Stop Digging!

Nancy: Hello and welcome to the new year, 2024 of the Stop Digging podcast. And I'm your host, Nancy Trader with my co host.

Susan: Susan Kunzler. Hi.

Nancy: Hey, so, you know, Susan, it's been about a month now since the beginning of the year. It's actually a whole month. And the groundhog, did the groundhog see a shadow? I don't know.

Susan: No, actually, apparently Phil predicted that spring is on its way.

Nancy: Oh, awesome. That's great for us because, I'm starting to plan and I know you're a big planner. One of the things I like to do at the beginning of every year in January, one thing I do is clean. And I have been cleaning my house. I go through every closet. I go through my wardrobe, everything, junk drawers.

I clean it all out because I collect clutter. And I do the same thing with my email. I start unsubscribing to things. But one of the things that I forget to do, which you reminded me of, is to celebrate the wins. And you wrote this incredible list of things that A-Squared has done in the last year.

Susan: Our perspective can shift because we know inside of us what our intentions are. And when only a portion of that becomes manifest in the life or the world that we're living in, we can sometimes feel like we're a failure when we're not. And it's about managing that mindset.

What should we be? What could we be? And I think it's important just for a realistic, awareness of orienting yourself, your life and effectively planning forward is to really just kind of celebrate what actually did happen. And we made a list and frankly, I think we were both surprised.

Nancy: I know, I was thinking, "Oh my gosh, I was so tired," at the end of the year, I thought, "Oh gosh, I didn't get anything done this year." And then you actually wrote it all out.

Susan: Yeah, well, should we start with the personal stuff or should we start with the organizational stuff? Because we both had some personal, celebrations as

Nancy: Yeah, yeah, let's start with the personal stuff. Do you want to go first or should I go?

Susan: Oh, you go first.

Nancy: All right. I've been a journalist for the last two years. I stepped down from my full time position. I'm a freelancer now, but last year alone, I wrote more than 150 stories. No wonder my brain was on fire. And, published about 400 photos.

I took second place for Best Sports Feature Article from the Washington Newspaper Association. I also run a non profit for the Bainbridge High School, music program. It's called the Band Boosters. And, I help, manage a group of about 40 volunteers, and we are responsible for producing and supporting about 50 live performances throughout the school year.

And that also includes two weeks of marching band camp, which is really intense. And then I also serve on the A-Squared board as well, as the PR person. And, you know, I thought back about some of the fun things I did last year. During the holidays, I went and did some ceramics with my younger son and that was really fulfilling cause we were just kind of sitting there, chilling out, painting, talking about the holidays.

And then the other thing I did this summer was I went and visited a friend. I hadn't seen her in four years and, went to these little coastal site, seaside towns and ate lobster at different little lobster shacks and stuff. Cause I love lobster and I love the community up there and just took a lot of great photos.

So that was kind of what I did for fun. When I think about it now, it was a lot. So I'm really glad that I did all those things because it is fulfilling and I have to remind myself that I did have fun because it's easy, like you said, to think back and like, to assume being done.

Susan: Post-COVID last, maybe year and a half, the end of 2022 and all of '23, 2023, I needed to get out of my house so I've been to, I've seen, like, over 130 bands.

Nancy: Wow.

Susan: And just had a really good time. And, you know, sometimes alone, sometimes with people who want to come with me, but that was a lot of fun just getting out there and having some fun.

On a more professional, but personal note, I was able to partner with a close friend of mine from high school, who is a College VP and we co authored six articles on leadership and team development. And we, you know, gave a lot of practical advice and tools for communication and conversations. The articles got picked up by a nonprofit organization that, asked us to do a workshop and so that was kind of fun.

A little harrowing last year, because it happened in the midst of doing a lot of other things. However, we had fun. We did a great workshop. It was, you know, a two-part workshop with this nonprofit group on communication team development and left them with a bunch of things that they can do, practically. So that felt kind of good to get in the mix again.

And, all of our personal things that we did to kind of break loose, you know, become part of who we are and, you know, have some fun, do some work, was actually fit into all of the other stuff that we were doing A-Squared Lamp Groups.

And, you know, it occurred to us both when we were having conversations about this podcast that, you know, some people may or may not be fully aware of what A-Squared Lamp Groups does and what our ethos is and who we are and how we help people. So, we thought we'd take an episode today to celebrate what we did in 2023 and kind of share what's coming up in 2024 and just share a little bit about who we are.

So, we're primarily relationship based. That's our ethos. It's all about relationships. We're not there to market. I know people on LinkedIn are getting just crazy, spam marketing business to business development. "Let me help you," you know, all that kind of nonsense. We really feel that that is counter-productive. Growth happens in real relationships with real trust, real conversations and real development. So, that's really how we have started operating since 2014 when we first started doing things, as an organization.

And we do it through coaching. We do it through training. We do it through consulting, but primarily we're trying to get people into learning groups so that they don't stop growing. They need to grow and develop and have conversations and be challenged and be inspired by hearing other people's stories, by being able to be honest.

So, all of our members who join, we have a monthly membership group, so they can come in and, deconstruct what happened the previous month and set their intentions for the following month. Or just get things off their chest, they need to in a safe place. We offer programs and benefits on the back end that help people get access to the tools and the resources that they need for personal and professional development. You can join up at the lowest level and develop as an individual until you want to do something. You know, launch your own business, launch a club, launch, you know, another organization and we're there helping you all along the way. And we have some people that are ready to take the next step this year, so we'll talk more about that.

Nancy, did you have anything else you wanted to add as a board member or just your take on things?

Nancy: No I think it kind of covered everything.

I think we should talk about some of our accomplishments as an organization. You know, first thing is we launched the, Stop Digging podcast. And yay. That was kind of a heavy lift, and and I would say mostly on your part, because you did the, all the legwork. I mean, it's a lot to launch a production, you're basically in the producer role, finding the financing and all that. And you found our actual editor and producer, who is handling the backend of that. And then my part is, finding guests and kind of doing the format. It's a collective effort and it was sometimes not easy. But we had a lot of good episodes, which we are going to talk about.

But before we do that, I want to cover a couple of other things. One thing that, I did as part of A-Squared is to help kind of, work on the marketing communications strategy for the organization so that we can get ourselves out there. And that also included the doing the podcast. And we're also going to do a spin off from that. So, you know, creating a general awareness and then providing content for others to find us and then creating that content that is useful to people who need it. And that has been a really big boost for us.

What else, Susan, have we done?

Susan: Early in 2023, we actually hard launched our brand new website. So that was a huge project. Everything's fully functional on the back end for our members to access things once they log in. That was a huge project. We give a shout out to the guy that we worked with, who we ended up featuring on one of our podcasts, which we'll talk about later. He was just an amazing person to work with, and, we had a lot of fun, putting the schematics together and walking through UX.

But it was very successful. He said he had the best time working with us as well. And that really fed our validation as an organization that we really are.

You know, it shouldn't be difficult to work with people, especially if you're a relationship organization, you should really be, present and available and agile and resilient and truthful in your communication. So we actually did work well together that got launched very successfully, I think. A-Squared Lamp Groups or _asquaredlamps.org_ is the website.

If you want to check it out, we're always open to feedback because websites always change and evolve, but, there's a lot there.

Nancy: You know, there were a couple other things. One of the things I'm noticing as you're talking about these achievements throughout the year is that in a way, a-Squared kind of went through a reboot. For the communications piece, I went and did kind of an audit, a marketing and communications audit. You, shepherded the whole, website redesign and launch. And then we, created and launched the podcast.

So we're kind of doing all those, been doing those things that businesses do, entrepreneurs do, when they launch a business. And I think we're all in the same boat right now. Like, you were saying, about a year and a half post-COVID, like, we're all going through this rejuvenation or new iteration of ourselves, and so we have to look at all these things.

I was talking about decluttering earlier. We have to do that in our business life as well, because what was working for us two years ago, or four years ago, for that matter is not working now. So we have to get rid of what isn't working and look at those, innovations or processes or services that are going to help serve us, in the future.

And actually now, and I think that you are really good at finding those opportunities for us as an organization, but also for our membership.

Susan: Well, it's not easy. None of us want to let go of stuff that was fun and worked, but, you know, for the first five years of our organization we did not want to be one of those nonprofits that focused always, all the time, on fundraising. You know, the flies in the eyes kind of heart-wrenching stories all the time, trying to get people to give money.

So we really focused on doing one annual fundraiser and we made it all relational and it was, we call them passport events. Experiences where we had stations that people could experience certain, coaching or consulting aspects, whether it was, Myers Briggs, bingo or stuff like that.

And for those of you who don't know that Myers Briggs is the personality test, the oldest, most reliable, most researched, to date, but, we also had a volunteer staff who helped put on these events of about five to seven people who regularly showed up to set up, clean up, cook. We had somebody who just who cooked all the food.

We did an international wine tasting with, like, seven different dishes that went with the wines and she made all of them and it was just like, to give up an event like that when I felt so grateful and so connected with this volunteer staff was hard.

And so, in transitions, that is hard. Especially because they were so successful. But, during COVID, you can't have events can have fundraisers that way.

Nancy: Yeah. And the new events have changed too. Like people are, I think we're all kind of still coming out of our shell. Like some people, there's a good, number of the population that still is very reluctant to come out, which I don't blame them. You know, there's safety in being in your own space.

Susan: Well, you know that, and you get used to, to not going out. So in the past you would kind of think, "Oh, yeah. Going to events," you know, you pick and choose the events. Now, it's like, I don't even have to go to any events. Once that became an option, it's hard to get people to even cross that line to say, "Yes, I do want to go to an event."

So that was a hard change.

Nancy: Yeah, and also, like, behavior, is sometimes a hard deal. Like, I went out to lunch with a friend of mine a couple of days ago, and she sneezed, and I was like, "Sneeze away from me!"

Susan: Yeah, well, I think, I think we have a worksheet for that, Nance. No, but. No we think things differently. So, you know, when we're decluttering an organization, we were actually building our organization, growing at the same time. We're having to let things go. It's a process. Reestablishing priorities, reevaluating, your strategy to get where you want the organization to go and what you'd like it to be. Rethinking plans. Is a challenge. there's a reason why there are people that are experts in change. They do nothing but their whole lives, study this stuff.

Nancy: Tell me a little bit about the Pay It Forward Scholarship and also about the MAPS business plan.

Susan: Well, that's something else that kind of changed and morphed over the years. When we first started, we were so small that what we were doing is we created a chain, a pay it forward chain. We got a donor to sponsor the first, Pay it Forward Scholarship, usually anywhere from 3 to 700 for the scholarship.

And then somebody would need help. And our first Pay it Forward Scholarship recipient I met, she was a volunteer attending a conference and a conference speaker and she was just lost in her career. She was at a crossroads. So we were able to get her, like, started in the right direction, clarity, informational interviews, different industries.

We worked with her. I worked with her for about three months and in the end, she felt confident enough to launch the business that she really wanted to do, which is teach Pilates. She opened up her own studio and she's one of the most popular online Pilates instructors right now. And she did really well during COVID because she does all of her stuff online as well as in our studio.

But what happened is, she got the services she needed. And they have a year after they complete their services to pay it back. And what they do is they don't pay it back. They pay it forward to the next person's scholarship fund. So whatever they can pay back, and we give them a range. We gave her a range and she paid back within that range what she could, and it's all donation. It's a donation into our scholarship fund. And then the next person started. And so we had a chain going of funding, again, when COVID hit, those chains started getting a little bit disrupted.

So, our last Pay it Forward Scholarship person from two years ago they paid it back. And it was sitting in a fund, and we were growing to the point where we needed to be thinking a little bit differently. So that was another thing that kind of morphed into something else. And so now we're doing our pay it forward scholarships through our memberships, where we give them a coupon code, they get all the help they need and then when it renews, so long as they're a member, it's a donation that goes back into the next person's services.

And so we're just providing those services right now to whoever needs it, based on what our membership levels are. So we're not having to wait a year for somebody to pay it back to get to the next chain.

Nancy: That's a really nice, change and improvement to that program.

Susan: I was able to help four people last year, through our Pay It Forward Scholarship and ironically, I mean, you would think, a lot of people would think that mostly we would be helping women, like, transitioning women into the workforce or whatever. But to be honest, three quarters of my clients, my Pay It Forward Scholarship clients are male, and they range anywhere from in their late twenties to my most recent client who is in his late fifties.

Nancy: So, I want to ask you a couple of questions here. I think there were a couple of members, but in particular, I want to hear about this person, or member rather, who is a successful radio program host. So tell me about this.

Susan: I'd known her for a while and we, we both share in a very similar ethos. But, I helped her actually just pro bono on my own about seven or eight years ago. She was brand new into all of this, but she was asked to be a host. And she was like, I don't know. I'm not sure I'm the right person. I don't know if I can do it.

I don't know if I have the energy, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I worked with her for a while and in the end, she did it and she has become really, really popular and her show is impacting a lot of people. Now, it is faith based and she has a very loyal audience. But she's also been, since she started, she's been internationally syndicated on two radio stations, and she has more than, like thousands and thousands of followers.

She has people calling in, asking for help and resources to get plugged into, you know, local, faith-based learning centers and things. She's now doing the show. I think, she started weekly and then they wanted her to do it five days a week and she's like, I can't do that. So she's doing it to two times a week, three times a week sometimes, but, she's doing really, really well.

She's actually going through some transitions as well, but, she's been a member for quite a while. She just moved into another membership level up and I'm about to work with her.

Nancy: And we're going to be working with her in the future, too.

Susan: Absolutely. One of the benefits, at her level is that she gets to offer language learning platforms to all of her listeners. Since she has an internationally syndicated show she can, you know, if somebody fills out her form that says, hey, this is who I am, she'll immediately give them access to it. So they can do ESL learning from I think 24 different languages, including Arabic and Chinese, they can do ESL learning, or they can learn any of I think 70 languages.

So, we've helped, facilitate that for her and her listeners. So, there's some value added to her business.

Nancy: So what I'm hearing is that this is a really good example of how a member came into the organization and was developed professionally and, you were helping her point her in the right direction and she achieved her goal and now she's flourishing. That's wonderful. That's a great, great story. I love that.

Susan: Well, and we're helping your, currently right now, in this past year, going back through the 2023. I worked with her a little bit, just at the, her current membership level, just to develop some leadership skills for some, because she's also leading. She sits on some boards for some community, organizations that she's also, helping with, so just helping her hone and get her leadership and communication skills honed for that. We've been able to help her with that too, personally, professionally and organizationally, which is what we do.

And she's not the only one. Last year, we launched a brand, we helped soft launch a brand new solopreneur mission-forward organization. And again, this is somebody that, she launched soft launched it last year.

I use my own model, which is a maps business plan model, which is more organic and organizational development. It's an integrative model for organizational development, and she did so success. She was so successful her first year, which really, it was only about eight months of operation on her soft launch. She's making so much money that she now wants to incorporate. So she's moving up to a membership level where we're now gonna help her incorporate. I start working with her at the end of this month and, we're gonna get her and her organization launched and, you know, I'm excited about that. I mean, this is really great, great stuff.

And we can help you too. If you've got an idea, you know, start somewhere, we'll work with you. And when you're ready, that's what we do. We're an incubator. So if you're not ready to launch 100 percent yourself, we have a kickstart program. We don't take any money out of the kickstart fund. People can donate directly to the kickstart fund. And we don't take money out of it and, we help you put the approved budget, we help you hone your business idea or your nonprofit idea or your club idea. And once you have a budget, we release funds based on that budget and approvals and receipts and things, you know, obviously we want to be, compliant with IRS rules and legal and do things on the up and up.

But we're here to help people. We can incubate you, we can help you develop. We can help you soft launch on your own. We can help you hard launch on your own. Once we get to that point, we can also help support you as a partner and that's really our development plan through our organization is that wherever you start, we help you grow and get, get launched where you want to be. So it's our LAMP model, learning, advancement, membership and partnership. Once you're on your own, let's partner. We'll help you out. We'll do something with you. We're relationship based. We want to do that.

Nancy: And that's a great lead in because with our, podcasts that we do every month, the Stop Digging podcast, we talk about issues where people, you find yourself in a hole and you don't know what to do. And what we do is we try to talk to people, and some of them are members, some are people in the community that we reach out to, because we want to find out how they have been able to dig their way out of a hole that they were in and offer experience, expertise, advice, and insights so that we can do the same thing. And, you know, I think we have to go over some of the episodes that we did last year because we had some really good guests.

Our first one was Adriana Medina Kagan. And she is a fitness trainer and professional, and the episode was about strong body, strong mind. And she talked about how she overcame some adverse childhood experiences and ended up, you know, during her teen years, really struggled. And when she was in college, she started to come into her own and realized what she wanted to do in her life, and it was fitness. And it was really wonderful talking to her. She's just very power, a very powerful person and very inspiring. She was a great person to talk to, you know, for our first one to get us in that mindset, starting to look forward, but then having that extra piece of we got to get our body into shape as well.

And then our second episode was about learning and we spoke with members from the Roland Center and I know Susan you're a little more familiar with them. Do you want to talk about--

Susan: Well, I just, let me tell you. You know, sometimes relationships happen by kismet. And a young man at the Roland Center. The Roland Center actually services, men and women with disabilities. Mental, physical disabilities, and they just recently got an amazing, approval for handling dementia in elderly people as well. Which is a unique honor and difficult to get.

But they brought a team on here. They help them get work, work training, life training. Their people are clients and they're amazing people. The young man who reached out to me, he was just looking for people in the community to get his message out. He was brand new to the organization. I just called him back and said, "Hey. What do you do? What do you want? Here's what I can't do. Here's what I can do. Let's keep the conversation going," and it turned out that we ended up meeting.

I met the, the executive at the time, met with their team, pitched a couple of things and we really formed a relationship where they ended up joining one of our projects and we were, especially during COVID, this was really useful for them because they were able to provide some online learning through our WeLearn LMS project that helped facilitate a lot of the training that they couldn't do face to face with their client list.

So it, it turned into a really good working relationship that we still share with them. They've gone through some changes last year, with a new president and a new designation with dementia in elderly people, but, have been able to, feature them in that podcast and actually not, not just hear from people in the organization who are running it, but also hear from the clients who were in it and in their own words can share what their organization did for them and how they like their work and what they do for work. And that included a woman who started off being a client and then got her degrees with their help and now teaches there and is brilliant.

That was really a special episode, I think, and I urge you to listen to it if you get a chance. There are people with disabilities throughout our society, and they, they tend to be invisible to most of us. So, listen to the episode, help them to not be invisible and open your own eyes to see the people around you with disabilities that you can. Interact with like as if they're real people because they are.

Nancy: One of my, favorite episodes early on, was with Dr. Stacey Morgan and, she wrote a book called The Elephant Hunter.

Susan: She was fun wasn't she?

Nancy: She was really funny and, we, talked about truth leaders and organizational health and she was so charismatic and, curious and creative. And I just really loved the way that she put her program together.

Susan: And she's launched and she she announced the launch of her new elephant hunter app So she can actually help people become truth tellers in their organization using this app And her book launch was announced in our podcast.

So that was pretty amazing too. I mean, this brilliant woman choosing us was quite the privilege.

I think

Nancy: Yeah, it was really, really fun.

And then that kind of dovetailed into the next episode that we did. And it was about good citizenship and I have a little update on the story. So, our guest, was Greg Nance and he's kind of known, well, he's known for being an ultra-marathoner. And Greg's a really smart guy. He's, launched a couple of, nonprofits and has done a lot of good in the community and now he's even gone forward and now he's a state representative in state of Washington.

Susan: He won. He announced his candidacy on our podcast, people. That was amazing.

Nancy: It was pretty cool. So he's, he's taking good citizenship to the next level of really being one of those lawmakers now and following that ethos that he has of helping people. I'm excited to see what he's doing, so we'll have to talk to him again, after he's, cause right now everyone's in the legislative session. So it's another month or so. I like him. He's a very inspiring guy.

Susan: I really, I really had a good time. He had a great sense of humor and,

Nancy: Yes.

Susan: yeah, it was, that was a fun one for sure.

Nancy: And, and also the fact that he was very, open to talk about his own personal history and why he's done the things he's done. You know, we all have a story. Everyone has a story. And he was willing to open up and share his story.

Susan: Yeah, hearing how he stopped digging, with his addiction, that was... somebody needed to hear that and somebody probably still does. And so if you. Go back and listen to that episode four of our podcast, listen to that story and kind of hear how that came about.

Nancy: Yeah, it's a good one about, facing your demons and overcoming a huge challenge and then doing something positive with it. And he literally ran with it.

Susan: And it kept him from doing the backsliding all the time, right? So, that's the hard part. Sometimes it's the stopping piece. Stopping to dig, you know, "stop digging," but sometimes, once you're out of the hole, don't keep jumping back in it.

Nancy: Yeah. And I think the thing that I came away with, I've been around Greg on many occasions because he's done a lot, I've covered him for news stories and so on, but, I was in this, classroom with him, it was probably like a year and a half ago and he was talking to third and fourth graders and they were really cute. They were asking him questions and at the end, he kind of left them with this one sentence and he says, "We can all do hard things." And I loved that because it resonated with those kids. Like, I remember later on hearing them saying that, "Oh yeah, we can do hard things."

It's a simple phrase, but we can keep it in our heart and like, have that be our guiding principle whenever we are faced with adversity or a challenge or something, we don't feel confident. But if you just say that to yourself, "I can do this hard thing." And it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to do it yourself, because you can call for backup. You can get help. When you were talking, Susan, when you were talking about, members who've done hard things, they got help to do it.

So it doesn't have to be by yourself. And I think that's, you know, what Greg is now doing as a legislator, he's going out there and helping other people as well.

Susan: Well, that's a great follow up to that podcast. I'm actually amazed when we're celebrating our last year. I mean, we just barely launched our podcast. We had these guests that used our podcast, our brand new, uh--

Nancy: I know! We're looking kind of ramshackle.

Susan: And they, they trusted us to, to launch their books, to launch their apps, to launch their candidacy to announce their, you know, new programs that like, that's a special privilege. And we, we just loved every single one of our guests.

My special guest, honestly, we ended up talking with her after the recording for about an hour, was, episode five, Elizabeth Doll. And she spoke to my heart because, you know, especially in America, but probably around the world as well, so much polarization and, us against them and, you know, you're evil/I'm good kind of thinking. And it cuts down conversation.

I have a certification in conversational intelligence and the neuroscience behind that. And everything she said just so resonated as true in the way things happen, the way conversations happen and the work that she's doing to facilitate conversations in the political realm. Like, first of all, I was blown away how brave she is. Because when you talk about the political realms, I mean, how many of us in the, last couple of elections in America lost family members, friends.

Nancy: Yeah. It's been tough.

Susan: I've heard people that, you know, lost spouses because of political things. And I thought, wow.

Nancy: But Elizabeth kind of gave us a roadmap. And her organization, Braver Angels, is helping people have difficult conversations. That was the topic of that episode. And I just admire her so much for doing that.

Susan: Because it's true, it's the same ethos that A-Squared has is that, you know, we're all different, but we're all the same in our differences.

She told a story that really resonated with me. Somebody on the opposite side of the political aisle who, who maybe is taught to demonize her and she would be maybe instructed to discount this other person, a transgender cross-dressing person.

When they sat down together using her strategies that her organization provides in helping facilitate these conversations, it turns out they actually had a lot in common and, you know, those kinds of connections humanizes people, it changes your brain.

You don't have to believe what somebody believes. You don't have to be what they are. You can be who you are. And be unashamed of that or expressing it, but you also, there's an element of, humanization that allows that other person as well to have that freedom. And that, that's powerful. Those are powerful conversations, even if they start off being very difficult conversations.

Nancy: I actually took her, advice. I took the, the ground rules. And I went and visited family in August and I udse those techniques and it was amazing because I was kind of one of the few in my camp.

Susan: You're the odd, odd political ball in your family?

Nancy: I was the odd ball and, or the cue ball. But what was interesting was, we had this conversation and when we were all done, several people said, "Wow, this was the best conversation I've had in a long time. I feel like. I was heard." And oh my gosh, that really touched me because that created a deeper connection between me and my family members who haven't been able to see eye to eye on things. And so now moving forward, like, it'll improve things. So that just was just a gift.

Susan: I love that. That's awesome.

Nancy: So then our next episode, number six, I think you need to talk about this one because well, you're the one who saw 130 bands. Take it away.

Susan: Well, okay. So I, know some people,

Nancy: Really?

Really?

Susan: I know some people. So, Jay. Met him, great guy, tattoo artist. He's a young man in a band, Fix The Blame. Great conversations with him, about how, you know, his life, his family, lots of personal things as well as his musical talents and aspirations.

And he had this band that he had formed maybe a couple of years ago. They were starting to do gigs and things like that. And we talked a lot about relationships and he joined the podcast with somebody that I've known since high school, who has been in numerous bands. And the most popular band for the last decade was a metal cover band called Midlife Crisis, located in New Mexico. And that same band has now added, a new title and genre , Dead Man's Hand. And they do country-rock locally for gigs and pretty well known. He played at our reunion. That was always fun. anyway, we had both of them on there and the insights that they shared about the complexity of relationships that musicians have in bands, between not just family members, but the band members themselves, the industry itself...

Nancy: The ambitions of the individuals, as opposed to the band itself collectively.

Susan: Yeah. And how do you navigate that? How do you deal with all of that? And so they had some great strategies. Adding some empathy to how creative people also need to manage, their relationships and the people in their lives. Because, how many rock stars, how many, you know, musicians do we know who have been addicted to substances, who are lonely, who commit suicide, who die early?

There, there's an element of, when things don't go right, when they're not managed well, when you are alone in your relationships, you don't know who to trust, you lose perspective that can be damaging to your psyche, to your art, even. And the adoration of fans, you know, added to that can really mess with your head.

So they really just cut loose and let us know everything about that from their perspective. And I think that was very insightful and maybe something that artists in all genres, you know, creatives at large can really take to heart and at least think about.

Nancy: Yeah, I, I remember thinking about the intricacies and challenges of having those close and sometimes long-term relationships. Because ultimately, it comes down to just wanting to make music and having fun doing it and having that contentment and enjoyment from, you know, jamming. And then, when you take it to the next level and you perform and you get paid, that's really great too, because you're being rewarded for your efforts.

I'm in a nonprofit and we support high school instrumental music, that episode was really important for me because everyone has an aspiration of going on and doing other things. And so that helps me talk to the students when they say, "oh, when I get older, I want to do this." It's like, oh yeah, and then try to point them in the direction of how to get help and such. It's a big field and, there's a lot to do there.

So our Episode Seven guest was another one, a really very powerful. We spoke with Mark Rodriguez, who is a double lung transplant recipient and he was talking about leadership, resilience, from, a survivor-thriver. And so, he told us his story and Susan, you know him much better than I do. You might want to share.

Susan: I can share a little bit about it.

The transformation in his life was stark. You know, some changes, they happen, like we talked about through decluttering, reprioritizing. Some changes are jolting and absolutely traumatically and dramatically change your life. And he was one of those people.

So, to go from an athlete, a recognized athlete who could do anything and, you know, super, competitive and focused and achievement-oriented, to being in a hospital for almost a year, not being able to walk across a parking lot, just absolutely changed his life. But it wasn't just about the recovery. It was about how his life changed afterwards.

What I loved is, you know, in each of our episodes, these people have stopped digging in, like, whatever that hole is, and they've added positive things into their lives that have really changed their lives for the better. And in this case, he met his wife. And she inspired him to be a public speaker and now he's a professionally paid motivational speaker. It's just amazing. So, I don't know what resonated most with you in that episode,

but--

Nancy: Think for me it was his perseverance really. He talked about being a sculptor. He's a stonemason and sculptor and he has this great pride in what he does, but, you know, he didn't realize that early on that his work could affect his health and by not having the proper protective equipment, how the silica and different particles got into his lungs and that's what damaged his lungs and he ended up having to get that, that transplant, you know.

That was this huge wake up call, like you were saying, but he channeled all of that struggle into a higher cause and that now he is out there and inspiring others and saying, "Hey, you know, you can do this."

We can do hard things.

Susan: But not, alone.

Nancy: Right. And Mark was like, he had to have help. I mean, he had major help. For me, it was the perseverance really, is being able to keep moving forward. When all else seems to be, against you, you know, and when you have all these challenges and it's an uphill struggle.

And for him some days it was like, if he can make it to the bathroom--

Susan: Right.

Nancy: --on his own, then that was a win. And now he's inspiring others to do the same thing. So it is very, very moving. Very much a testament about personal perseverance and overcoming these huge obstacles in his life.

Susan: And then our last podcast. It was just us. But I will say this we did a survey of businesses and we sent that out. The survey we got back was pretty amazing to hear back all of this stuff from people. And so, how'd you feel about that one?

It ended up being the most listened to.

Nancy: Yeah, most of the podcasts, maybe they just like, listen to us chatter back and forth. I don't know. Maybe our friends are like, Oh, finally they got one that we like. I don't know. I liked the, the, we called it Birth of a Business and, we did some research and the way we did this was I did some marketing research through digital marketing. And that's what I do as well. And I'm all about statistics and what gets clicked on and what the click-through rates are and all that.

But, you know, we take that and we use that science, that data and, apply it to business. And I just thought we had some really neat outcomes from that. That information that we received from that we started talking about what people need and what they need to launch their business or develop an idea or follow their passion. Or maybe realize that they can't do it on their own. And that's where we end up coming back to plugging them into A-Squared Lamps. And that's really kind of what that episode was about. Like, how can we help individuals or solo entrepreneurs or organizations be all they can be and to, pursue their passions and to ultimately fulfill that mission.

Susan: But also to do it in a way that is, natural to you in your business, because I think what happens in businesses, and we did discuss this, but this is one reason why, A-Squared formed is that, you know, the resources that are out there, they're all designed to get you to buy stuff. And so you can get kind of lost in the whole of always, you know, here's what I want to do.

All of the businesses, they, they wanted to do better marketing, right? Well, if you go to the resources that are out there, you could spend thousands and thousands of dollars taking classes, becoming an expert, hiring somebody to do this stuff and still not be successful or, you know, what typically happens is become drained. Like, it just sucks the life out of you because then you have this whole thing that you're having to manage that you don't even want, you don't even like to do in the first place. So, you know, we help people businesses find the organic strategy that works for them that they can manage and not feel like the life and soul of who they are as business owners is getting sucked out of them.

Nancy: And the reason they start feeling like that is because they're in a hole that they're stuck in. And that's the whole purpose of this podcast and why we went over all these conversations, because, everyone struggles. Like you were saying, we're not all a marketing expert or we're not a, business expert, such as like, oh my gosh, don't even ask me about tax preparation . I let my husband do that 'cause he's good at it. I can take your photo, I can show you how to take better photos. I can teach you how to do a press release, or I can do one for you, or I can share how to do digital marketing on a simple level.

You don't have to do it on your own and Susan can help you with your business plan and find direction and personal coaching and how to have difficult conversations and, you know, increase your conversational intelligence. All of that is here.

Susan: But also, you know, as an organization, we try to do things that get you connected with other people and also give you the opportunity to invest in your wellness along the process. Doing hard things, doing changes, takes a lot of energy. And so sometimes we, we can help you facilitate the letting go, which is the hard part, which we started off the program talking about. We have a number of ways of doing that. Last year, we hosted three different, paper purges. We did bonfires where people could bring not just their old papers and old files, which, by the way, if you've never had to burn your old IRS tax files, it is very cathartic and I highly recommend it.

Nancy: Oh, I will! I'm doing a burn party.

Susan: Yeah, exactly. We did three of them. One of them was at the beach. A-Squared, we provided the snacks, the drinks, the conversation. We also had a little ritual ceremony that if there was something you needed to let go of personally or professionally, something that, you know, a habit, a challenge, something, you know, an unforgiveness, a relationship, a memory, something, just naming it, talking about it, really thinking about it. And when you're ready, just saying, "You know, I think I'm ready to let it go," and just burning it in the fire and just celebrating that with people who are there witnessing.

It doesn't sound like it's much, but if you've been hanging on to something, getting it out of your head can be a huge part of the stop digging and moving forward. And sometimes that's all it takes. And so we helped facilitate three of those. We're going to have another one coming up, I think maybe the end of April. You'll have to check our events calendar in the next month or so.

The other piece is in all of the stuff that we did. Everything that we did, it's supported by our membership. It's supported by our donors and it's supported by our partners. When we talk about everything that A-Squared did in 2023, first of all, I want to announce that we organized a membership trip and so, this year we're actually taking a whole group of members, which we do every two years on, on a travel experience, a learning experience, and we have 16 of our members going to Japan and Alaska this year in April.

Nancy: It's going to be an awesome trip.

Susan: We're also super privileged because two of the members are actually going to be getting married on this trip and we're helping facilitate that as well as the fact that one of our other members got ordained just so that she could perform their ceremony. So

Nancy: Oh my gosh, full service, weddings and all.

Susan: Yeah this kind of like, learning and connection and relationship and community building is just really part of who we are. And I just want to celebrate that. So, if you want to join our next trip, you need to be a member. So listen to our ad halfway through this podcast and join at an individual level, or watch our social media because we're going to be doing a new trial membership for anybody who just wants to know about this trip. The first ones that can sign up for this trip, because there are limited spots when we organize them.

But I'd also like to recognize this year, some of our partners. Everything that we do is funded by our donors, our members, and our partners. And we've had a couple of really long-time partners that have helped keep A-Squared going over all these years.

One of them is Old World Huntington Beach. And they have been amazing. Special shout out to Cindy, to Martin, to Penny who manages the restaurant area. It's a German old town restaurant and bar and Oktoberfest, you know, that sort of thing. They've been amazing. They've put together programs. They've hosted us for Paint and Sips, they gave us special tickets to get into Oktoberfest that we could sell. They've just been so supportive and they're just such a pillar of the Huntington Beach community, but even beyond the Huntington Beach community. We just want to thank them so much for that. If you get a chance to go, just tell them A-Squared Lamp Group sent you.

And then another partner who's been a long-time partner is Boeing. Their matching grant program has allowed all of the employees who we've helped or worked with. We did a networking event for their aerospace group and, it was really fun and, they all came and the amount that they donated got matched again through their matching system, and it helped fund another project. So I just, I want to thank the Boeing Corporation for that with their matching corporate fund.

But we also got a brand new partner this year, too, and they were very supportive as well. And it's a, friend of mine who partnered up with a high end tequila manufacturing facility and it's called Vuelo. Vuelo Tequila. And, they donated some really expensive tequila to a couple of our events and they gave us a 400 dollar bottle to play with.

Nancy: Some good tequila.

Susan: Yeah. So a special shout out to Brian who, who really, you know a new partner with us. We'll probably try to feature some of our partners in our future podcasts or in private podcast episodes that we'll let, you know about later this year.

But, yeah, we're really excited about these partners because they help fund everything that we do in partnership with us, with our members, with our donors.

I also wanted to give a special shout out to our producer, Joe. Usually when we talk to Joe, it's to tell him to edit out our stupidity, you know, uh.

Nancy: Joe!

Susan: We're apologizing to him throughout our program, you know, to get things going, but I'll tell you that he has been amazing to work with. We love our producer. He's been super kind and, very professional. And we, we couldn't do this podcast without him. He has taken the heavy lifting off of our shoulders and allowed us to just have some fun. And, we just, thank you so much, Joe, publicly.

Nancy: If any of you, anyone out there wants to start their own podcast, we know who to refer you to. So give us a call or just email us and we'll let you know.

So to, on our WeLearn LMS platform, so much impact. So 80% of our participating organizations are led by women. That's huge. 60% of our organizations are run by people in underrepresented groups. 40% of our nonprofits serve at-risk populations using this platform and project. Use of this project gives access to more than 300 intellectually or developmentally disabled people to learn life and work skills.

Use of this project also gives access to 50 to 75 unemployed or misemployed workers who need career and job hunt guidance. That's really cool. Use of this project gives dozens of small organizations in three states access to online learning through our participants.

Susan: We also had two new people join that project this last year. One of them serving a small community of scientists who want to use the platform to share information? We'll have to add those statistics on there when they get launched. And then we have another person, a solopreneur person who is, managing health problems. Her site will be, leadership and executive development and in, in her work, that's powerful because people who donate, the people who are clients of people who are members are partners. If you have an organization that partners with us and helps fund what we're doing, you're making a huge impact individually as well as corporately through our projects and our partnerships. We just thank you.

Nancy: We are taking this opportunity to review our accomplishments over the past year, not to pat ourselves on the back. Well, maybe actually, we are to celebrate the fact that we did it. We did a lot of hard things in a healthy way. We may make a lot of mistakes along the way, and sometimes we get discouraged and we have to review what we did right, improve the things that didn't go the way we wanted it to and plan for the future. And that's what this is all about. We were able to accomplish so many things this year because we just kept moving forward. We had a plan and we were, kept doing it.

And Susan would email, text me, call me and say, "Hey, get that thing going." You know, we all need that accountability partner. And when you have a partner and you have support and there is an organization around you and the resources are there, things can happen and we can dig out of these holes that we're in and find success and pursue those passion projects and feel more content with our life and achieve the things we want to achieve.

And so we want to thank everyone who was a part of that journey with us this year, all of our sponsors, all of our guest speakers and all of our members, of course, and our board members who put so much time and effort into supporting everyone.

And if you want to learn a fun little thing on how to keep you on track, a simple thing that will help you for this year, stay tuned for the bonus segment. 'Cause we're going to talk about the 3x5 business card plan that will help you achieve some of your goals this year. You can do it.

So stick with us and thank you so much for hanging in there with us for this one hour of review, because we're here to help you and support you and help you dig out of whatever hole you're in so that you can achieve the things you want for yourself.

Susan: So let's make 2024 awesome.

Nancy: Yay. We'll see you next month.