Latest / Beyond Fulfillment Podcast / Don't Follow Your Passion: Alyssa Nolte on Why Obsession Wins

Transcript

Don't Follow Your Passion: Alyssa Nolte on Why Obsession Wins · Beyond Fulfillment Podcast

• 0:05
  All right, Alyssa Nolte, welcome to Beyond Fulfillment.
• 0:09
  Hey, thanks for having me.
• 0:10
  I'm excited to be here.
• 0:11
  Yes, I appreciate you taking the time.
• 0:14
  So, Alyssa, you are a serial entrepreneur.
• 0:18
  Have started and scaled and even exited several different businesses.
• 0:25
  But you've got a quite a fascinating way to how you got your, your, your career and your entrepreneurial journ.
• 0:32
  Could you just set the stage for our listeners and talk about how you became an entrepreneur?
• 0:36
  Yeah, it's not something I ever really intended.
• 0:40
  Like, I, all through my college experience, I had degrees in business.
• 0:44
  I was getting my marketing degree, and then I was getting a degree in human psychology because I just found that really fascinating and really interesting.
• 0:51
  And so I was studying those two things and I.
• 0:53
  If you would have asked everyone that I went to school with, Alyssa was going to go into corporate.
• 0:57
  She was going to climb the ladder.
• 0:58
  She was going to work for the biggest brands, the most impressive companies.
• 1:01
  I had plans to, to work for the companies with brand names and logos that you've heard of.
• 1:09
  And I was fully planning on the 70 hour work week and trying to climb the corporate ladder and do that whole thing.
• 1:16
  And it got to be about two months from my college graduation and I had two job offers in hand.
• 1:24
  One was for a national nonprofit to be a regional director here in the Midwest, where I would be kind of running my own operation, working my way up, trying to get attention again, that brand name that you've heard
• 1:36
  of.
• 1:37
  And then I had another offer to be an account executive for a nationally recognized advertising firm specializing in automotive advertising.
• 1:45
  And so I'm sitting here with these two offers for incredible jobs.
• 1:49
  And, you know, a lot of my classmates are looking for their first offer.
• 1:52
  And here I am with two.
• 1:53
  Right then I came across this startup that was in the innovation incubator at my university.
• 1:59
  It was two college professors who were testing this thing called eye tracking research.
• 2:04
  And what they were looking at was, can you use people's instinctual eye movements, their reactions, what they look at, what they ignore to optimize marketing and media?
• 2:16
  And I was immediately fascinated by what they were doing.
• 2:20
  So I went down to one of their office hours and I said, hey, I love what you're doing.
• 2:24
  Tell me more about this business.
• 2:26
  And, and do you have anyone to do your sales and marketing?
• 2:29
  And if he tells you the story, he'll be like, we don't have a business or any money or clients or revenue.
• 2:36
  Like, this is just like a project that two professors are doing.
• 2:40
  So no, we don't have anyone.
• 2:42
  And he always jokes, he's like, and then you shook my hand and said and hi, my name is Alyssa and I work here now.
• 2:47
  The funny thing was, is that he meant it like they didn't have any customers, they had never sold anything.
• 2:53
  And so he offered me an opportunity to join the team.
• 2:57
  The only catch was that it was going to be 100% commission only.
• 3:01
  I would eat what I killed if I didn't sell anything, if the company didn't sell anything, I would get absolutely zero.
• 3:08
  If they, if I did manage to sell something, I would get a commission.
• 3:12
  And I did.
• 3:13
  You know, the rational, reasonable, the thing everybody you know should obviously do right out of college is take an unpaid full time job and turn down the two full paid offers with benefit and PTO and mentors and a
• 3:27
  clear progression of career.
• 3:30
  And so that kind of set the stage for my entire career thereon is, you know, taking risk and trying things that most people wouldn't try.
• 3:37
  Okay, so let's just dig into that decision too because for the younger listeners out there as well, right.
• 3:43
  And even people maybe that are in college, that can resonate with that.
• 3:47
  So when you're going like what's going through your mind and what ultimately you made you take that unpaid position with the startup.
• 3:56
  When I came across the startup, it was a couple of different things.
• 3:58
  So one, I loved the technology.
• 4:00
  I was so fascinated about the idea of how people, how to use psychology.
• 4:06
  Essentially my first love, the thing I really wanted to study in college to make marketing and purchase and consumer behavior decisions.
• 4:13
  So again, that was my psychology and my business degree kind of coming together and I loved that.
• 4:18
  I also loved the idea of like truly mattering in the day to day at work.
• 4:22
  When you're a startup, if you don't show up on Monday, that means Monday's work didn't get done.
• 4:26
  Right.
• 4:27
  And so my perception as a college student was okay, you know, I'll, I'll matter, my work will matter, I'll, I'll be important to the overall process in the machine.
• 4:35
  But graduating college with student loans and real bills to pay and hearing 100% commission only, that was not necessarily something I had ever considered doing.
• 4:47
  I grew up in, you know, a traditional white collar family where my dad was a high level executive at HP and he had climbed the ladder and he had traveled the world and you know, he was that thing
• 5:00
  that we see on LinkedIn where it's like, you know, x Salesforce, x Microsoft, xHP, one of those brands that you want to have attached to your LinkedIn profile.
• 5:08
  And so I called him and I said, okay, here's the deal.
• 5:12
  I have this offer with a top tier nonprofit, lots of responsibility, lots of opportunity.
• 5:18
  I have this offer with a well recognized, you know, agency with good, good benefits and good pay.
• 5:26
  Or I had this offer with a pre revenue startup and 100 commission only.
• 5:31
  And I think, you know, I think 22 year old Alyssa was looking for her dad to say, you need to do the grown up thing and go take a real job.
• 5:39
  That's kind of what I expected him to say.
• 5:42
  And he blew me away in that conversation.
• 5:46
  And I think looking back now, I realize we're very similar personalities.
• 5:50
  He took that traditional path, he climbed the ladder, he went through all the stress of all the corporate nonsense and the corporate drama, but he always had that question of what would have changed if I would have gone
• 6:00
  a different path, if I would have started something, if I would have created something.
• 6:03
  And so he said to me, you don't know any better, right?
• 6:07
  Like you're out of college, you don't know what it's like to make real money.
• 6:11
  You can go take a normal path, you can wait until you are making six figures and you can always wonder what would have happened if you would have gone that other route.
• 6:20
  If you go this startup route, best case, you get in on the ground floor of something incredible.
• 6:26
  Worst case, you build unparalleled skills and you come out with incredible stories that's going to send you right to the stack of the resume pile for whatever company you pursue next.
• 6:36
  Either way, you can't lose.
• 6:39
  But I can tell you right now, if you take that corporate job, you'll never go back and you'll always wonder, what if?
• 6:46
  And so he almost, instead of telling me no, he almost gave me permission and I never looked back.
• 6:54
  Wow, okay, love that.
• 6:55
  And so you, you take this leap of faith with the startup and then what happens next?
• 7:00
  Well, I would love to tell you that it was instantly successful and we were like an overnight unicorn success.
• 7:06
  Um, but when I tell this story in college classes and, and when I'm talking to students, I always joke like it was the best decision I ever made.
• 7:14
  But it was really hard.
• 7:15
  In that first year working for that startup, I made $1200.
• 7:20
  Not 120,000, not $1200 a week or a month, literally the entire year.
• 7:26
  And then year two, I 10x that and I made $10,000.
• 7:31
  And then year three, wow, I doubled it.
• 7:33
  And now I'm up to 23,000.
• 7:35
  It took me almost four years to make annual salary.
• 7:38
  What I would have made if I would have just taken that first opportunity, that first account agency executive role that I was offered in the first place.
• 7:48
  So it's not like it was super smooth sailing, but in those four years, I developed incredible skills of client management.
• 7:55
  I worked with some of the largest businesses in the world like Salesforce, Microsoft, Cisco, JPMorgan Chase.
• 8:03
  And I found myself as a, you know, 24, 25 year old room or woman in a room with executives who made, you know, 10 times what I was making, but they were looking for, to me for my, my
• 8:17
  expertise and my experience and what we could help them and tell them and how, and how they could make their experiences better for their customers.
• 8:24
  I learned more in those four years than I think any salary could have afforded me.
• 8:31
  Wow.
• 8:31
  Okay, and then, then what happens?
• 8:34
  So we continue to grow this business.
• 8:37
  We use this technology, this biometric research technology using eye tracking and facial coding to work on websites for Salesforce, to work on mobile apps for big brands like Chase.
• 8:50
  And then also we started working on politics, national campaigns, presidential campaigns.
• 8:57
  What does a voter see when they pick up a piece of direct mail?
• 9:01
  And in the walk from the mailbox to the trash can, what kind of the information are they absorbing?
• 9:06
  And how can well run campaigns get their message across effectively without having to create a lot of voter effort?
• 9:13
  So we worked on all kinds of things and it was just one of those moments where we really started to get traction, we really started to get attention.
• 9:21
  And then we were eventually acquired by a larger company to join their team to do mobile experience and user adoption research, which really changed our perspective on not just how people buy, but how they experience that buy again
• 9:36
  cycle when it's time to renew.
• 9:39
  Okay, wow.
• 9:40
  So was it six, seven years in to this company it got acquired?
• 9:45
  Yeah, I think it was seven years almost to the day.
• 9:48
  Okay.
• 9:49
  All right.
• 9:49
  And like you said, kind of priceless skill set you learned in those early years from dealing with all these companies, despite the fact you were making next to nothing.
• 9:59
  You sound like you're having a blast.
• 10:00
  You're learning so much and really building real skills.
• 10:04
  And ultimately up until the, the acquisition.
• 10:07
  And then what happens after the acquisition?
• 10:09
  I discovered that I am like certifiably unemployable.
• 10:13
  Like, it is so hard for me to.
• 10:16
  I'd never worked in a rigid environment.
• 10:19
  Right.
• 10:19
  I'd only ever worked in a place where experimentation was the expectation.
• 10:26
  And because I was the first person in my role, I had to invent everything that we were doing at that original startup.
• 10:33
  And so it was a really hard transition for me to step into an experience where somebody else's idea is somebody else's vision, somebody else's path forward.
• 10:42
  So I worked there for about three years as part of the terms of the acquisition.
• 10:46
  And then I decided, you know what, I am going to be much happier, kind of moving on and, and stepping outside of this.
• 10:54
  But I found that my dad was exactly right.
• 10:57
  I was actually kind of scared.
• 10:59
  Even though I had done it before, even though I had built a great business, I had that six figure salary guaranteed paid time off, you know, less responsibilities, less risk, less, less requirements of me.
• 11:12
  And I was like, do I really want to leave the security of this to go try from zero again?
• 11:18
  And it took me probably longer than it should have to step out of that corporate role, even though I knew this wasn't what I was meant to do because I was secure and I was comfortable and that made
• 11:28
  me less of a person that I wanted to be.
• 11:32
  Okay, wow.
• 11:33
  Because that's such a profound point because we see that so often where people have an idea or a goal in mind or something they want to build and this ambition, but yet for a variety of reasons, but right,
• 11:47
  maybe they have a job, they have that safety, security, they have obligations, right.
• 11:53
  And so many just don't go for it and ultimately end up regretting it later on.
• 11:57
  And you, after, you know, early on taking that risk and it really worked out for you and then you find yourself in that security bubble, let's say, even though you knew you weren't going to be happy, it was
• 12:09
  hard to leave.
• 12:10
  Like, what ultimately led you to make that jump again and start that next company?
• 12:17
  I have an incredibly supportive group of people around me who could see that I was, you know, the shell of who I used to be.
• 12:26
  Like, I, I am the person.
• 12:28
  Monday morning, I am living my best life.
• 12:31
  I am so happy to be back at my desk.
• 12:33
  I'm so happy to be working on whatever I'm working on.
• 12:35
  I wake up at 4 and write down a note in my notes app because I, I truly love what I'm doing and I'm enjoying the work.
• 12:42
  And I went for, you know, a time not to say there was anything wrong with that company, not to throw shade at them.
• 12:47
  It's just I wasn't a fit for working in somebody else's environment.
• 12:52
  I'm a builder, right?
• 12:53
  I want to create, I want to invent, I want to build, I want a vision.
• 12:57
  If you're looking for an operator, if you're looking for a day to day executor that is 100% not me.
• 13:03
  And it really came down to me realizing and the people around me realizing that this wasn't a sustainable, a sustainable thing.
• 13:13
  And I think it was my husband who finally said like, you need to go back to building something for yourself.
• 13:18
  Your.
• 13:18
  Your spark is totally gone.
• 13:20
  The person that, that you have always been is, is kind of missing here.
• 13:24
  And we want that woman back.
• 13:26
  Your kids need that woman back.
• 13:27
  They need to see someone who, who loves their day to day and is so happy about it rather than somebody who resents their Monday through Friday when that was never me for the seven previous years.
• 13:38
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• 13:43
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• 13:45
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• 13:53
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• 14:02
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• 14:09
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• 14:16
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• 14:25
  So you get that great piece of advice from your husband and I guess you make that decision to move on and then what does that look like?
• 14:32
  What'd you do next?
• 14:34
  You know, it was a lot of relearning.
• 14:36
  The.
• 14:36
  The world has changed from the company that I built in 2013 to the company that I had to build in 2024.
• 14:45
  The.
• 14:46
  The way buyers buy is different.
• 14:47
  Covid changed the way we relate and experience each other, the way we have conversations, the way we make sales.
• 14:53
  You know, TikTok in the.
• 14:54
  In the.
• 14:56
  The cult of personality almost has become one of the most important ways that we build our brands and we build our companies.
• 15:02
  It used to be that you know the right people and you have a relatively good product you can turn into, you know, some deals.
• 15:12
  Now it was less about having really slick marketing or a differentiating website and more about are you a person that can create content and connect with an audience?
• 15:24
  Can you speak into the void and resonate with people?
• 15:28
  And so when I exited that company, I tried a couple of different things.
• 15:31
  I kind of toyed around with other, you know, ideas and trying to build something.
• 15:37
  And I started a podcast that I called Taking Back Monday.
• 15:41
  And it was essentially a podcast where I talked about corporate burnout and it was almost like therapy for me of leaving that corporate environment and trying to refine the entrepreneur within.
• 15:51
  But I started that podcast not because I felt like I had, you know, a microphone and something to say, but because in today's day and age, that's one of the best ways to develop a relationship with your.
• 16:02
  Your customers is to understand how to speak into a microphone, build a relationship.
• 16:08
  And so I started the podcast to force myself to practice, to create accountability.
• 16:12
  I had people on my show because if people come on your podcast, they expect you to post the episode.
• 16:17
  And so I started doing that as a.
• 16:19
  As a form of practice discovered.
• 16:21
  I absolutely loved the medium.
• 16:22
  I loved the conversations that I was.
• 16:24
  Was having, the people that I was meeting, and that I was able to meet people who would maybe never give me the time of day if I just said, hey, you want to have a coffee versus hey, you
• 16:35
  want to come on my podcast and have a conversation?
• 16:37
  So year to date since I started that, and I'm two years in now, I've recorded almost 240 episodes across my two podcasts now.
• 16:47
  Because, you know, one is never enough.
• 16:51
  All right, and what's the other one?
• 16:53
  The other one is called the growth signal.
• 16:55
  That one is much more directly related to my business and my day to day activities.
• 17:00
  So.
• 17:00
  So taking back Monday is very entrepreneurial.
• 17:02
  It's behind the scenes of what we're working on and what it really means to be an entrepreneur.
• 17:07
  The highs, the lows, the wins, the losses.
• 17:09
  And then the growth signal is about what it means to develop a relationship with your customer in this day and age.
• 17:18
  What does it take to take people from.
• 17:20
  I'm interested in what you have and what you have to offer to.
• 17:23
  I'm ready to buy so that it's sales is deal to lose.
• 17:26
  Not sales is deal to close.
• 17:28
  And then the part that a lot of people forget is, is and I'm ready to buy again.
• 17:32
  So we talk about those things that every part of the go to market strategy needs.
• 17:37
  So we talked to sales, marketing, customer success, product.
• 17:41
  Basically anyone who has to develop a relationship with the customer in order to grow their business.
• 17:47
  Okay, all right.
• 17:48
  And then the new company that you started, what, what did that end up being?
• 17:53
  So ology is essentially a reincarnation of what I loved in the first place.
• 17:59
  So we are going very much back to my roots of what is the human psychology behind how we buy and how do we create experiences that move people in that direction, that help people solve their challenges, that deliver
• 18:14
  delightful experiences for their customers.
• 18:18
  So we're not in politics anymore.
• 18:20
  That got a little insane, honestly.
• 18:21
  So we just kind of like took a step back from that.
• 18:24
  You know, we've moved on from that, but we're still using those same methods and research approaches like the eye tracking, like the facial coding, as well as other user interview approaches in order to help companies develop that customer
• 18:39
  experience approach.
• 18:39
  I always tell people there's, there's this imaginary boardroom in every company and you've got all the heavy hitters.
• 18:45
  You've got the CEO who has a vision of where they want to go, and you've got the CFO who's worried about the money and where they can cut costs to improve the bottom line.
• 18:54
  And sales wants more leads and marketing wants more budget.
• 18:58
  And everybody is jockeying for their best outcome.
• 19:01
  And a lot of times there's this empty chair where what's best for your customer kind of exists.
• 19:08
  And so we like to think of ourselves as the team that fills that chair.
• 19:11
  When you're advocating for a budget cut, what does that mean for your customer experience when you increase sales, number of leads, how do you do that in a way that gives them those quality leads?
• 19:23
  So we like to think of ourselves as the true advocate for the customer in the room where decisions get made.
• 19:29
  Okay, all right, so then do you work with like startups or mid market or enterprise?
• 19:34
  Like who, who's your ideal customer?
• 19:37
  We tend to work in more of that enterprise range.
• 19:40
  So customers that I've worked with are kind of those big dogs like Salesforce, that Cisco, those big brands that you think of mostly because they are taking the time to invest in this type of research.
• 19:51
  However, coming from my entrepreneurial, entrepreneurial roots, right, seeing those startups and knowing that there's great ideas out there, if only they can just tweak the way they're talking about it or, or adjust the way they're presenting the information
• 20:06
  or adjust that learning journey as their users go through that buying process could make all the difference between their company succeeding or failing.
• 20:14
  So we created a scaled series of options that any budget can afford in order to make sure that no matter your company size, whether you are salesforce big or startup small, you can benefit from the things that we've
• 20:28
  learned from working with a Salesforce and the things that we've learned from working with a mid tier regional bank.
• 20:34
  Okay, wow.
• 20:36
  So now starting a company, right, that caters to enterprise and is dealing with something so, so important like the sales process and basically how they, how they communicate with their prospects and then ultimately their customers do you think
• 20:52
  you would have ever had the, the capability to do that if it hadn't been for the, you know what I mean, the experience you had with the startup and everything that took you through?
• 21:01
  Absolutely not.
• 21:03
  Actually, there's a funny story about like our flagship client at that startup originally was, uh, Salesforce.
• 21:09
  It was like one of the things, you know, the logos we worked with.
• 21:12
  We've done a ton of research on their website.
• 21:15
  Basically go to any page on their website and odds are good my team had done something research wise on their website.
• 21:22
  Now I don't work on the product.
• 21:23
  I will put that out there.
• 21:24
  We never worked on the product, so don't come at us for that, but for the, the process that sold you on that product.
• 21:30
  Our team did a lot of work on that.
• 21:31
  And I actually, the only reason that we got the opportunity to work with Salesforce was because a friend of mine in this innovation incubator at the university came down to my office one day.
• 21:44
  He worked at the university and he said, hey, I have a friend, he works at Salesforce.
• 21:48
  They're looking for what you guys do.
• 21:50
  Here's his cell phone number.
• 21:52
  Give him a call.
• 21:53
  And I let that number sit on my desk for like two weeks.
• 21:58
  Because in my head I am thinking, what is Salesforce going to want with this little group of three people in the middle of cornfields in Iowa?
• 22:07
  When it comes to our services, surely Salesforce can afford somebody bigger, better, more experience, you know, with, with more impressive logos on their website.
• 22:16
  Because at that point we were just kind of working with small companies, small brands like no one you would ever recognize outside of our local communities.
• 22:25
  And so that number sat on my desk for two weeks, fully intended, just kind of like blow it off.
• 22:29
  Because of course, what would he want with us?
• 22:31
  That same friend came downstairs and two weeks later and said, hey, you haven't called my friend yet.
• 22:38
  You should call him.
• 22:39
  And I said, you know, Josh, like, what am I gonna.
• 22:41
  They're not gonna hire us.
• 22:42
  We're this little piddly company.
• 22:44
  They don't care about us.
• 22:45
  And he goes, no.
• 22:46
  He grabs my phone, dials the number and hits call and hands it to me and says, you're gonna talk to him right now.
• 22:53
  And the phone went through and I had a conversation with this guy over at Salesforce.
• 22:57
  Turns out they were a brand new department.
• 23:00
  They had no dedicated budget.
• 23:01
  They needed to work with a small boutique firm like ours that would work with them on price, who wasn't going to charge them high end crazy prices like the other Firms who did similar work and the rest was
• 23:13
  history.
• 23:14
  We did hundreds of projects for Salesforce, had our work rise to the highest levels, became their primary research vendor when it came to digital marketing.
• 23:24
  And I almost missed it because I didn't have enough self confidence to pick up and dial the phone.
• 23:31
  And if it wasn't for that one friend who believed in me so much, an unreasonable level of belief to come down and dial my phone for me, we wouldn't have made it.
• 23:41
  We would have never been successful.
• 23:43
  Wow.
• 23:44
  Such an incredible story.
• 23:46
  And given that it unfolded that way and your friend literally had to dial the number for you and force you and they believed in you so much more than you believed in yourself at that time.
• 23:56
  And then given the way it worked out and what you went on to do with Salesforce, like what did you take from that and how do you apply that?
• 24:03
  Now I always give entrepreneurs and anyone who wants to start a business, there's a couple of things that you need to have and some of it's counter to I will call like the traditional advice.
• 24:16
  So I tell people a couple of different things.
• 24:18
  One, you need to have unreasonable, delusional belief that it will work out for you.
• 24:25
  It might not work out today, it might not work out tomorrow, it might not work out and how you expect it to work out.
• 24:31
  But if you don't have this delusional belief that you can make it happen, there's always going to be that moment of like, there's easier paths than entrepreneurship.
• 24:39
  So I guess I'll just go down that route.
• 24:42
  There's also this thing that happens, this phenomenon, and Seth Godin has a book on it called the Diploma, where the greatest people in the world, as you have that initial excitement, like you're so into it, you're spending all
• 24:53
  your hours thinking about this business idea.
• 24:55
  And then there's going to be something that happens called the dip.
• 24:58
  And it's going to be the thing that happens right before you find success.
• 25:01
  It's going to get hard.
• 25:02
  You're going to be over it.
• 25:03
  You're going to be frustrated.
• 25:04
  You're going to be sick of doing this thing.
• 25:06
  You're going to be, you know, the excitement has worn off.
• 25:09
  But a lot of people quit in the dip.
• 25:11
  So they do all this work and then they quit in the valley and then they never get to experience that amazing scale that happens after.
• 25:20
  So have unreasonable belief in yourself.
• 25:22
  Have unreasonable delusional expectations that you will be able to make it work and it will be able to happen.
• 25:29
  I'm not saying to be like, so delusional that you, you know, ignore obvious signs around you.
• 25:35
  But if you've done the work, if you've done the research, if you've tested the business model, have belief that it will work and get through the dip.
• 25:42
  So that's number one.
• 25:43
  Number two, a lot of people will tell you to find something that you're passionate about, right?
• 25:48
  Do something you love and you'll never work a day in your life.
• 25:51
  And I absolutely hate that advice.
• 25:54
  I always tell people, do not work in something that you are passionate in.
• 25:57
  Do not work in something that you love because you will start to resent it at some point when you are in that dip, when it gets hard, when it's no longer fun, when it's no longer something you love,
• 26:11
  it will become resent.
• 26:12
  So I always tell people, don't find something you can be passionate about.
• 26:17
  Find something that you can be obsessed with, because obsession lets you see it from clear angles and think through every process and see it for what it really is and think through all the implications and the details and
• 26:29
  the spider web of decisions that have to happen for you to be successful.
• 26:33
  But if you're just in love with it, if you're just passionate about it, if you're just hyper focused on it right now, or it's something you just enjoy doing, you're blinded by that love, by that passion, by that
• 26:47
  interest, and so you won't see it clearly.
• 26:50
  So therefore you won't know if you're in the dip or if you're just in something that's never actually going to work.
• 26:56
  Okay, so that begs the question, how do you tell the difference between something you're passionate about and something you're obsessed with?
• 27:03
  Can you be objective about it?
• 27:06
  If somebody presents a counter argument?
• 27:08
  If you're talking about it to other people and they present a counter argument, what is your natural reaction to say, oh, you just don't understand, you just don't get it, or is it, I can see how you wouldn't
• 27:21
  understand this perspective.
• 27:22
  Let me think about a different way to frame it.
• 27:24
  Let me think about a way to rotate it.
• 27:26
  Right.
• 27:27
  I often tell people, messaging is, is like a series of shapes, right?
• 27:32
  So if I show you, if I'm holding a shape and I show you one side of the shape, it might look like a circle.
• 27:38
  And then if I rotate that, that shape, okay, now it looks kind of like a rectangle.
• 27:43
  And then if I rotate that shape again, oh, this is a cylinder, right.
• 27:47
  The shape itself didn't change.
• 27:49
  It was just Your perspective on it, where you were looking at it, what you were focusing on, what you were paying attention to.
• 27:54
  If you can't rotate the idea, if you can't think about the way you're talking about it without defaulting to, well, you just don't get it, then that is where you have to ask yourself, is this a product that
• 28:06
  I'm building for me because I love it, because I'm passionate about it, or is this something I'm building because I think it truly solves a problem and I am willing to be objective and see it from every angle
• 28:17
  and not just get obsessed with the fact that this is a circle?
• 28:20
  And I love circles.
• 28:22
  Okay.
• 28:23
  All right.
• 28:24
  And Alyssa, looking back at this whole journey, right from taking that leap of faith with, with the unpaid startup role, scaling it, having the exit, going through the corporate life for a minute, realizing that's not for you, branching
• 28:37
  out on your own, and then growing this new company, looking back on the whole journey thus far, what's been the best part of it for you?
• 28:43
  The best part of it has truly been the people I've had the opportunity to meet.
• 28:48
  And I talk about that corporate environment as if it wasn't a great opportunity for me to learn.
• 28:53
  I learned about podcasting and how to do that.
• 28:56
  I met incredible people.
• 28:57
  I learned about the post sale experience because I had only ever thought about, like, what happens before the contract gets signed and never what happens after the contract gets signed.
• 29:08
  And so I think that there have been so many lessons that I have learned along the way and experiences and stories that I have to tell that if not for my path acquisition and temporary, you know, corporate jail,
• 29:24
  that I, that I wouldn't necessarily be able to deliver the kind of experiences that my customers are looking for, that I wouldn't be able to stand at the front of a zoom room and present to some of the
• 29:37
  most important people in a company and have them look to me for what to do next and for advice and recommendations and expertise.
• 29:46
  You know, we are the sum of our experiences.
• 29:49
  And that means the good ones, the bad ones, and the ones that we didn't realize were teaching moments in the moment.
• 29:55
  Okay, all right.
• 29:57
  And Alyssa, if people want to reach out and learn more about your, your company Ology or hear your podcast, where, where can people find you online?
• 30:06
  Come find me on LinkedIn.
• 30:08
  You can search Alyssa Nolte.
• 30:09
  And if you find the notorious plant killer, you know you have found the right Alyssa Nolte.
• 30:14
  I also write on Substack under Alyssa likes to talk.
• 30:18
  Okay.
• 30:19
  All right.
• 30:19
  And we will link all that in the show notes for everyone.
• 30:22
  All right, Alyssa, thank you so much for taking the time to be here and sharing all this incredible wisdom from your journey with our listeners.
• 30:28
  We greatly appreciate it.
• 30:29
  Thank you so much for having me.
• 30:30
  I love this conversation.