is, is really trying to understand the same things about them that I just described.

What are their values?

What kind of courage do they have?

Do they need help building courage?

Do they need to work on self limiting beliefs?

Where is it that I can meet them where they are and help bring them to what they articulate as being important to them and their values and their goals.

And so my style of coaching is very much centered in sort of that person's journey and just being supportive.

I talk to people about building a personal board of directors and different roles that people can play.

The sage that's got the advice, the caregiver who makes sure that you ate or makes sure that you're exercising or whatever that is.

I try to help people identify not just the relationship that we have, but the rest of their network where they can find support for what they need.

And then we just ideate around what's possible and giving them examples that I've seen or that I've lived around.

What's possible can help people give themselves the permission to go after it and to chase it.

And you know, sometimes that's starting their own business.

And that might.

And starting their own business might be monetizing their corporate life, which is what I did in my consulting work or it could be fractional work in their industry expertise or any combination of things.

Yeah, you know, I started a healthcare services business.

It could be a SaaS business, it could be buying a business.

And I love this idea of having a personal board of directors which is different than a board for your company.

As we're talking to founders, I always recommend that any company have some sort of award.

It's good to have that and have.

That those people around you that can support you.

It's not so that it is good to have somebody to reports information to.

It creates that accountability.

You sort of get out of this idea you can do whatever you want because you own the business, but it really does help you have what you need.

So you said a sage, somebody who's like a caregiver.

Are there any other people that you think would be really that you like to guide your clients to having?

Because I imagine this would be very applicable to all of our listeners.

Yeah, and I think it's very applicable to founders.

It's either for when you're doing work on yourself, but it's also very applicable in the founder space.

And the story of my career journey after I made that move at 43 and went and worked on the Olympic bid.

Well, Chicago lost.

And so when we lost, we were all out of Jobs.

I started my first consulting business at that time, and I learned some lessons that start to inform having this personal board of directors.

I tried to do everything myself.

It was very difficult for me to scale because I had a very hard time letting go of the product and letting somebody else do the work with the client.

And it was very hard for me.

I had a vistage group, so there's lots of ways to build a personal board of directors.

So I had a vistage group, and they were very helpful, but I never really overcame that piece of it.

When I think now when I try to look back and use that experience to help founders, you know, there's a few things that I would say to them.

Having the personal board of directors is important.

The sage, the connector, somebody that can help you with your network.

A hero, somebody who's really a champion for you, that cares about you and that you look up to and admire.

There's lots of roles you could play, depending on what the organization type needs.

I think a caregiver role is important.

Someone that, you know, sort of looks at you and sees as you're, you know, running around trying to get this, this thing done, that you are taking care of yourself so that you can be your best.

So those are some of the roles that I would recommend.

A challenger as well, I think somebody that would help challenge your thinking in a constructive and supportive way.

Yes, people play those roles on typical boards of directors.

As you get to know the board and think about who to actually put on your governing board, you want to think about those archetypes, so to speak, and as well as their technical expertise and what they can help you do in a founding situation.

Does it go to market?

Is it risk?

Is it tech?

Is it ops?

You need people with some of those skill sets, but they also have a personality type as well.

The extent that you can find people to cover both those emotional, you know, I don't want to say soft skills, but play those types of roles that we talked about as well as the technical roles that would allow you to really put a fabulous board together.

Oh, that's wonderful.

And I don't think I've ever heard about thinking about your board of directors in quite that way.

I think about it all the time on the boards I'm on.

Where.

What are those technical expertise?

That's always what we talk about, right?

Oh, what's the balance of men and.

Women and all the other things?

But what about what they bring to the executive director or the CEO or to the group?

What role or architect do they play?

I think that's a really wise component to add Sage Connector, Hero, caregiver, Challenger.

So Lori.

Okay, so you have done 35 M&A transformations, so all different kinds of transactions transformations.

And I've been through two with my company through a merger and then we were acquired.

The amount of change and disruption that everybody feels, the leaders whole organization is massive.

So that's a lot of change you've led.

What have you learned about leading during these kinds of stressful, disruptive?

Everybody is emotional.

There's grief, sadness, happiness, joy.

But there's fear.

There's a lot of emotions that go on.

I think you have to acknowledge them and give people some space to work through them.

And so when I face a new change event and I'm coming in to help the organization see organizations change, I've been subject to many because I've been an employee in merged and acquired roles.

And so I have my own personal experience as well.

But when I come into an organization, what I want to help them do is really give a voice to the people that are going to be most impacted by the change.

You know, I always say change starts at the top.

So you've got the group that decided whatever it is is going to happen, right.

And they probably think down a few levels, but depending on the size as well, who's really thinking about those people on the ground that talk to customers, that talk to the community, that feel what's happening to the clients, to themselves as client facing employees, the revenue generation.

Lots of times revenue gets put at risk because if you have a front line that doesn't really understand the why for the change and doesn't feel heard or advocated for, they're likely either going to check out and stay or they're going to leave.

And so you really have to get your arms around where the rubber reads the road for your company at the point of revenue, at the point of service, at the point of connection, outside of your company to get started.

I always try to become their advocate.

Find a quick win or two that addresses some sort of pain point or issue that they're having so that they can start to believe that I really do have their back.

There's a lot of translation representing what that group needs to the powers that be in terms of orchestrating the change and then helping them create the right tone so that they end up with the culture and they end up with, you know, what's going to be successful for them at the end of the day.

And in a lot of the transformations that I'VE done, they've involved technology.

When banks come, there's houses and, and procedures and so forth.

But there's so much technology to put together.

And today we can make those technology changes happen faster than people can go through the emotions and the process of change for themselves.

Whether it's learning something new, do difference, changing the way that they do things.

And so we have to be mindful in these large scale how fast we go, even if we can go this fast, because the technology, with AI, machine learning, all of that can go really fast.

We still have to think about how quickly can people adapt and adjust to change.

Because it's not everybody can if they have the right support.

Well, and I think this is so much of what I think about as a leader, growing a company at all times.

I feel like at a startup or in a growing company, any company, you always, you can always find things you want to improve.

It's always, you're always having to deal with whatever's happening in the market.

There's always a new bell or whistle to help you be more efficient.

There's always more technology.

There's always some part of the team that could use a revision.

Right.

And so it's change, it's constant change.

You can't possibly do it all at once.

So you have to figure out what changes can I make and what's most important, what can people tolerate, what can people digest?

And you're absolutely.

It resonates so much because I think about in my own business, certainly there was changes.

You know, there was a lot of disruption with our merger.

Massive disruption.

We really did have to think every day about how much could they tolerate, how much could they, you know, what was going to push people over the edge and how do you pull back from that and help them feel safe.

Safe.

And, and you know, learned a lot from that.

And then.

But it also could happen on, not on M and a transaction, right?

Oh yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely right.

A new leader, a new boss, new technology, as you said, I mean, in my business, it was the first question when we did our acquisition was do I have to change technology?

It was the first question everybody asked.

Right.

Because it's my day, it's what I do and I'm comfortable and familiar with this and, and it's already stressful.

So you're going to ask me if I can keep my technology that will make me feel safe.

Right.

And so what I'm hearing you say is those quick wins is.

What are those anchors?

Yeah, finding some quick wins and being, you know, being Very intentional about the why.

I mean, I think people, you know, if they, if they trust you and you explain to them why something needs to happen and sometimes has to happen.

You know, in the banking industry in particular, there's all sorts of regulatory things that, you know, you, you have to do this.

This is now the law, this is now the policy or whatever it is.

And so, you know, I think people are resilient enough, they understand the why even if they don't like it.

Then, you know, and then where there are opportunities, to your point, compromise or space or time or whatever, sometimes perfect becomes the enemy of good.

And you know, can you get to that minimum viable product.

Product, right, whatever that minimum viable change is and then you can layer it on from there.

But investors, shareholders and boards sometimes are impatient and want returns.

Now I don't know that companies spend enough time evaluating the potential risk of moving too fast and the impact to revenue retention or whatever metrics they're using to guide their events.

I've been involved in mergers where they move too fast.

They weren't transparent and they lost a lot of people along the way.

That's kind of that move fast and break things idea that a lot of times you see in startups and disruptive technologies and all of that.

Well, moving fast and breaking things, sometimes you just can't repair them.

You've got to find the right medium for the organization and for the event itself between moving fast and breaking and not moving fast enough.

So finding that, and if that can be a little bit of a negotiation as opposed to a mandate, I think it will.

Or you know, giving those people at the front line that are going to be the gauge of whether you're successful or not a say or a stake in what's happening.

You can do that through not every single employee, but maybe you've always got some champions for change.

Right.

You can identify who are the people that are likely to lead that others respect and will follow.

And you want to get those people excited and on board to help.

Absolutely.

So, okay, so all of this sort of experience of doing all of this M and A and other types of transformations, leading organizations through change sort of inspired you to form heart led ventures and to pass that wisdom forward.

And so I'm curious and I you mentioned Brene Brown earlier.

How would you define what heart led leadership is?

The way I would define it is it's courageous, it's also vulnerable and it's just deeply human centered.

Empathy is really important.

Empathy is a great thing.

Having connections, having a value based Decision making style.

I can tell you a story about a non banking client that illustrates this really well.

I worked for a not for profit, one of the largest human services organizations in Chicago.

So a very large nonprofit that deals with people in crisis, whether it's around housing or food or immigration, you know, a variety elder care veterans, you know, the most vulnerable populations in our big city of Chicago.

This organization is a first responder.

They are religious based, they have a large community of supporters, sponsors and people that write personal checks.

But they also get a significant part of their budget from the government, whether it's the city or the state or likely federal pass through types of things.

In some ways they're a government contractor.

And as they looked back over their contracts, there are 60, 70 contracts that they have, they realized that a lot of them were underwater and they just couldn't fundraise enough to cover the deficit.

They couldn't inspire people to write bigger checks because the results of the organization were such that, you know, just throwing, you know, making the organization bigger just makes that deficit bigger.

And so they really needed to transform their service delivery, their contract structure, what they could do, what they can't do.

And so they made a decision, a very bold, courageous decision to exit about 35% of their government contracts and services.

And in so doing they needed to let go of about 25% of their staff.

Think of the headlines.

If this isn't done extremely carefully, and they did it extremely carefully, but they did it using a heart based leadership style.

They started with their employees and made sure that they gave every employee, no matter whether they were a janitor or they were a director of a program, a great transition experience, help for job support.

Many people were able to go to organizations that were willing to pick up these programs, fold them into something else that they were doing.

I don't know that there were any clients at the end of the day that never got any service.

They maybe had to transition to a different provider or move somewhere else.

But they worked so hard to make sure that their employees were taken care of.

By doing so, those employees addressed their clients where the services were changing in a very compassionate and heart led way that kept the negative headlines that could easily have been written about an organization going through some sort of change.

There were positive articles written about the humanity and care that was brought to this very large transition.

So now the organization, the CEO, she was the visionary for it.

She asked me to come in and help her because of my experience and in getting through this process.

There was a lot of work to do.

But at the end of the day, their employees were transitioned successfully.

They were able to exit the contracts that no longer serve them, and they were able to make sure that all of their clients still receive service.

Couldn't we use a little bit of that today?

A little bit more of that?

Oh, we sure could.

Oh my goodness.

Right.

Rather than just chopping off an arm and being like, hope you don't die.

Right, yeah.

Just thoughtfully and that.

And it's.

I love that you use this example, Laurie, because sometimes when we think about.

I think when.

When people think about heart centered leadership, they get the idea in mind that you just make heart decisions without any strategy or logic or connection to financial stability or sustainability.

And that is.

Is just not heart centered leadership.

It's no kind of leadership.

It's irresponsible.

And so this is being able to do these very hard things and do it with integrity and empathy and care and compassion.

I love that you give this example because it was hard.

They had to let people go.

They thought about where they could put them and they found exit routes and they communicated from the beginning.

Yes, yes.

Right, yes.

And so that organization did really hard things.

Yes.

And we all have to do really hard things.

I'd say there's generally more than one way to do them when you do them from a place of the heart with compassion and empathy.

Even though those people had to leave the organization.

Yeah.

You know, but it was done in a way where the organization became more resilient.

If you're in an organization and 25% of your staff is leaving, the grief is incredible.

The guilt, if you're staying and your colleague sitting next to you is leaving the.

The tremendous guilt.

They were smart enough to understand the impact that could have on those that stayed.

It wasn't just based out of heart and compassion.

It was business.

They knew that if they didn't have a resilient, competent, strong, committed workforce, the organization wouldn't survive.

Heart led leadership is every bit as decisive, strong, results oriented and strategic as any other form of leadership.

And I love that.

Thank you for that.

So you've built trust and credibility with employees and customers and clients over this journey in your career.

A lot of M and A and other reorgs and transformations again, where fear and trust comes up.

What's your secret or your advice on earning trust when stakes are high and you don't have a lot of time.

To get to trust?

Well, you know, we've talked about some of these concepts a little bit.

Being vulnerable, being honest, being transparent.

Listening, asking questions, feeling what other people are feeling and have that be demonstrated through your actions and then getting some quick wins, showing those quick wins.

And when people see that you will do what you say you're going to do and that you can be trusted, then that trust will grow.

It's showing up and treating everyone with dignity and respect, but not being falsely supported.

And by that I mean you have to be honest with people.

If there's a tough thing coming, you got to tell them.

That gives people an opportunity to think about what they need and what they need to do.

Often they're going to think about the worst.

Their fears are going to be great.

But if they trust what you're saying and trust what the actions are, they'll go with you.

It's kind of winning over hearts and minds, right?

Yes.

Well, and you say quick wins, it's really about making promises.

It's saying, I'm going to give this quick win to you and then giving it to them.

That's right.

Which is, that's trust.

I promise I'm going to do the thing.

I'm going to show up on time and I'm on time.

I'm going, going to get back to you with what a severance package option might be or I'm going to give you a new job description and hear it.

Whatever it happens to be right or.

Solving some sort of a pain point, you want to change the technology.

And, and here's what's, here's, here's what doesn't work.

You know, here's a process that's broken.

Don't just give us a new technology with the same process.

Let's fix the process.

It's listening to people and understanding at a deeper level than you might at a program, office level.

When writing out business requirements or whatever it is for a technology change, it's making sure that what's happening at the front line gets, you know, gets represented, gets advocated for.

And you can't.

You have to pick your quick wins, you have to pick them judiciously.

You have to make sure it's something that's meaningful enough and works with everything else.

Oftentimes it just takes the time to find them.

They're there.

It just takes the time to find them and to listen.

If you demonstrate that that's how you do business, you're going to get the trust.

You're also going to get the referral for the next opportunity.

People remember how they felt during their transition.

Not that they came out on the other side, but they're Going to remember how they felt and who made them feel better, who made them feel worse.

And if you helped people navigate through change and get to a better place, that's going to help you develop business.

So that's a really, I think, important thing for founders that are, you know, trying to, you know, particularly if it's a knowledge or consulting type of business where you're trying to get referred into other opportunities to help solve a problem.

The organization that I talked about, where I told the story about the not for profit, I got that business because the chair of their board was someone that I worked for for years in banking.

That person had seen how I operate with complex change and thought of me to help the CEO with this work because he knew he could trust me.

Yeah, that's great.

And, you know, for founders with growing teams, building trust not just with your customer, but with your actual team is so important.

In my business, we took care of medically fragile patients in their homes, and we had nurses in the field.

So it's that, you know, how you create those feelings of connection with people and then when you need them to make a change that they are willing to.

That's right.

So what would be some tips that you would offer or some wisdom you would offer women founders navigating growth and change and disruption while trying to stay true to themselves and lifting others along the way?

And I would just say that I think so many times the founders I see are running so hard.

They have teams, they're trying to scale, but they're still at the middle of everything.

They're not necessarily figuring out how to allow others to really own their place.

How can you help, you know, women founders in those kinds of situations?

Yeah, well, it's hard because I experienced myself.

You can't do it alone.

Even though I tried, I limited the potential of my business because I was afraid to bring others in and let them do the work.

I either didn't trust that I had picked the right people, or I didn't trust myself enough to let them go.

Or at that phase in my life, I was too controlling, too hands on.

I learned that I couldn't let go.

A woman founder who's feeling overwhelmed and frustrated because people aren't doing things the way she wants, Whether it's fast enough or good enough or whatever, you got to really work on that, and you have to work on yourself.

And so that personal board of directors we talked about can come in handy.

I'm a big fan of business coaching.

That's something that you can, you know, Find a good coach.

It's really helpful.

It's a mirror.

You build a trusting relationship and you can share those vulnerabilities.

And so somebody who isn't so much in the weeds can challenge your thinking a little bit and maybe help you forward a little bit so that it's a hard one.

It's probably one of the biggest challenges that founders, maybe in particular women face.

But they got to work on it, they got to address it, they got to name it, they got to acknowledge it, they got to call themselves out and say, nope, I'm going to let so and so do it.

And if it's good but not perfect, that's fine.

I think the second thing thing is self care.

And I was very guilty of not taking the proper care of myself.

I'm lucky I kind of woke up at 50, and I've taken much, much better care of myself in the last decade or so than I did.

But I think self care is so important.

Things as simple as sleep, exercise, meditation, whatever your spiritual thoughts are.

But you have to do it because you can't do your best when you're empty.

You just can't.

Women are often juggling the care of others in addition to their own self care, and they tend to place that bit of energy they have in their busy founder life into other people.

And I kind of confused my professional identity and self care.

I spent a lot of time in my professional identity doing all the things to grow my business, my network, my value, how much money I could make or how much money I could charge.

And I, and I sort of misinterpreted.

It wasn't an all or nothing thing.

I put more into that than I put into exercise and sleep and nutrition and those things.

And if I had it to do again, I think I would bring a little better balance.

We talked about the board of directors.

You can't do this alone, either from an execution in your business or even strategically thinking about all the things.

So those would be my primary tips.

Those are brilliant and very actionable, and they really are what we need to be focused on in our evolution as human beings.

For you then, Laurie, you've had a tremendous career and it keeps on going.

You're a board director, you're, you're coaching, you're consulting, you're helping companies manage their transformations.

I know because of the work that we do with how women lead, that you're an advocate for women and transforming society in that way.

I love the poem A Summer Day by Mary Oliver.

I don't know if you know it.

But it ends with this line that says, tell me what you would do with this wild and precious life.

And I think about that a lot.

Precious life.

And I think about it in terms of when I wake up in the morning, I do.

With this wild and precious day, what would I do with this wild and precious year?

And I'm curious, what would you do with this wild and precious decade?

So I think for me, and I'm really excited, I'm in my early 60s.

My next 10 years, I think, are going to be about building and cementing my legacy.

I've told you a lot about myself, my values and how I lead.

But I think, you know, uplifting others and creating a platform for other women to stand on is really how I look at my legacy.

So that's, that's sort of my profession.

You know, the, the work that I'm doing, I can continue to do.

I can continue to do it for 10 more years, but we'll see how that goes.

I, I think there's a couple years left in me in terms of paid consulting work, but the coaching work I can do for a long, long time.

And I really enjoy those one on one experiences.

I think my board work is going to be exciting for the next decade as well.

I want people to remember me as somebody who created a space for someone else to stand on and that I can take all those experiences I talked to you about and share them with others in a way that benefits them and helps them.

The second part of my legacy is my children.

I'm so proud of them and watching them grow and be these great humans.

They're all in different businesses, they're all professionals and on different phases of their life.

I'm really proud of them and they tell me that they're really proud of me.

And so what else could you really ask for?

Right.

And then the last part, the third part is really around joyful experiences.

Travel, saying yes to things, even if they're a little out of my comfort zone, and also saying no to things that don't light me up.

Where's some places you would like to go that's a little out of your comfort zone or experience?

Well, I'm going this fall to South Africa.

Oh, go ahead.

I've never been and I'm excited about that.

And I haven't been to Greece, I haven't been to Portugal, so there's a lot of those types of trips.

And when I travel and visit somewhere, I want to get out in nature.

I want to be in the elements.

Ten years ago, with my two daughters, I walked Machu Picchu.

I did the 26 mile walk through the Andes.

That was really out there for me.

I don't know that I'm quite in the, you know, I don't really have the desire to climb another mountain, but it's a clim.

So I feel like I've been able to do some of that.

But there's so much in this world that I haven't seen.

I have a big long travel bucket list of things to do and experiences to have, which is around the culture, the art, the environment, you know, those.

That's how I want to experience, you know, things that are out there a little bit more for me.

I love it.

And you are doing some work with how women lead right now?

I am.

You're leading a program called your next chapter.

So what is this?

This is a program born out of my experiences, my life experience and that desire to build this legacy, to give, you know, to give, you know, pay forward to others.

Another how women lead director who does a lot of coaching work, a lot of public speaking.

She's an adjunct professor at Stanford.

She and I developed this power your next chapter workshop.

It's a six week series that includes some executive coaching that helps women get aligned in whatever their transition is.

Some of these transitions are intentional and some are unintentional.

Some people may have lost their job or they're faced with a big caregiving challenge.

They've lost a spouse or whatever it is, wherever people are at and they're trying to figure out what's next and how do I get there.

This workshop takes people through that in community.

So you're so I did all of this work that I talked about with my headphones on, walking around the block listening to Brene Brown.

This is an opportunity to do this in a cohort of 15 to 20 other women that have come from different places and are probably going different places.

But what they share in common is the desire to have some help.

And we build a personal board of directors, we build a roadmap, we develop accountability strategies.

So it's a wonderful program for anyone who is facing some big things that they want, you know, that they need to work on.

They want to do it in community.

So we have a cohort that started in June and we'll have one this fall.

I would love to invite your audience to join.

I probably can get a discount code for one of your podcast listeners to attend the program.

People can follow up with me on LinkedIn if they'd like to learn more about it.

Oh, that sounds great.

And so you can, you can follow up with Lori in LinkedIn.

It's right here in the description.

So you'll be able to find her on LinkedIn and learn about the power of your next chapter.

And you can also learn about about all of her other services, her personal coaching that she works on one on one and the advisory work.

Are you open for board opportunities right now?

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

I am on a corporate board.

I'm on a bank board.

I would love to join another board, probably a private company or potentially an ESOP or startup business early stage would love it very much.

That's great.

Well, I thank you from the bottom of my heart, Lori, for being here today and sharing your experiences and your wisdom with all of us.

It's really been such a pleasure to be with you.

Thank you Coco.

I really enjoyed our conversation.

And again, thank you so much for having me.

I really enjoyed it.

Well, to everybody listening, thank you for being here.

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Cheers.