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Impact Doesn't Need to Mean Thousands of People · Kind of a Big Deal

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_03: Hey everybody, welcome to Kind of a Big Deal.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_03: I'm your host, Kristen Belden.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_03: If you've been enjoying the show, please hit that follow button and consider leaving a review.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_03: It helps more awesome folks like you find us.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_03: Today I'm sitting down with Talia, an executive and leadership coach who spent over a decade working in government and public service before going out on her own.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_03: She worked on a congressional campaign, spent years at City Hall on youth programs and civic engagement, and built a career around the belief that the most important work happens when people feel safe enough to be honest.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_03: She's also someone I've had the pleasure of knowing through the Sacramento community, and I can tell you firsthand, she's exactly as thoughtful, warm, and insightful in real life as she is in this conversation.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_03: We talk about what it took to grieve the scale of government work and find meaning in a different kind of impact.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_03: The shift from confidence to courage that finally got her to hang her own shingle, and why impact doesn't have to mean thousands of people to count.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_03: I can't wait for you to meet her.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_03: Here's Talia.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_03: Good morning, Talia.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: Good morning.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_03: It's so good to see you.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm so happy to be here.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much for being here.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_03: A quick introduction of you.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_03: So Talia is one of those people that when you say I haven't met her yet, everybody is like, oh, there's like a gasp in horror.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_03: Like, how have you not met her?
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_03: Like, she's amazing.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_03: You need to know her.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so many of our paths intersect, and we finally got connected directly.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm just really excited to have her here with us today.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_03: So welcome.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_03: So let's start.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_03: I think I'd like to start like really early days with you.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_03: What were your kind of baby steps into the career world?
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_03: Like, what were you drunk and kind of where did you start?
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's such a great question.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: I really love that question.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: What drew me into the career world?
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: I grew up in a small town on the central coast of California and San Luis Obispo.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's a place I hold um very close to my heart.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it's my alma mater.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_03: Did we talk about this?
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: No, I don't think so.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: You went to Cal Poly.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I did.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, I had no idea.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's wild.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_03: Another intersection of our lives, yeah.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: For sure.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason we were there, my dad, my dad built the business school at Cal Poly.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: So he actually only just retired in the spring for the second time.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my gosh, that's incredible.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I campus is like very close to also very close to my heart.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I grew up on campus and the San Luis Obispo is a profoundly interesting place.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's a little bit an anomaly when we think about kind of our cities in California.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: At the time when I was there, right, really in the 80s and early 90s, um, the it was a small town still.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: It was very rural.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: It didn't have a lot of money.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: Really, there were only a few sources of employment for people.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: You were either in education or you were a blue-collar worker, maybe you worked for the power plant, or you were an ag and you right work the land.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um there were not, you know, there wasn't this like tourism industry that exists now.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: There weren't remote companies and startups that were building from there.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: It was really just a very isolated small town.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I, you know, the beauty of being affiliated with a university is that it connects you when you're in such a small place to the rest of the world in this, you know, profoundly incredible way.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: The people that they bring in, the experts that they showcase, right?
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: And the university was an incredible partner in community in ensuring that like when they brought talent to campus, that the community knew, right?
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: They would reach out to certain audiences in hopes that like there would be some alignment and interest.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: I mention all of that because I think what I mostly I struggled with really two things growing up there that led me into my career.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: The first was that uh it was a little too small for me and very homogeneous, you know, it was like a very sheltered community.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: You felt very safe, nobody locked their doors at night, like all these weird small town figs.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it felt stifling, especially in my teenage years, right?
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: As I became a teenager, you started to feel kind of suffocated by that.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: And knowing that like the world is so big and there's so much out there.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: So the other thing that really troubled me is that I looked around my peer group and I and I love, I love the people that I grew up with.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: I still hold many of them in great regard.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like some of us have stayed really connected.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it's such a small place.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: But I I did struggle with like this lack of what I call I I think I called it apathy then.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like I felt like there were so many huge critical things happening in the world, and yet we were in this little bubble where it did we didn't have to pay attention.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: And the like, right, you know, I don't know how much of it was an active choice for many of my peers, as um, or simply like a lack of exposure, right?
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: And it could have been a combination of those things.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: But because of all of that, right, uh my dreams in those years were to be in the center of things, to be in the epicenter of the most important conversations that were happening, the most critical decisions that were being made.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like I knew I wanted to be in the room.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: And the only exposure that I had to that was through our public sector, right?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: Through our elected officials, and then through the university, right?
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: I saw the world of academia as one avenue for that.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: But then I also saw, okay, like there's something interesting happening in the public sector.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like there are ways to really put yourself in the center and start shaping the conversation.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I went to university, and then after university, I went to DC and I couldn't get there fast enough.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: There's a way to get to truly, like that was the arc, right?
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: The arc was I knew I wanted to be in the center of where the most critical global conversations were happening.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: And in college, I even took that a little bit farther and started to dream about becoming an ambassador.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what would it look like to really represent our interests in other places in the world?
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: And what was the pathway to that?
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: I had an opportunity there to study with a former US ambassador who had just come off her post, and it completely changed my view on that career path on joining the State Department.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: Joining the Foreign Service, taking that exam, doing all of those things.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm so grateful in retrospect for the experience in learning from her and learning what her um years, decades had been in service.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: So my move to DC was really the start of my career.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I went out there.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: Oh sorry, go ahead.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_03: Oh sorry, go ahead.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I before we go there, because I'm so in what you were saying that you know, because I also grew up in like a sheltered, maybe not as like quote unquote small town, but like definitely right.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_03: You knew in some way that you were living in a bubble of sorts.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_03: And what do you think?
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, outside of being exposed, right, through the university, and I'm sure some of the work that your dad was leading.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_03: Was there something else in you that kind of made you feel different than those around you?
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_03: Like, were you exposed to anything else that kind of sparked that in you?
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_03: Like, what do you think that was that made you even because I think it's one thing to be interested, it's a whole other thing to even be aware that that's what the moment that you're in, right?
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're exactly right.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: You're exactly right.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm the daughter of immigrants, right?
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: I have two parents who immigrated to the country for their to pursue their career opportunities.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: And as a result, like we spent most of our time out of school, most of our vacation time was spent traveling to visit family.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I I spent a lot of time um outside of the country, visiting different parts of the world where my parents had come from and where they had built their communities, and their communities still were.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: So that early exposure, and then throughout my dad's career, he took every opportunity he could for um sabbaticals, research projects, international, immersive experiences where he could bring us along.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, how cool is that!
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I also spent, you know, some people when they hear about this part of my childhood, they assume, oh, you must be from like a military family, right?
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: Because I always had this home base on the central coast, but I spent, you know, large swaths of time in different parts of the world.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: So that'll be those things absolutely shaped who I was.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I think, and I think in a huge way, it's largely because of those experiences that each time I came back to Central Coast, it came smaller and smaller.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes, both, but I was holding two truths.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: I was holding the truth of like profound appreciation for what a small place that is.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: I could see that too.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and yet this like yearning for being a part of something bigger and the that yes and the tension between the two.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_03: I feel like there's something to that as we, you know, gain more experience and wisdom, like it's that feels like the trick to me is being able to live with both and let both be true and acknowledge and appreciate both for what they are and not have them fighting against each other.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_03: I did not, I have not figured this out fully, by the way.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_03: I'm just saying it's like something I'm noticing for myself too, just in general, that like it doesn't have to be either or both get to be true.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_03: So I would love to hear then yes, like get us, get us into DC.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_03: Are you, you know, walking around in heels in a pantsuit?
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_03: What's going on?
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: I went out there, I had supported the this is a little bit complicated, the local um representative in Congress in on the Central Coast.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: So at that time, that district was both San Luis Po and Santa Barbara, kind of extended all the way down.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: I went to university at UCSB.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: And um the member at the time, the US representative, I had worked to get him elected in college, uh, got him elected to office.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: He was also from the world of academia.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: He had been on faculty at UCSB for a long time, and went into public office into his first term of service with uh, I mean, so much vision for how to really start connecting the Central Coast to kind of the rest of the country and what that could look like.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, tragically, he passed in his first term unexpectedly, very suddenly.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: And his wife, who was highly accomplished in her own right, she had her entire career had been as a nurse, and then she rose the ranks after she stepped out of practice into the American Nursing Association.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, became a leader in her own right in this incredible way in of a national organization, uh, first responders of our nurses.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: Hugely uh admirable and a real inspiration.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: So in that time of crisis, she decided she would step in.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: And uh there was a special election, and then she took the seat, and she then served for decades in college.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_03: Wow, oh, how cool is that?
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_03: And so did you then work with her directly for yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I had worked on his campaign and had a close relationship with the office, and you know, I I had said to them, I'm willing to, I'll I'll be an intern.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: Just let me be out there.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: I want to see it from the DC perspective, right?
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: I want to see the way this universe operates.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: And um I my timing was good in that the year I moved out was an election year.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: So usually what happens in congressional offices is that leading up to an election, they will look to send their permanent staff back into district, right, to really help influence and participate in kind of the campaign season.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and then they supplement with like interns and temporary staff in their congressional offices in DC.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: So my timing worked out, I got a gig, it was temporary, it was short term, but it was exactly the exposure that I had hoped for and was looking for.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: And that really started my career in the public sector.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: I then um spent a few years in DC, ultimately came back to California, then worked for the state legislature for a number of years.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: And after about a total, I guess a total of six years of all of that, federal and then state, I kind of started to hit a wall.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, um, you're faced pretty quickly with some big questions about whether or not you have political aspirations of your own.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: At that time, you know, it did not appeal to me.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: I really loved being behind the scenes.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: I loved having the influence that I had.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, what I didn't know then was that I was already a coach.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: I had found myself very quickly becoming the confidant to these elected officials, becoming their strategic advisors, uh, the people that they went to for guidance and as a sounding board.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll park that for a little bit, just because that's really where it began.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um I took a couple of years off.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: I had my daughter, and then we came up to Sacramento, and uh I returned to the public sector and I returned to the city at the time.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: So then I spent four years working out of City Hall, building community initiatives that were supporting uh youth in some of our most underserved neighborhoods, and loved kind of being back in the action, loved being back in the public sector.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: So three levels of government in the first year.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: Federal, state, and local.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_03: I'm so curious about that.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_03: That is not always the story that we get to hear that kind of um being able to see kind of behind the curtain in each of these spaces.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_03: Do you I mean, did you have a favorite?
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: Was there was there one where you found that you had were able to I don't think so.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: I think I I appreciated each of those experiences uniquely, right?
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: They the F government is designed to like provide such a distinct scope of service.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: There's not a lot of overlap, right?
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: The the more local you get, right, there needs to be much more partnership and collaboration between your city, municipalities, and counties, right?
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: Because so much of how we service our constituents, right, kind of bleeds into those territories.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but even there, right, there are clear divisions of labor.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: There are, right, in the way that, you know, our healthcare services are really governed by the county, not by the city, right?
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: Are like we think about some of those separations, but I don't think I have a favorite.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: I really think I just can hold yeah, can hold each of those experiences really valuably.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_03: Did you know when you had, you know, your first kiddo, you were mentioning your daughter, um, did you know that you wanted to take some time and actually, you know, take some space?
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_03: Was that a conscious choice?
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm curious kind of how that felt for you to take a little bit of of a of a of a season where because you just said you were so excited to get back into it too, once you found yourself back into the in the hustle of the things.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_03: So let's just how were how were those few years?
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_03: And was that something that you had always kind of knew that you wanted?
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, there was a um no, it wasn't something I always knew that I wanted, is the truth.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: I what I knew was that I wanted to be a young parent.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the oldest of three.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and my youngest, oldest of three girls, and my youngest sister is a lot younger than I am.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I was really shaped by my relationship with my mom in saying to me, you know, after I'd moved out, after I was already kind of starting my adult life, she would call and say, I'm too old for this.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: I cannot believe I'm still parenting like uh, you know, a very young child at home.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I was really shaped by that, right?
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: I I didn't know what an influence that would have on me in thinking about kind of how I wanted to build my own family, but uh that became like pivotal.
• 17:53
  unknown: Yeah.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: So the the break was a result of a couple of things.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, in the years prior when I was working for the legislature, I actually worked out of LA.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: My husband was in law school at the time.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: I helped put him through law school and support him through that wild journey.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: And at the end of law school, there was we knew we wanted to return to Northern California.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: So we knew we were gonna move.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: I, you know, I couldn't have stayed with the same office, but I certainly could have stayed in the legislature if I wanted to and looked for other opportunities.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I I had I had hit this little bit of a wall.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like I had I burnt out in the, you know, burnt out is how I would have described it then, but now at this mature point in my career, I would not have said it was burnt out.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think I just hit one of those moments where I knew I didn't want to run for office and I wasn't quite sure what my next move was.
• 18:52
  unknown: Right.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: So knowing that we were moving physically created an opportunity for me to be like, you know what?
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna take a pause.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm just gonna step out, I'm gonna take this opportunity.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I had, you know, been working my tail off for those six years leading up to that point.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: So it was it was a welcome moment.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um and you know, once I became pregnant with her, like I just, I just knew.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: I said I knew that I wanted to be home with her for at least some time.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't sure how long I wanted that to be.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: I found myself getting stir crazy pretty quickly.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, feeling that pull to, you know, reactivate my intellect and have a life outside of a you know, small apartment in the city and that a life that wasn't entirely consumed by raising this child.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I started to feel that pull really quickly.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then it was just a matter of time and figuring out, you know, did I want to go back in?
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: What was my next move?
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: How was that gonna feel?
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I I just needed to give it some patience, and then the stars kind of aligned.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_03: It's amazing when we allow ourselves that, right?
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_03: Like the per the permission to actually take that pause and to acknowledge that, you know, we might not have all of the answers, and that's okay.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_03: Um, that is not easy to do, right?
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_03: Like we can always, it it's it's a lot easier is not the right word, but there are, you know, have found myself through other seasons in life where it's like just push into the next thing because you're just like either afraid that you're not gonna find the next thing or you're gonna do it wrong.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_03: And so to actually take that moment is courageous, I think, and to actually listen to yourself and say, okay, I want to be a bit more intentional about what's coming next and actually pay attention to what I'm being drawn to.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_03: Um what was it that got your spark going for being involved in local that time around?
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_03: Like what was what were you being exposed to in that time that you were like, actually, that looks really interesting?
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a good question.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: Coming to Sacramento uh was a little bit unexpected for both of us, but felt right in all.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_03: Your husband's from here, right?
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, exactly.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_03: He grew up here.
• 21:18
  unknown: Yeah.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: And his family is deeply rooted here.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_03: You cannot walk into a coffee shop with him ever because it'll be he knows everyone.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: Certainly not not in our neighborhood.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's true, that's true.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: We ultimately end like we ultimately returned to the neighborhood where he grew up, which was also unexpected.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there were so many little things here.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if you had asked him if he envisioned a life where he was raising a family in Sacramento, he would have said, absolutely not.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely not, right?
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: He left here, thought he would never come back.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_03: I think that's the case for so many people.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_03: He's not alone in that, you know.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: And that, you know, he had this like pretty incredible childhood.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: And for us, there was there was such a draw to Sacramento for so many reasons, right?
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: Family and friends and community, and my former career with the legislature.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it really most of my professional network was either based out of the Capitol, out of Sacramento, or connected to in some way.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: So it was the most kind of obvious next step.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: And and we tired pretty quick.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like I loved living in San Francisco.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think about those years really funly.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: It became very difficult with a baby.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: Oh.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: We were on like the third floor of a walk-up apartment at the top of a hill that was the size of a mountain.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't have parking, you know, we only had one car.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like it was just the logistics of that real urban living.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: And and at the time, that was in like the mid-2000s.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: The city was wildly unaffordable.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: So um, you know, if we needed any kind of flexibility in our career paths and in the work that we were doing and not to feel kind of shackled to our jobs, we knew we needed to probably change that environment.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: We needed to make some different decisions that would enable us to live the lives that we wanted to live.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_03: I remember we yes, we moved back before we had kids, but we moved, you know, back to Sacramento from San Francisco as well.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_03: And we would like laugh because we're like, oh, is that life can be easy?
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_03: Like not easy, but like, oh, there's like a garbage disposal.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_03: I'm a dishwasher.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_03: Like, wow.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it was like it really blew our mind.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, to be able to, Sacramento is such a unique place that you still get to have some of the urban feel if you are right, like somewhere in the kind of like main downtown, midtown, you know, all of those areas.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_03: So you you you don't feel like you've lost all of your kind of, you know, ability to engage with culture and everything else.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_03: And if it feels like kind of a nice landing ground, I think, for folks as they're trying to navigate what it means to either, yeah, build the next phase of their career or build a family or whatever that is.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_03: You were do I have it right?
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_03: You were the first um executive director of the foundation at our local metro chamber.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_03: Do I have that right?
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_03: So first there's a first, and now you're also a founder of your own practice.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_03: So I can't wait to hear about, but also a first.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_03: So what does it feel like to kind of start from zero?
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_03: Like, is that something that you're drawn to to like build and create?
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_03: Um, is that something that excites you, that gives you energy?
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_03: And kind of how is that playing out for you as you build your own practice?
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: Hugely.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um I had the privilege of being able to design and build programs starting in the public sector and through public and private partnerships and recognizing the importance of the role that government plays in community.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um it was such a privilege, like probably the greatest privilege of my career.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think I knew it then, but in retrospect, that work was hugely entrepreneurial.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, we don't we don't use the same language in the public sector, we don't use it in the nonprofit space, we don't, you know, the every sector kind of has its own vernacular in that way.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I did, you know, I like to think about my work in two ways that I've had a really varied career, right?
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: 10 years in the public sector, then I started to shift and move into the private sector, kind of in that third realm first.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there was like a stepping stone into the private sector.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then ultimately another 10 years in the private sector, private slash nonprofit, right?
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: Really representing the interests of the business community.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: And in their public-private partnerships, right?
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: Ironically, with community.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: And we think about um the role that business plays in workforce development and talent pipeline, how we think about the role of business in supporting community, right?
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: Not only in the draw in the job creation side of things, like what that's kind of the what's in it for me approach.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then the the other approach is and and in what ways can they be a good community partner, right?
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: Can our business leaders and companies, right, really show up for community?
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I think Sacramento is uniquely positioned in that we have incredible business partnerships here.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: Incredible.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: You see it in the arts, you see it in healthcare, you see it in so in in the utilities, you see it in so many different sectors.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh you know, it's largely because those organizations have leaders that believe in that believe in community.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_03: Do you so back to the the building piece?
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_03: Because this is I have two so such different questions, but I don't want to forget it.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_03: One is around Sacramento, so I'm gonna park that.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna try really hard not to forget that one.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_03: But the the second piece around the building from scratch, what because it's so funny, we uh we do, we have so many parallels in our lives where I too couldn't have said these things out loud back then, right?
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_03: Like when I was chief of staff and a nonprofit, all I was doing was building things from nothing, right?
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_03: Like not just spinning something out of nothing.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_03: Hey, it feels like there's a little magic over here, go figure it out.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, great.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_03: Like, no safety net, no scaffolding, just figure it out.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I look back on so many years of my career with fondness now thinking, oh, that really set me up to figure things out right today.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_03: But building on your own is an entirely different animal.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm curious, you know, for you, what was that spark to say, you know what, I'm gonna give it a go and try and build something on my own this time around.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: I've had another great privilege in my life, certainly in the last over 10 years.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: I think they're at 15 years now, but in watching my husband build an incredible company.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and having a front row seat to that and its impact and growth and scale.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I was always kind of more risk-adverse one of the two of us.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: And right, was anytime he needed to tap into that um entrepreneurial way of you know imagining and creating and building, I was always the one who was like, uh, hold on.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, well then I'm gonna stay in the public sector and I'm gonna get a job with benefits.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: Stay security.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: Just to balance, right, to keep everything kind of in balance.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: And it for me, right, I think he is more willing to take great risk and I am less willing to take great, I'm willing to take some risk, but in a in a moderate, in a moderated way.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_03: Sure, sure.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: So it did take me quite some time to get comfortable with the idea of going out on my own.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, I in part, and this comes up in coaching a lot, right, with most of my clients, I lacked the self-confidence to really hang my own shingle and go out on my own.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: So, and but what I learned, and it's so funny because I just heard another podcast, uh, an executive coach who was talking about this shift from um a very intentional reframing from confidence to courage.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_03: I heard this too.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_03: Did you?
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_03: Some, yes, and I was like, ding, ding, ding, that's it.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_03: You don't have to be confident in the beginning.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_03: You do have the courage to try.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: You just have to have the courage to try.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: And the stories that we tell ourselves, right, in terms of that confidence building.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, for me, it was I needed all of my ducks in a row.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: I needed to have a business brand.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: I needed to have uh, I needed to be legitimate right in my head.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: These were the things that I decided would make me comfortable enough to have the courage, right?
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: To take that courageous step and say, you know what, I'm gonna go it alone.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean I know that my work speaks for itself, and you just hope that others see it in the way that you see it.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, that's such a great way of saying it.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_03: But the fact that you can see it, I think that's also part of it, right?
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_03: Some of that being able to sit in the awareness of where your talents are, I think can even that alone can be hard to do or even to name.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_03: Even as you were talking about, you know, all the way back to knowing now that being a confidant and an advisor, all of that was being built over the years of your career.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_03: We don't always talk about those skills in the way we do other traditional kind of career paths, right?
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_03: It's not necessarily highlighted as this is something you can be really good at.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_03: It's just innately who you are, and you're building that muscle over time.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_03: So to know that you can then build a business around those talents, I think can be really tricky for people to even see that for themselves.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_03: So that's beautiful that you knew that you had that in you already.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_03: And what but did you know that that's the work you wanted to do?
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_03: Like, what made you because that's a bit of a it's not a shift given everything you've shared, right?
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_03: But it might sound like it if you're going, wait, you went from the public sector to building, you know, these community partnerships, to how does that now lead into coaching and what does that look like as you're thinking about what you want to build?
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_03: Hey, quick pause before we get back into it.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_03: If you're listening to conversations like this one and something keeps nudging you, like I know I'm at some kind of turning point, I just can't quite see it clearly yet.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_03: That's actually exactly what I do.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_03: I work with women leaders who are in the middle of something: a career shift, a business that's ready to evolve, a moment where what got you here just isn't cutting it anymore.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes what you need most isn't a whole program or a big engagement.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_03: You just need a few hours with someone who can help you see what you're too close to see yourself.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_03: That's the clarity session.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_03: It's a focused, one-on-one conversation where we dig into where you are, where you want to go, and what's actually in the way.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_03: You walk away with real direction, not a list of homework, but genuine clarity on your next move.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_03: If that sounds like what you need right now, I'd love to talk.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_03: You can find all the details at Beldenstrategies.com slash clarity.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, I so appreciate that.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: So the the second thing that I had to shift and really reframe entirely was the way that I defined impact.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: And this was largely influenced by the trajectory of my career.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: That in the public sector, impact is measured at scale.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: How many were served?
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: And how how do we justify the ROI, right, of using public sector dollars to make these improvements?
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: The measures are how many were served, right?
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: How many people did we get off the street?
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: How many kids are um being served by their school systems, right?
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: Or participating in the free lunch program or whatever it is.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: Redefining that I could have the same, if not more, impact at the most granular scale, for me was the thing of the that was the thing that was the most uncomfortable.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: Redefining the scale of redefining impact, what impact means.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_03: Wow, yes.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_03: I have never heard anybody say that.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_03: That is it.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_03: Especially if you've come from like a big job or a big role, right?
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_03: Like to think about that in that way, it's an identity shift in some ways, too.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_03: Not just in the work, but how do I identify with the work I'm doing and how I see and perceive impact?
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_03: It is a really interesting way of saying that because I don't think I could have uh said that, but I'm with you.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_03: It's a it's a really uh interesting shift to make internally.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_03: Did you find yourself uh knowing that?
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_03: Like, or is this something that you've kind of had the benefit of now that you've kind of been off and doing your own thing and off to the races that you can see now in hindsight?
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: No, I had to I had to see it in real time because otherwise I wouldn't have made the move.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't have taken the job.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, I started to see examples of this in the younger professionals I was managing in the way I was, in the ways I was effective in my influence, and not just with young professionals, but even with those elected officials, right?
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: With business leaders, I knew that there was some magic to that.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: I knew that, you know, it's not, I don't even like using the word influence because when I use the word influence, I think about it in like a sales industry.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not about that at all.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm not trying to close a deal, I'm not trying to like get something negotiated across the finish line.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not trying to sell a product, like it's not, it's not influence in that way.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's really more about um shaping others in their leadership, right?
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: Drawing on all of my experience to ask the right questions to help guide their decision making.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: And as I saw more and more of that, more and more of the effect I was having on people one-on-one, it kind of crystallized for me.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: I realized, okay, you know what?
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: I've been so focused on kind of this systems change work, right?
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_01: And impact at scale for such a long time.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_01: And yet when I look really closely, I'm seeing the effectiveness that I can have one-on-one with individuals, and then the rippling impact.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_03: I was just gonna say, and then they go on to affect their organization, right?
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_03: In a positive way, right?
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: So, in so many ways, it's like economies of scale, right?
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's it's it's a different way to be thinking about it.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: But I had to see it first to believe it.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: I really did.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_01: And then as I saw more and more of it, and then I really sat with like, okay, what is it?
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I've been at this for a long time.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I was in that role and another leadership, executive leadership role of the chamber for seven years.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: I was with that organization leading the business community.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: And through the pandemic, even and in that time, right, when I finally had a second to look up and to ask myself, okay, what about this work is fulfilling now?
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: What about it, what about it?
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: Am I still enjoying?
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: And to me, that's where the like the people side of the work really rose to the top.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: That leadership development, the professional development, the the guidance and advisement, like all of that so quickly surfaced.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then I had to sit with, okay, well, now what?
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_01: Now what do I want to do about this?
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_03: What on earth does that even look like?
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_03: I know.
• 38:41
  unknown: I know.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_03: So what did it look like in your mind?
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_03: Like, and and what does it look like today?
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_03: Like, how have you shaped this work and the work that you're leading with um professionals today?
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_01: So one of the ducks I had to get in in a row in order to feel right to feel like I had the courage to do this was I was really adamant about, you know what, I don't feel comfortable hanging my own shingle without legitimacy, without validation behind it.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, um, knowing I wanted to be in the coaching space, and actually let's park that for just a minute because there is a comment I want to make about the the way that coaching has been was stigmatized for such a long time in the professional world.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to circle back to that.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_01: I just don't want to lose sight of it.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_01: The um the for me, the duck that I needed to line up most importantly, was okay, if I'm gonna lean in to the coaching work that I know I'm effective at, that I know I've done in all of these different ways with, you know, leaders of all different kinds across all three sectors, I need to legitimize that.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, it was critically important to go do a coaching certification program.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I first did some learning.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: I just took some kind of coaching modules, I guess, like courses.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, at that time, we were still in kind of that pose, not quite post-pandemic, right?
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_01: We were still kind of coming out of the pandemic.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_01: So all of it was remote.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: It made it super accessible.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: I could kind of do it on my own time and in between things.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_01: So that was really helpful.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: At the end of the learning, I decided I the certification was critically important to me that I wouldn't quite feel comfortable enough hanging my shingle if I didn't have the certification.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I then committed in total, it was about 18 months of learning.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_01: I achieved two coaching certifications.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: And in a in a largely unregulated industry, this is another comment I'll make on coaching.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's not a regulated industry.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_03: However, anybody can say anything, right?
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like in the sense of you can say you can call yourself anybody can call themselves a coach for any reason.
• 41:00
  unknown: Right.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_01: And you start to hear all of this descriptive language about the kinds of coaching that people are offering.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_01: Right now you hear about things like life coaching, you hear about career coaching, you hear about um love and romance coaching.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like you hear so many descriptive words to describe what it is that people say that they do.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um getting that certification was critically important.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_01: The ICF, the International Coaching Federation, is the only organization globally that is recognized as, I'm gonna call it like a light regulatory organization, right?
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_01: They they provide a um not only their own certifications and levels of mastery that are widely, widely received as kind of the gold standard of coaching.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: And the other thing that's pretty interesting about the way that that standard of coaching is measured is that it has been measured in recent years by number of hours in practice.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_01: So your achievement of particular credentials, you are not eligible to apply for particular credentials until you have achieved a certain number of hours of practice.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_01: There's starting to be kind of a new discussion in the space about whether or not that's the right measurement.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's the right tool of measurement.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_01: Why is it simply a quantifiable measurement instead of a qualitative measurement?
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_03: You could be really bad at what you do and do a lot of it.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, right, that's the it's really interesting.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_01: But I think um for such a long time, the old way of work was that we did not receive the whole person at work.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_01: There was some exactly.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_03: Are you coming a little bit back to the stigma around coaching piece?
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_01: That there was an expectation that your employment was transactional, right?
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_01: That you were compensated to to provide a particular set of deliverables and you would be managed to those deliverables in some kind of evaluation process periodically.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_01: And uh that, right, there was not a lot of tolerance for you bringing your whole self into the office.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody cared if you had kids that at were out of school at 220 and needed to go to practices and get schlapped all over town or my entire life right now.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_03: My entire life.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_03: A hundred.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_01: Because there's there's no other way.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not that's not how it used to be.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'd be really mindful of like my own, it's not how it was in the small town that I grew up in because everything was a really Accessible and B like the after-school activities happened at your school site.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like there was not this like driving all over the region, right?
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_01: So that your kids could receive enhanced learning and supplemental any kind of sport activity.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: But it did take us a really long time to get to the place where that shift started to happen, right?
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: You started to see organizations move toward a more people-first model.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: You started to see them putting uh their employees at the center of the organizations and redesigning then.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, how does this business function, right?
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_01: If we shift the focus from the product or the service to the employee, what does that look like?
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 44:48
  unknown: Yeah.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_01: What does that even mean?
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_01: Are we even equipped for it?
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_01: And very quickly you started to see that, especially in people first, people forward organizations, they realized very quickly that they did not have the support systems that they needed to be able to receive the whole human at work.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't have staff trained to have real conversations with people about how their work might be impacted by the other responsibilities that they are holding.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_01: And the other right hardships they're facing, things that they're holding, things going on in their lives, all of it.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_01: So you started to see that shift.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's happening very slowly.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think it might have happened faster if there was more regulation around who can coach and what those standards of coaching are.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think there would just have been a faster growth rate because you would have had more trust in those who are trusted.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_01: But it's it's profoundly interesting to me, all of it.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's exciting to be a part in the same way that the building work is really exciting.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's exciting to be a part of a changing landscape.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, and you get to help shape it in some way, right?
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_03: Just in by virtue of the way you work and how intentional you are, right?
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's interesting.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_03: I was talking about this with somebody recently.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_03: It feels like a there was kind of a dark cloud cast in both the coaching space in in the the way you're talking about, but also in the like online guru, like I'm I've got the like 10 steps you gotta take, you know, to like be a whatever or build your business.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, this idea that anybody can really go out there and call themselves an expert.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_03: And we have to, as the consumer, discern what is real and what is true.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_03: And that's that can be hard to do because people are quite convincing, and so you're like, well, that sounds good, or you and it might not even be that ridiculous.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_03: It could just be, I'm gonna help you build your sales funnel or whatever the thing is.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_03: And there are people that will prey on others' vulnerability in that space around, you know what, I'm gonna call myself X and I'm gonna take your money, and then never actually they have some kind of, you know, rote way of building a practice or a program that is clearly never gonna work for everyone.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_03: It's not to say it doesn't work for anyone, but things like that, it is so nuanced based on the work you do and the field you're in and how you show up and the way you think about the work and who your clients are.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_03: And so it's a shame because I think the same thing has kind of happened in the like building business advisory, you know, like showing up and being a guide of sorts.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_03: There is also a bit of a stigma in that world, I think, because people have just been burned too many times and they're like, I'm not doing that again.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_03: And so I hope, and I think that's also shifting a bit because people are becoming a bit smarter about what they're willing to, you know, invest in.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_03: And there's just so much noise right now, and I think people are kind of tired of it.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_03: So I'll be curious how that shifts as we go forward as well.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um, what I don't want to miss the opportunity to ask you, because you were talking about the uniqueness of Sacramento and the way we think about business partnerships, and also you have just been so ensconced in the community and really at a moment of evolution, right?
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_03: Like we as a region are evolving in real time, and it's such a cool moment, and it's so it was why I wanted to do the Leadership SAG program, right?
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_03: It's why I was so excited about Cap to Cap.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_03: For those that don't know, that's a everybody there's like a huge cohort of hundreds of people from Sacramento that descend upon DC and do this capital to capital advocacy work, and it's an incredible program in and of itself.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_03: But I would love to hear from you, you know, as you're witnessing this and as you still are in these conversations, like what are you most excited about for our region right now?
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_03: And what do you think like we have the opportunity to maybe do differently?
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_03: It's a specific question, but I think it's important because I I do think that when we are in these shifting moments, we do get to say, I don't know that we want to do it like that, or we don't need to do it like this other region's doing it.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_03: Anything that you can say that you're either excited about or or what you think we have the opportunity to do differently.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's such a good question.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I think at my core I believe most strongly in creating shared learning experiences for people because I think there is something that happens when people learn together and we all process information differently.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_01: What we do about it can look very different, but we build a stronger foundation.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I'm especially interested, you know, we're we're living in a time where the divides are getting substantially bigger, yeah.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_01: The social sector challenges that we're seeing are enormous.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, in some ways they feel insurmountable.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you know, I've certainly had moments where moments of frustration in looking at some of the challenges we're still facing in community as somebody who personally and professionally invested so much time in solutioning around those things, in trying to solve for them, in leading some of those important conversations around how we solve for them, and still not seeing the improvements, right, that that I would have hoped for, and in some ways, seeing things that are even more constrained and even more challenged.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_01: And they're always going to be these ebbs and flows.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I think the first piece of this is letting go of this idea of some kind of like idyllic community and recognizing almost giving permission for imperfection.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_03: Ooh, yeah, yeah.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_01: Just allowing the space for, you know what?
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's not about getting it perfect, but it's about you know ensuring that everyone can live with dignity, right?
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_01: Ensuring that we have enough resources to spread around that we're not leaving anybody behind or entire swaths of community behind.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there are like some really important tenants there for me.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm I'm reluctant to like point to one particular issue, but I do I am seeing in this moment a new need emerging for kind of these micro-community conversations.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, right, something that I've been reflecting on as an example, that like you and I are in a similar peer group, right?
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_01: We were raising school-aged kids and we're invested in community.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things I've noticed over the last couple of years is that we're not having like dinner party conversations about the state of public education in Sacramento or XYZ, right?
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like fill in the blank.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_01: It was I didn't mean to like pinpoint that issue, right?
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_01: I hear you, but well, it's a decent recognizing our shared community, right?
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's that's just a one example that I can give of.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I do see this need emerging to restart some of these smaller conversations.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, sometimes it like takes that those like small sprinkles of impact to actually generate enough interest in public discourse to do something bigger.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my gosh.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_03: I yes.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_01: So, and you know, and I know, I mean, it's a it's a difficult time to even think about curating something like that, right?
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's a difficult time to think about um not only the curation of it, but like to how do you take something like that on?
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_01: And what what topics do you want to cover?
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_01: And how who do you want to participate?
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, it can be, it can feel insurmountable, right?
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_01: Just the very idea of okay, but like how do we become a part of the change?
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, I love that so much because I think you're so right.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_03: Our lives get so busy and everybody gets so, you know, kind of tunnel vision of our own personal kind of issues, and we're all affected by these larger issues.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_03: But the idea of coming together in a way that's intentional and not just I'm gonna bitch about this thing at the schoolyard, right?
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_03: Which we can also do.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_03: That's totally fine.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not sure.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_03: For sure, trying to that energy away a hundred.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_03: But does that actually ever lead to change?
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_03: No, probably less so than an intentionally curated conversation around the issues that we all know we care so much about.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's in the same way.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_03: This is not 100% the same, but I think about that a little bit in these conversations where I go, you know, we all come into each other's lives at different, various moments and seasons.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_03: And it can be it laying the foundation of actually getting to know someone, like really getting to know parts of their story.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_03: It's not something that we're all really well suited to do anymore because we're all moving so fast.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_03: And so by the time you get to the dinner party, it's like we're just talking about the thing right in front of us, not the bigger challenge or just the foundation of who we are.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_03: And so I'm I love that.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_03: And I'll show up, so just invite me, okay?
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_01: No, I'm really inspired.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I have this coaster on my desk that is a photograph of a project that was done years ago in Sacramento, but it says there's a sign posted.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_01: I believe I can't remember if the, I think it's actually in old Sacramento.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, or maybe no, I believe it's downtown on J Street.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_01: But every day is your chance to make the city a little bit better.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like we all have a role to play.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, right?
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_01: And we can't talk about community without participating in community.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I think there's a there's a bridge to build there.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I and that bridge, like that means something different to everyone, and that's okay too.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um but I think we can we can start to think about things a little bit differently, right?
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_01: We it doesn't mean you have to join a nonprofit board and commit, you know, hours of your time and huge amounts of your money and resources.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_01: You can, you can certainly do that.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_01: Most of our nonprofits are in need of good leaders.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but there are other ways, right?
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_01: There are unconventional or less traditional ways to move some of these things forward.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I just want, I want there to be more of it.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, I'm with you 100%.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_03: And this feels like the perfect segue into the last question that I like to ask everyone because you've talked so much about how intentional you've been and thinking about not only what you're building today, but what you've been, you know, building throughout the through line of your career.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_03: And I think a lot about that as it relates to legacy and what that means as we're thinking about the impact we want to have.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_03: You've you've used all of the language that you know speaks to my soul, but I appreciate that you you are so mindful of the language and thinking about the way we define these words for ourselves.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_03: And so I'm curious, Talia, what does building a legacy mean for you?
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I don't I don't think that legacy is as important to me now as it once was.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when I in in an in a younger version of myself, I would have thought about something like legacy as big in scale.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_01: And and I don't think it has to be, right?
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_01: I I think that, which is why I say I don't think it's as important to me as it once was.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh to be seen as a community leader, to be seen as a thought partner, to be seen as someone who rolls up their sleeves and often says yes.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_01: I have had to actively practice saying no.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, I get that.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_01: But my natural inclination is to say yes.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I I strive to be seen as someone that others can count on when things, especially when things are uncertain or difficult, um, when life throws us unexpected challenges.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_01: I think this is the new way that I think about legacy.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, all the way back to introducing you are that person.
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, you are the one that I, when you think of who you are, and this is without, I mean, I can't imagine what it's like for the people that are blessed with your presence in a in a more consistent way or get to be with you, you know, um, in these, in these deep ways, because that is how I receive you already, just in this wanting to hold people and wanting to make sure that folks have that opportunity to be seen and to um just be a really solid kind of foundation for folks.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_03: So I appreciate that about you so much.
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_03: And I have loved this conversation.
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna be thinking about all these words now and how I use them and make sure that I'm being really mindful and intentional.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_03: So thank you so much for being here.
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you as always for sharing your wisdom and your your um everything, really, just so openly and generously.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_03: I appreciate it.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for having me.
• 59:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's been such a pleasure.
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we'll see each other soon.
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_00: Excellent.
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_00: Bye.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much for listening and spending some of your time with me here.
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_03: I hope our conversation sparked some new ideas for you.
• 1:00:03
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• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_03: And if you're ready for even more tools and stories, head on over to beldenstrategies.com slash newsletter.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_03: I share fresh insights, stories, and tools for women leaders every week.
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_03: Until next time, keep building, keep evolving, and remember that you are kind of a big deal.