Latest / Authentic Living / Empowering Leadership: Kash Rocheleau on Trust, Mentorship, and Female Leadership
Transcript
- 0:01Welcome to Authentic Living with Roxanne, a place where we have conscious conversations
- 0:08about things that really matter in our lives.
- 0:12And now here's your host, Roxanne Durhaj.
- 0:43Hi, everyone.
- 0:43It's Roxanne Durhodge with Authentic Living with Roxanne.
- 0:46Thanks again for tuning in with us today.
- 0:49Today, I have a special young lady, Cash Ruchalou.
- 0:53Is that the way I pronounce it?
- 0:55Ruchalou.
- 0:56Ruchalou.
- 0:57And Cash has got a pretty impressive I'll tell you a little bit about it, and everything will
- 1:03be in the show notes.
- 1:04So, Cash, thanks for coming on today.
- 1:06Thank you so much for having me.
- 1:08So Cash is the chief financial officer for ICON Foods.
- 1:12See soon to be moving in.
- 1:14I'm going now.
- 1:15You're in the role because this is saying as of 05/10/2024 of CEO.
- 1:20She oversees financial operations, reporting on compliance, and as well as drives the growth
- 1:25and profitability.
- 1:26Has a major background in legal matters, acquisitions, trademarks, which is such a big
- 1:32area, regulatory compliance amongst everything.
- 1:35She has an MBA from Eastern Washington University and focused on accounting and
- 1:41finance.
- 1:42So Kash, let's talk a little bit about your rise to where you are, which is quite young.
- 1:51And maybe it's not in your circles.
- 1:53In the circles that you're running with, are there a lot of 30 year old CEOs that you're
- 1:58around, or are you a bit of the anomaly?
- 2:01I would say when it comes to our, the companies that would be similar to us.
- 2:06Yes.
- 2:07I'm the anomaly.
- 2:07When it comes to, when you look at the food industry and all of these smaller CPGs that are
- 2:12coming up through the ranks, social media is playing a huge role in their upcoming, and
- 2:17we're seeing a lot of young CEOs in the food industry and in the country as a whole.
- 2:24So by and large, at most tables that I sit at, am, I'm certainly the youngest, but I think
- 2:30that there is a rise in young leadership.
- 2:33Okay.
- 2:34So tell let's talk a little bit about your background.
- 2:37So you said you grew up in Utah, correct?
- 2:39Portland, Oregon.
- 2:40Portland, Oregon.
- 2:41So tell us a little
- 2:42bit about did you grow up in a business family or what were your aspirations when you were a
- 2:47little girl?
- 2:48I know obviously you went on to do your MBA, so the trajectory was towards business.
- 2:51What did you?
- 2:52Did you go home and say that one day I want to be a CEO?
- 2:55What was the path that you took?
- 2:57How did you get here?
- 2:59Actually, my dream was to be a stay at home mom and wife.
- 3:03I had dreamed of taking care of people, not really solidified in anything that I wanted to
- 3:08do.
- 3:09And when I got married shortly out of college, finishing my undergrads, I had quite a bit of
- 3:16infertility.
- 3:17And as soon as we had my first, I was awarded the opportunity to stay home and I absolutely
- 3:25hated it.
- 3:26Not to dismiss any mom or dad that gets full fulfillment out of being a stay at home parent,
- 3:32but I just, I didn't love it.
- 3:34I sat with it for about seven months and, my husband would come home from work in a very
- 3:42outward public facing role, just dog tired, not really wanting to communicate anymore.
- 3:47And I had been dealing with a toddler all day long that I was craving some adult interaction.
- 3:54And one day he finally came home and I just lost it for no reason and was in this state of,
- 4:00I need to go back to work.
- 4:01I don't know what I'm going to do.
- 4:02My, my degree is general business.
- 4:04What do I even do with this?
- 4:06And the person that he is just his natural reaction was go back to work.
- 4:11So I had been building this resentment and rage for absolutely no reason.
- 4:16And so I took to the job listings and ICON Foods was looking for an executive assistant to
- 4:23the CFO at the time.
- 4:24It was my entry into the workforce.
- 4:26I didn't really know much about the finance department other than some entry level classes
- 4:31that I had took in my undergrad.
- 4:33And I just really fell in love with it because I think so many people think that finance is
- 4:39this math and Excel spreadsheet and you have to have a brain for it.
- 4:44While there is a level of that, it really is storytelling.
- 4:47You take the financials and you create a story that paints a picture.
- 4:53And there was so much creative freedom in that, that I just, I fell in love with it.
- 4:58And so I ended up going back and getting my master's degree in it and rose through the
- 5:02ranks throughout the company by taking every opportunity that was handed to me.
- 5:07And when I say that, if I had the opportunity to go learn how to drive the forklift or to be
- 5:12on the production line or to build relationships with customers, nothing was below
- 5:18me in understanding how the cogs in this wheel worked.
- 5:22And and about a year and a half ago, two years ago, I was approached by the board and offered
- 5:29the opportunity to take over for our founder and then CEO as our second CEO in the twenty
- 5:35five tenure of the company.
- 5:37And like every other opportunity that was put on the table, I pondered it for a couple days
- 5:43and then I jumped at it.
- 5:45That's in what timeline Cash?
- 5:48Like you started as the assistant to the CFO when?
- 5:52The whole timeline was about eight years from starting with them to taking over as CEO.
- 5:58Tell me about this mindset because I often say I grew up in a business family and my dad would
- 6:05often say you need to learn everything about the business.
- 6:08So if you think about I never did an MBA but I was in corporate consulting health and wellness
- 6:12strategy.
- 6:13So I had obviously my grad school in psychology but I ended up in business.
- 6:19Of course when you're there doing strategy, I learned everything related to an MBA.
- 6:24But what I like and I hear you saying which is something that I actually did as well, Kash, I
- 6:30think I was 30 I was older than you.
- 6:32I was 34.
- 6:34Is every time I would get a new company that I would manage, I did a tour and I tried to talk
- 6:40to everybody related to the industry.
- 6:43And I had phenomenal.
- 6:44Sometimes I was on a kill floor of a plant to going up a 100 feet up on a lighting box for a
- 6:52union.
- 6:52But I often said, I need to learn.
- 6:55I'm the psychologist who is in business strategy but I want to know when someone's
- 7:01answering the phone all the way up to whether they're in packaging or R and D or accounting
- 7:08in the new environments I was managing, I wanted to know what were the real stressors for
- 7:12my frame to be able to come back.
- 7:16And invaluable.
- 7:17It's interesting that you talk about the same thing.
- 7:20Like you said, you wanted to get your hands wet and understand the perspectives of every role.
- 7:26And how do you now let's look let's go macro now as the CEO.
- 7:33When you look back at those steps that you took
- 7:37Mhmm.
- 7:38What did it what foundationally did it do for you?
- 7:41There's a couple things.
- 7:42So the first and foremost, I'm a lifelong learner.
- 7:45I crave just education and it could be education in learning how to paint a wall to
- 7:54learning how to engineer a video game.
- 7:58Like I just, I love to learn and I think that people who have that mindset, they keep
- 8:04themselves mentally sound.
- 8:05There's actually research out there that says when you're learning constantly and feeding the
- 8:09brain, it actually prevents a lot of the neurodegenerative diseases that we're seeing in
- 8:16the elderly.
- 8:17And so I think in the back of my mind, I'm helping my future self.
- 8:21But the second that I would say is like relationally inside the business.
- 8:27Going and learning the forklift was what it was a new skill for me to learn.
- 8:33I haven't really used it, but it was an opportunity for me to build relationship with
- 8:39people that I was ultimately going to lead.
- 8:42And so it built rapport in they saw me as before all this as the CFO that sat in this
- 8:50glass tower that made decisions and barked orders and had no clue how things operated.
- 9:00Two, oh my gosh, she's a normal human being who has a family outside of this.
- 9:06She's a daughter to someone, she's a friend to someone, and she is giving me the time of day
- 9:12to teach her something when in reality she should be teaching me something.
- 9:18And so it built this level of rapport and trust with these people that now when I make a
- 9:25decision or when I want to make a change, they are receptive to the conversation and she knows
- 9:33what she's talking about.
- 9:35She has a level of foundation to stand on to make some of these changes and she's giving me
- 9:41a seat at the table.
- 9:42I would say the final point and what it has brought to me at this juncture is I know enough
- 9:49to be dangerous in these situations, and I think that it's really easy, again, to sit in
- 9:55your glass tower and say, we're not going to do x y z but not have a reason why.
- 10:02And now being having had time down there when I make a decision or when a decision is
- 10:10thoughtfully ideated out they understand she understands the basics of why we do this and so
- 10:19the changes that she's trying to implement are to make our lives easier or to create
- 10:26efficiencies.
- 10:27It's not to just bark orders because she's the leader of a company.
- 10:32And so just general knowledge, rapport and trust building, and the ability to have enough
- 10:41knowledge to know what I'm talking about to implement changes that will better the whole.
- 10:50Which I love because oftentimes you know, every level you go up in an organization, generally,
- 10:55there's less information.
- 10:56The directors get a certain amount, then the CVPs get another, and then the CEO gets one
- 11:01line.
- 11:01Right?
- 11:02But what you're talking about is because you've had this actual practical knowledge, you can
- 11:08come at it from different angles, not just the macro but also from the micro.
- 11:13And to really have people like you said, storing is so important to your point.
- 11:17You can say, I can see how this might not work from their perspective but also have them
- 11:21understand potentially maybe where a bigger financial decision has to be made.
- 11:27So not only are you telegraphing about what it is for their role, but you also maybe story to
- 11:33bring them up to your perspective that would probably make people would say, wow.
- 11:37That's pretty because they can understand it from your realm versus the CEO is just gonna
- 11:42tell us two words and it's going down, and we're not gonna talk about the impact on me or
- 11:47those type, but you're doing it from both sides to come to let's say a nicer landing.
- 11:52Potentially ultimately the board and the senior team makes the decisions in certain ways but
- 11:57you're keeping perspective in mind.
- 11:59Wow.
- 12:00Pretty interesting because I always talk about, like I told you that I work a lot with
- 12:04resilience in leadership.
- 12:06My line is that as a leader in your case, you're a reflective lens of kind of the 10 foot
- 12:12radius around you.
- 12:14And I talk a little bit about obviously attunement, which you talked about value
- 12:18alignment.
- 12:19I talk a little bit about communication, how you make decisions.
- 12:22Like, you have to be aware of this as a leader.
- 12:24Your awareness of self, like you said, as a young mother and I remember going through this
- 12:30as well, Kash.
- 12:30I was like, okay I love my child but I'm okay.
- 12:35I think I need a little bit extra in my brain.
- 12:37As a woman you have to make that decision, Staying home because there's nothing against
- 12:41staying home.
- 12:42But what I hear is that you really worked on a lot of qualities, and I I gotta use the word
- 12:48soft skills, that really propelled you for further along as you went along.
- 12:54Would you agree with kind of
- 12:56A 100%.
- 12:57A 100%.
- 12:58And I think that I think for young leaders specifically, I mean, for any leader Yeah.
- 13:04You have to you have to figure out what the the main goal is for your rise.
- 13:12When I went in as the executive assistant to the CFO, my dreams, my desires, my my goal was
- 13:20never to sit in a CEO role.
- 13:22I wasn't vying for that position.
- 13:25What I was vying for was something that gave me purpose, leaving the spaces that I entered
- 13:32better than I entered them in and being changed that I wanted to see.
- 13:37In that and just being who I am as a normal person, which certainly has its flaws, I was
- 13:45able to naturally climb.
- 13:47So for me for me, the CFO role, it was great to accomplish that.
- 13:52To get into the CEO role, it's great to accomplish that.
- 13:55But for young leaders, that should not be your goal.
- 13:59If that's your goal, you really need to figure out why.
- 14:01Is it because you're trying to learn along the way?
- 14:04Is it because you have this desire to mentor people?
- 14:08Is it because you're passionate about the industry that you're in?
- 14:14It really has to be for something bigger than yourself.
- 14:18It sounds really cliche, but when I look at the people that mentor me and when I look at some
- 14:24of the best leaders in the world, they weren't vying for the positions that they're sitting
- 14:30in.
- 14:30They were wanting to make a difference.
- 14:32They were wanting to make an impact.
- 14:34So, yeah, I fully agree with your statement.
- 14:38So what's your mission?
- 14:40What drives you, Kash?
- 14:42That's like you said.
- 14:43And I truly, I completely agree with you.
- 14:45And even my rise in my career was really young I wanted to ensure that women had a voice.
- 14:52Voice and then I decided I think there's a thing that you could do to help people get a
- 14:57voice and then I became a psychologist.
- 14:59But at the end of the day when I started my own brand that was what permeated through was the
- 15:05importance of voice but relationally how to impact others with that voice.
- 15:09And it's just still the same thing that I do thirty years later kind of thing.
- 15:13So you're so right when you say, I have something that's burning in my tummy.
- 15:17I don't know why for lots of different reasons.
- 15:20And I luckily, I was like you quite young.
- 15:23I'd graduated with my first degree at 21 and then went on to grad school and finished early
- 15:28in my twenties and then got to play in the sandbox.
- 15:31Not thinking where I was going either and ended up where I am today.
- 15:34But what was your burning passion?
- 15:37What is your burning passion?
- 15:39Think that my burning passion very similar to you.
- 15:42The females that have come behind me or have paved the path for me, you are one of those
- 15:49people.
- 15:50My mom is one of those people.
- 15:51She's in the corporate world, and she's fought a lot harder than I've had to fight.
- 15:56It certainly helped create some ease and efficiencies for me.
- 16:01I'm very passionate about women having a voice, but I'm also very passionate that voice has to
- 16:08be earned.
- 16:10And what I mean by that is I I'm awarded the opportunity to sit at some wonderful tables
- 16:17with some brilliant human beings, but I want to be sitting at those tables because I earned my
- 16:24right there because I put in the work because my skills have earned me the right to be there
- 16:31not because I'm a female.
- 16:33Like I don't want to be at a table because I'm a number to create this diversity dichotomy
- 16:42that we want.
- 16:43My passion is that I continue to pave the road for women that was paved for me, but in a way
- 16:51that we earn our right there.
- 16:55And I'm I completely agree that we shouldn't have to fight for pay equality.
- 16:59We shouldn't have to pay we shouldn't have to fight for role equality, etcetera, but just
- 17:06ensuring that the tables that you are at, you earned a right to be there and then stewarding
- 17:12those.
- 17:12Right?
- 17:13When you get to those tables, it's it is a blessing.
- 17:18It is it's a reward to be there, not an obligation, not a right.
- 17:24Just like it isn't for men, as hard as that is to believe sometimes, but to steward that
- 17:30position for the people that will come behind you.
- 17:34Oh, and I absolutely agree with you because then you're saying you're the token because you
- 17:38got you got to the table and then that creates a whole lot of other synergies.
- 17:42Mhmm.
- 17:43So do the best when you're at the table.
- 17:45I think the I was hearing a story about Hillary Clinton when she became a senator or something
- 17:49like that, and she would walk around with a black book.
- 17:52And she was taking notes all the time Mhmm.
- 17:55Every position that she was in.
- 17:57Right?
- 17:57Right?
- 17:57So like you said, steward the position that you're in, recognize it's a privilege to be
- 18:02there, and just you know what?
- 18:04My saying, and this is what I often say to my son who is just starting off his his career.
- 18:09He just finished his MBAs.
- 18:10I said, my perspective is when you enter an environment and you leave it, you should leave
- 18:16it better than when you entered.
- 18:19Percent.
- 18:19Right?
- 18:20Just do your best.
- 18:21And because all you have is your name, and you should be able to, unless it's a egregious
- 18:27situation, be able to work back into any environment and be re hired yet again.
- 18:32I fully agree with that.
- 18:34And my my parents were very much that same sentiment.
- 18:37My dad always said that leave it better than you found it in every situation.
- 18:43I do agree with climbing the ladder.
- 18:47There is excitement and I don't want to diminish that.
- 18:49There is excitement in that.
- 18:52There's something to be incredibly proud about, but if you break the people down and walk all
- 18:58over them on your way up that ladder, it will be, I don't even have words for what it will be
- 19:06when you get there.
- 19:07When you get to those rooms, when you get to those seats, when you get to those board
- 19:11tables, do it in a way that you're proud of because you will need those people eventually.
- 19:17The people that drive the forklifts for our company, the people that sell the goods for us,
- 19:23that produce the goods for us.
- 19:24If I walk all over them, what is stopping them from not coming into work the next day?
- 19:30And so really taking that perspective of people first on your way up and not trampling them and
- 19:38using them as levers for your success, because I guarantee you, you will need them.
- 19:45Absolutely, and then the toxicity, the path of toxicity, if you do it in a way that's not
- 19:52healthy, And those are the people that will be sitting like to your point in your town halls.
- 19:57They'll be the ones when you're trying to move along a new project or something.
- 20:02These are all the people, they're the ones that like quite literally in the trenches doing that
- 20:07job.
- 20:08So oftentimes when I was in strategy, I would say I could tell the pulse and I don't know if
- 20:13you would agree with this Cash, but I would go in as the executive to meet my new contact, the
- 20:19SVP of finance or whoever, and I would sit in the lobby, Kash, and I would wait.
- 20:25And sometimes my contact would be waiting a little bit, running behind, and I could tell
- 20:30the pulse of the organization by the waiting room and how I was treated as I waited, and I
- 20:39could get the energy.
- 20:40Right?
- 20:41And the people that took the time to literally and they may not have known.
- 20:45I may have just given my name and whatever.
- 20:49And if I said let's say I sat there for ten minutes, I could tell whether it was a
- 20:53psychologically safe environment, whether people were kind or whether I got ignored.
- 20:58And then they're like, oh, yeah.
- 20:59Who are
- 20:59you waiting for again?
- 21:00And, literally, when I went into the culture and got to know the culture as I managed the
- 21:05companies, then oftentimes it was a reflective lens of that day that I sat there.
- 21:09Like, your point, your investment in people like I say, I always say my concept is the ROR,
- 21:16which is the spin on the ROI, which is those are your biggest assets, your human capital.
- 21:21Right?
- 21:22And treating people with kindness and respect.
- 21:25And I'm gonna use the word love too as well.
- 21:27We all want to feel that connection and and where about it.
- 21:31Where are you spending most of your other than with your family at home, your most of your
- 21:34time is with people that you're working, with.
- 21:38Now tell me a scenario, and I and I know we're we're I'm loving this conversation, so we're
- 21:44going a little bit over.
- 21:45But tell me a scenario where you have a difficult scenario as a female that you had to
- 21:50deal with that maybe stretched you a bit, but you had to deal with somebody that you think,
- 21:57oh, this is not this is I'm kinda stretched here, and I know this could maybe not go well,
- 22:03but I have to deal with it or maybe something that just didn't go well that you had to learn
- 22:07from.
- 22:08Yeah.
- 22:09To pick just one is difficult, but one particular that came to mind.
- 22:13In this transition from CFO to CEO, we had made the decision months before.
- 22:20Actually, almost a year before we actually did an appointment from CFO to CEO.
- 22:25So we had time to kinda transition.
- 22:27We had time to, you know, work with the team on what this would look like because we were we
- 22:33are a small company.
- 22:34We only have 25 employees.
- 22:36It was the founder sitting in the CEO role.
- 22:39He had founded the company in 1999 and had sat as the CEO up until 2024.
- 22:46So for twenty five years he has been the face of the company.
- 22:50He has been the decision maker.
- 22:52He has been, you know, this, the father figure in the company for lack of a better word.
- 22:58But when we communicated, our whole team knew that this was what was happening.
- 23:04And to your point earlier, not only am I a female, but I'm a young female.
- 23:09And we had people in our organization or come into the organization that this transition was
- 23:15communicated to that were certainly more seasoned in their roles, had had more maturity
- 23:21in the business world, and, one particular in one particular individual was having a really
- 23:31hard time with the transition and I don't know to this day if it was that I was a young
- 23:38female, if it was because I was young, if it was because he felt entitled to the role and
- 23:44all of the years that he had put in, if he felt like I was unqualified.
- 23:48I truly don't know what it was, but there was so much of this batting of heads in in
- 23:56everything.
- 23:57I could I could tell you to fill the glass to 10 ounces and there was a reason why it should
- 24:03be eight or 12.
- 24:05It was just every hill was the sort to die on and when he, when we'd finally made the
- 24:14transition, there was this, there was this period where we were still figuring out because
- 24:21the founder was still in the business on the daily, which creates a little bit of a
- 24:26different dichotomy.
- 24:28Right.
- 24:29And he would constantly go around me to the founder on any decision I made.
- 24:35I would make a decision.
- 24:36He would go to the founder.
- 24:38I luckily had a great long term relationship and tenure with the founder and we would always
- 24:44reconvene before he would overstep or anything like that.
- 24:49We finally got to a point where everything was coming to a head.
- 24:54I had my patients, there had been multiple conversations, I had felt like we put in
- 24:59boundaries and expectations, and nothing was changing.
- 25:03And we finally sat down one evening.
- 25:06He came in guns a blazing to my office over, honestly, I don't even remember what it was
- 25:11about.
- 25:12That's how insignificant it was.
- 25:16And I finally said, if you wanna have this conversation right now, I will stay late and
- 25:22have this conversation.
- 25:23It's worth having.
- 25:25One of us can stay or both of us can stay, but I guarantee you I'm not leaving.
- 25:30So I'm happy to work with you.
- 25:33I'm happy to figure out how we can symbiotically work together.
- 25:37I'm not out to get you, but this kind of behavior would not work in any organization.
- 25:44It's not healthy.
- 25:45It's not tolerable, and I'm at my wit's end.
- 25:48I've been dealing with it for nine months.
- 25:50And so the ball is really in your court in in how we proceed.
- 25:55You can let me know.
- 25:56And that is kind of the conversation in a nutshell.
- 26:00It was almost a three hour conversation.
- 26:03Wow.
- 26:03We walked away from that with with a lot of clarity.
- 26:09I think a lot both of us were putting a lot of things under the rug because we didn't want to
- 26:14deal with it.
- 26:15It was just easier to not have to deal with the confrontation, not have to deal with the
- 26:20conflict.
- 26:21Fast forward to now, another eight or nine months later, he is somebody that I rely on
- 26:29heavily, and we have built a relationship that is that of transparency.
- 26:35It's not always rainbows and butterflies, but we have learned how to communicate in a way
- 26:42that when I'm frustrated, I know how to approach him.
- 26:46When he's frustrated, I know how to approach him and really coming to terms with we're in
- 26:51the same boat, we're trying to get to this lighthouse, how do we get there together
- 26:56without tearing someone else down or throwing them overboard?
- 27:01And that has changed the course of the relationship 180 degrees.
- 27:07And I think when he realized that there was a mutual level of respect, like, didn't demand
- 27:13respect.
- 27:14You said I'm not leaving here until we talk this search.
- 27:16I mean, know.
- 27:16The way that speaks to a level of I I call it shoulder to shoulder leadership.
- 27:21Right?
- 27:21You're saying, okay.
- 27:22We were at an impasse.
- 27:23We both left it alone, and we and you would know.
- 27:26Cash, like, the more you leave something, it becomes cumulative.
- 27:29And it's who likes conflict?
- 27:30Nobody likes conflict.
- 27:31Yeah.
- 27:32And it then becomes it turns into something, and there's these stories that level up.
- 27:37But the fact that you could actually call it and say we got to do something, I think is
- 27:41fantastic.
- 27:42You demonstrated a level of capacity to be transparent that without a doubt that would
- 27:49have trickled all the way out.
- 27:50Remember I said about that radius that people realize, yeah like you said no unicorns and
- 27:56fairies and maybe not Sunday high tea but definitely respect, right, which is ultimately
- 28:02what you need as a CEO or anybody that when you're leading.
- 28:05Yeah.
- 28:06For sure.
- 28:07Cash, I know mentoring is something that's, dear to your heart.
- 28:12So let's talk a little bit about that.
- 28:14And I know we're we're over time, and I I really appreciated spending time with you
- 28:19today.
- 28:19So talk a little bit about what what you love about mentoring and a bit about what you're
- 28:24willing to offer for any amazing young female, not just young females that are even maybe
- 28:30older that are trying to progress their career.
- 28:33Tell them about mentorship and kind of where you're at with it.
- 28:38Yeah.
- 28:38I think the thing about mentorship that just makes my heart blossom is when you are mentor
- 28:43I'm sure you have experienced this too.
- 28:45When you're mentoring someone, you really are awarded the opportunity to to show them that
- 28:55their boundaries are way further than the barrier they have in front of them.
- 28:59Even myself, when I stepped in, see the day to day and, you know, the barriers, I'm only going
- 29:07to become an accountant or I'm only going to become a CFO or I'm only going to become a CEO.
- 29:11And when you start to see people experience and understand that the barrier that they have over
- 29:19them is only there because they put it there.
- 29:23And when they start breaking those down and realizing that they have all of this potential,
- 29:29there's so much reward or ROI that you experience as a mentor and seeing someone else
- 29:38unlock their true potential.
- 29:40So for me, I just I love seeing people break barriers.
- 29:45Mhmm.
- 29:46That's amazing.
- 29:47That's amazing.
- 29:48And clearly, you've had some amazing mentors along the way.
- 29:52I would not be here without any of my And having one all the time.
- 29:56Cassius has been an amazing conversation.
- 29:59Any last words to younger leaders, people out there that they have a vision.
- 30:04What do you do to take care of yourself, to stay connected to, like you say, your path or
- 30:10your vision in your role?
- 30:11What do you do?
- 30:13I it has been a very hard road, but I have created boundaries within myself and my family.
- 30:21When I first stepped into the c suite, it was probably similar to any young leader,
- 30:29specifically any female leader.
- 30:31And you feel like you have to say yes to everything, because if you say no to something,
- 30:36it's going to be a tally against your name or a target on your back.
- 30:40And so specifically over the last year and a half, I've really carved out.
- 30:46I mean, put them on my calendar before the week starts.
- 30:51The things that I want to do for myself or the things that I've committed to with my family.
- 30:57When things pop up, being able to confidently say that doesn't work for my schedule this
- 31:04week, but I can certainly fit it in some other way and realizing how understanding people are
- 31:10and that unnecessary pressure that we put on ourselves.
- 31:14And so for young people entering the workplace, I would say healthy boundaries.
- 31:21I hate the word work life balance because mine kind of intertwines.
- 31:26I truly do love what I do, so we don't really need to balance it, but I do want to be where
- 31:32my feet are.
- 31:34And sometimes that means carving out things for my family and carving out things for work.
- 31:39This is carved out on my calendar.
- 31:41So my kids don't have access to me during this period of time.
- 31:45I'm going to go to soccer tonight and my work doesn't have access to me during that time.
- 31:50I would say creating healthy boundaries that you feel confident abiding by.
- 31:57I would say when I was a VP when I was younger, having those piano lessons and the hockey
- 32:03practice, it replenishes you.
- 32:05You have time and then it makes you that better of a mummy and then ultimately a better CEO
- 32:10because you're I mean like you said, it's I think it's work life teeter tottering, but you
- 32:17do the best so that things are in alignment.
- 32:20Yeah.
- 32:20So, Cash, this has been amazing.
- 32:22So for anybody that has loved this conversation as much as me and would like to learn more
- 32:29about you or connect with you?
- 32:30Where can they get ahold of you?
- 32:32Yeah.
- 32:33The first place would be LinkedIn.
- 32:35I think that I'm the only cashrash load, but if not, there should be only a few of us.
- 32:39I try to get back to every message that comes through, make time for those, unless you're
- 32:45trying to sell me something genuinely trying to reach out for advice or conversation or how do
- 32:54you climb?
- 32:55I'm always happy to have these conversations.
- 32:57On the business side, if you're looking for how to enter this industry, clean label, sugar
- 33:03reduction, anything like that, you can find the company at iconfoods.com, and they're always
- 33:09happy to connect the outside world with myself.
- 33:13Awesome.
- 33:14What have I learned today?
- 33:15I think the elements of leadership is that true north within yourself.
- 33:20Like, why are you doing what you're doing?
- 33:22And to Kash's point, it's not about leveling up to level up.
- 33:26It's about where do I see myself a year from now, three years from now, ten years from now?
- 33:31And make sure you're in the right arena to be able to do that.
- 33:34And if you're not, sometimes it takes making difficult decisions to maybe switch into
- 33:39something that's more in alignment to follow what you really feel like you want to make a
- 33:45difference with in your life and then ultimately follow that path.
- 33:49So everyone, thanks so much for hanging out with Cash and I today.
- 33:53Give us some feedback so that I can continue to have amazing guests like her.
- 33:57And for me, what's new is I'm running the first cohort of the ROR plus course for burnt out
- 34:04leaders, which will involve the course from the book and live coaching sessions.
- 34:09So if you're interested, please reach out.
- 34:11There's limited spots and the first one is running first time in the fall.
- 34:15Again, Kash, thanks so much.
- 34:17Everybody take care and we'll talk to you soon.
- 34:19Bye bye.
- 34:23Thanks for tuning in to Authentic Living with Roxanne, creating the space for positive,
- 34:28healthy change.
- 34:30Roxanne is a keynote speaker, psychotherapist, and coach.
- 34:34To work with Roxanne, visit roxannederhaj.com/blueprint.
- 34:40We'll see you next time on Authentic Living with Roxanne.