Career Cheat Code
Welcome to Career Cheat Code, a podcast that explores the stories of everyday people making an impact in the world through their careers and loving every minute of it. Whether you're already on your path or searching for your purpose, this podcast is for you.
Join us every Monday as we uncover the secrets behind successful careers and inspire you to make your own mark. Formerly known as Thank God It's Monday | TGIM, don't forget to subscribe for updates and share with your friends!
Career Cheat Code
072 | Impact Consulting with Tynesia Boyea-Robinson
The episode explores the significant role of impact consultants in driving social change within corporations, sharing inspiring stories and insights from a successful entrepreneur in the field. It highlights impactful projects, mentorship, and the importance of collaboration across sectors to create equitable outcomes while emphasizing that profit and purpose can coexist.
Unlock the keys to driving systemic change with insights from our special guest, Tynesia Boyea-Robinson, CEO & President of CapEQ. Experience Ty’s transformative journey, beginning with their landmark work with Walmart that reshaped minimum wage policies and led to broader social impact across various industries. Ty reveals their strategies for embedding equitable practices into businesses, sharing the creation of the Investor Blueprint for Racial and Economic Equity. Discover how Ty manages a dynamic lifestyle, balancing travel and virtual meetings to collaborate with clients ranging from Fortune 500 companies to influential foundations.
• Introduction to the journey of an impact consultant
• Changing corporate practices for social good
• Powerful stories of transformative projects
• Navigating barriers to equitable practices
• The importance of partnerships between businesses and philanthropies
• Highlighting the Investor Blueprint for Racial and Economic Equity
• Mentorship as a crucial component of professional growth
• The entrepreneurial spirit in impact consulting
• Encouragement to take bold steps toward personal and professional dreams
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Host - Radhy Miranda
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Producer - Gary Batista
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Our very first client was Walmart, which is an odd client to have to start, especially when you think about oftentimes people when they think of Walmart they think about them in a way that's extractive. But my very first job with them, project with them actually led to them changing minimum wage for the entire company, which results in millions of dollars in the hands of pockets across the country. And that was just my very first project. That's just one example, and so as we kind of add up the types of things we've been able to achieve it, I just get really excited about it because I can point to the outcomes and the impact that we're having.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Career Cheat Code. In this podcast, you'll hear how everyday people impact the world through their careers. Learn about their journey, career hacks and obstacles along the way. Whether you're already having the impact you want or are searching for it, this is the podcast for you. All right, ty, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:So let's dive right in there. Let's tell the world what it is you do for a living.
Speaker 1:Well, I am an impact consultant is the shorthand for what I do. So basically work with businesses and investors to help them embed equitable impact into their practice. And then, when they run into barriers, I partner with foundations and associations to build tools and resources to remove those barriers. But the shorthand for it is I'm a consultant that drives social change.
Speaker 2:That's great. What is the name of your organization where you do this at?
Speaker 1:I am the CEO of Cappy Q, and I founded the organization about 13 years ago now, so I've been doing it for a while.
Speaker 2:That's great, so tell me more what that means. So, as a founder of this organization, what is your day-to-day week look like?
Speaker 1:Well, one of the great things about running your own thing is that if your day-to-day isn't working for you, that's your fault. So my day-to-day is pretty flexible, honestly. So I have two kids and most days I am either dropping off or picking up in the morning. I do most of my work from home, and I've been working from home even before COVID. So everyone else, welcome to the virtual technology space. I've been doing that for a while and I spend most of my time on meetings, whether it's meetings directly with clients, whether it's conversations like this one, but that's generally my day, and then, I would say, about twice a month, I'm usually on the road for something. So either flying to a client speaking at a conference, organizing an event, but that's generally what my typical day looks like, all while folding laundry.
Speaker 2:That's great. What are your type of clients and what are the type of events that you're going to Like? Are these conferences all regional, in the same area or just spread out throughout the country?
Speaker 1:It's spread throughout the country. And the cool thing about my clients is when you think about embedding equitable impact on the it's. We have such a range of organizations, but it tends to be either large for-profit businesses or investors, so everybody from Walmart to MassMutual to the Carlyle Group. Or on the building, the tools and resources side, it tends to be large philanthropies, so Ford Foundation, kellogg Foundation, cerdna Foundation, and that seems like an odd mix of people. But the thing is, when you're working on making sure people's business models are actually driving outcomes that are helpful for the community, lots of times the business side and the investor side is not going to resource the types of things that are gaps in their practices. So they'll pay you to help them figure out things like oh, we need to figure out our supplier diversity and have that do something differently. Or, oh, we want to build an impact fund. But then when you're under the hood in their organization and you run into issues like well, we say we want to invest in a way that's equitable, but there are all these processes that are actually barriers to us achieving that goal, oh well, I guess it doesn't work.
Speaker 1:It's usually what happens on the business investor side and because we have a balcony view and get to look across all of these organizations, we can start to see patterns and say, hey, foundation, look, these are the barriers people are experiencing. Would you be able to fund us to help build some tools and resources to show them what those barriers are and provide outcomes and next steps that they can then use? And then we take those tools and resources to show them what those barriers are and provide outcomes and next steps that they can then use. And then we take those tools and resources back to the businesses and investors and start to move the needle. So it's a virtuous cycle when it works.
Speaker 2:That's great. Can you give me an example of a project that you were involved with or led you're really proud of? You don't have to give the specifics of who the organization was, but just some of the things that you were able to support them with.
Speaker 1:Sure. So one of the ones that we helped build several years ago that has been something that I've been able to use quite frequently is the investor blueprint for racial and economic equity. So when you think about investing and all these people said they wanted to start seeing more capital landing in the hands of black and brown founders, fund managers and others, and what we started to see is, like I mentioned before, there were just so many barriers to that for folks. So the investor blueprint, which we built in partnership with PolicyLink, actually lays out this is exactly what it looks like to invest in a way that's equitable. It's not just about the capital going outside the door. It's about what's your due diligence process.
Speaker 1:My shorthand for it is who selects your investments, how do you select your investments and what's your return on your investment, and so giving very clear steps on. These are the five steps in each of these Global Impact Investing Network or large investor organizations to actually put those tools in practice. And it's great because before the investor blueprint that's a great example of I had these clients saying they wanted to do investor work in ways that was driving equity, but they would get stuck, and so now, when they got stuck. It was like hey, this is the step you're on, you need to move to this, this and this, and it really helped accelerate the process and accelerate the outcomes for folks.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's awesome. What was the catalyst for you coming up with this or supporting with this blueprint? How did that all come?
Speaker 1:you know Michael McAfee and PolicyLink have been leading equity work for decades and I actually know Michael from you know before when I used to be the chief impact officer at Living Cities and you know they started taking on equity and business practices a little while ago and that's something he and I had kicked around for a while. So I mean I think PolicyLink is just a great partner. And the woman I worked with there is Mahalik Ghatacho, and you know I remember calling Michael when he was just named the CEO and saying, ok, michael, I'm seeing all these barriers, we've got to fix it, let's work on it together. And he's like I probably need to hire someone first. Ok, so I kind of was like waiting, waiting for Mahalette to get hired, to start to work on that with her, because I knew that if you wanted to center equity, even if it was something that was a new field for policy, I couldn't think of a better partner to do that with other than them.
Speaker 2:So that's part of why that's awesome. You seem very excited when you talk about the work. What's your favorite part of your role?
Speaker 1:You know, I think one of the things that I just feel really fortunate about is for an organization that I founded 13 years ago. The number and types of things we've been able to do is something, one of those things where I can say when I die, I can say I did my part on my watch. You know, our very first client was Walmart, which is an odd client to have to start, especially when you think about. Oftentimes people when they think of Walmart they think about them in a way that's extractive. But my very first job with them project with them actually led to them changing minimum wage for the entire company, which results in millions of dollars in the hands of pockets across the country. And like that was just my very first project.
Speaker 1:That's just one example, and so as we kind of add up the types of things we've been able to achieve it, I just get really excited about it because you know I can point to the outcomes and the impact that we're having, and our company's vision is to change how the world does business and so that that umbrella is broad enough that wherever I see barriers to business actually being a force, that's not just about making money. But you know how you do well by doing good. There's always a new problem or a new challenge to solve for, and I love solving problems.
Speaker 2:That's great, and, you know, I love that example too, because these are very tangible things that you can point to to say you know, we really supported that effort and we really changed something, that is, you know, helping families throughout the country, right? So that's amazing. I'm glad you were able to share that. So then, on the contrast, what's the most challenging part of your role?
Speaker 1:I would say right now is a challenging time with a lot of the work that you know.
Speaker 1:If you think about when I first started my company and I said I believe companies have a role to play and that can drive social impact, like, everybody was looking at me like I was crazy.
Speaker 1:I had several patronizing moments where people were like that's not how the world works, honey, and I'm like OK, and then you fast forward a couple of years and B Corp start to get popular, esg starts to get popular. So you you think about the rise of that overall, it wasn't too long ago where people weren't even thinking about businesses doing well and doing good. And now one of the challenging things is that very same concept or topic is often under attack now for odd reasons. So I think that's something that's a bit of a bummer recently, just trying to figure out how to make sure that the work that's really making families and communities stronger, making businesses more successful, is not so politicized that you can't continue to get those outcomes, and I think that's something that's just been something I've been wrestling with lately, particularly since our business model is completely grounded in making sure that businesses are driving social change and profit at the same time.
Speaker 2:That's great. So how, since times have changed now, do you feel like it is more palatable for folks to kind of get into this space? And, if so, like, how do you, if you have listeners here that are like, man, I want to, I want to do something like that, and I want to support those types of initiatives Like what do you, what do you give those? Give those folks as advice.
Speaker 1:Well, one of the things that we've noticed even though there's a lot of politics now around anything related to diversity, inclusion and environmental, social and governance, which are usually the pillars that people think of when they're talking about impact with businesses and investors most large companies now have some department or arm. That's really about impact. You can really be an entrepreneur now in large organizations in ways that those roles did not exist before. I'm seeing things like head of impact, head of community impact, head of ESG. There's just a whole bunch of different roles now that, even if you didn't start your company from scratch, like I did, there are all these opportunities within companies, and the reason why that's exciting is because, since the field is new in many ways, that means that you have a lot of latitude to drive change, to try new things, but you have it within the safety net of having a large company behind you.
Speaker 2:That makes a lot of sense. Now, just so we're all clear, is this what you always wanted to do for a living?
Speaker 1:Oh, and so I'm actually an electrical engineer. Computer science double major undergrad.
Speaker 2:Of course you are Got it.
Speaker 1:So my first job out of or you know, my my first internship, I guess you'd say it was actually working on locomotives in Erie, pennsylvania. So I don't think when most people look at my career trajectory it looks kind of odd. And the through line that I always tell people is that I'm a problem solver, so I'm trained in systems, trained in engineering, trained in iterative thinking, and so it kind of started with machines, I guess you will and move to movements. So that is the. That's the through line. But no, I don't think I definitely was not planning on doing social impact. But that said, you know my family is always really been committed to the community. I've always kind of been part of affinity groups or church groups or other things like that that you know, believed in doing that. But I didn't think you could have a job about that. I thought that was just something that you did on the side.
Speaker 2:Got it. Tell me more about that. Where were you born, raised? What was your upbringing like?
Speaker 1:So I was born in California and I grew up in Florida. My dad was in the Air Force I'm the first person from my immediate family to go to college, so and my parents had me really young and we lived on Air Force bases. So you know I'm a military brat, but we didn't really move that often. So once we moved to, I moved the most until I turned eight and then from eight until I graduated from high school we lived in Florida. So my dad often used to go to Turkey or Korea or other places. But that's, that's my background.
Speaker 2:So yeah, ok, places, but that's, that's my background. So, yeah, okay. So at that point you graduated high school and in your mind, what is like, what is the role that you see yourself doing at that time?
Speaker 1:So I got to do this program when I was in high school because, remember, I said I lived in Florida. So I got to work at NASA when I was in high school. So I had this program called. It was called SHARP, the Summer High School Apprenticeship Research Program, and it was focused on women and people of color to try to get them into STEM. So I lived maybe a 45-minute drive from Kennedy Space Center and so my first, first job was actually working on the space station. Whoa, now, I was an intern, right.
Speaker 1:So working on the space station as an intern is basically like taking notes and, you know, following the engineers around, but like I actually got to be on the launch pad and see the space shuttle up front and see the vehicle assembly building, and so you know, one of the things that I love about that high school experience is it showed me, it kind of infected me with this belief that impossible is nothing like if you can send people to space and you're in the room with all these just ordinary people talking day to day about okay.
Speaker 1:So when the space station is built, I remember this is like the first iteration of the space station, so it was more of like an idea and like how do we make this work and what technology we would need and what kind of tools we need to pull together, and you're just like it sounds like you're in Star Wars or Star Trek, but like basically trying to make that happen. That infected me across my career. So it's basically if we can send people to space, we can solve the world's hardest problems on our planet, and that's what kind of drives me and why I'm not just excited about as you said, but optimistic about it, because that's kind of how I started my work.
Speaker 2:That's awesome and that's the beauty of those type of programs, right, like it's not necessarily just about getting folks into STEM, which you know by some metrics of that program. You're not in STEM, right. So it's not necessarily a through line of well, we did this program and now we have people necessarily directly in this field, but it does have a ripple effect on your mentality and on how you approach the world and the problems, right? So I really appreciate when those programs are in place, because they do much more than they're intended to.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Well. And if you think about, earlier in my career, I was in STEM for a while I mentioned working on locomotives and then I was in IT. So I was working in IT right when the interwebs became big. So we used to call it e-business which is hilarious now because no one puts the E in front of business but back then it was like we're going to do business online and we're going to call it e-business. That makes me sound very old.
Speaker 2:That's awesome.
Speaker 1:That's another example of me being part of the frenetic energy of creating something new and what it looks like to change an industry and change in company internally. I think it's moments like that where I've just had these really exciting intersections with whether it's technology and change early enough in my career that I can apply that to different problems. So, yeah, I did a lot of technology to start and then shifted, Even if you think about after being in technology myself when I got out of business school, my first job out of business school was actually running a program called Year Up, which trains young people in technology and places them in jobs. So that was my transition to the social sector and I was training young people who were aged 18 to 24 to take my first job.
Speaker 1:When I came out of college, you know, doing IT, it wasn't in e-business, it was more in help desk, but just that was the first time I could see. It was like, oh, not only am I being able to leverage the technology I have, but I'm also able to support young people who, but for program, would not have an opportunity to take care of themselves and their families economically and in the short period of six months being trained and six months being on an internship. They were making $40,000 a year and these were folks who were working at McDonald's beforehand. So that was the transition for me and that's why I started my company, because I started to see real time. Not only were these young people effective in their role, but they were having an outsized impact in their communities and they were also increasing morale internally, having lower turnover, having higher diversity within the organization. So I could see real time. Oh, there's an outsized role that business can play and have impact in a way that's still good for the bottom line. So that was the transition point.
Speaker 2:So that makes a lot of sense to me. But tell me more about well. One, where did you go to grad school? And two, at the time when you were applying to grad school, why did you go there? What was your moment to say all right, what do I want to do with that? Did you go there Like what was, what was?
Speaker 1:your. What was your moment to say, all right, what do I want to do with that? Yes, so I, um, I went to Duke undergrad and I went to Harvard business school and my application at the time let's see this I was, I wanted to be the general manager of international finance. That was my goal.
Speaker 2:That was what I wrote. Why.
Speaker 1:It does. Yeah, it does sound fancy. Right At that time I was in the mortgage finance business. So right before going to business school, I was in mortgage finance and you're like, wait, wait, weren't you just doing locomotives? Yes, got to keep up, got to keep up. But I was helping them on the technology side. So I was working in the international finance division of a mortgage insurance company and I was helping them put all their processes online and support that work. And as part of that work then I also ended up doing mergers and acquisitions and supporting them acquiring mortgage banks. So I loved that. It was so much fun. I got to visit all these different countries. I went to Sydney, australia, I went to Mexico, I was in London, and all just for work. I was like, oh, this is cool.
Speaker 2:I want to run this.
Speaker 1:I want to run something like this. So when I went to business school, that's what I said I wanted to do, because that was what I was steeped in at the time and it's funny my husband teases that I'm one of the few people he knows who went to business school to become a hippie. But because I knew what I wanted to do, I spent my summer doing something social impact related. It's like, oh well, I've always done this on the side. I know I'm going to go do mortgage finance. Let me try something new over the summer, because I have a very clear goal. I know exactly where I'm going and that's where I found Europe Up. I did my internship at Year Up and before I graduated they asked me to launch their first expansion site in Washington DC. So that's what turned my path.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, I know, but that is not what I said I was going to do.
Speaker 2:I know Year Up well too. They do some good work. But no, it's fascinating because a lot of times we use grad school either as a shifting point where you're like I need it to be able to transition and it'll help me tell that story and help me, like, find to what it is I want to do, or you're in a position where, like, I know exactly what benefit this grad school program is going to get me and therefore I want to do it. So it's just great to see that you went in with the first intention and then it kind of shifted your entire trajectory from there and led you to then Europe and, as you mentioned, a great place like Living Cities and other organizations that are just doing remarkable work throughout the country and supporting different communities. Thank you, yep. Talk to me about at what point do you realize? You know what, instead of working at some of these organizations, I just need to do my own thing.
Speaker 1:If you kind of think about my career overall, I've had kind of an entrepreneurial spirit in a lot of the things that I've been exposed to, or a part of. So I would say once I launched Year Up because launching your first expansion site at this time, if you think about where Year Up was in its history, it only had the Boston location, so it was founded in Boston and then they had a satellite location in Rhode Island, so that's like, if you're in the Boston area, that's like a 40-minute train ride from Boston. So same network of people, same resources. You're kind of still within the sphere of influence. My site, dc, was the first one that was outside anybody's network. So I basically launched that from scratch. So I went from the first class of 22 young people to serving several thousand young people, raising $20 million.
Speaker 1:President Obama visited during his first year.
Speaker 1:I mean just really strong growth and outcomes and it was that experience that said, oh wait, I basically have already started something from scratch. So I'm going to the next thing will be mine, and I think one of the things that's interesting is when you do work and you're able to do work that you're passionate about, it's hard to find your next job, not because you can't get one right, but because it's hard to trade. Waking up every day and knowing that you're on the earth fulfilling your purpose, and trading that for a paycheck. It was just really hard to figure out. So for me, starting something from scratch was the closest thing I could get to what it felt like to know every day. I wake up in the morning and my work makes sure young people can take care of themselves and their families, and now I have that multiplied by 10, because I can do it do that kind of work, not just with young people, but with people from different backgrounds, regardless of what the outcomes are. So that's how I ended up in that place.
Speaker 2:So I know one of the barriers to becoming an entrepreneur is the fear of what that means from a stability standpoint, from a providing means for your family standpoint. Can you give us a range of what someone that owns their own company, that is in this type of space, can make on a given?
Speaker 1:year. So there's, I think one of the things as an entrepreneur is you have to be really clear. Are you a solopreneur? So you know, people used to say when I was first starting, are you running a lifestyle business where it's basically, can I take care of myself and my family? But it's really about you and your organization, or you, right, think about that more like independent consultant, or are you building a business? And they're slightly different.
Speaker 1:If you're doing the solopreneur route with work like this, my first year and I will say I may be the exception, but my first year I want to say I brought in like $300,000. So you know, if you think about what salaries are, you're like huh, I can do that. What I will say and this is something that people who know of others who go to business school think it's kind of built in the curriculum. They don't tell you how to start a business. They tell you about the strategy, but there's a whole bunch of just tactical minutia. Oh, you got to register with this, and oh, the taxes look like this. And oh, did you get the articles of incorporation or did you get insurance articles of incorporation or did you get insurance? I mean, there's just like a lot of these like tiny tactical things with starting a company, that not just the fear of when my next paycheck is going to come, but also the fear of, like all of the administrivia that's connected with running your own thing, that you're going to do something wrong and get in trouble and like get audited for taxes and stuff. So like there's a hump there. There's definitely a learning curve there, regardless of if you have a business background or not.
Speaker 1:I think the other hump is especially if you have a partner working really closely and being transparent about what is the firewall.
Speaker 1:So we would say what's the firewall between my company and the family's finances and what makes the risk feel comfortable for both of us. So my husband and I decided that I would save six months of expenses and have them in the family account because the money can come in in ups and downs. You have to start to learn how to figure out things like managing your cash flow, making sure accounts payable is happening that one month you can be bringing in $13,000 and the next month you can be bringing in $50,000 and the next month you can be bringing in $50,000. Well, you know what you got to pay for the mortgage every month. So there are little things like that that you have to work through. But once you figure that out and you kind of get a sense for how your cash flow works and what kind of roles you have, I think if your risk tolerance is there, I tell people, once you start working for yourself, it's really hard to work for anybody else Got it.
Speaker 2:That's awesome and I love that because I think you just demystify a lot right and just make it so that folks feel like it is all obtainable. So I appreciate you sharing that. So now you have your six months of unprepared for anything that comes together. One of the things that we didn't really touch on for the audience is where did you land on? Do you want to continue to be a solopreneur versus growing it and have other folks on your team? Where are you now? What does that look like?
Speaker 1:So I knew from the beginning that I wanted to create a company. I wasn't about being a solopreneur. If you think about the vision of changing how the world does business, everything I do you work backwards from what's the outcome you're trying to achieve. So if I want to change how the world does business, I can't do that by myself. I can have little moments where I can say, wow, that was awesome, that I just did that. But you want to be able to scale your impact, and so I knew one. I needed to do that through a team so I could basically touch more people, and so we built consistent processes.
Speaker 1:Also, when you think about, what we wanted to do is democratize what we're learning with others, which is why I've written two books. So if you want to change how the world does business, we can only do it as fast as you are a client, unless I find other ways to share what's working, what's not working and why. It's why I write articles monthly. It's why I work really hard to translate what often sounds like very esoteric into things that people can understand and apply, because that way, even if you don't work with CapEQ day to day, there's some nugget that we're sharing that you can start to try internally, and I believe equipping the entrepreneurs of their businesses and investing companies with the tools they need to be successful is just as important as the direct client work we have.
Speaker 2:That's great, okay. So how many folks do you have on your team now?
Speaker 1:So we have about 20 people on our team.
Speaker 2:That's huge to grow something from your brain, somewhere to say all right now we have 20 people that are dedicated to this vision and doing the things. What was your first hire and like? Why?
Speaker 1:So my first hire is usually okay. So I think this might get a little a little in the weeds. But when you're running a consulting business, one of the most important things is you need to make sure that you can pay for people. So the way that I work, you'll hear this I won't hire anybody full time unless I have six months of their salary in the bank. So for me it's really important that I can look somebody in the eye and say I can't control the future, but at a minimum, if we run into hard times, I can look you in the eye and say I got you for the next six months Right, and I think that's really important. That's something that you know.
Speaker 1:When you are hiring somebody, you are not just hiring them, you're basically hiring their family, if you will, is the way that I look at it. So I take that really seriously with my employees. So the first type of employee that I tend to hire is someone who can actually service projects with me. Because how do I pay your bill? I pay your bill by providing client service work, and so if you can do that with me, then that's helpful. Then I go from that to operations. So the people who can service clients with me. If they're able to take that expertise and then create the internal processes that allow us to replicate that with others, it allows me to hire the next person but ramp them up more quickly. So that's kind of how I balance out, how I hire.
Speaker 1:And then the last, if you start to think about that, okay, so you have one person, then the two person, three people over time. Then you start to need to build the back office work, right, so the finance people and the operations folks. That's when you kind of start to get there. But you grow into it and you know, I think one of the lessons I learned initially especially, I have that entrepreneurial spirit. But it's different running your own thing. It's different when, like you know, it's cash coming out of your bank and you're managing that. So I started to realize like, oh, I hired too quickly and too many people when I first started my company in ways that I realized, oh, that's creating too much of a cash flow strain on the company. So I learned about how to hire in a way that is sustainable, where I can make sure I can pay people consistently.
Speaker 1:That's great, I hope this isn't too much in the weeds, but you're asking me these questions, so I'm going to answer them?
Speaker 2:Not at all. I think this is perfect, and I just feel like there are a lot of folks that may be on the fence about like, do I do my own thing? I'm at this company, I feel like I can do some consulting, or maybe do it by myself, or whatever that looks like. So, just thinking through, well, how do you then end up at a place where you have 20 people in this company?
Speaker 1:It's just helpful for people to understand the path, so I appreciate you sharing that Well, and I also think lots of times people feel like you know, I have 20 people who work with me day to day, but a lot of them are actually not W-2s, they're 1099s. So the way that I look at that is it's part of changing how the world does business. If I'm helping another person who is running their own business get work, because the hardest thing to do, I think, when you're a consultant and the fear that you're talking about is about getting business right. I'm really good at business development. I'm really good at fundraising, so that's not something that makes me afraid. But if I have brilliant people around me where that's a hurdle for them but I know I can find the perfect project to put them on and then they start to build their confidence I'll do that all day.
Speaker 1:In fact, we often at CapEQ. What we find is there are some projects that aren't a good fit for us and we'll send them to a lot of we often at CapEQ. What we find is there are some projects that aren't a good fit for us and we'll send them to a lot. We call them our Avengers. So people who work on projects with us, we assemble the right team to solve the problem we're trying to solve. So I'll forward work to our Avengers because I want different people who are running their companies to thrive. And if you look at our team, I would say we're 90% of color and probably 85% women. So you know that's. That's also changing how the world does business. You know, seeing people growing their their own individual businesses, their own individual wealth, having their own agency, is another ripple effect of the way that we do our work.
Speaker 2:That's great and I also appreciate you sharing not just the kind of composition and intentionality of kind of your team right, but of partnering with others right, where you don't have to take on every project and do all the things and feel like you're in competition with everyone else. It's like there's value in having this, as you called it, the Avengers right Of like we can work in the ecosystem together and figure out how we can all add value.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yes, and that is something that I will say is a pet peeve of mine.
Speaker 1:I do feel like there's just unnecessary the mindset of scarcity. I think that is an undercurrent in the way capitalism I would say has worked to date is the type of thing that creates unnecessary competition at times. And I don't mean you know, you don't, you're not. Obviously you're going to compete for who's providing the best product or service. But if you're trying to change the way the world does business, you can't do that by yourself, like you actually can't get to that outcome by yourself, and so you need to be able to find the right partners who are, who are more focused on solving the problem than they are of being the solution, and I think that's actually how you get there, and unfortunately, there are too many people in the space where, like, that's not what they're centered. I think there's a lot of folks who are grounded more in ego and grounded more in how they look or what they you know what credit they get than actually trying to solve the problem, which is part of why it's harder to get some of this stuff done.
Speaker 2:And you. You've already given us so many, but do you have any other career cheat codes that you've encountered along the way that you're like? You know that was. That's something that folks should think about doing earlier in their career or just adopt as as good practice.
Speaker 1:So you know this is going to sound super trite, but I tell you right now, mentors have been like the inflection. Like every time I had an inflection point in my life, I've been really fortunate to have like the best mentors and you know, some of them came from formal programs through my company, but a lot of times it was just people who believed in me and gave me good advice. The very first mentor I had is Debra Dean Nelson, and I would not have gone to college outside of my state if it hadn't been for her Because, like I mentioned I still don't know if I mentioned, but neither of my parents went to college, so I didn't have a very clear understanding of where to go. We didn't make a lot of money and so I didn't want to be a financial burden, so my goal actually was to go to the community college up the street from our house. I was like I'm just going to go to a local community college, that way I can help out around the house, I can still get an education, but I can be supportive of my family. And Debra said oh no, girlfriend, we are sending you to the best schools. I was like okay, and she literally just took me on as a project and my mom did nails, so I met her. I came home from school one day she asked me what grades are you getting in school? I was like who is this lady in my house? I was like straight A's. She's like, oh, I'm going to take you to lunch. I was like okay, it's like weird lady, fine. But like my entire trajectory changed from that moment. Right, and I have moments like that throughout my career.
Speaker 1:I had another moment that I remember in my career with a mentor. It was when I was in international finance and he was actually my boss's boss and I was having a hard time with someone who was there's this dual reporting structure who said I just was, I was, I was just too chipper and I needed to take it down a notch. And it really bothered me because I was like, oh, I didn't know that was unprofessional. I didn't mean to be unprofessional, I just like making work a place where people enjoy coming to. And my boss's boss said and my boss's boss said, no, he's absolutely wrong. You do amazing work and people love working with you and that helps you actually be successful. So if people talk to you about changing who you are to be successful, they're wrong and you just keep doing what you're doing.
Speaker 1:And so that happened in my early 20s, and I'm the type of person that people often think that, because I'm energetic, because I find joy in what I do, sometimes people can conflate that with that not being substantive and like no, this is a choice. It's a choice to create a space where the work you do day to day is really hard. So how do you create an environment where people can thrive? And that is a choice on my end and it's something that, but for that mentor, I would have dimmed my light to get my work done. And it's moments like that, I think, along the way, that have been my cheat codes. My cheat codes are always other people pouring into me.
Speaker 2:That's great and I also appreciate you sharing different roles that mentors can have, right, so one that can help, as you said, make sure you don't dim your light. Then there are others that are going to be more like on the tactical side, like, hey, we need to make sure you apply to these types of schools and like go away and think about your major or whatever that looks like, right, no way I would be thriving in my career and doing all the things without so many people pouring into me right, without so many folks taking the time to just add different pieces of information. That kind of helped me shape my path. So I just appreciate kind of that nod to the mentors that are out there doing it all the time, and then we're able to then pass that on and support others along our journeys as well. So you know, I appreciate that. Yes.
Speaker 1:And then I have a couple organizational cheat codes. I feel like, since it's the career cheat code podcast, I should come with a couple of different versions. So some institutional cheat codes, particularly if you run your own company. I found every just about every region has like leadership XYZ right. So I did leadership Greater Washington when I lived in DC and I did leadership Dallas when we moved to Dallas, and I think those are really good cheat codes for two reasons. One, it gets you a quick network of people that you have a shared experience with across your city or your community, which helps as you're doing work, regardless of what your work is. You know, oh, I know an attorney here, I know someone who works at this bank, or you know, it's just a quick relationship cheat code. But two, it helps you learn your region really quickly. It helps you understand oh, this is how education and transportation play out, or these are the leaders who are making different choices and what the factors are they're weighing. I think the third thing, particularly as a leader, if you are someone who I used to have a really hard time distinguishing between productivity and activity, and these leadership programs tend to be like really time intensive and it's like I'm just too important. There's no way I can spend the whole day away from my job and you realize like, yeah, you can, and it showed me the importance of space for you know, thinking differently about things, being exposed to different things. It actually helps you be a better leader if you're not constantly in the day-to-day of what you do but you have moments to pull back. So, like leadership programs, huge cheat code, and then there's a and those are just like you know there's Dallas leadership insert city here, and then the other cheat code that I had another leadership program, but just completely amazing, was the Presidential Leadership Scholars Program that I was part of, and so that is a partnership with President HW Bush, president W Bush, president Clinton and the Lyndon B Johnson Center and it's another leadership kind of program, very time intensive, but it's for people across partisan lines who care about impact. So it was just an amazing program to be able to meet presidents and their administrations and learn how they solve crises. You're sitting there talking to the person who was working on the TARP program, right, like you're sitting, you're just getting like completely inside knowledge on what it was like to really have to solve huge crises or challenges across the country and you start to see that even presidents are just ordinary people doing extraordinary things and you also have the opportunity to talk to you.
Speaker 1:I have. I've been really fortunate that, particularly if you think about elections and politics and how, how polarizing things have been in so many ways, that's challenging. It's been really helpful for me to have a group of folks who have different ideologies that I can talk to as humans and just say I don't understand why this is showing up this way. Tell me why. And I think that has also been something that's just been a joy to have that network to really be able to talk to, a joy to have that network to really be able to talk to, and it helps me not it helps keep me from dehumanizing people just because they have a different perspective. So those are my institutional cheat codes. Mentors are the people and here are the leadership programs with institutionals. I've done my homework assignment.
Speaker 2:You are crushing this cheat code thing. I appreciate that. That's great. Are there other forms of, maybe forms of media that could be books, podcasts, newsletters that you have consumed, that have helped you personally or professionally?
Speaker 1:Yes, I mean there's so many podcasts that I adore. So first of all, I will say my husband is the one who listens to podcasts more than I do. I like to listen to fun ones because my brain needs a break. But one podcast that I love, and I'm sure a lot of people love, is Adam Grant's Work Life. I just think he does an amazing job of taking really complex. I like when people take complex issues and make them really accessible. So I love Work Life with Adam Grant.
Speaker 1:I love Freakonomics, so similar reason, and I actually got to be on a Freakonomics episode recently about the NFL and diversity. So I've been like a Stephen Dubner Freakonomics fan for like decades. So the fangirling with both Freakonomics and NFL like can you get any better than that? Both for economics and the NFL, can you get any better than that? So I love for economics as well. I like the oh there's this one podcast that what is it called? Planet Money? I love Planet Money as well. So I like things that help demystify the world around you. So those are just several of the podcasts that I like.
Speaker 1:I read a lot of books One of the books that I've read recently that has been instructive to me and my company has been how to 10x your life. So the frame is basically as you're growing something, people tend to grow things in an incremental way, but if you have to 10x what you're doing, it helps you lift your head up and think about new ways to attack a problem. So I like books like that. When I'm reading books, it's usually around, if it's not fiction, because frankly, most of the books I read are fiction and something sci-fi related or fantasy related. We've got vampires, we've got fairies. This is what I do with my fiction. But if I'm reading nonfiction, it's usually around business related issues like that that makes sense.
Speaker 2:I mean, you grew up near NASA, so your mind is in space somewhere. So that tracks Love that.
Speaker 1:That is fair.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Is there anything that we have not discussed, that the world should know about you today?
Speaker 1:I think that it's really important that we own the future that we're trying to build, and I think that's something that I take an ownership and accountability for the kind of world we're creating around us. And I feel like when people feel like they're disconnected, there's a hopelessness there, and so I think one thing that I would just encourage people if there's anything about my journey that I would hope would encourage people is that you can create the life and you can create the world that you see in your head, but you just have to be willing to take that step. There's this beautiful poem that I really clung to when I started my business. It was called On Boldness and it basically says that when man takes the first step, providence meets you with beauty that you could never imagine. And that's that on boldness. That spirit of taking the step and feeling like there's a spiritual response in a way to help meet you where you are, is something that I hope, if for nothing else, that my journey inspires others to take their own first bold step.
Speaker 2:That is a beautiful note to end on. Really appreciate you coming on the podcast today. Thank you for everything. Thanks for all the tea cups.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having me. It's been fun Awesome.
Speaker 2:I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did and believe on the mission we're on, please like, rate and subscribe to this podcast on whatever platform you're using, and share this podcast with your friends and your networks. Make sure you follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn at Career Cheat Code and tell us people or careers you would like to see highlighted. See you next week with some more cheat codes. Peace.
