Latest / Chatting with The Experts with Paula Okonneh / What Every Founder Learns the Hard Way

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What Every Founder Learns the Hard Way · Chatting with The Experts with Paula Okonneh

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  Hello folks and welcome to another episode of Chatting With The Experts where I
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  speak with phenomenal women from Africa, from the Caribbean and in the diaspora.
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  Every week we meet and these women share my mission which is to educate,
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  empower and to inspire women globally
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  Our show is titled
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  Scaling Your Business: Understanding the Real Bottleneck, and my guest
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  will be joining me in a few minutes.
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  She says that you are the bottleneck impacting the
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  ability to scale your business.
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  She is the founder and chief executive officer of Arrington Innovative
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  Solutions, an AI and enterprise technology firm that transforms complex
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  business and operational challenges into practical, scalable solutions.
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  She's had more than
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  .30 years of leadership across utilities, telecommunications, smart grid, advanced
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  metering infrastructure, cybersecurity, analytics, software engineering,
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  and enterprise transformation, and she has led multi-million dollar
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  portfolios and, delivered measurable operational and financial results.
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  I could say so much about it.
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  Like all of my other guests, her bio is impressive.
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  Welcome Gwendolyn V. Arrington to Chatting with the Experts.
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  Hello, hello.
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  Oh my word, you're another one of these amazing women.
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  Look at your bio.
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  Oh my gosh.
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  Thank you.
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  It's just, you know, and it's so funny 'cause when you hear somebody else
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  talk about it or read it, you don't realize the impact that you've had or
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  the contributions that you've made until somebody actually says it like that,
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  You're so right.
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  You're so right.
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  Sometimes we need to hear it to believe it, and then when you, you know, and
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  when you hear it and keep hearing it, you're like, "Wow, that was me." So
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  all- Yeah … all those years you spent doing and getting all these
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  credentials have been worth it.
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  I commend you.
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  Thank you.
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  Thank you.
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  Thank you very much.
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  It's been a long journey, a fun one 'cause I'm still a nerd and a techie
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  at heart, but I also like leading and empowering people and helping them grow.
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  So it's been a wild ride, and I'm still on it.
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  That's what we need, to be still on it and to be loving it as you're still on it.
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  Yes, that's true.
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  That's very true.
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  So one thing that you said is we, as small business owners, and even those
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  who are not small business owner, people who are aspiring to be small
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  business owners, they are the bottleneck impacting the ability to scale.
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  Tell us more.
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  So, and I've been guilty of it, and it depends on what… I'm still a little
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  guilty of it, but you and, your business can only grow as far as your capacity if
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  everything that you're doing or everything that your business does relies on you.
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  So if everything has to go through you, you have to do everything,
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  and that's the cycle, like when you're first starting out.
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  You're kind of building.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  You're doing everything.
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  You're figuring it out.
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  You're figuring what out, what works, what doesn't work,
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  what services you wanna offer.
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  Like, you can have a thousand skills, but what are the skills that, just
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  because you have all of these skills does not necessarily mean that your
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  business should be offering those skills.
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  So you need to figure out what's the best thing to do, what works, what
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  can be sold, and what is scalable.
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  But you can't make everything rely on you.
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  And so the whole phrase of you are the bottleneck, it means that
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  if you, if everything in your business pipeline flows through you,
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  then you're gonna be the reason.
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  Your business can only grow as far as you can.
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  So to solve that or to address it is you have to be comfortable with delegation.
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  You have to be comfortable with trust, like building, you have to build a team.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  and so part of that is that we're so scared to move out of that comfort
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  zone into, okay, I need to bring people on, but my business is not there yet.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  But it won't get there if you don't.
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  So you have to kind of, figure out your strategy, lay out your roadmap and your
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  plan, know where you're going, put those pieces into place, and trust the process.
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  And in that, trust the people.
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  All right, I'm gonna push back and say it's so easy to say, but how do you do it?
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  How do you identify the decisions?
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  How do you identify the approvers?
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  How do you identify the processes and the responsibilities that, you
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  know, you look at it and you're like, "I know all these things need to be
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  done." They seem so overwhelming.
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  How do we do that?
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  Training.
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  So you have to, A, pick the right people.
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  Pick the right people, okay.
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  Pick the right people.
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  if you're the strongest person in your circle, it's time to get a new circle.
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  I love that.
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  If everybody in your circle is coming to you or looking to you and you
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  don't have that same person or people that you can go to, then you need to
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  expand your circle and get, and find those people that will help you grow.
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  It's like the fishbowl.
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  You know what I'm saying?
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  Like-… the fishbowl where you're only gonna grow as much as your environment.
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  So if you got a small fishbowl, like this big, if, you're only gonna grow this much.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  But if you put that same fish in the ocean, he's gonna grow exponentially.
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  So find the right people, and have that discernment to know that everybody is not
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  the right person, and be okay with that.
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  Yeah.
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  But find the right people.
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  And just because they're your friend, and y'all are cool, and you, you know,
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  you hang out on Fridays don't mean they should be working in your business.
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  That means you should be hanging out on Fridays.
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  So evaluate the same way you would evaluate somebody if you were in
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  corporate America and you were having an interview, and you're interviewing
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  somebody to see if they were good, a fit for the role at the company.
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  You are a company.
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  You are a business.
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  You need to be making the evaluations the same way.
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  You should be just as serious about evaluating for your company as you
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  would be for an enterprise company.
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  That's a great point.
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  You know, I started out by saying small businesses, you
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  know, you are the bottleneck.
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  So in other words, we need to remove the word small and
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  look at yourself beyond small.
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  Look at yourself like where you wanna get to.
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  Yes.
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  And then start operating from where you wanna get to and
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  not where you are right now.
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  Exactly.
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  Put deeper… Set the prize, set the goal, set the bar, and move in that fashion.
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  You know, the old, advice, or the old adage that they used to
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  say, what they say, "Dress the part of where you wanna be"-
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  Mm-hmm
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  "not where you are." It's the same thing.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  but you're not dressing, you're operating.
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  Operate in the capacity of where you're trying to go.
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  If you're trying to be a $5 million company then that's
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  not depending on one person.
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  So- So you have to operate in the capacity of where you're trying to be so
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  that when you get there, you've already moved past that capacity and you're
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  operating towards the next capacity.
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  So that would be my advice.
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  Okay.
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  Okay.
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  So following up with that thought.
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  So looking to where you wanna get, thinking ahead,
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  … thinking of, you know, not where you are, dressing the part of
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  where you wanna go so that when you get there, you're ready prepared.
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  You have to kinda look at outcomes, right?
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  Yes, and impact.
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  Yeah.
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  If you think about it, people, when you're working in corporate America,
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  if you're a individual contributor, you have to be functioning in a role.
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  You have to be functioning at that level before they promote
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  you- Mm … to be a manager.
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  Like, you already have to be working as a manager before they
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  actually give you the title.
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  Mm. It's the same thing.
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  It's the same thing.
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  So you, you know, you have to be working as a CEO or as, a Fortune 500 company
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  if that's where you're trying to be.
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  If you're trying to stay small business, then keep all the processes,
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  keep everything revolved around you.
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  Keep that circle around you small.
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  But you definitely have to scale by evaluating what talent you need and
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  getting that talent on board, but also training them, because people will say,
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  "It's just easier if I do it myself.
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  It's so much faster." But who are you helping?
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  You're not helping them because you're not showing them what to do.
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  Or not even what, because it could be a simple task, you
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  just want it done a certain way.
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  So take that time to show them how to do it.
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  To teach a man how to fish.
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  And then
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  you trust their judgment.
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  If you are giving them this responsibility and you've given them the tools to
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  execute, then give them the trust to know that they're executing
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  with the standards and within the capacity that you have laid forth.
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  So give them the room and let them do their job.
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  if you hire a team, but everything they do, they still have to come back to you
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  for approval or come back to you to ask, you just switched the bottleneck from you
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  being execution to you being approver.
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  It's still a bottleneck.
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  Oh, okay.
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  So what I'm hearing from you is train, train.
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  But, turn that, whatever the task it, what task is, make it a repeatable outcome
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  so that you can relinquish it, right?
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  Exactly.
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  Yep.
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  Turn it over.
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  So document, train-
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  Document, document
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  … document and train.
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  Yes.
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  and empower- And empower … you know?
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  Yes.
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  Yes.
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  And empower your team and trust your team to deliver on
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  what you've asked them to do.
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  But also be ready for, when there's questions.
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  and to help them when there are failures.
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  You know, learn from it and pivot.
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  Okay, well, this is what happened, so let's put this procedure in place
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  so that if this happens again, we catch it early, and we can pivot, and
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  we won't end up where we are today.
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  So, and definitely processes and procedures, 'cause that's the
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  only way it'll be continuity.
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  If you think about a bakery with recipes, right?
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  Mm-hmm.
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  Everybody's making the cake the same way.
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  McDonald's, they were the ones that pretty much came up with the model
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  and the standard of every McDonald's needs the same menu, and everything
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  you do has to be done the same way.
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  So if you go to McDonald's in Chicago or you go to McDonald's in
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  California, your burger is the same.
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  And that's the key and the benefit of documenting your processes and procedures.
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  Everybody knows how to do it.
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  And if you get somebody brand new, the document is robust enough where
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  they can pick it up and do it, too.
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  The power of documentation
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  It's key.
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  It's critical.
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  Yes.
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  Okay.
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  So I also know that you're an educator.
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  And you're very much committed to helping women, whether entrepreneurs
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  or leaders, to embrace STEM.
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  Yes
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  … and to embrace it with confidence.
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  Yes.
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  yes.
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  Absolutely.
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  Girls are not, they don't push young girls-… into STEM fields-
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  … like they do young men.
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  Yes.
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  Uh, and you know, back in the day when I was in school, I'm not gonna date myself,
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  but, you know- they had Home EC class.
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  So what were they teaching the girls how to do?
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  Cook-
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  Cook
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  and bake
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  and make cake rolls.
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  Yes.
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  Yep.
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  They were not teaching them how to code.
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  They were not teaching them how to, explore science
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  … and technology.
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  They were not telling young girls, "You can be an engineer."
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  " You can build things.
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  You can make new things.
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  You can be an innovator." They weren't telling girls that, and I'm not even
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  confident that they're doing it now.
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  So that's why every opportunity I get, I try to engage young girls.
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  It's been several times where I was the only woman in the room.
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  Tell me about it.
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  Okay.
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  Yeah, the-
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  Let's keep
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  talking.
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  Yeah
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  … yep, the only woman in the room, and Lord, the only Black woman-
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  Mm-hmm
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  … in the team, in the department, So, for me, it is critical for them to
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  see people like them, like young girls, but especially young girls.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  Especially young girls who grew up with limited resources, like I did.
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  Mm. And I don't know, I think I wanna attribute me to my aunt.
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  So my aunt was a math and science teacher in rural Mississippi.
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  Wow.
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  So she actually, she… even serviced in giving back, like she
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  instilled that in us growing up.
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  But the dots didn't connect for me until much later in life that she was the
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  influence for me to go into technology.
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  When I was young, she had us in 4H and doing all these different things and,
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  doing community service and Girl Scouts.
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  But I was like, I don't know what I wanna do, but I know I wanna work in
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  computers." And then I think also, I had met a Black woman who lived in a high-rise
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  condo in downtown Chicago, so that was the thing that set the bar for me.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  Like, that was, that was the guiding light, the North Star.
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  Like, "You can do that, too," and that's the things that I strive for.
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  That is such a story of inspiration, you know, that your aunt, your aunt
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  really showed you what you well, not what you thought was impossible,
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  but she was an example, a living example to you that women who
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  looked like you could be involved in STEM and- Yes … to give back.
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  Yes.
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  And you, you saw it.
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  It's not that someone told you.
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  You saw it.
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  You saw her.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  She was a living example.
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  It-
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  Yes.
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  Is she still, I mean, is she with us?
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  Is that s- I mean-
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  No, she's not with us anymore, and- Oh … I have her grandfather clock,
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  so, ooh, child, I don't wanna cry.
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  Oh.
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  But she had a grandfather clock, and I remember this clock from when I was a kid.
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  And I actually have the grandfather clock now, and I didn't realize it
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  would mean as much to me as it does, but every time I hear it chime,
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  I just, I think about my aunt.
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  And when I got it, 'cause it was in Mississippi, so when I got
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  it, so I rented, we drove down there, we rented a U-Haul trailer
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  so we could go get this clock.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  And I remember this clock being so big.
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  And then we get there, I'm like, "It's big. I didn't need this big old
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  trailer." But it's a piece of my aunt.
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  I, and I didn't realize, 'cause I always had grandfather clocks, like, small ones-
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  … but I didn't realize that that was her influence too.
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  She had a really big influence on me.
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  And I just wanted to be the best I could be, to make her proud,
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  Thank you for giving a shout-out to her.
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  I mean, her memory lives on through you.
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  Yes, ma'am.
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  Yes, ma'am.
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  Do you mind mentioning her name?
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  Is that okay?
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  Oh, yes.
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  So her name is Jimmie Nell Perkins.
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  Can you spell that?
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  And we actually… J-I-M-M-I-E.
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  Her middle name is N-E-L-L.
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  N-E-L-L.
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  And her last name is Perkins, P-E-R-K-I-N-S.
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  Mm. And I sit on the board of a non-profit organization, um,
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  that's based out of Mississippi- Mm … and we have a scholarship
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  in her honor for women in STEM.
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  That is… Ooh, that is touching my heart.
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  Oh my gosh.
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  Yeah, we came up with this scholarship so we can encourage young women
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  to be, like, help, like, we…
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  And it's not just engineering- Mm or things that I study, like, we
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  gave scholarship to a young lady who was studying to be a veterinarian.
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  Like, I would've never thought about that, Mm-hmm … 'cause I don't, I
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  don't do pets, but it's STEM, you know?
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  It is STEM.
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  it is STEM, so just to see this young lady going out there
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  for her dream to help pets.
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  It's amazing.
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  But then of course, the ones who were studying like computer science,
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  I was all excited about them.
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  So this year, I'm actually trying to position Arrington Innovative
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  Solution to be able to offer a couple of internships, over the summer.
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  So crossing my fingers that I will be able to offer some STEM internships.
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  I absolutely love that because I know one of the things that you mentioned offline,
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  like, 'cause you and I spoke before this, was your work is grounded on one belief.
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  That is innovation matters only when it creates meaningful, usable impact.
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  And so with what you plan to do in the next summer, of 2027, of
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  course, 'cause we are, I know it's going to impact those girls.
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  I'm assuming it's for girls, right?
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  Is it-
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  Yeah.
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  I'm gonna do, uh, young women, but young women … like I have
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  a Minds in Motion STEM camp.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  And so it's for younger kids who, I partner with a local daycare in the area.
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  Mm. And I work with her kids over the summer to do, a STEM camp with them.
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  So like I had them, creating like structures with
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  spaghettis and marshmallows.
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  We built like robotic cars.
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  I had them, create like circuit diagrams, with, like they colored a
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  picture and they made the light come on.
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  So just, and, my goal was to basically expose them to several areas,
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  so electrical engineering, civil engineering, mechanical engineering,
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  so they can see the different things.
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  I'm not a electrical engineer, but I worked at utilities.
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  I still had impact.
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  Yes.
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  So yep.
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  So those are ways that I try to give back.
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  And those ways.
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  I mean, you know, you said something that, like the grandfather clock that your aunt
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  had- Mm-hmm … in your mind's eye as a young girl, it looked huge, you know?
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  Yes.
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  Because of the impact she was having in your life.
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  Yes.
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  And so these things that you are doing may seem, like you said, you're
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  not an engineer, but the lives that you are touching, somebody somewhere
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  sometime later in life will say, "There was a lady who came and did this
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  with us, and I've never forgotten."
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  And
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  that- It's so funny you say that, because at the end of the STEM camp
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  last year, when it was our last day, and one of the young girl and,
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  she resonated with me because you know, I was a little chunky girl.
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  And she was the little chunky girl like me, and she had the
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  little pigtails and all that.
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  Like… And at the end of the camp, when she realized that
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  they weren't coming back, because they would come to my office.
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  Mm
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  … and we would do camp there.
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  And when she realized they weren't coming back, she was crying.
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  Mm. And that's, and they asked her, you know, "What's wrong?" And she was
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  like, "We're not coming back anymore."
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  Mm. I didn't know that the impact that I had on her.
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  I was just being me.
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  So you never know how you touch somebody or how you, the impact
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  that you have on people just by the little things that you do.
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  That's why it's always important to whatever you do, you do it well.
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  Yes.
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  But, and you be nice.
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  Yes.
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  And you're positive.
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  Yes.
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  Because words impact people, good words and bad words.
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  Yes.
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  So that, that really showed me, because I w- And it didn't even, I, it didn't
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  even dawn on me that I had that impact on her until then, because I wasn't
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  even sure she even liked the camp.
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  And for her to be, like, see tears streaming down her face 'cause she
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  wanted to continue to do camp at Arrington Innovative Solutions,
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  and that was the thing I said, "I gotta do this all the time.
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  I can't stop."
• 23:20
  Can't stop.
• 23:21
  Yep, innovation.
• 23:22
  Well, I call it Gwennovation.
• 23:23
  Gwennovation.
• 23:25
  Gwennovation.
• 23:26
  Look at that.
• 23:27
  So even you were able to take your name and integrate it into-
• 23:32
  Yeah … what you're doing.
• 23:32
  Like, I actually just, I actually posted on LinkedIn, late last night 'cause I
• 23:37
  had, I, I accomplished something huge.
• 23:40
  I can't, I'm not talking about it yet, but I posted, I said, "Gwennovation at work."
• 23:47
  Look at that.
• 23:48
  Yep.
• 23:49
  Look at that.
• 23:49
  So, for me, life is all about innovation.
• 23:51
  What is it that you can do to leave it better than what it was before you came?
• 23:57
  Ah, yeah.
• 23:58
  And we need to hear more of that, because my own story is that I wasn't
• 24:04
  good at math, but I had a mother who, whose friend was a math professor, and
• 24:09
  she was like, "She's gonna coach you."
• 24:12
  Yeah, you gonna learn today.
• 24:13
  Yep.
• 24:14
  And she coached me to the point that I'm a mathematician now.
• 24:18
  See?
• 24:18
  I have an undergrad in math because of that auntie who would just- Mm … take me
• 24:22
  under her wings and say, "You know what?
• 24:24
  What did you learn in school today?
• 24:26
  What?
• 24:27
  That's so easy." Mm-hmm.
• 24:28
  And she just made it fun.
• 24:30
  Yeah.
• 24:31
  So it's sometimes- Yeah, that was the case
• 24:32
  with my aunt.
• 24:33
  Yeah.
• 24:34
  Sometimes we just need a little, just someone to believe in you.
• 24:39
  Yep.
• 24:39
  And a little exposure.
• 24:41
  A little exposure.
• 24:42
  Yep.
• 24:44
  A little exposure.
• 24:46
  Yep.
• 24:47
  Wow.
• 24:47
  So before we round up, there was something else that you said to me.
• 24:50
  You said AI is your friend.
• 24:54
  Absolutely.
• 24:56
  So a lot of people, are, you don't know what you don't know.
• 25:02
  Yes.
• 25:03
  And when you don't know, you're nervous.
• 25:05
  Or people are slow to change.
• 25:08
  Mm-hmm.
• 25:08
  So people have this theory that AI is gonna take their job.
• 25:12
  And the reality is that if you embrace AI, it strengthens your positioning.
• 25:21
  So it's not taking your job, it's making you more efficient, it's
• 25:27
  making you do things better, and you're learning new ways to do it.
• 25:34
  A lot of the, the AI education that I've been doing is teaching
• 25:40
  people how to communicate with AI.
• 25:42
  Because in, in turn, what that does is if you learn how to effectively
• 25:48
  communicate with AI to get the outcomes that you're looking for, it makes you
• 25:54
  realize how to communicate with people.
• 26:00
  Because I'll give you an example.
• 26:02
  When I was raising my son, I would ask him to do something.
• 26:07
  In my head, it's clear.
• 26:12
  But when he does it, it's nowhere near what I asked him to do.
• 26:19
  It's like, "Whoop, what are you doing?" But working with
• 26:25
  AI is almost the same thing.
• 26:27
  it's interpreting what you said, but if you know how to, uh,
• 26:33
  formulate your instructions, it makes you a stronger communicator,
• 26:38
  not only for AI but for people.
• 26:42
  So AI is your friend because, one, it makes you more efficient.
• 26:49
  Mm-hmm.
• 26:49
  You save time, you save effort, you save energy, and it frees you up to
• 26:56
  explore other things and to do other things, or to strengthen your positioning
• 27:04
  so that now you're doing it better than somebody who did not embrace AI.
• 27:10
  And by you embracing AI, you're not the one who is on the chopping block, per se.
• 27:20
  So if somebody is okay sitting around answering phones all day, and they're not
• 27:26
  doing anything to enhance their skills, and this is in general, not just for AI.
• 27:33
  If you're okay here and you never do anything to grow, eventually
• 27:38
  society is gonna outgrow you.
• 27:40
  It's gonna leave you behind, and you're gonna be in a situation
• 27:45
  where you gotta pivot or suffer So ABL, always be learning.
• 27:54
  ABL, always be learning.
• 27:56
  Always be- I know that's Southern- Mm-hmm … but always be learning.
• 28:00
  I've always had that, even when I worked in telecommunications.
• 28:04
  I started supporting wireless technology when it was TDMA, like the big phones.
• 28:11
  Mm-hmm.
• 28:11
  By the time I left, that telecommunications vendor,
• 28:15
  I was supporting 5G.
• 28:17
  But as the new technology rolled out, I wasn't waiting for the old
• 28:23
  technology to become obsolete.
• 28:25
  I was on the teams where they were learning, they were
• 28:28
  doing the new technology.
• 28:30
  They were setting the road map.
• 28:31
  They were doing the path.
• 28:33
  They were in the lab figuring out how to make it work.
• 28:37
  I've always been that person.
• 28:39
  So when AI came along, it was a natural fit for me to learn and be inquisitive
• 28:45
  about it in the beginning versus being resistant and saying, "Oh, no, it's gonna
• 28:51
  be taking my job." No, I'm just gonna learn how to use it with my job to make
• 28:55
  me better at what I do, so that's the key.
• 28:59
  I love that, because as you said, you started with the…
• 29:02
  TDMA
• 29:03
  okay.
• 29:04
  Yep.
• 29:05
  Yes.
• 29:05
  TDMA.
• 29:06
  And then when you saw… I mean, that means you saw all the, the new
• 29:10
  tech, the new, co- telecommunication things being rolled out, and-
• 29:16
  Like texting.
• 29:17
  Yeah … I was one of the engineers that worked on texting wireless, like
• 29:21
  bringing, the internet to your cellphone.
• 29:23
  To your
• 29:23
  cellphones, yeah.
• 29:24
  And
• 29:24
  bringing the internet to your home.
• 29:27
  Like, all of those things I worked on, by working for a telecommunications
• 29:31
  vendor, so it was fun to be able to work on things that actually had an
• 29:35
  impact on society because thinking back then before texting came along, and
• 29:42
  when it first came out, I was like, "You know, I worked on that," so it was fun.
• 29:46
  Look at you.
• 29:47
  Yep.
• 29:49
  And the thing is, when you think about the history, how we went from, as you
• 29:52
  say, CDMA, where we had those phones and you'd be pressing those keys, d- did, did,
• 29:57
  did- Yep … like, A, you know, to, like, when, um, we actually had those keyboards
• 30:04
  that you can now text, like this-
• 30:06
  yes, yep
• 30:06
  and that was it.
• 30:06
  Or you hit, you hit a number three times-
• 30:09
  That … to get a
• 30:09
  letter.
• 30:10
  Yes, I remember that.
• 30:12
  To now, to, to then when it was voice-to-text, you know- Yeah,
• 30:15
  exactly … where we are now.
• 30:16
  And now- Yep … it's this predictable text.
• 30:19
  Before you even say it has predicted-
• 30:20
  It's letting you know what, what it thinks you wanna say.
• 30:23
  Yep.
• 30:23
  What it, it thinks you wanna say.
• 30:24
  Mm-hmm.
• 30:25
  So you have seen things,
• 30:27
  Gwen.
• 30:27
  Yes.
• 30:28
  You have seen things.
• 30:30
  No wonder you, you say AI doesn't scare you.
• 30:33
  AI is fun.
• 30:34
  It's your friend, 'cause you've seen- Yeah … things.
• 30:36
  You've seen the progression from CDMA to where we are now.
• 30:40
  That is so true.
• 30:41
  Now that you say that, that is so true.
• 30:43
  That's probably why I'm not scared of technology like that- Mm … because
• 30:47
  I've always been in the trenches when it's change on the horizon.
• 30:52
  Yes.
• 30:53
  Yep, that is so true.
• 30:56
  Oh my word.
• 30:57
  Do you know we've been talking for 30 minutes?
• 30:59
  Have
• 31:00
  we?
• 31:00
  Oh, my word.
• 31:00
  Oh, my word.
• 31:01
  So those of you who are in the audience and those who are listening,
• 31:05
  if you'd like to get in touch with Gwen, tell them how they can do that.
• 31:09
  So you can reach me on LinkedIn.
• 31:12
  Mm-hmm.
• 31:13
  Um, so if you can just search for Gwendolyn Arrington.
• 31:17
  So my LinkedIn profile is linkedin.com/in/gwendolynarrington.
• 31:24
  You can always… You can find me on Facebook, Gwendolyn, if you search
• 31:27
  for Gwendolyn V, like Vanessa.
• 31:30
  That's not my middle name, though.
• 31:31
  So Gwendolyn V.
• 31:33
  Arrington, and I'm also on Instagram, gwendolynvarrington.
• 31:38
  That's how you can find me.
• 31:40
  All right.
• 31:40
  And I'll drop all of that in the chat, and then we'll, of course,
• 31:43
  have that in the show notes.
• 31:45
  Yes, ma'am.
• 31:47
  And what I'm gonna say is what I say every week.
• 31:49
  I have the best.
• 31:51
  I get the- Yes, you
• 31:51
  do
• 31:52
  … best, the best of guests.
• 31:55
  As I started off the show, I said I have women who inspire, educate,
• 32:01
  empower, and encourage other women, and we got that in Gwen today.
• 32:06
  So for those of you listening or viewing this, if you'd like to be a
• 32:12
  guest just like Gwen has been, you can reach out to me on my website,
• 32:16
  which is chattingwiththeexperts.com.
• 32:19
  I'm also on LinkedIn.
• 32:21
  My business page there is Chatting with the Experts.
• 32:24
  I'm on Instagram.
• 32:26
  My handle there is @chat_experts_podcast,
• 32:29
  and we have a YouTube channel I'd love for you to subscribe to.
• 32:33
  This episode is gonna be there, as well as all the past episodes with women
• 32:40
  just as powerful as Gwen has been.
• 32:43
  Wow, I can't… Yeah, I'm so excited and happy to be here.
• 32:47
  You just don't know.
• 32:48
  Oh, thank you so much.
• 32:50
  You have made me happy, and I know those who are in the audience are
• 32:53
  waiting to hear from you and ask…
• 32:55
  Not hear from you, but they're waiting to ask you questions next.
• 33:00
  No, I'm ready for it.
• 33:01
  I am ready, ready, ready.
• 33:03
  Whatever questions, bring them on, 'cause I'm gonna tell you.
• 33:06
  Keep it real and keep it in the raw.
• 33:08
  All right.
• 33:09
  All right.
• 33:09
  You guys have heard her, right?
• 33:11
  So just keep it in the raw, Gwen.
• 33:13
  Keep it real.
• 33:14
  Yep.
• 33:14
  All righty.
• 33:15
  So let's open up the floor so that they can talk with you.
• 33:18
  Thank you.
• 33:19
  All right.
• 33:19
  Thank you.