Latest / Hart & Hustle Podcast / The Hidden Reason One-Year Mentors Change Kids for Life

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The Hidden Reason One-Year Mentors Change Kids for Life · Hart & Hustle Podcast

• Efrain: Welcome back to another episode here on the Heart and Huds a podcast. We have Miss Ally in the building. How you doing, ma'am? Ali Teesdale: Great. Efrain: We're just talking about a little bit about golf. That you you're an expert at golf, right? Ali Teesdale: I wouldn't say expert, but I can hold my own. Efrain: Okay, okay, good. Hey, as long as you can hold your own, 'cause I can't. So that means you're doing better than me already. Ali Teesdale: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Efrain: Where are you where are you at virtually and what organization are you representing? Ali Teesdale: Yes, so I'm with the Brookings County Youth Mentoring Program. We are a small nonprofit in Brookings, South Dakota. we utilize like volunteer mentors, we match them up with kids in the community that want to participate and we get them out and doing hopefully something new, exciting, maybe expanding some skills, helping them realize kind of some of their potential and that they got it. but yeah, BCYMP for short. But Brookeens County Youth Mentoring is where I'm from. Yeah. Efrain: And and if you go to the website, the first thing I see is an adult and a child kayaking. Is is that the different things you're talking about? Like really being out there in the world? Ali Teesdale: Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yes. So we yeah, we partner with a variety of different like local businesses, organizations, companies even to bring experiences either to our kids or to get the kids out into the community doing maybe something they haven't tried before, whether it be kayaking, bowling, golfing, but also like sort in like theater opportunities. getting them maybe just outside of their comfort zone. Maybe they're not quite a social butterfly. And it might just be as simple as going to the coffee shop, ordering their own drink, ordering their own order, or walking downtown, going to one of our local, we have many fun local community free opportunities here that bring people into the same spot and maybe checking one of those out and kind of getting out of their comfort zone as far as like crowds go. So it's really independent or it's really kind of dependent on the kid and who the mentor is as far as like what exactly they'll be doing. But yeah, it's very individualized. Efrain: And wh why do you feel that's so important when we thinking like I'm I'm a big believer that you got to so many things are in our own backyard, we just don't even know it exist. some of Ali Teesdale: Yeah, yeah. Efrain: us may not grow up with mothers or fathers that give us some of these opportunities. why you think this is so important? Ali Teesdale: I if you think of kind of like who's gonna be leading your community in 10 years, five years even, Efrain: Mm-hmm. Ali Teesdale: you kind of like look at today's youth and you're going, okay, this is them. These are you're gonna be your future bankers, your future workforce, the people that are going to be making those big decisions. And I want to empower them to kind of have that base knowledge, whatever it might be. I want to I want to make sure that they are given every opportunity to learn communication skills, to learn ways to contribute with the community and give back to the community. I want people to be volunteering in 10 years and giving their time, which is just a I mean that's a big ask to take away from Efrain: Yeah, yeah. Ali Teesdale: family time and to take away from kind of everything that's going on. There's so many different things you can get involved with and I hope that they will continue to volunteer as kind of generations go on. So I just want to set them up for success then the best way I can. And Efrain: Got it. Ali Teesdale: so yeah, yeah. Efrain: Is this something that you've kind of had your own experience where people were kind of mentoring you as well? Or or is that how you kind of got into this space? Like how how does Alley Ali Teesdale: Yeah. Efrain: get into a space of passion and purpose and not paychecks? Ali Teesdale: I I would say that I I had some good, like I had solid parents. I had solid parent figures. they were also foster parents. And so I also had siblings that were that didn't get to have their own experience with their like biological parent. so maybe maybe that kind of stemmed for me to want to support my community and support the people around me. I had some good coaches, like For youth sports, I think that is one of the major ways that kids have like a mentor or like a person that's kind of checking in on them is youth sports. Efrain: Yeah. Ali Teesdale: and I had some good ones. I wouldn't say like any of them were super great. and Efrain: Yeah. Ali Teesdale: yeah, I think it was it just comes down to like me also just wanting that to be like an easier thing for other people. Efrain: Got it. Ali Teesdale: No, I I am one person in our organiz organization is rather small. We serve about two hundred ish kids every year. and so like that in the grand scheme of things, it's like it's still not every kid. It's still not Efrain: Yeah. Ali Teesdale: like I still know that there's kids in the community that want to mentor mentor. I still know there are kids in the community that want to be involved or maybe are just being missed. And so that's like that keeps me going as well. but yeah, I I had some solid people in my life, but I Efrain: Yeah. Ali Teesdale: kinda grew up with that generosity focus in life. And so I think that's what kind of pushes me back into the nonprofit world and making sure that it's like I just wanna lead my community a little bit better. So yeah. Efrain: You you mentioned foster kid. You said you're a foster kid or your adopted kid? Ali Teesdale: No, so my I'm the only biological kid in my family. every Efrain: Got it. Ali Teesdale: all my other siblings are either cousins, foster kids that were adopted or just foster kids that were just Efrain: okay. Gotta gotta gotta gotta. Okay. Ali Teesdale: they're they're just my siblings. And like all Efrain: Got it. No. Hey, that's me. I I'm adopted by my Ali Teesdale: the siblings, I I they're really hard to explain. Efrain: No, well listen, I I I maybe it's the same thing as me. So I'm adopted. I Ali Teesdale: Yeah. Efrain: adopted by my aunt, but I call so they're really my cousins, right? Her kids are really my cousins, but I call them my brothers and sisters because I grew up with them my whole life. So no, it it I get it. I get it. Ali Teesdale: Yes, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. So my oldest brother is like ten years older than me. And then my youngest brother is ten years younger than me. And everyone's like, Your parents You just don't get it. Yeah. Yeah. Efrain: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Your parents were your parents are also good people, which is kind of what rubbed off on you. It's it seems you know, I I didn't get it, I would say, until I became older. I give some Ali Teesdale: Mm-hmm. Efrain: my mom so much more grace now 'cause I'm like life was I would say different for us. but realizing that she just loved she just loved kids, right? And and I think you have this passion for kids as well to make sure that because of those experiences that you see wow, their kids need experience because you don't know what they're going through. it is cool. It is pretty damn cool. I th I I'm I'm getting it now. I'm getting how you get here. So when you're when you're in like Ali Teesdale: Yeah. Efrain: leaving high school, what was your actual career that you wanted to do? Was it in the nonprofit space? Ali Teesdale: No, no. when I was leaving high school, I was thinking that I was going to go into like med something in the medical field, maybe like pre-vet biology. and then I did biology my first like year of college, and it was not, it was not for me. so I switched and pretty quickly switched to a SLP, which is speech language pathologist, and going that route. with a communication disorders degree, which is actually what my degree is in. Efrain: Okay. Ali Teesdale: and I realized it wasn't like when I when I got to my senior year, mind you, my senior year, my second semester, like I'm four months from graduating, and I'm like, you know, this ain't quite for me. and so I switched gears. I was like, I think I want to do something different. I don't think I want to go to grad school and be a therapist. my whole life. mind you though, like I am really appreciative of those people that do that and want to be and want to be like directly with one person all the time and their day kind of looks very similar in my head. but I was talking to a grad assistant, it was a grad assistant Efrain: Uh-huh. Ali Teesdale: and he had suggested looking into a MiraiCorps. So I looked into a MiRCor Vista program. and he said, you know, you do a contract for a year, it's just one year. You take that gap year between like school, like your undergrad degree and your graduate degree. You graduate still with your undergrad degree as is, and then you just see it. He's like, You should check out the nonprofit field because he's like, it's everything you like. You like doing events, you like organizing things for your different student orgs, you're super involved with people. You want to talk to new people, you want to be engrossed in whatever Efrain: Wow. Ali Teesdale: you're doing. so he suggested that. And that was actually my, I was like, you know what? Yeah. And so when I told my parents who were going, what are you doing? they were a little concerned. because here's me like thinking, yeah, I'm going this round then just like a complete turn of direction and deciding like now I'm gonna go into the nonprofit realm. And after that though, like I got my graduate degree and my master's. So my master's in public administration with emphasis in nonprofit management. And I would like I was sold by my graduate degree and then worked for a while with junior achievement. and Efrain: Okay. Yep. Ali Teesdale: then the Chamber of Commerce and then now Keeper. Yeah. Efrain: Wow. So yeah, you in it. You in it. Well what is your role today? Ali Teesdale: executive director. So I do run BCYMP. executive director. I've been in this role for about six years. Yeah. Efrain: Wow, how life be life in right? You just never know. You have one vision and then God says, Yeah, right, this is what you're about to do here. what what do you see Ali Teesdale: Yes. And you just gotta keep following it. Eventually it works out the way it's supposed to. And I'm just like, All right, here we are. And it's just Efrain: Yeah. Yeah, an opposite. Ali Teesdale: kinda it's like one of those things now, it's like, wow, like we're just we just keep growing, we just keep adding. Like when I started, I think we're closer to like seventy to a hundred matches and now we have right around that, but we're also serving kids on waiting lists. We're serving kids through small group programming, we're connecting with different schools and area counselors and All the things, all the things. It's so good though. Efrain: lot. what are some of the challenges you you've probably did not know about nonprofit that you quickly learned? Ali Teesdale: I mean there's still some like politics involved with it, like things with navigating kind of like a like informal like you know, we're in small town, so we also have that small town politics as well. there's the fundraising challenges as well. We are like we have our c like committed, connected donors. but That's always a challenge is, you know, when as you grow, that new money has to come in. if you want to keep kind of growing and expanding programming options. We see that like we we always are in desperate need of folks that just give their time, like people to give Efrain: Mm-hmm. Ali Teesdale: back to the community, back to the kids, back to the participants and so we are always in need of volunteer mentors. We have at any given time about thirty to fifty kids on our waiting list. So going into the school year right now, I think we're at sixty two. So just it's it's insane. So it it's a lot of kids Efrain: Wow, so you you Ali Teesdale: that actually want to mentor. They found us and so we don't Efrain: Yeah. Ali Teesdale: actively like that's the other thing. We don't actively recruit for kids. Like we're not out there saying like you should join our program. You should if Efrain: Yeah, yeah. Ali Teesdale: we did that we would double, triple the number of kids that like want to participate with us. And I we just don't have the volunteer mentors to make that happen for for us to do that. So one day, one day that is my goal, that we will Efrain: Yeah. For sure. Ali Teesdale: figure out a way to get these people to say yes to volunteering and to mentoring. And it's not hard. Yeah. Efrain: So I guess on the back end, while you n guys are not looking for the students per se or the youth, are you guys looking for these volunteers? Like what does that reach look like? Ali Teesdale: That reach, so thankfully we are in a community that is connected to or that like we have a college and town and university, so South Dakota State University is here in Brookings, which is super helpful because that is about 70% of our mentors. So a good portion of our mentors are coming from the university as college students. That being said, though, wonderful, great, love it. However, they are here for about two years. Like they Efrain: Yeah. Ali Teesdale: find us maybe their sophomore year. hopefully, like fingers crossed. I very few freshmen have found us, so we're trying to figure out ways to get earlier. but it's about two years that we see like our like our like mentor retention rate look like for our SESU students. And so it's just you turn over a lot quicker. Community members, we just had a community member who mentee graduated, and so like that one they were matched for eight, nine years, and so it was just like it was it was So it's like if we can figure out how to get more of those community members involved and get them into the area, into the mentoring kind of realm and whatnot, maybe, maybe we'll have to do less recruiting. Efrain: And I I really want you to kind of explain why it's so important to have a mentor longer periods of time versus that three, six month year Ali Teesdale: Yeah. Efrain: time frame. Why is it so important to kind of have that longevity? Ali Teesdale: Yeah, so there's research out there. So we follow a lot of the search institute's research. It's a Minneapolis-based research institution institution. And so we follow a lot of what they put out. One of them being that if we can hit that one year mark, we are going to see mentoring kind of make that lasting life impact. So if you think back to who are important people in your life. me, I I maybe some coaches were good, but it's like maybe because I it's like I didn't have a coach that stayed longer than a year. You kind of could like look, you make those connections. I I look back too, it's like, okay, that one year mark, you know, I had teachers kind of in and out. I didn't really have a solid connection to a teacher that was kind of there for a long period of time. And so that one-year mark is super important. So when you Talking through mentoring, that one-year mark is kind of okay, like that's that's like the bare minimum. But when you start like moving towards that two-year mark and even further, you start to see, like, it's not really something that is a have to do now. It's more of like, I want to do that, like, they're part of my life, and I'm going to keep connecting with them. So, even the student that's graduated, we know that that mentor is still connecting with her, just outside of like unfortunately our. we end at K twelve. So once they're 12th, they graduate from our program Efrain: Yeah. Ali Teesdale: too. So, but they are still connecting and that will be something that I it would shock me if for whatever reason they lost touch because at this point they have been very intertwined in each other's life, both mentor in the mentees, but also mentee and the mentors. And so it's something that just keeps on giving. Yeah. Efrain: Yep. So these mentees become mentors at some point. Ali Teesdale: I mean, I hope so. I hope so. For the first time. Yeah, Efrain: That's the goal. That is the goal. Ali Teesdale: it's a goal. For the first time. This is my win of the week. For the first time, I got to interview a former mentee. She is going to the university and and she potentially is going to be our work study student. So Efrain: Mm-hmm. Ali Teesdale: kind of a full circ circle moment. It's like, my gosh. It's like wind yeah, yeah, just like former mentee, Efrain: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ali Teesdale: getting to interview, getting to connect with her. and yeah Efrain: That's a big one. No, that's that's not l that's a big one. That that that that's you seeing the cycle. Ali Teesdale: Yeah, when's this aired? Because we are offering it to her. It'll just be later this afternoon. Awesome, Efrain: Good. This ain't this won't show till you know next week. Ali Teesdale: awesome. So by by this time when everyone's watching it, you know, yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's exciting for us. Efrain: We'll just say congratulations now. How about that? but no, that that's pretty cool. Do you find yourself, you mentioned a small organization, sometimes it's so hard to really be there as it's scaling up. Do you find yourself not only playing an executive director but also the fundraising you know, person and maybe the marketing person? Is that what you're doing? Ali Teesdale: I get all the hats. I get, you know, all my multiple hats. we do have another full-time staff member who's fabulous. Her name is Michaela, and she runs our volunteer and family communications. She connects with different mentors, potential mentors, that whole onboarding process, and then runs the different volunteers that we get in here that are helping with admin work behind the scenes. And so she does a good portion of that. And thankfully, she is amazing at what she does. Like to the point where it's like, okay, here's our check-in day. I know she has it. Like she says she it's on her radar. I 100% trust that she is going to get it done and accomplish it beyond my expectations. And so we are thankful that we have that part of the like team. Like that's yeah, it's great. Efrain: Yeah. That's a big one. Ali Teesdale: and so then that leaves that. Take some of that stress of the actual programming side of things off of me. And then yes, I get to do the donor connections, the Efrain: All that fun stuff. Ali Teesdale: fundraising, the speaking engagements, the different kind of spreading our mission. That being said though, like, I love it when I get to go do like like she'll be like, Hey, any chance you can do a match meeting? I'm like, Yes, yes, I can. Because it's like Efrain: Yeah. Ali Teesdale: those are the moments where I'm like, Yes, like I get to connect back with like kids or I get to connect, but are we have a mentoring space here which just allows us to have matches in the space during their match time. And so whenever I hear them over in that space, I will always just pop out and just say, Hi, how's Efrain: Yeah. Ali Teesdale: it going? And check in with them and check in kind of with what they've been up to and how the school year is. you know, are you ready for it? Or depending on where we're at in the year, you know, are we ready for break? Things like that. Cause not everyone's Efrain: Do they work with Ali Teesdale: break is like enjoyable. Like not everyone is going to like Christmas break or Thanksgiving break. And so just making sure we're all kind of set up for you know, a break maybe or whatnot. So yeah, all the things. Efrain: During those holidays, those breaks you're talking about summer breaks, Christmas break, they're still working with their mentors. Ali Teesdale: Yeah, yep, yep, yep. So college Efrain: That's cool. Ali Teesdale: students make it a little bit more difficult, which is another just you know the difference between your college student mentor plus your community member mentor. Our community member mentors are mostly here all the time, 24-7. our a our college students though typically are in the Brookings area for sure during the school year, sometimes during the summer. and then sometimes the break looks a little bit differently for them depending on what what their like family commitments are. And so During that time is when we t typically we'll try and do something here at the mentoring space where we'll have like a programming option available where they can come in Efrain: Yeah. Ali Teesdale: and hang out with us. or we'll try to do a like Thanksgiving. we have like a Thanksgiving gathering, their mentor doesn't have to come. They can bring like their family or their siblings and we literally have Thanksgiving together. So it's Thanksgiving. Efrain: Yeah. Ali Teesdale: and so we cater it. It's like a turkey dinner, it's all the things. So It's so fun, tasty. It's great to see everyone. We do board games and things like that. So yeah, it's it's a good time. and then but yeah, for the for the most part, our community member mentors are here. The SCSU mentors, sometimes they're doing more of a pen pal thing over the summer, or one of them actually was like I had to call up the mentor and be like, Hey, are you actually meeting for this like this amount of time? Like we have Forget what it was. It was like a hundred and some hours or something. Like, what what are you guys doing? He's like, Well, we ended up playing, it was one of the games like Minecraft or something, and they ended up playing it together just online gaming throughout the summer. And Efrain: Got it. Ali Teesdale: so I'm like, What are you doing? And they're like, No, we're online gaming. If it doesn't count, Efrain: Staying up all night playing games. Ali Teesdale: then it's we're good. But I'm like, No, no, it counts. You guys, you know, you guys were talking and you know, all the things. And so Efrain: Hanging up. Ali Teesdale: Yeah, but it was interesting. And so like even when they're apart, a lot of our mentors will try to figure out a way to stay connected if it's like within the family's capacity as well. 'Cause not all Efrain: Yeah. Ali Teesdale: of the kids have like the video game systems and things like that. So it just looks different like Efrain: I mean these mentors are truly meeting them at where they're at, right? Like if this is where you wanna be at, all right, cool. I I got a game console unless you know, it it allows them to just kinda feel more comfortable for sure. Ali Teesdale: Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yeah, we preach that like you have to meet these kids where they're at. We have just like s a variety of kids and kind of different levels, different personalities, different likes, interests. so yeah, you really gotta meet where Efrain: I love the Thanksgiving event you mentioned. when I started my nonprofit years ago, we that's how I started actually was my Thanksgiving event. And the only reason I started with a Thanksgiving event was because I remember the times you come back after the holidays and they ask you, What did you do during your Thanksgiving break, right? Or your Christmas break. And a lot of times it's some kids don't have they didn't do anything, right? 'Cause maybe they don't have that family, maybe they just couldn't afford something, whatever that may look like. So I wanted to create an experience so these kids can go back and talk about it. Cause I remember myself having to just make up stories, right? Like that's the only way I was gonna get this paper done. Make up the whole story. And so I did exactly what you did is that we served over over a hundred people, but we also handed out a hundred turkeys. So I worked for someone in the community that was able to get the turkeys. Ali Teesdale: Yeah. Efrain: So you come in, it it was we had live performances, face paintings, speakers, the food, the bounce house, and then they leave with a turkey. And I and I it was just so cool because at one point it started really small, but then we started reaching like over a hundred people every single year. And it's like, wow, like how cool. And everyone's walking away with a turkey. I just Ali Teesdale: Yep. Efrain: felt that I ended up walking away from it and and going back to the school, kind of to what you said, Ali, is I wanted to be for someone what I wish I had, which was that consistent mentor. And Ali Teesdale: Mm-hmm. Efrain: now I'm stuck because I feel like when you're in the nonprofit space and you're in, it is so hard to get out. Ali Teesdale: You're in it, you're in it, yeah, you're yep. Efrain: I ask myself all the time, what am I still doing here? But then quickly remind myself it's not even about me. Like we are at that age where we're adults now. We're at, you know, life be life for us, but it's the next generation of youth, as you mentioned, the leaders that people think are are not going to be the best leaders or that. Well, guess what? We're working on them. We're we're pouring into them. Yeah, yeah. Ali Teesdale: Right. Yes. Efrain: What what what are some of the things that you want to see happen? You've been doing this now six years, you've seen a lot of growth. What is on that list that you still haven't crossed off that you're you're working towards? Ali Teesdale: You know, I haven't I haven't put this out into the universe, but maybe it's time, time. yeah, right. Is Efrain: You got speaking to existing girl. Yeah, speaking to existing. Ali Teesdale: like South Dakota specifically, we need a like mentor South Dakota. We need like a statewide organization. We have mentoring organizations here, like we have Summon Rapid, we have wonderful kind of like programming that's that you know boosts up mentoring in the Sioux Falls area. we have a teammates program in the Sioux Falls area, and I think they're in Rapid as well. I think they originated in Nebraska though. and then we have some like we are like an independent, small, like just community-based organization. There's a couple of those across the state, but we don't have like that statewide organization that actually like does policy and like advocating at like that legislative level that would bring funding into like our small organizations or create those bigger like federal grant opportunities for like the area mentoring or so that is a kind of outside of the BCY and p realm but would definitely help. I don't know that I would want to like fully palette with that one. So if you know of anyone Efrain: That is you. Ali Teesdale: if we're putting in the universe that would do that, yeah Efrain: Ha ha ha. Ali Teesdale: I it needs to happen. Like we need some sort of like entity like that to kind of like just boost up the different nonprofits like that focus or have a even mentoring component. Like so we're sharing those best practices. We like go over to Minnesota. So we do a lot of research out of that search institute of in Minneapolis area. We do a lot of looking through like mentor.org and like other mentoring organizations, but we don't have our own. So it's like Efrain: Hmm. Yeah, yeah. Ali Teesdale: Little things like that. So kind of that that's on my like, you know, up there realm when it comes to mentoring and knowing different needs and focuses that our state is kind of like lacking in. But yeah, that's one of Yeah. Efrain: Okay, all right. we've talked about a lot about the youth and and and how you pour back into the community. Who is Allie outside of this? So how do you turn it when you turn it off? What is that thing that you love to do? Is you are you gardening? Are you playing golf? What what is the thing? Golfing? Really? Wow. I Ali Teesdale: It's golfing. It is it is golfing. I love golfing. Efrain: thought it was just we hanging out because we have an event type stuff. Ali Teesdale: No, no, no, no, no. I that that is my I just enjoy it. Like it puts me outside. It puts me with other people usually. Like that that is my I really enjoy golfing. my kids like golfing. So now I they're at the age where I'm like, Yeah, Efrain: Wow. Ali Teesdale: let's go. Let's go play even the short course or something like that, which is like a part three course. So, I enjoy golfing. other than that, I love hanging out with my husband, doing fun things just in the community. So like we'll take our kids to different things. Like we have different festivals and community opportunities that we get involved with. But we are also just very like it's hard for me to kind of shut off work mode. I am work like working I d it I it's so it blends so well. I I work a lot. but that's just because I have so many different hats in the community as well. Like I'm also on different boards and organizations and my husband runs his own law firm and I help out with that as well. I get to adjunct at the university in town as like an instructor during the the during like one class. you know, every n every now and then. And so like when I do that, then it's like, like that's then my hat goes over there. So like it's so many different things, but golfing Efrain: Staying busy. Ali Teesdale: is like the one thing that I think keeps me just like grounded and like okay, yep, this is just golf. Efrain: Got it. How how old are the the kids? Ali Teesdale: They are eight and then six. yeah, yeah. And then all of their things that they have. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Efrain: you busy. Yeah. Yeah. yeah. I love it. You you staying very, very busy. as we wrap up, what is that one leadership advice that someone's giving you that you love to pass on? Ali Teesdale: I left because at the time I'm like this is not great advice. Efrain: Yeah. Ali Teesdale: but she told me she's like 'cause I was stepping into the executive director position and I was I'm thirty-seven now. I was what thirty one ish, somewhere around there and I was like, I don't like are you sure like are like you know, it's like are you sure that I am like fully qualified for For for this job. and she had told me, she's like, You just gotta fake it till you make it. And I'm like, Really? Really? That that's how we run this. And but I think it was more so like, yes, fake it till you make it. But at the same time, it's like she also she's like, No, you just don't have the confidence that you have in yourself that I can say, like you will be fine. Like once you get that confidence and you can tell yourself you have it. You are good. Now she didn't tell me that part, but I fake it until I make it. And I and it's like the realization that it's like, okay, no, I actually do know really well what I'm talking about. I actually have a good understanding of the research out there. I have a good knowledge base on nonprofit management and how to run an organization, how to communicate with volunteers and donors, Efrain: Yep. Ali Teesdale: and all the different little pieces that it's like, participants, things like that, like different life styles. And so it's just the piece of like having that confidence within you and however you find it, when it when you do, it clicks. And so you just have to get there though. So yeah. Efrain: When when did you find it? Ali Teesdale: gosh. Maybe I feel like I'm still kinda maybe two, three years ago. I mean it it's still Efrain: I may still be working on it actually. Ali Teesdale: yeah, maybe three, maybe three years ago, maybe. yeah. I yeah. When when you yeah. Efrain: Nah, it it it's you know, the reason I ask Ali is because we're in the same age. I'm 36, 37, and I it looks like you've always been doing this, right? Like this is you. You you don't turn it on, you don't turn it off, you just live it. And yeah, Ali Teesdale: What you get by talking. Efrain: yeah, whatever comes out today. and I've I think I've struggled the same, you know, and realizing like, do I belong at this table? The imposter syndrome, the noise starts talking. Ali Teesdale: Mm. Efrain: and realizing now I someone just kind of put it in perspective. Ephraim, so many people that are at the table have probably been at the table for a century. So think about it. These leaders are talking about what happened 25 years ago. You guys are the new leaders at the table. You have to own it. And when he said that to me, I was like, damn, you're right. Because while we still think we're young, you remember when we were those 10, 12 years old, we looked at our parents 34 like, my God, they're much s so old, right? Like Ali Teesdale: Mm-hmm. Efrain: And and while we're not old, we are definitely the next generation of leaders. And we are stepping up and we are loud and we don't take it from nobody and we're going to figure it out. And so I Ali Teesdale: Right? Yep. Efrain: I commend you for sticking sticking it out because sometimes people take that opportunity and feel like there's no way, right? but you now have been doing this for six years and you're seeing growth and your mom and your wife, and you know what I mean? Like there's a l you're playing a lot of roles, it continues. so kudos to you for doing what you're doing. You are you you are definitely a force to be reckoned with. I remember when I was younger, I can imagine this is you. Someone, I was like 20 years old running a store, and someone told me, he was like 50 years old. He says, Ephraim, I cannot work for you. Right? He says, I think you're a great leader. He says, I just cannot. He says, and one day you're going to find the team. And when you do, man, people better watch out. And I think Allie. Ali Teesdale: Mm-hmm. Efrain: Looks like you're already building that team. So people better watch out. That that organization of that big mentoring organization, that's you. Ali Teesdale: It's kind of crazy that it's like once you figure out people's strengths, it's like I got I got something for ya. It's fun. It's one Efrain: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love it. Ali Teesdale: of the best parts about like a mentoring organization is like you get to focus on the strengths around you and it's yeah, so rewarding. Yeah. yeah. Yep. Efrain: Yeah. And and you're really mentoring at the end of the day. You're still mentoring. No, no. what can people find more information if they wanted to just kinda look at what you guys are doing, be a mentor, donate, any of that? Ali Teesdale: bcymentoring.org is our website, and that is the best way to kind of find out all about everything. But I am me, I love a good conversation. So Allie at Efrain: Let's go. Ali Teesdale: bcymentoring.org is my email, and it's just a L I at B C Y E N T O R I N G dot org. yeah, and I welcome emails as well because I I feel like, you know. You gotta you just gotta keep helping people around you and you gotta keep empowering the people around you, not just kids but adults too. So I'm always open to Efrain: Love it. Ali Teesdale: conversations. So yeah. Efrain: Well, Allie, I really do appreciate this conversation. just like you, I always appreciate a good conversation as well, especially with another young leader just like yourself. We are doing the damn thing. So never forget that. but if you guys want Ali Teesdale: We are. This is fun. Efrain: to c yeah, if you guys want to continue watching these great conversations, make sure that you guys do like, subscribe, and comment. But also check out Ali on their website, see what they're doing over there. Find her on LinkedIn, find her on the golf course, you know, find her in multiple places. I'm Efraying that this has been Ali. Ali Teesdale: Okay. Efrain: We'll catch you in the next one. Later.