How to Turn Layoffs into Opportunity: Allie Lindsay on Consulting & EdTech Marketing

Speaker A: What was really scary to me at the time was the idea that before that point in my career, and I think before the point that someone decides to take a bet on themselves in general, you kind of wait for other people to tell you what you are. Like, you wait for the performance review, you wait for that exceeds expectations rating. You wait for somebody to validate that you are a marketer or you are a data analyst or you are xyz. And I think that, um, what I had to grapple with when deciding to become or build a consulting practice was sitting comfortable with letting myself define who I am and not letting that validation, uh, simply be external.

Speaker B: You're listening to Creative Leadership with Heart, a podcast that inspires people to take action and be the leader they were born to be. I'm Coach Rico and I'm known for coaching and training executives, leaders, leaders, founders and high performers at Fortune 100 businesses, startups, and more. I'm here to answer your questions about leadership and personal development, while also asking you questions that can unlock your untapped potential.

Speaker C: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Creative Leadership with Heart. Today we have a good friend of mine, Allie Lindsay, marketing leader at Outschool and the founder of the Cocoon Collective, which we'll learn a little bit more about later. And she is an ed tech marketing expert. Ellie, how are you today?

Speaker A: I'm great. How are you doing?

Speaker C: I'm doing fantastic. Thank you for taking the time out of your day to be with us. And I'm just going to jump right in. So tell us a little bit about your career journey you've had. We'll get into some of the details, but what brought you to the day where you are today? Starting your own collective. We'll learn more about that and then going down the path of edtech marketing leader.

Speaker A: Yeah, thank you. First of all, so happy to be here. Thank you for inviting me, uh, to your wonderful, wonderful podcast. Um, I. So I started, I have, I have in some ways, like, what feels like a very typical career path, but also kind of there's some really interesting twists and turns, or at least interesting to me. Um, so I started my career when I graduated from NYU, um, in 2010 at a media agency. So I started Horizon Media. And I will proclaim to whoever cares that I think a foundation, uh, a career foundation in the agency world is super applicable to anything you'll ever do in your life. Um, it was a masterclass, if you will, on working within a, you know, pretty well defined, like account management and, and team structure. I Learned pretty much every foundation needs to know about data and analytics and um, also understood uh, what some of the biggest brands that we all know and hopefully love are up to. So I started in direct Response TV as a media planner, uh, which was a very analytical role. Direct Response tv. I don't even know if agencies use that delineation anymore, but it was a pretty um, you know, lower funnel way of thinking about television. So any, any ad that had a call to action, we had really cool ways of analyzing web traffic and looking at the cost per lead or cost per whatever metric the company was targeting. And then from there at the agency I moved into Consumer Insights, which is where I spent a lot of my time. And then because of that work, it meant that I not only was kind of brought into brands across the board, so I worked on like Geico Capital One United, really big canonical kind of brands. Um, I was also pretty much involved in every new business pitch at the agency and I leaned uh, really into multicultural Consumer Insights and um, helped brands think about how to reach consumers who didn't define, uh, or were not within the sort of traditional confines of how a lot of agencies thought about demographics, uh, and reach. So um, from there I, I realized like the big sort of agency world was not right for me. And I, um, long story short, ended up as the first or second hire for a school network, a startup school network, uh, based in Silicon Valley and the uh, New York and then Northern Virginia. So in my tenure there as the, what was the first, first admission director for the one school in New York and then grew to become the marketing, um, I think I was a VP or senior director, managing director or something like that. I essentially, over the course of the four years that I was there, built out a full marketing team that functioned as a sort of internal agency to support the launch and scaling of what was five schools over my tenure there. Um, it was super fun, I can tell you more about that. Um, but it was, it was a total startup. Like I was like making IKEA furniture on my first day. Um, but then also was able to, to do some really cool stuff with marketing because I was like the marketing person. So no, no one was capping me in terms of what I could test and play with. Um, and then after that I jumped to Gems, which is the largest operator of K12 schools globally and I was on their US and LATAM expansion team. Um, and then I, um, was left that role to like, based on a kind of handshake agreement to be the found the essentially like a CMO role, or like a marketing leadership role for a different school network based in Latin America. And then the pandemic happened and, um, I decided to make some lemons out of lemonade and started consulting. And that was how the Cocoon Collective was, was born. Um, I realized that I, from my time at basis, um, which was the network I mentioned, um, I went to. After my time in the agency world, I became really obsessed with education. I always was. I come from a family of educators, um, and decided to dedicate and carve a niche out for myself in ed tech within my consulting business, the Cocoon Collective. And then from there picked up Outschool as a client. And then within one week of working at Outschool, uh, as a, from a contract basis, uh, I basically was working full time. And then within a few months I was brought on full time and I stopped to put, put a pause in the Cocoon Collective. And here I am four years later.

Speaker C: Nice. Um, so much I want to ask. I was taking notes because I want to ask a lot of things in there.

Speaker A: That was only a long, very long, long and winding road, but it was fantastic.

Speaker C: So before getting into it, I want to take even a bigger step back. So little Ali dream, like, why did you pick nyu? Like, what was the dream? What did you want to do?

Speaker A: Oh, wow, okay, I know, I know.

Speaker C: In the answer to this, listeners don't

Speaker A: coming a different podcast, Rico. Um, little Ally wanted to be an actress and a singer, um, and got really close, which again is a story for another podcast. Um, today Ali still sings and indulges in creative, uh, and creative pursuits outside of work. Um, but. But yeah, that's what little Ali wanted to do. And that was the major behind nyu.

Speaker C: Yeah. So. Oh. So, yeah, so I was gonna say, what did you, what did you, uh, major in in nyu? Was it a dual? What did you go to school for?

Speaker A: Yeah. So NYU is interesting as a school because you, uh, maybe this is different. I now. But you have to apply to a specific school. Like you can't go and then double major in like business and musical theater. That would be amazing. But you can't, um, amazing for someone like me. Um, I, uh, I was, you know, a pretty high achieving student and so I felt like my chances of getting into nyu, which ultimately was what I wanted above anything else, were better if I took more academic routes. So. So that's what I did. I didn't actually apply to the performing arts school at nyu. I had the ulterior motive of transferring in. Um, but then I Started kind of compiling my course of study which was technically, I guess Spanish language and literature as a major and then two concentrations which are like a step above minors at NYU in child development and business.

Speaker C: Ah. And so that's the uh. Because the next question is, you know, you said you had a family of educators, so I'd like to hear a little bit more about that. But then what was it about ed tech that made you say like this is the niche I want to, I want to be in and this is the space I want to build my career around, at least at that time.

Speaker A: Okay, so I'm gonna answer the second question first, if that's okay. So the ed. Because it's. There's a. There was a really distinct moment when I decided I leaned into ed tech. And that was um. Yeah, January or February. No, February 2020 when the world was. Or March 2020 when the world was sort of crumbling and the future was extremely uncertain. Um, I decided I wanted to cross the chasm into ed tech because I wanted to stay in education. I am a mission driven person in terms of how I want to be spending my time and um, which is a sort of crux of the cocoon collective and knew that the in person um, work, heavy hard work of building schools from the ground up was um, really in question. Like the idea of building school in a brick and mortar or having school happen within the four walls of the building completely was thrown completely into question. And I saw a lot of opportunity to um, expand not just like my own fulfillment and curiosities through ed tech and like learning about functioning in a sort of more tech forward environment which was you know, ostensibly new to me before outschool. Um, but I also felt like it was a way to scale and reach more people. Meaning the end meet, reach more kids.

Speaker C: Mhm. Yeah. At the time really needed it. Right. With all the distance learning and just inability like the schools lack of ability to pivot so quickly to an online education environment.

Speaker A: Yeah, my experience in education in general, which is getting a little bit at your first question, like why education is

Speaker C: um,

Speaker A: basis and the institutions that I worked for were really considered and very much are kind of these like trailblazing programs. They are fast moving, innovative in a landscape that is pretty slow moving. Like if you talk to people in, in the public K12 sphere, my mother was one of them. Um, to get back to the question about you know, my family of edu, My family of educators, um, brick and mortar education and the sort of systems that support it and are intertwined with it is a slow moving beast. And for, in some ways that's good. Um, and in, in many ways I think it's really detrimental to, to students and learning. And so I saw um, I, I, I felt even though I was part of a faster moving, innovative um, force within brick and mortar education in my career, I still felt like we can move faster from a tech forward lens on thinking about learning.

Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. And I, I witnessed it in my time at Outschool too. Where to your point? I think the good things about it moving slow is it was set up for a reason and you don't want sometimes to disrupt kids in their education process so quickly. But that same vehicle that creates the consistency of also makes it hard to change and evolve with technology and um, theories and new way forms of education, even new topics of education like to get that into schools takes years and years of bureaucracy, politics and all kinds of things like that. So I have a question for you then.

Speaker A: Sure.

Speaker C: Off that because I, because that gives us a little bit of idea. So how do you feel about that and how did you navigate that? Because you know you're at Outschool for quite a while and so I know you weren't on the policy side, but how do you talk about and tell stories about a product that is trying to push education forward?

Speaker A: That is a really good question. Um, one of the things I actually happen to have it right in front of me. Hilarious. Um, I swear I didn't plan this. Um, it is the COVID of Newsweek. Sorry. The blur is making it hard, hard to see. It's, it's called Class of their Own. Uh, how more parents are homeschooling with success. So one of the strategies because, so one of the um, areas of the business in my purview at Outschool is PR and um, what you could kind of consider some more of the brand building. Um, our marketing generally is like pretty focused on more response channels, direct response channels. But um, to answer your question, I think you can tell stories and not necessarily um, put an unanchored position into or a stake in the ground by doing research and collecting data about what people want and talking about how your product is serving a need that is demonstrated to exist. I think what can be a, uh, really. And I've learned this since now working with EdTech. I mean it's like every, every industry has its sort of, you know, core strengths and its shadows. Right. One of the things, because I worked my first foray at Outschool was helping establish and scale the B2B practice which was selling outschool into schools and districts. Um, so I, you know it's funny, I like thought I was getting away from the glacial brick and mortar world and then I ended up like working with and working from the outschool perspective. Um, but you know, one of the things I remember sitting with a district leader at a conference I was at and they were essentially saying that so many leaders in brick and mortar education are very skeptical of the promises of these ed tech companies. Um, for a couple reasons. One, and this is the point regarding M, how you can kind of talk about addressing a need or um, positioning your product within a community like they're a solution in search of a problem. And if they only talked to more educators and really thought about how to empathize, empathize with leaders in the brick and mortar space, like the actual practitioners who are dealing with kids on a day to day basis, they would rethink how they go to market and how they position their products. So there are some companies that I think are doing an incredibly good job with B2B selling into schools and districts. But by and large I don't think, I think you win by being very data driven, listening to people and um, letting the data almost in the case studies if you will like speak for themselves versus like shoving an idea down somebody's throat who doesn't really want to listen to you to be begin with.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. I mean anyone who is in a industry that has to work and this doesn't have to have to just apply to EdTech. I think this applies to any industry, especially ones that have to deal with maybe government entities. Um, but then just like what you said, I think this is a good statement for any marketing business is like are you a solution shopping for a problem to fix? Because ah, if that's the case, you don't have product market fit. You're actually. You need to go back to the drawing board.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: And relook at like what you're actually building. What is the problem you solve, not what's the solution for a problem you have to find.

Speaker A: This is where you know, if I may transition to talking a little bit about the benefit of consultants.

Speaker C: Yes, yes.

Speaker A: I not uh, just trying to you know, talk about my own consulting. But um, I think it is human nature and it is incredibly challenging when you are so deeply embedded in a product to truly be able to like think and see completely clearly. Like I think that consultants and um, user empathy interviews, talking to people who are not just your immediate team or your, you know, Product. Org or whatever like people at your company are how you avoid the trap. One of the ways you can really avoid the trap of being a solution, looking for a problem. Um, I think that it's, it's so helpful to have third parties to bounce ideas off of to help you come up with a framework for thinking about evaluating product market fit. Um, that was one of the things that I still think of to this day, is like one of the more rewarding, um, aspects of my time at Outschool. It's ironic because it ended up leading to Outschool, like deciding not to pursue B2B anymore. Um, but we went through a pretty rigorous exercise of really evaluating product market fit for the B2B business in a post pandemic world. And it was incredibly illuminating to talk to people and hear what the challenges are with remote learning in districts and what it is that educators really need right now. Um, and so I think that that absolutely does cross. It's a, it's a sort of business truism. Right. That you should always be thinking about what your customers need and not what you can offer them.

Speaker C: Mhm. So thank you for transitioning us because I want to talk, um, the meat of the, the reason why, you know, kind of the theme that we want to talk about is like building a consulting practice. Because there's a lot of people that I've been talking to, coaching and working with who've either made a decision to leave their current company because for whatever reason, family, toxic environments or whatever, or unfortunately been victim of layoffs that have been happening across all industries. Not just tech, mostly tech, but across all industries.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: So can you tell us a little bit about how you went about how you thought about it and how you actually decided and put into process the steps to start your own consulting practice?

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker C: Um,

Speaker A: I mean, the short answer is I made, you know, I made lemonade out of lemons of that handshake agreement to start a new school network, um, that, you know, ended up falling through because of the pandemic. I decided I was going to take a bet on myself, um, and the prospect of like going back to the job market when everyone was on furlough. Remember those early days, Everybody was like, furloughed. I was like, okay, I don't even think it's worth trying to get a job right now. Like, I don't think that this is, I can do this. And so I sat down. In addition to sort of making that intentional foray into ed tech, I sat down and I decided, how can I. I thought about how can I carve a niche for myself? How can I do what I'm really passionate about? Like, how can I work on fun projects, um, and feel good about them? So that's kind of how I started thinking about the Cocoon Collective. And, um, you know, I think that what was really scary to me at the time was the idea that before that point in my career, and I think before the point that someone decides to take a bet on themselves in general, you kind of wait for other people to tell you what you are. Like, you wait for the performance review, you wait for that exceeds expectations rating. You wait for somebody to validate that you are a marketer or you are a data analyst or you are xyz. And I think that, um, what I had to grapple with when deciding to become or build a consulting practice was sitting comfortable with letting myself define who I am and not letting that validation, uh, simply be external.

Speaker C: That is huge. So if, I mean, I think I like to say that that's like the biggest step, one of the biggest hurdles, um, because we spend so much of our time. And you and I talked about this earlier.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: In identifying ourselves with our title, with the companies we work for or some other external, uh, validation model. And we spend very little time learning and getting the mindset on how we validate ourselves.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker C: So can you talk a little bit about, like, what you had to go through to do that? Right. Because most people will be, oh, I work at Google or I work at this place, or I'm like a creative director. Right. I'm on this. And that's like, when you say who are, you automatically identify in that way.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: What were some of the things that helped you get past that hurdle?

Speaker A: So I am a per. I'm a very, uh, data driven. I feel like that's sort of. I don't know who in marketing would say they're not data driven these days, but I'm a very, um, practice driven person. Meaning I knew that I needed and so this kind of answers, like the brass tacks of how I got started consulting. I knew I needed some wins under my belt to feel. And I guess you could still argue this is external validation, but again, that's probably another podcast. Um, I needed some wins under my belt to continue to, like, support my belief in myself, meaning I worked with. And I think that. Let me, Let me explain that a little bit more. Um, I think that often when people are transitioning to consulting, they kind of have this, like, very broad. I'm Starting to consult notion in their head. But what that means on paper is something I think more tangible. You work with a set of people or companies that ladder up to what you need to survive or you need to do X. And so at the time, I mean, it was the pandemic. I wasn't, I hadn't, uh, have kids at the time. I, you know, I wasn't spending like a ton of money. So I looked at what I needed and I wanted to optimize for wins under my belt. And so I reached out to people in my network that I essentially said, like, hey, do you need support with X? Whatever. X was usually something in the realm of marketing, but not just marketing. I definitely worked on some, just overall business and like, go to market strategy, product, uh, strategy almost. And in some cases they paid me and I, you know, got paid on a monthly basis and with, with dollars. But in other cases I got paid in equity or I got paid in, um, you know, like a barter exchange for time or support on something else I needed in my life. And so I think for me, just like getting started in the mindset of getting really creative about what it is you need in out of your job and your consulting, um, that's what ultimately helped me. So what I needed was, you know, to pay my bills and some other, you know, areas of support in my life, but also to get some of those quick wins. And I was willing to sacrifice pay in some cases or different aspects of the job to get those solid wins under my belt.

Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, what I'm also hearing from you is you had the right context and you could take some of that risk at that time also. Right. Is like you're in your 20s or, you know, like earlier in your career where it's like, my M bills are probably like a thousand dollars a month, you know, probably not that low. But you know what I'm saying, Like less obligations. Um, the one I want to ask you now is you're in a very different place now and your context is much different. So how was. How have your values changed and how was your mindset shifted now that you are a parent, you have more of these obligations in your life?

Speaker A: Yeah, good question. I have some more, like, words, uh, of maybe unsolicited wisdom or solicited wisdom about getting started and like carving a niche. But I can put a bit in that and come back to it. It. I would say that right now I feel much more confident saying no to things that don't align to my values. And I want to like, acknowledge that, that being able to say no is like, I'm operating from a place of privilege to be able to say no. Um, so I want to name that and put that out on the table.

Speaker C: Well, I mean, you earned it though. You've built, you've worked how many years and you put in the work. So it's not like it is from a place of privilege. Sure. But you're also not in your 20s where you're like, out of college.

Speaker A: Yeah, like, I have some like, actual chops. It's funny when you like, interview somebody who like, doesn't have any work history and they're like, I did all of these incredible things that like, literally CEOs never do. Um, so no, I was not. It's not, you know, it was never that person. But also I do feel like I have some more, uh, credibility now that I'm, I think I'm like 15 years into my career at this point. Um, so. So, yeah, I mean, I think that's really the biggest difference is that I feel confident saying no. I also feel one of my biggest learnings that I have to remind myself of full transparency is careers don't have to be linear. And there are plenty of people who have incredible careers that they define for themselves or that are externally validated that are just not linear. Um, so I am, you know, I'm intentionally taking a bit of a step back. I'm saying no to some more things right now and really being selective because I want to spend time with my daughter. So I have a, I have an infant. Um, by the time this airs, she'll be, gosh, I don't know, seven months, maybe five, six.

Speaker C: Why?

Speaker A: I can't do math right now. Um, but under a year. And I'm intentionally choosing to spend more time with her and intentionally choosing projects that fill my cup. Um, and so that's, I think that's the biggest change.

Speaker C: Yeah, that's, that's fantastic. And I made a similar choice in my career where, you know, I just didn't want to do it anymore. One, I, you know, I was spending more time at work than I was with my family. And yeah, work is a big commitment, but I didn't want to do it anymore. And I was also had the mindset of yours where it's like, yeah, I'm coming from a place of privilege. I also did put in 20 years of work to afford myself this position of privilege.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Um, because I didn't come from a well known school, I don't have like, A famous background or anything. Yeah, you know, I had to earn everything and you know, make, find my, make work my things. Um, but anyways, I want to also get back to the niches conversation because I did, we did go, we skipped from you know, early ally to later ally. Yeah, but yeah, so one of the things that you wanted to talk about, how you could help set yourself up for success is niches. Tell us a little bit more about what you mean.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Why when you say niches?

Speaker A: Yeah, so I, you know, I'm a marketer so this comes from a place of uh, you know, products positioning, if you will, services positioning. But I, I found that I was able, um, or I, I, I compared to other folks I know who consult, who kind of market themselves as like a design consultant, period. Um, one could be like what does that mean? I intentionally chose to carve out a niche for myself and establish myself as a, and the Cocoon Collective. I will explain the difference in this in a minute. Um, as working on brands and products and services that have a mission orientation. So I wasn't just working and I haven't just worked with ed tech companies. That's the majority of who I've worked with. But um, generally speaking like mission driven or mission inspired startups. Um, and so I found that by carving a niche like one client was more easily able to lead to another because I was starting to collect a portfolio of companies that were similar, not necessarily competitors, um, but were adjacent and had um, a lot of industry context. Because industry context I think is really helpful when you're pitching yourself as a consultant. Um, so to go back to the like design consultant period example, I think that it's a much better opportunity for folks to think about like a land and expand. So start with a niche and then expand out into other adjacent industries or, or adjacent spaces once they have some um, um, momentum within the niche. So it would be the example of being design consultant period to being a uh, design consultant rooted in or uh, like focused on marketplaces or XYZ maybe. I'm not giving an example, but I think that the more consultants can think about marketing themselves. Uh, what does marketing require? Usually some level of specificity. Right. Think about your audience and think about what you can offer them. Um, or what actually going back to my earlier point, what their problems are and how you can help solve them. Um, so that's I think like one really critical uh, decision I made early in my, my building of the Cocoon Collective. I will also explain the Cocoon Collective versus just Ali, the Consultant. Um, by and large my projects I've worked on by myself. There have been a few where I have brought in other folks to solve a problem and it was like easier for me to subcontract or bring someone in to contract for the organization that could, um, could help bolster the project. Like for example, I am not a designer. Um, I, I think a lot of I'm um, like a designer's worst nightmare because I think I can do design, but I like really can't. Um, and so when a project has entailed like some sort of a deliver, like beautiful, deliverable, like a final product and there hasn't been a designer, um, on, on the team, I've brought it up, brought them on. So the Cocoon Collective is my aspirational vision for what my consulting can be, is in some ways already. Um, but it's a way to talk about my work that is not just you're getting Alli a consultant, but you're getting Alli in her brain and a group of people that can help solve a lot of different problems.

Speaker C: Yeah, that's fantastic. It's good that you distinguish those things. Um, because it might even have been, I think when we were talking about it before, Cocoon Collective was just you. Um, but then, yeah, you started to bring on folks as scope started to grow. But I wanted to go back and reiterate the importance of, you know, finding that niche and being specific about the audience that you serve.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: And you know, I usually say this a lot. I brought this over with me to outschool also. And this thing I used to always teach people is if you're, if you market yourself just like as a consultant, that's like screaming into the Grand Canyon and hoping the people hiking around will hear you. Right. And it's like, yeah, there's probably a lot of people in the Grand Canyon, but it's the Grand Canyon who's going to really hear you.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: And I compare that to if you said you are a UX design consultant, that's like going into a UX bar and being like, hey, I'm a UX design consultant. Yeah, Maybe there's only 25 people in this bar, but they're highly qualified. They're more likely to buy what it is you're selling. Uh, because they are there for a reason.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker C: Right. So if that helps illustrate the point of what Ali was, was saying is niche down to where you feel the most comfortable. You also build, you build credibility also and you get some experience under your belt and Then you can go into adjacent industries. Like I helped a production company do this. They were very well established in the dis. In the spirits and, and um, alcohol spirits distillery business. And I helped them expand into um, like dispensaries and cannabis. Right. Because that's like an adjacent market that's very similar, but you know, like, and you're not having to like, completely remove yourself and go from like, drink, like alcohol to like education. Like that's a stretch. Yeah. From like alcohol to cannabis. That's, yeah. Very related.

Speaker A: Totally. Yeah. I love that. And I think that, um, you know, for those listening who, who hire, who've done hiring, like, I think that imagine receiving a resume or a creds deck, uh, for a consultant or a portfolio, if you will, that has like a total potpourri of, of experience. Then I, you know, you know, that person has a lot of breadth, but they don't have necessarily a lot of depth in the industry. And I think the reason you hire a consultant is because they can also. Sure. You want somebody who can do the thing you're looking for, whether, you know, has the tangible UX design skill, to use your example, Rico, but also can help you see around just corners and has experience with other folks in your, in your industry. And I think that that goes, that goes to like, um, that's true with hiring, but I think it's also true with when somebody's looking for a consultant.

Speaker C: Absolutely. Um, I want to be mindful of time because we've, uh, talked about a lot of great stuff, but now getting into some of the advice stages, um, the first one is knowing what you know now. What advice would you give your younger self?

Speaker A: Oh, don't take things so seriously. I'm still giving that to my current self. Just to be totally transparent. Uh, I'm a passionate person. It's like hard to swallow that piece of advice. Um, but, but what I said earlier I think is so comforting, um, which is that careers, good careers, great careers, are not linear and that progress is not linear and that it's like so hard to shed societal notions of what success looks like and work every day to try to shed those.

Speaker C: Yeah. The question I'll always ask for that is how do you know you're not successful? And then how. What would it feel like when you are.

Speaker A: So at the risk of being, you know, Pollyanna? But maybe I was a little more sensitive because I just had a kid. But if I wake up every day and I'm, um, doing something instead of hanging out with my kid and not enjoying what I'm doing instead of hanging out with my kid. That's failure.

Speaker C: Could not agree more. Um, next question is this. Some people look at this as their award moment, but, you know, I'm all about mentors and coaches. I would not be where I am without a lot of people that played huge roles in my life. What role did mentors and coaches play in your life? Is there anyone you want to credit or shout out?

Speaker A: So many. I mean, honestly, I think Outscript School opened the doors so much for me to act in terms of access to truly incredible, um, people, managers, empathetic leaders. I mean, I would shout you out, Rico. I worked with you and you were an incredible force for good at Outschool and continue to be, um, a credible force for good, um, you know, for those who've come and gone, um, from that company in particular. But just any path that you, or anyone whose path you cross, um, the other person I will say has been a consistent sounding board for me is Jeevon Balani. Um, uh, I, I don't know if I can, like, put him on blast or give you his, his LinkedIn information, but, um, I will never forget when I started working with him. I was honestly kind of scared because he had such strong growth experience and he was a consultant at Outschool. And so it was like, brought in to kind of on paper, essentially, like, evaluate my B2B marketing work and figure out, like, in my mind what I was, like, doing wrong. Um, but that's like, not at all what happened. What he did was come in and, and, uh, help me tell the story of what was happening in my work and what I was seeing in the market and, um, was just the most incredible thought partner and has been a thought partner to me at every turn. I mean, that was like, three years ago at this point. At every turn in my, in my career. He's been there and just a really, A really thoughtful sounding board.

Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. Well, for me, thank you for the kind words and for Jeevon. Yeah, I mean, I bet you if you searched him in LinkedIn, you'll know exactly who Ali's talking about, because he, yes, like an expert marketer and he, he, that's his role. It's like almost. I don't want to say like a mercenary because it makes it sound like a bad person. He's not. But if you need someone to just give you a no frills audit of what you're doing well and what you're not doing well, and a road map to get you there, like, Jeevon will. Like, he could do it in, like, 10 minutes. Just give him 10 minutes and look at all your marketing activities and he'll have a plan for you.

Speaker A: Yeah. And he also, like, what I think that's so great about, um, men. What I think is a key ingredient in good mentorship, which he also embodies and I think you embody as well, Rico, is like, idea, idea democracy. Is that the right way of putting it? Which is that good ideas and smart people and smart ideas can come from any corner of any organization and should be taken seriously. Uh, like, I never once felt, um, embarrassed or afraid of sharing what maybe was, like, a crazy idea with you or with any of the mentors that I've worked with. Um, like, I felt like I was always taken really seriously, and I. I think that's key for mentorship.

Speaker C: Absolutely. And. And how do you know it's a crazy idea unless you hear it out

Speaker A: or, like, who said crazy's bad?

Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. Right? I mean, you could think you could look at like, dollar Shave Club. It's one of my favorite commercials. And this was like, in the early 2000s. I don't know if you remember when Dollar Dollar Shave Club, their first commercial came out, and he was just walking through the warehouse and, like, crazy things were happening. But it was one of the most accepted and viral commercials that I can remember.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Um, yeah.

Speaker A: Duolingo Owl. Like, I follow Zari. I forget her full name. The. The social leader at, um, Duolingo. I mean, she was just like, hey, we're gonna get an owl costume. And then, like, the rest was history.

Speaker C: Yeah. And do some crazy stuff. You may. You may. It's gonna be polarizing, but it's gonna be good.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker C: Cool. Well, one. One last question before I let you go. Um, is there. I. I have my. I love hate relationship with books, but I always ask, um, because sometimes if I read too many self help books, I feel like I'm a good person. So I. I try to regulate myself. But if there's one book you would recommend, what book would that be?

Speaker A: Oh, boy. I am also, especially in my, like, pretty much postpartum haze, have become, like, vocally anti self help slash parenting. I know this is not about parenting because I find that those books often just make you feel more stressed out about what you're doing wrong. And all of a sudden you, like, you know, throw out every mirror in your house or something. Or, like, you know, you get rid of all your pens because some self help book told you to do that. Um, I'll get off my soapbox for a minute. I think that a book that has um, some really tangible tools to help you address something in your life like I think atomic Habits is one that I think is pretty, pretty solid and um, helps you get into the psychology behind habits. For lack of repetitive. The type of self help book that I seek, which might not be the type of self help book um, that those in your audience seek is one that really gets into data and um, offers a lot of tools.

Speaker C: Yeah, I remember one of the ones you recommended. It's not a book but the Pomodoro Method was something that. Oh yeah, you are a huge fan of and I started to implement. Um, so if you don't know what that is, definitely look it up. Or ali if you want to give the quick 30 second. What is the Pomodoro method?

Speaker A: So the Pomodoro method is working in sprints. Um, I used to have a like Pomodoro co working um, with folks at Outschool where you essentially give yourself focused bursts of work by and then interspersed with five minute breaks. So I think you can do like there's an actual framework here. Oh there's a cute graphic. I'm looking it up to make sure I don't misspeak. So typically it's 25 minutes of work according to Google's uh, experimental AI overview. Um, 25 minutes of work followed by a five minute break and then after four bouts of work you take a longer break. Um, what I did, I don't know if this is actually part of it but work with a partner to hold each other accountable. Yeah. So this is actually part of it and I think what is the key to making it work is doing it with, with someone else. And I, I think if you're a consulting it's actually a really great way to um, either probably not work with people at the company you're consulting for but with other consultants like get together and share what you're working on and create community with one another. Uh, we used to share. I remember at Outschool when I held it, held these sessions, we would do it on, on like a Wednesday which was at that time, no meeting day. And we would all go around and share what we were working on and then recap after the 20 minute sprint, um, what progress we made.

Speaker C: Yeah, that's. I don't have the accountability partners to do it with now but I do when I do, I, I try to practice that Pomodoro Method.

Speaker A: Yeah. Um, Maybe we need to pomodoro, Rico. Maybe.

Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah, I'd be down for sure. Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you again for taking the time. That wraps up another episode of Creative leadership with heart with Ali. Thank you for taking the time. I really appreciate you. Thank you for sharing your story, all your insights and your journey.

Speaker A: Thank you so much for having me, Rico.

Speaker C: Absolutely. All right, all that is another episode. We will see you in the next one. Take care.

Speaker B: Thanks for listening to this episode of Creative leadership with heart. If you enjoyed the show, please like and subscribe. If you're ready to make huge, lasting change in your life, then what are you waiting for?

Speaker C: What will your life look like if

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