Greg Voisen
Well, welcome back to Inside Personal Growth. This is Greg Voisen, I'm the host of Inside Personal Growth. And joining me from Colorado, you're actually in Durango, is that right?

Kerry Siggins
I am.

Greg Voisen
Durango, Colorado. And here's the book, The Ownership Mindset, Kerry Siggins. And I hope I'm saying that right?

Kerry Siggins
Nope, Siggins. Yep, Siggins.

Greg Voisen
And the book is called The Ownership Mindset: A handbook for Transforming Your Life and Leadership. Interesting story that Kerry has, and how she got where she is with a company called StoneAge. But we're gonna get into that. More importantly, if you want to learn more about Kerry, just go to kerrysiggins.com. And there you can learn about her book, her podcast because she does her own podcast as well. And everything else that you need to know about her but I'm gonna let the listening audience know a tad bit about you. Because I always think it's important for people to have a good idea. She's the CEO of Stone Age, which I said leading manufacturer of industrial cleaning equipment and one of outside Magazine's Top 100 Companies to Work For in 2001. She was honored by the industry era magazine is one of the top 10 Most Influential CEOs. And in 2017, she was a finalist for Colorado CEO of the Year, she sits on the board of several companies and as a member of the YPO. She is regularly invited to deliver keynote speeches on several businesses and leadership topics, including how to create employee centric cultures and which it's safe to speak up and show up as your whole self. She's an active blogger and contributor for Forbes entrepreneur, authority magazine, BAC magazine and hosts several podcasts, including our popular one called reflect forward, go there, pick up a copy of this book, everybody will have a link to that. Well, let's just kind of start it off. Because in the jacket of your book, and in the book, you tell the story a bit about your backstory. Now I told the people the good part. There are parts that aren't so good, and why you've succeeded as becoming a leader, despite the personal challenges that you've faced in your life prior to the good stuff that I just told people. Because you did have a little bit I will call it a dark past. But you

Kerry Siggins
Oh yeah. That's a that's a good way to describe it exactly.

Greg Voisen
So tell people what you learned from that?

Kerry Siggins
Yeah, So I developed substance abuse issues in my 20s. And we won't go into a therapy session here. I've done lots of work to understand those reasons. But it was a very dark point in my life. And I was I was quite frankly lost. And I was using substances to cope to numb and it got out of hand and I accidentally overdosed on Labor Day of 2006. And it's the most important day of my life. People ask me what I ever changed that day. And I would say absolutely not, even though it was hitting rock bottom, and it was a horrible place to be, and I hurt myself and I hurt a lot of other people. In that time in my life. It was an inflection point, it was the point that I said, that’s it, I need to figure out how to live the life that I have the potential for. And so that was when I pivoted everything and decided to come home to Colorado back to my roots and figure out how to rebuild my life. So, it was a really dark point in my life, but also one that I have no regrets. But it's taken me a long time to be able to say that.

Greg Voisen
Well, it's a big turning point for most people when they go through what you've gone through. And, you know, everybody learns from different examples in their life, whether it's a loss, whether it's a financial loss, whether it's drug or alcohol, whether it's sex abuse, you know, it comes in many different forms and styles and fashions and all kinds of things. And the key is, is that we grow through it instead of go through it, right? People say, well, why did somebody have a relapse? Well, they had a relapse because they didn't really grow through it. They just went through it and so they relapse back to taking alcohol or drugs or doing whatever. And in your case, I'm proud to say you haven't relapsed. So that's an important thing. Now you state in the introduction or your book that exceptional leaders which you have become, understand the true ownership and this book is about ownership of fully owning everything that happens to them and their life just like you were just talking about, and that that this means one's understanding They're responsible for their attitudes, their actions, the reactions, the teamwork, the communications relationships. At what point in your life did you realize that taking 100% responsibility for your actions was paramount to your success was that the day you overdosed? Now,

Kerry Siggins
I think it was after, I've had an interesting relationship with accountability throughout my life, my mother, like just really hammered accountability home, and in many instances in life made me be accountable to a lot of different things, I tell a story in the book of how she made me go talk to a teacher that I was misbehaving in class with, and handle my own problem. And it was so empowering. But I think like a lot of people in their 20s, and especially back then I think it's easy to get into the blame game. And I had a tumultuous relationship with my father and, and so I acted out in certain ways. And I blamed him. And I blamed a lot of other things for my circumstances. So, you know, I don't want to say that I wasn't always accountable, because I certainly had moments. But I had lots of moments when I wasn't either. But the pivot point came after my overdose. I knew that at that point, I needed to change because I couldn't go to work for three days. So I was a high functioning addict. I always went to work. I very driven ambitious. So success was always something that was important to me. And a lot of people with my personality style, developed substance abuse issues, it's not an uncommon thing. I didn't know that back then. But, but I couldn't go to work for three days after my overdose. And that was rock bottom. For me, it wasn't almost dying, it was the fact that I couldn't go to work. And when I called my mother to ask if I could come home, which was humiliating for me, she said something really interesting to me, she said, you have all of this potential, and you are such a fantastic leader. And you can lead people to great things, or you can lead people right off of a cliff. But if you are ever going to be a leader who is worth following, then you have to learn how to lead yourself first. And that was the first time I had ever been introduced to this concept of self leadership. And I was like, well done. I mean, we're leading ourselves every day, whether we're doing it well or not. And so it was at that point that I started to really explore this idea of self-leadership and, and personal responsibility, and how do I get myself out of this mess? So, you know, I think that it developed over time. I do think that, you know, what caused me to really take the deep look was the overdose. But it wasn't in that moment. I think it was in that, you know, that three to six months afterwards, as I was figuring out, who am I and who do I want to be going forward and what I realized is that I'm the only one who can fix the mess that I've made in my life. So, I better start owning it.

Greg Voisen
Well, and I think this point we're talking about for all of my listeners, and they and most of you probably know this, you know, the first key things as a fundamental foundation is taking responsibility for your own actions. And that's what your mother was trying to drive home. And, you know, you mentioned in this book, you are influenced by Dr. Seuss. And it's interesting because I live in Encinitas and Dr. Seuss lived in Loyola. And as a kid, you were influenced by the book, Oh, the Places will go. And I then actually went out and after I read this and picked the I actually went to Amazon and looked at some of the pages of that book. Why do you believe the book became an analogy, kind of for your life calling? Because it was all about the places we'll go. Not the places we've been.

Kerry Siggins
You know, I love this question for two reasons. One, because I grew up in rural Colorado and a small ranching community. And I spent my whole life trying to figure out how to get out of that town. I never wanted to go back. In fact, I was said I was never coming back to a small rural community. And here I am in Durango. I didn't grow up in Durango. I grew up in a small town called Montrose, which is about two hours north of Durango. But I spent my whole life imagining all the places that I would go. And so that book really resonated with me because I had big dreams for myself. But I didn't understand the true at least the medium the book that I should say the book didn't have the same meaning to me as it did. When I was a kid that did after my overdose, and my mom had it. It was a book that I had growing up and when I got home to move back in with her after my overdose, I read it. And it was really inspiring to me like I can, I can choose these things I can choose to be in these dark places. I can choose to blame other people, or I can choose to focus on where I'm going in and living my dreams and making things happen. And so it brought back that That desire I had as a as a young girl with big dreams and and made me realize like I can still live those dreams even though I've made a mess of my life.

Greg Voisen
Well, you realize you have agency, right? Exactly. And I think that's the most important thing. And people realize that they do have that choice, that element of choice and agency, you go right, you go left, you make some decisions, some are going to be right, some are going to be wrong. And even if they were wrong, those are the ones that you learned from like us. The overdose that was went down the wrong path. But you turned around and you got out. Now let's fast forward here. And let's talk about your landing the position at Stone Age as the General Manager, it was like, Wow, what an epiphany, that email was that you didn't get that you realized you should have gotten? And you can tell that if you want. Yeah. And you felt working with John and Jerry's ink, was really kind of an honor. What was it about Stone Age in particular, that you knew was different, and it would have become an exceptional place for you to work? Because you almost didn't get the job based on the fact that you didn't read the emails, you were in a job somewhere else. Exactly,

Kerry Siggins
exactly. So. So part of my part of my spiral down, it was because I was so miserable at work. I was climbing this corporate ladder, but I was not in the right company. It wasn't the right culture. I didn't like my boss. And it just fed into my ongoing issues that I had with self esteem and body image and all of those things. So after my overdose, I said, That's it, I'm going to make sure that I find a company that fits me and that I'm in a role that aligns with my skills and my talents. Just because I can do things doesn't mean that it brings me joy, for example, I went to engineering school, I have no desire to be an engineer. It does not bring me joy, even though I can do the work. And so when I met with the founders at Stone Age, I could just tell that there was something different. I mean, we were employee owned that and it was not an ESOP at the time, but I could just tell that they really cared about their employees. Everything that we talked about was kind of through this lens of work life balance, and And what about what else are you interested in? It wasn't just about my experience, which quite frankly, I hardly had a knee so. So it, it was a really interesting interview, nothing like I had ever been through before. And, and then I met with the management team. And after I met with the management team, I knew that they wanted to hire me, I think that my inexperience was somehow less intimidating than a person who was going to come in and change everything. And so I was keeping my fingers crossed, and I was waiting and waiting. And I didn't hear anything. And I didn't hear anything. And finally, my mom said, Well, why don't you just call and find out? What's going on? Well, I was too, too afraid to call. So I sent the HR manager at email, and I said, Hey, I'm getting ready to take another job I had had another offer. Can you tell me, you know, Am I still on the running? What's going on? And she said, Well, we've been waiting to hear back from you. We you didn't have a reply to John's email. I was like, Wait, why email? I don't think I got an email. When did he send it? So I crickets for a little bit. And then about an hour later, she calls me and she says, yeah, he actually didn't send it to you. He sent it to me, I just assumed he sent it to you. So we actually never sent it. So we want you to come in. And we'll talk about we want to make an offer for you. So come in and talk about it. And I was blown up like oh my god, what happens if I would not have called and thank goodness you my mother. She is just everything like pushy me, like just pick up the phone and call them. And and so if I wouldn't have, they would have thought I was some flake and wasn't interested in the job. And I would have always wondered, what would have been. And so they did. They called me and they they they ultimately offered the job. But this place is all about creating a great employee experience, so that our customers have a great experience and a great overall experience. And that was what was different about it. And I knew that even though the job was a stretch for me that I was in a place that was going to suit my personality, my style and the things that I cared about.

Greg Voisen
Now you're the CEO, that sounds pretty amazing story. Let me tell you. So if you would speak to the listeners about what you term self leadership, how do you define it and why is it so important to the success of the individual person in the company because it's again, that goes back to this taking 100% responsibility for your own actions right to a large degree, and I don't think we can repeat that enough. You don't try and brush it under the rug. You Come out and you have to be transparent about things, you have to tell the truth. Guy and I were talking about that on the think remarkable podcast is that and I'll relay this story, there was that that think differently ad that Apple was running, right. And then had the picture of Einstein. And there was this video that was taken, this is a really interesting story. And for all my listeners listen to the podcast that I did with guy. And the reason I tell this story is there were two videos being made. And Steve Jobs was in the room with guy. And he said, Oh, don't give one don't give one of the videos to Steve, or don't give one of the videos to guy. He said. And guy said, How come to Steve. And Steve said, because I don't trust you. And guy turned around to Steve. And he said it cost him 10s of millions of dollars. He told Steve Jobs, I don't trust you. Because he stood up for his basically kind of his rights said maybe not the right thing to say at that time. But he said in hindsight, it was the right thing to say. And that's where I'm coming with with self responsibility, self leadership, is it sometimes the hard decisions aren't the easiest to make, but you've got to make them. So what would you say to people about that? Yeah.

Kerry Siggins
There's nothing easy about leading yourself well, and self leadership is simply about it's how you lead yourself. And it's so it's how you show up. It's how you use your words to communicate, it's how you look at your efforts. It's how you take responsibility for your actions or not. And so you're leading yourself well, or you're not to. And so for me, being a great self leader, is how I was able to change my life, because that's when you when the personal responsibility comes in to say, Okay, I'm going to take responsibility of leading myself well, that no matter what's thrown at me, I can handle it, that if I have to give someone feedback, I'm going to do it in a way that's kind and caring and helpful. But it's going to be honest, that I'm going to receive feedback, because I know that I am far from perfect, and that I need feedback to be able to grow. So it's this idea of, of owning everything that happens in your life, and leading yourself. Well, I imagine you're the very best leader that you've ever worked for, how do you start to emulate some of those things? That's how you can imagine what kind of person do you want to be 10 years from now, you have to start practicing those things. Right now. That is what self leadership is. And I think a lot of times we just go through life not thinking about it, we just go through the motions, not understanding that we're not really developing ourselves as self leaders, if we aren't consciously focused on on these things on taking responsibility on communicating well, on owning your mistakes on taking care of yourself.

Greg Voisen
Those are good attributes, you know, in other words, when you point out attributes of self leadership that should be around transparency and vulnerability factor, your ability to take on hard things and work through them. You know, and I know people can they listen to these words, and they go well, but that's what it is. But there are times sometimes when you choose to break, and you don't go the right way. And you those are the times that you make your basic, biggest mistakes, because you have to listen to your intuition. You have to listen to that, inside that soul that's talking to you. And you know, you cited a quote, and this is moving now to this whole concept of an ESOP, employee stock ownership and from Philip Kotler is a professor at Kellogg School of Management, about worker discontent. And that this statement is the reason that you're such an advocate of employee ownership plans or Aesop's ESOP. What is it like to manage a successful ESOP, like the one that you've put in at Stone Age, because I know there's a big story before the story. But the reality is, for all my listeners, this program is owned by the employees, this company is owned by the employees. And it's a big decision for an owner to take. Simply because they have to be of a different mindset to want to do that. It's almost like they're altruistic in nature, right? They're going to take that down the road. Tell us a little bit about the story. And why this whole thing about discontent of employees kind of drove this initiative.

Kerry Siggins
Yeah, absolutely. Well, we have such a huge wealth gap in the United States. I mean, really around the world but the United States is so so dramatic and and there's always going to be discontent when a top few continue to build tremendous wealth off the backs of the people who are are doing the work. And we've seen this we've seen executive pay, get completely out of line with with the average worker, and that is going to cause discontent. Because in reality, it takes every single person on the team to build value in the company. And my opinion, a title, it's just a bunch of letters behind your name, like CEO is just letters behind my name, I am a human being who has a role to play in this company. And my job is to play that role well, and it's a very important job, but it is somehow not worth, you know, 10s of millions of dollars more than an engineer here designing a product or an order fulfillment person making sure that our customer gets a product on time. And so this worker discontent is really happening where people just feel like a number. And they feel like they are working really hard, and not getting ahead. But making the owners of the company, whether that's a publicly traded company on the stock market, which almost 90% of the stocks in the United States are owned by 10% of the population, the US population, or private equity, or, you know, family business or something along those lines. And so, this idea of worker discontent is a really important, it's a really important conversation that we need to have, because it is the root of a lot of our issues in this country. And so, but that was not the reason why the ESOP started to begin with John and Jerry, our founders, they just believed in sharing the success of the company, with the employees, they were two engineers with no business experience. And they relied heavily on the expertise and the hard effort of those early employees. And they said, We want to be able to, to allow you to share in the success. And so that's, that's really what it started, you know, you talked a little bit about altruistic, we're really trying to change the narrative on it being in altruistic decision. A lot of people believe that when you sell a company to an ESOP, that you're going to get less money, you know, less value than what you would on an open market, which in the moment is true, we do a fair market valuation, which is usually less than what you would go out and sell to private equity, or to a strategic buyer. But there's all kinds of mechanisms that you can put into place to be able to get that value out of the company. And so to me, we need to get rid of it as this altruistic feeling this altruistic view, and really be about why does all of the wealth have to be concentrated at the top? Why shouldn't we look at a different model where I can still get get my value out of the company that I've created, still build tremendous wealth, but really set the workers, the people who have built this company up for success to have a better future for themselves, their families, which makes our communities healthier. I don't believe that's altruistic, I believe that's the right thing to do. And so that's why we're really trying to get this message out that you can build a great company, you can create a tremendous amount of wealth, and your employees can to

Greg Voisen
know I would agree with you and altruistic, you're right is maybe not the right word. But there, it really depends on the mindset of the CEO. I mean, Aesop's can be driven for the wrong reasons, because a lot of times Aesop's are a tax advantage for the owners, because the government gives tax advantages. But if you truly at the heart of why you want to do it, which is to share in the wealth, that is the key of being able to share in the wealth. And I think that's important. And I think this comes down to also if you look at the two owners, Jerry and John, their personal purpose in life and your personal purpose in life, and in so doing to make an impact on the employees in the world, right. So what is your personal purpose? And how do you believe you're bringing that value to the world by running this company that makes these little jets that have 40,000 pounds of psi behind them? That could probably blow the paint and anything off of anything? Probably? Everything? Yeah.

Kerry Siggins
kill people. It can kill people. Sure,

Greg Voisen
sure. It can. It's dangerous. I've actually had my hand in front of just the ones where you do the erewash thing and I put it in in it like burns forever after you have something happen. So yours will probably take my fingers off.

Kerry Siggins
It can take your fingers off. Yes, definitely. Well, yeah. So I, I love I love this company. I love this industry. I never imagined myself in the industrial cleaning industry. But I will tell you that we take pride in keeping the supply chain running every major industrial manufacturing facility that produces everything that we use the gas in our car, the rubber in the tires, the glass in our phone, the plastic in our water bottles, all of that comes from an industrial manufacturing facility, that that production equipment has to be cleaned. So our products, which are used worldwide are the leaders and what we do help keep the supply chain running. And so from a, you know, from a perspective of the value that we're bringing to the world, I take an immense amount of pride in that. But that's not my purpose. My purpose is to inspire people to be their very best to see the potential that they have in themselves to be external, excellent, exceptional self leaders or people leaders, I want to help expand consciousness around this idea that businesses can be a force for good and should be a force for good. And we can make significant changes if we start opening our mind to not just about making money, but doing good in the world, too. And so Stone Age gives me this great platform, because we have this really unique product, or the leaders that will have what we do, we have this amazing story, because that's what we all do is connect through stories. And we're employee owns. And so it gives me a platform to be able to talk about impact and change through this through the lens of where wealth creation happens, and how we need to make wealth creation work for everybody, not just the few. So I love it. I mean, I'm an engineer, you know, by education, I'm a business leader, by you know, by passion. And by purpose, I am about really changing the world, and getting people to see the potential and the impact that we can make. If we make if we lead this way.

Greg Voisen
Well, and you have a unique product, now it looks like you're the dominant player in the market with that unique product, which is not everybody can say that. I mean, you know, if you make a widget, and it's great, but there's also 14 other widgets out there. It's one thing but in the fact that stone age is like the dominant player, they almost have like a monopoly in this market. That's that's another thing to say. Now, you mentioned that great leaders can articulate a vision. And I know we've heard this, and my listeners have heard this said on these business podcasts, and a path to achieve the vision more importantly, the path. What is the pathway? What is the plan, your first year as the CEO Stone Age was in 2009. And things were not sparkling sales were down the world was in a funk. The year prior, the stock market did its thing and crashed. And you were saying wow. So how do you pull the company through that crisis? Because this is the real strength of of a leader? Well, yeah,

Kerry Siggins
this was my first real crisis that I've ever lived through. And, you know, honestly, it, it's a combination of things part, it's because of the history of the company. And, and, and our focus on innovation and engineering. We were trusted by our customers long before I ever came on board. But I knew that and so when I had to look our all of our employees in the eye and say, Okay, we don't know what's going to happen. Our goal is to not lay anybody off, but we're all going to have to tighten our belts. And we're going to focus on what makes Stone Age great. And that is our products, we have to continue to invest in engineering, that's our core. That's how we make money. We need to expand outside of the United States, we had been selling internationally, but but it was probably about 35% of our business at that point, our goal is to get 50% of our business outside of the US. So we're going to invest in marketing, and we're gonna go open up dealers outside of our outside of the markets we're in right now. So that way that we can smooth out the effects. We don't know how long this procession is going to last. And then we're going to take care of each other. Even though we all have to tighten our belts, we are going to make sure that our customers don't feel a thing that we're here for them, and that we're here for each other. And we're going to do this together. And I think that really rallied the team. And and you know, I think some of it was some of it was luck. Some of it was was, you know, based on the history that we had had. And some of it was on just getting really, really focused on what made us good. And that is our products and knowing that we wanted to expand globally. And so how are we going to do that? And that's what got us out. And then in 2010 I think we grew like 35 or 40% that next year we exploded because of the investment that we made in product development and global expansion.

Greg Voisen
Well, you gotta focus.

Kerry Siggins
Yeah, laser focus,

Greg Voisen
you had to get laser focused, simply because of the times you were in. Yeah, how much of that care rate was your responsibility? Or did Jerry or John have any input on that? Or were you totally responsible for directing that vision?

Kerry Siggins
I would say I was probably 90%. Responsible. Jerry is Jerry is Oh, I was 100% rate the company at that point, like, I'm the CEO. So I felt like it was 100%. My responsibility. Jerry is a brilliant engineer, he's got Asperger's. And so he's been out of the management of the company, since before I was there, and so he's just like, let me design products, and I will help with that. And so that's where, you know, he was focused on so really, it was my conversations with John, the issue was that John had bought a boat. And he because he had this big dream of doing the loop around the, the East Coast, and then down the Mississippi River. And so he was on that trip, during all that, like, you know, during those like six months, and so he had a little satellite, this is 2009, we did, we literally had a satellite phone, like you need to hold the satellite up, and then be on the phone with me when he is out in the ocean. And we're talking through how to handle some of these things. And so and so, yeah, I, I, I needed him to help validate my ideas, because I said, I think that this is what's right. But I was still so green and relatively new to the industry. And so I wasn't afraid to say, Okay, here's my plan. Here's what we're going to do. You know, what do you think, John? What advice do you have for me, and I used him as a mentor. And so he did that from his boat, on a satellite phone, and we would bounce ideas off of what we should do. And and, you know, he was so supportive of the decisions that I was making. And he gave me great advice on how to handle certain things. And so I really, really appreciated his mentorship through that. But it was scary knowing that, you know, and he's like, Well, I can come home if I need to, I was like, I don't think What are you going to do here? I think it's good, I think I've got it. But all that did was just continue to solidify myself as the leader of the company, if he would have come back in and that hard time right after I was named CEO, and started taking over, you know, decision making. I don't, I don't think I would be the leader I am today. And I don't think that I would have earned the same amount of respect for my employees as I did when we got out of it. And and I was the face of leadership at that time. Well,

Greg Voisen
I think, look, we are no man or no woman is an island, and you have to have mentors. And you know, along the way, we look to certain people obviously had tons of experience in the industry, prior to you coming in. And I think mentorship is so important, it is a huge, huge, important. And along that line. There's this transparency and leadership, the role being transparent Brene Brown talks about vulnerability and transparency, and that this is the cornerstone of business. For all the people out there who are aspiring leaders or our leaders, what advice would you give them about listening and becoming more vulnerable and more transparent with their teams, and the other management people inside their company.

Kerry Siggins
So I believe that the best thing that you can do is tell people the truth, like that is my guiding point post, always do the right thing. Always tell the truth, be transparent. And that can be really uncomfortable. And I know I remember when I told my management team about my past substance abuse issues, and that I had almost died from from overdosing. And it wasn't until a couple years in. But we were doing a team building session. And it just felt like the right time and I was so nervous to to share that part of myself. Because I felt shame. I thought, why are they going to ever follow me? Why would I fire follow some drug addict, you know, CEO, that's the story I told myself. But I knew I was hiding a piece of me I wasn't being transparent about who I wasn't something that was really, really, really important in my life. And so when I told them, it created this unbelievable connection, and other people started to open up and be more vulnerable about the adversity that they had overcome. And we bonded and connected so much as a team. And so I really learned at that point that there's there's so much power and vulnerability. And no, you don't have to go and share your deepest darkest secret like I did, but leaders need to to be real. They need to be able to connect with their people. And you do that by being vulnerable. You do that by sharing the why you aren't you should always be transparent about your decisions and, and, and and bring people along for the journey both personally and professionally. And you build people who will follow you to the end of the earth and back, the people do not want to follow people who they feel, tell them what they want to hear, or don't tell the truth, or who they don't connect with and vulnerability and transparency, you know, does all those things?

Greg Voisen
Well, and I think the bigger part of that is the big tea. Right? That's the truth, right? And the truth is there. And around that particular truth is probably some of the largest spiritual growth that can occur for not only the individual, but truly the other people that are around you that are looking at you and going, wow, you know, that's what I kind of want to emulate. And that's important, because they know there isn't going to be reprimand, action, or being reprimanded for something that maybe went wrong if they told the truth. And we know this from the hospital industry, because in that industry, what has gone on for years, is the nurses didn't really want to tell the truth about how things were going on with a patient. And so the amount of people that expired as a result of, of actually mistakes that were being made inside of hospitals until really kind of recently this came out, right, because they were so afraid of telling the truth. And now it's kind of a hopefully, I'm gonna say hopefully, it's something that's being done. Now, you know, this book is filled with great stories, you told a lot of great stories, and you give a lot of advice about how to be a better leader, right? If you were to leave the listeners with three bits of advice on becoming a better leader, a better person, a better mother, or father, boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever it might be, what would you like to leave our listeners with? Now,

Kerry Siggins
first, self awareness is everything you need to understand yourself. And the more you understand yourself, the better that you can be in any relationship, whether that's a professional one or a personal one. So take the time to understand yourself, your strengths, your weaknesses, how you impact people, the way you show up, that self awareness is key. The second thing is Do not be afraid of feedback, we grow through feedback. So many of us spend so much time trying to avoid getting feedback. And what we don't realize is that there's so much growth in it, every piece of feedback that I have ever received, has helped make me a better person and a better leader, even if it hurts, and and so seek it out. Look for it, find there's always a way to own a piece of the feedback. So don't blame, don't deflect, internalize it and figure out how you can use it to feel you to be a better leader. And then finally, bet on yourself. Always bet on yourself, there's no better bet than yourself. You talk about, you know, a spiritual journey. I am a full believer that, you know, when you know who you are. And you explore that relationship with the universe with God, whatever you believe. And you realize that you can do what you put your mind to that your action, your your thoughts become, you know, if you take if you take your thoughts, and you turn it into action, and and you can make things happen for yourself, and the universe is going to help you do that if you truly bet on yourself. So, go after your dreams. Don't be afraid to have the hard conversation. Do what fills you with joy. Life is way too short. And you should always bet on yourself and live the life that you want to live.

Greg Voisen
Those are great bits of advice. And I'm looking over your head and it says one team owning it. Yes, I would say that your head is kind of blocking out part of it. But I made it out there you go to get actually together it says together. One, one team owning it together. And I think that's important for all of the listeners to understand and that's what you keep a mindset of and it is around the growth mindset. Carol Dweck growth mindset situation. And you know, for individuals out there who are thinking about an ESOP. This would be the book to get to kind of tell the story about the story. And also for those of you who are trying to improve the leadership or grow a team around being people taking more responsibility, people wanting to learn some lessons around leadership. This book is excellent for that. You have wonderful endorsements from this book, David Meltzer who I know personally, Paul Epstein Kelly Thompson. So for everybody out there, go get a copy of this book, actually on the front of it, isn't it? Car gold now?

Kerry Siggins
Yeah, she's amazing founder of Whitewater. Yeah, she's awesome.

Greg Voisen
So, go get a copy of this book and we'll put a link to it in the blog. Carrie, it's been a pleasure having you on insight, personal growth and you're sharing some of the story about how you made your way to CEO of the company, about how your personal life experiences actually helped you in that process. And truly the lessons that you've learned that you passed on to our listeners today about leadership and personal growth. Thanks for being on namaste to you. Thanks for being on Inside Personal Growth. I appreciate it.

Kerry Siggins
Thank you.