Latest / The Bold Lounge / Erika Roegies: Boldly Disrupting the Path and Embracing True Alignment

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Erika Roegies: Boldly Disrupting the Path and Embracing True Alignment · The Bold Lounge

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge Podcast.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: My name is Lee Burgess and I will be your host.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: If you're anything like me, you love hearing inspiring stories of people who have gone on bold journeys and made a positive impact in the world.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: This podcast is all about those kinds of stories.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Every week, we'll hear from someone who has taken a leap or embarked on an extraordinary journey.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: In addition to hearing their stories, we'll also learn about their bold growth mindset that they use to make things happen.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Whether they face challenges or douse along the way, they persisted and ultimately achieved their goals.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: These impactful stories will leave you feeling motivated and inspired to pursue your own bold journey.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: I believe everyone has a bold story waiting to be freed.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Tune in and get ready to be inspired.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Today I have Erica Rohes.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: She is the founder and general advisor of Apony Advisors.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Welcome, erica.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Thank you, lee, really happy to be here today, so I'm excited to jump into your bold definition and wonder what bold looks like to Erica.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: What's your definition?
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: So my definition is really to dare to disrupt yourself, to be brave enough to possibly acknowledge that maybe you've been taking some boxes along your journey and to step away from that to potentially redefine and find that true alignment.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: So it's really about disruption, disrupting yourself and taking a bold move to change and find what truly is meaningful and purposeful for yourself.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm loving several of the words you said in there.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: So one you're the first person, I think, that use the word disruption in their definition, and what I love about that is boldness can feel disruptive, which may be negative to someone or may feel negative, but it's actually what I think you mean by that is, something needs to be different, something needs to potentially change or get enhanced or elevate or kind of go to the next level.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Is that what you mean by disrupt Entirely?
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: I tend to use battle your own cage like shake it up, assess it, reflect and feel brave, feel bold to see that maybe it's not all what you thought it would be and maybe it's not all aligned to your values or to your emotions or to where you want to be intellectually.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: It's all about rattling your cage and disrupting it.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the other word you used in there is alignment.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: And how you know when someone feels out of alignment.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Some people use the word balance.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: That's to me just something they'll never have.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: So I use alignment because you can get realigned and go outline and come back, and I guess you can do the same thing with balance.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: But I guess for me, like balance will never be achieved, so alignment is just a better word to use.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: So I love that you use that.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: And then, in the sense of that, what does alignment look like for you?
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: What does that mean?
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: And I agree, by the way, with you.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: I've searched for balance for such a long time and I've actually come to terms with the fact that you know what you'll reach it.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: You'll feel it for the split second and then you'll be out of balance again.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: That's a good thing, you know, because you're not finding yourself out of balance, you're not growing, and why I moved in my head and in my speech more to the word alignment, where it's all about creating an environment for yourself that ties more to your inner values than your norms, and that could be the people you surround yourself with, the things you do.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: It could go as far as and it does for me.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: You know how you feed yourself, how you nurture yourself, your body as a system, etc.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, alignment is my, is my new word, and it works for me.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it kind of does, and in my head too, like I'm a fixer and I bet there's pieces of that in you too of I can fix alignment.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure I can fix balance, and yeah, and it may be momentarily, you know, like I think I've come to that, just my senses in the sense of alignment might be temporary for a bit, but feeling aligned to your values, your mission, your purpose, that is what I'm living, you know, and that that I think I don't think I've felt that before now.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: And when you get there and you kind of lock in to that, it's just this energy, it's almost like a boost.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: And you know, for me that's that's what I also associate with alignment.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and many ways.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: There's almost a level of control you can absorb over alignment, whereas for lens it's hard, it's hard, yeah that's true.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: I never thought about that, but that's true and I like to as much as I can.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: I'll just put this an airquest for everyone listening.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: It's being control as much as I possibly can, but I realized too now, I think, as I get older, there's lots of not in control of, and so so that's been a big learning for me too.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: I think throughout my career and throughout my life I was just like stop trying to control things that literally I just can't let it go.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: Let it go, yeah.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: So when was the first time, based on your definition of disrupting yourself, rattling your own cage, getting into alignment, acknowledging that you're not just meant to tick boxes?
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: What's the one of those moments you remember?
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: Good or bad.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: Fairly late I think I was 36, living in the Netherlands because I'm Belgian.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: So I moved from Belgium to the Netherlands.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't call that a huge bold move because it's a two hour drive.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: I'm quoting my 36 year old bold move, which was the shift from the Netherlands to the US, where I basically decided and this was, I want to think, 2012.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: I just decided that it was time to disrupt myself.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: I was really comfortable in the Netherlands.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: I had a good job at TomTom, loved my colleagues, but had been there for six, seven years and had a terrible commute, by the way, between Aik and Amsterdam.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: So I did want to change that.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: I had a beautiful home, I had a great social circle, but it wasn't.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: It wasn't all okay.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: There was something missing and I didn't know what it was and the only way to figure it out is to shake the cage, to rattle the cage, and it was really a really, it was a really weird moment.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: I went on a holiday to Portugal on my own, that kind of a yoga surf retreat, and I don't know.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: There was a moment there where I had this epiphany of well, that's what I'm going to do, I'm just going to go somewhere else, completely change my environment and explore more, feel more, see more.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: And I thought it would take me a really long time because it's kind of a big deal to pick yourself up and shift the continent.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: I will say I intentionally decided on the US because I speak English and I thought, well, that'll be easy, That'll be easy, Same Western culture.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: And I found out that was not the case.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: I thought this is going to be a journey on its own, just the finding a new opportunity, work-wise.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: You know an approach to actually moving there, a vehicle, if you will.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: It's going to take me a while and it didn't take me like four, five months and I found an opportunity and another five months later I started the new job and four months later I found myself in Toronto as a first step towards the US.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: They placed me first in Canada.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, it is very, very interesting how it came to me and then how it all happened.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: But I was super zen about it.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: That was also the interesting reflection, because I would have called myself a very zen person up to that point.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: You would not have called yourself zen now.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: So what's it feel like?
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: What's it feel like?
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: What are the signs and symptoms of knowing I need to rattle my own cage, I need to disrupt myself?
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: I think that everything feels too comfortable.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: Like that the challenges are gone, that everything feels calendarized.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: Like very routine, routine-based, not a lot of learning, whether or not that's learning in terms of meeting people, learning on the job, learning through travel.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: It just feels everything's very monotonous.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: McBoard, maybe Is it a feeling of boredom.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: It's like complacency, comfort and comfort is not always a bad thing, right?
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: But sometimes if comfort at the cost of not learning or growing.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: I think that's what you're talking about, right?
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, complacency has a connotation of intentionality.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think what I'm trying to express is a notion where you find yourself in a situation that actually you didn't necessarily intend to learn.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: Yes, at the age of 36, maybe I should add, I was single.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: Most of my friends were married or getting married, having babies, like.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: So there's a lot in those journeys, there's a lot happening and there's a lot of change and there's a lot of new things in your life that you're getting adjusted to.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: And for me, that everything was very static and stable and comfortable Again, comfortable.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: That's, I guess, why it needed to be disrupted a bit so I could create opportunity, almost create opportunity.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: Let the universe throw some things at me that I hadn't planned for, and that's maybe what I mean when I say I wouldn't have called myself a Zen person before that, because maybe I found myself in that place because I was a planner and I didn't like to have things under control.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a lot of people right.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: If I think about my analogy, kind of in my world would be you're in a career, you're doing well, you're working hard, you're going to the next level, you're making sure you're with your friends and your family and doing those things, and you kind of get into a routine of like this is what I want to do.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: I think also there becomes a point where like, is this really?
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: It Is this the rest of my life, Is this kind of how it's going to be?
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: Is this kind of my schedule and those types of things.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: And you know, at the very beginning you talked about ticking the boxes, right?
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: So I think sometimes as you get older, you realize that the boxes you're ticking aren't your own, At least for me.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: You know and again, nothing negative about whose boxes they were, but they weren't mine and I think I wanted to claim some of those boxes or maybe pencil some in.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: And I think it was like giving into the exploration, Like when you went on the Yoga Surf retreat.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: It was like I need just a mental break from whatever I've been doing to let my mind actually think or even be open and be able to think about the things that are possible, and you had and wasn't.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: Like you were going, like I'm going to go make a list of all the options, of what I could do.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: It was like I'm just going to take a break right For a moment.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: And sometimes, when we let our bodies and our brains kind of just have a moment of freedom to explore, that's where some of you know, I think, the disruption can come from, because it's like okay, maybe you should try this, and then you have this idea or the thought, and so you ended up going from the Netherlands to Toronto, and then what did you do there?
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: Like what was it that you were going there to explore?
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: Was it a different role?
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: Was it a different?
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Obviously a different country, yeah.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: So I started working in a new role for a company education company and really they put me in Toronto first because, quite simply, it was easier to get work permits.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: And so I moved to Toronto.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: They didn't know anybody there.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: It was going to be really short.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: It ended up being a full year.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: It was actually quite boundary breaking because I was there all on my own.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: All my colleagues were in the US.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: I basically did the go-bet zoom thing for over a year While building an organization, while driving major digital transformation in the organization.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: It was pretty challenging and very intense.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: So I explored a lot, mainly from a professional perspective relationship building.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: However, again in a professional setting, I can't say that I spent the time in Toronto to truly explore a new society or a new social environment, because it was going to be temporary and I really had my set on the next step, which was moving to Boston and getting settled in the US.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: Okay, what did you learn?
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: It sounded like you had your head down with the business and getting things done and you were the one like driving a lot you can use that word.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: What did you learn about yourself in that?
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Because that's a big move.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: It's also it sounds like potentially pressure or focus that's very heightened.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: And what did you learn about yourself in that year?
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: Well, I guess it sounds a little bit arrogant, I find, but that I do have boundaries.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: I can myself so very hard and I hadn't really found those yet.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: To be honest, the work I was doing had to be very holistic because we were making a lot of changes and I was brought in to drive those changes.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: It was operating models, culture, it was building capabilities, both from a people skills perspective as well as new processes, systems, etc.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: So it meant talking to a lot of people.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: It meant putting a lot of effort in change management and building those relationships that enable you to manage that change, to bring people along, and all of that remote.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: So I was on the phone nonstop, from early in the morning until late in the evening because we covered a very wide time zone and a lot initially in one-on-ones.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: So, again, building all of those relationships, eventually more team settings and team building, but so I am naturally more of an introvert.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: So spending so much time with people and talking and I was exhausted A lot of energy.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: No, I get it.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: I get it late.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: And introverts.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: As I'm sure you know, we can recharge in a small social setting, you know, with some friends etc.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: And of course I had let all of that go and I wasn't really investing not in Canada on rebuilding that.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: So it was really hard to recharge, which is why I think it felt exhausting.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: I hadn't built the balance to be able to long-term do that remotely and that wasn't a long-term thing.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: So it was fine.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: But learning that you need to kind of cover all those bases, not just put all that energy in the professional environment where it was really necessary, but actually make sure you put some energy in your recharging tools if you will.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's important.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: I think people realizing that one of few things from just this first leg of your discovery and exploration in your boldness was you know, some things take time and some things are iterative learning process, like learning our boundaries, learning our limits, learning that you know our energy can't be 100% on one thing and we're expecting it's going to have, we're having left in the tank for anything else.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: Also, understanding how we feed ourselves, like with friends and family and quiet time and exploration, like that's not related to our work.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: I think sometimes I know I was so out of alignment when, in 2020 and it can hurt you, you know like it can physically hurt you health wise, it can mentally, you know, emotionally.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: So, like you realizing that you know and being able to retrospectively look back at it too, I think is helpful just for people to realize that you know, oh, I'm going to go be bold, I'm going to go do this Like there's a lot of like trial and error in there and there's just an understanding that some things take time.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Where we live in a world where I think people want things instantly, they want success today, they want, you know, like if they're going to build a company, or create a company like you you have and I have.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: I want to be this tomorrow and it's like I think I've learned more and more to the patients is a really good muscle and I've got to work that one out because I don't have very much.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: So listen to Erica and her story.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: Like she's not saying like, and then I was, you know, a millionaire living in the US and doing this, yeah, yeah.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yes.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so from Toronto you went to Boston, right?
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, okay, so tell me how that went and then what you were in this phase of the leg of the bold journey, like what was the primary learning that you had.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: So really the covering of all bases and having not done that but it wasn't really in the important lesson, I think and as I moved to Boston, that was really my initial focus to try and look for that balance.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: Because I was totally still into looking for balance, having the basis between work life, private life, you know yourself and the acquired time covered a bit more equally was my primary focus.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: So settling, having a home, and I went to Boston, all my stuff from Europe had been packed up, so I did take everything.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: I literally picked everything up and, with the help of the organization, shifted everything into the US.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: So I was really fortunate that I could do that.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: I didn't start entirely from scratch and when I landed in Boston that could finally come to me.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: I rented a home and I could refound myself.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: If you will.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I kind of put some roots down a little bit.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like a little bit more rooted because even when you talk about Toronto, like you knew that was temporary and you didn't want to keep in or use the energy to make friends that you might not keep or keep in touch with those.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: But now you can kind of start to do some of those things.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which, by the way, in hindsight, was silly.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: Right, I should have put that effort in Toronto, because why not?
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, people travel, people travel.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, I think.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: Just my mindset at the time that.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: I was very focused on building the things at work rather than building my things.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: And again, indeed, as I came to Boston, that was different.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: It was a little bit more spread out and I could find those moments of recharging myself a little bit because the thing with disrupting yourself the way I did.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: I guess I underestimated the energy drain if you will Always energy drain, and energy drain is not a bad thing.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: It sounds bad but it's not a bad thing.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: You just got to make sure you have ways of recharging yourself and that was a primary focus in Boston and for me at that time it was very much through my home.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: Again, it sounds a little silly because I'm not necessarily all about stuff and material things, but just getting my old stuff back, unpacking all those boxes oh, that was Christmas, yeah, I bet, and that's from there and because I have so many old things from my grandmother or my grandfather and I brought everything.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: So it was just really nice because I guess I discovered a lot of my backstory a bit.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: And when I made a decision to move, you know there was something there of am I running away from my backstory?
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: Was it not good enough?
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: Refining it made me feel like, oh no, it was all really good.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: I'm just going to do something slightly different and I'm going to do a new environment and open myself up to new people and new experiences.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: So it even made me digest my whole disruption.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: A little bit learning in Boston Does that make sense?
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you look at it from a different lens, right.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: So, like when you were exploring, initially, it was I want to explore, I want something to be different, I want some disruption.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: Not sure why I want it so bad or why I want it now right.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: And it's like, okay, got through Canada and here I am now in Boston, and now I'm reconnecting, like I were reconnecting really, and acknowledging who you are, what made you up, your history, all the people that are pieces and parts of you, and realizing there's there's good and there's not so good, I'm sure, and everyone's journey of things they've learned or experiences ahead, but they're all so part of us.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: And I think we also begin to say, okay, I'm going to keep that part, I'm going to let that one go.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm going to knowledge it, I'm going to thank it for whatever it's given me and learning, and then I'm going to let it go.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: Kind of Marie Kondo, you're like memories of thoughts, right, you're going to thank it and then you're going to donate it.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like parts of your mindset there.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: So I love that and like just also I think that feeling of home and like just comfort again, just kind of getting a little bit more of that, because you went from one I'm super comfortable on kind of where I am to this is way out of the comfort zone.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: Maybe there's a middle ground right, and then you know that's kind of what you were reestablishing there as you kind of work through that and the understanding of that.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: Were there things that were harder than easier?
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: With regard to that of just kind of settling in, or was it more so, just this is actually feeling like this has been the right thing to do.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: It definitely felt like the right thing to do.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, were there things harder or easier?
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: I think at that point I was 13 months into my journey, or 13, 14 months, and I was learning how the Western culture isn't one big blob, how actually the Netherlands, Belgium, Western everybody speaks one English is very, very different.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: Things are done in a very different way.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: You know simple things like customer service or going out for dinner, I mean it sounds all really simple, but when you're done in, it is where I had surprises and where I thought, oh my, this is way different.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: This is either slower or faster or more pleasant, nicer or more raw or rough.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: There was learning around that, but nothing to the point that I thought, oh, I made a mistake.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: Nothing to point more different.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: So I think a good point here, just from your journey, is all learning doesn't feel good.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: You know if this, like you said you said so eloquently and nicely like nicer and then rougher, right, so things weren't as easy and not in hard.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: It was a little rougher than I thought, or not as straightforward, or not as in the sense of I thought it would be worse, but it was actually better.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: So I think there's there's learning in that, and I think that's part of being bold too is you're exploring but at the same time you know you're going to learn some things.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: It's that growth mindset piece to how we, how we think of you know I'm going to learn if things don't go well or I'm going to try something new or meet someone or go somewhere, because there's a lot of things not only from just what you're doing in your role.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: You know your professional role, but you're also making friends and exploring a new city and it's a lot all at one time.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: So when any part of that can make anyone anxious or have, you know, just nervousness, or just maybe at times, even though you're in a big city, feel very alone, you know.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: So I think that's that's just something for people to hear too is like but what you did is?
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: You just kept going, yes, you didn't stop, yeah, you didn't go.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: Okay, I'm going back or I'm quitting, or because I'm sure some of those moments, those rough moments, were rough.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: I still see myself at one point sitting on a sofa that I had ordered and just arrived.
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: It was one of the only pieces of furniture I had and I just started crying.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: I had this huge release of emotion of, I think, 14 months of journey and, yeah, like I said, good bad.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: It wasn't that the crying was a bad thing.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: It's sad again all the time, but for me it's an emotional release.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: It's a way of just letting, letting something go.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: And yeah, I remember sitting.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: I was dark outside, had a lot of windows in this apartment and I was just staring out the lamps on the street and I had this release and and what satisfaction.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: It was a really weird feeling, a really that looked like sadness, but I had satisfaction at the same time.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: It was super interesting and I was looking for my feeling, that level of intensity.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: Where did you sit at?
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: That like really intense feeling about a thing you did to yourself?
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: You were just like I'm done to me, right, I did that.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you took control of the situation, but it doesn't mean that there is an emotion in the journey.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: And crying actually is a release and actually was very healthy for you to do, because it releases certain chemicals in your brain and kind of, you know, also tells you to say you don't have to kind of keep replaying something or thinking about something, like it literally is physically a release of energy and there's probably a lot that could have been boiling up or getting into.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: You know all of the things that you had done.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: It was just a healthy thing to do, but memorable, right.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: So tell us a little about your company, apani, and tell us a little about what you do in Boston to where you are now.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Fill us in on that last leg to Apani.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: So fast forward.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: It's in Boston for four or five years, actually.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: My husband there got married and then in 18 we moved here to the New York metropolitan area for another opportunity.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: However, that ended in 22.
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: So I found myself again in a situation of looking for well, what's next?
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: What do I have been doing really in many ways the same thing for the last nine years in terms of my contributions to the company.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: I thought I don't really want to do that anymore and want to do something else.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: I want to have a bigger impact, quite frankly.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: So how do I do that?
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: And they took me probably four or five months to realize that the path for me would be to do it as an owner of a company, as an owner of a firm.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: Now, I have thought about this a couple of times in the past, but I was never really ready.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: You know when you're having an idea in your head, but it's just not the right time.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: You're not going to do it because time is great, and but I'm not.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: That's because you don't feel strong enough.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: Knowledge wise or circumstances aren't right.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: Either way, it felt right this time to start my own forum app and advisors.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: When you started that process, what did you want to do with the business that was different?
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: What was the message and the mission of your business that was going to be different than other ones?
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: What sets you apart?
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: So maybe I should share a little bit about app new advisors.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: Our focus is on helping CEOs and their executive teams build their operating background, their operational infrastructure that basically enables their strategy and value offering.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: We're focused on early to mid-stage organizations because we'd really like to work more and more on building awareness that you need to do this early on.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: We want to build rather than fix.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: I have done many transformations and optimizations.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: We can do that again for larger organizations, but we're focused on smaller organizations to make sure they don't make those mistakes.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: We want to help them avoid the pitfalls of not having your operation building out, basically insane inefficiencies because you didn't think about the more holistic system you're looking to build, because an organization is a system and you need to really think about all components in the system, including your operations.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: Because we have a long career as executives, we feel we have seen a lot of different scenarios.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: We have a cover, the spectrum of what operations mean in an organization, from customer service to finance, ops, to sales operations, to product delivery and development, digital technology management so we cover a fairly big base.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: Again, I've seen a lot of the pain points that organizations unknowingly create for themselves, that become impediments and that then slows them down.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: We're here to avoid that for teams.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: Help them build it out before they slow down.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: Right, so kind of be the lookout for a company and also be able to share where there may be a bump ahead based on your experience, so they don't have to experience it or maybe, if they do, they can quickly rebound from it faster than if they wouldn't have you and your team.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: Correct and then grow faster, because it's ultimately all about growing your organization and reaching your goals your customer goals, your financial goals, the various goals you've set as part of your strategic plan and do that at speed.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so have another strategist kind of I call it like the strategy in your back pocket, right?
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: So if they have the ability to have years of knowledge and understanding and applied expertise at their retina, Exactly, and so that's wonderful for any company to have.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: One of the things you talked about was transformation and optimization, the things that you do and the holistic approach to the systems within the business.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: When you think about your learnings and all the things that you know from the Netherlands to New York maybe that's a book, oh no, but you know, what did you learn from a transformation, optimization and holistic approach to how you live and then now apply it to some of the things that you do with companies to help them, Like, are there any things that come to mind and key learnings Like knowing this really amplified or, you know, going through that really helped me understand how to apply certain things to people, processes and myself along the way.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: I would summarize my answer to that kind of question in just a word systems thinking.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: Okay, I'm a huge systems thinker.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: Whether or not that is your environment, whether or not that actually is your system with the outcome of health, whether or not that's an organization, I apply that to everything by now.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: I'm actually quite pedantic as it pertains to my own system, but yes, the notion of systems thinking applied to our business means that we're connectors.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: You know we will not come in and just look at your customer service or experience or just your product development process.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: Everything's connected and while we might not be engaged to fix it all, we will be touching on those things and make recommendations to make sure that an organization connects the dots, either with our help or themselves.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: It's super important to, as an executive team, manage your organization as a system, in my view.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think the analogy there is.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: Also.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: I think listeners understand that they're in their own system, right.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: If you're not, if you're feeling out of alignment or feeling like something and that doesn't have to be a bad thing either, like it could just be like man, I just want to explore, I want to try something new, like why am I not doing that?
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: Well, what's that connected to?
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: What's that feeling connected to?
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: Why is that coming up?
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: And like the unpacking of that I think is really important in your own system of how you're living your life, your life system of what's connected to your happiness, your joy, your goals.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: And so I think, applying that to your personal life as well, as when you're working with an organization or, like in your case, coming into looking at the different things within an organization, I always call it like the leaks right here in the ceiling, but actually maybe the pipe over there is the problem.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: If you can't see the pipe, you only see the leak right.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: So I think, realizing that you come in and you really look at challenges or things that are happy with organizations holistically because the solution is also holistic personally and professionally so I think that's a really cool way to approach businesses and our lives and exciting to see what you're doing.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: So, as we kind of close out, just a question for you, for someone that's just feeling out of alignment what's your guidance to them?
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: What would be the first thing they should do or maybe think about, because being bold isn't always inaction.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: Sometimes just thinking and sitting and journaling, that's bold, yeah, no.
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: I fully agree.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: I would say the first thing to do is step back.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: To be honest, actually, what you just said.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: It is the first step to do because it enables actually yourself to look at the bigger picture, the bigger system, and to find what defines alignment for you, therefore, what to look for, where to go again, applying systems, thinking.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: When you look at the whole, you know what locals to optimize if you will, and by doing that you'll optimize your whole, if that makes sense.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's stepping back is the first thing to do when alignment is in there.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: Like I mentioned, it took me four or five months last year to really think through what finding alignment would mean for me, how I would enact that, how it would materialize.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: You got to take time.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: That's the other thing.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: So the patients we talked about earlier absolutely key.
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: Allow for it to be a journey.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: Don't feel like you need to have the answer immediately and start acting.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: Give yourself the time, give yourself the thinking space and form a plan from there, but by looking at the whole.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, looking at the whole, thinking about the systems and the connections, and I think realizing, like you said, that being bold can be the first step, is actually very quiet and what I mean by that it's thoughtful.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: It's maybe you're refilling your own cup, you know, like if it's empty, and thinking about your definitions of what you want to do, your definition of bold, because everyone is different, and getting that courage which is sometimes a whisper right.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: It's just maybe try this out.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: And so I think you are really a great example of some really loud bold moves right Like moving, and then some really quiet bold moves, and they're all important and they've all led you to exactly where you are today, which is where you meant to be.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: So thank you so much for being on the Bold Lounge and for being part of this.
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: All the information about Erica and the business Apony Advisors is below in the episode notes.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: Please check them out.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Erica.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: Thank you for having me.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the Bold Lounge podcast.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: Through the continuum of bold stories, vulnerability to taking elite, you will meet more extraordinary people making a positive impact for others through their unique and important story.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: By highlighting these stories, we hope to inspire others and share the journey of those with a bold mindset.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: We hope you've enjoyed this podcast and look forward to sharing the next bold journey with you.