[Greatest Hits] Redefining Success on Your Own Terms with Heather Eason

Speaker A: Welcome to Getting to aha, the podcast that delves into the power of Aha Moments, also known as insights, and how they shape our lives. Insights not only help us to navigate the present, but also lay the groundwork for the future by eliminating the patterns and behaviors that guide our decisions. In every episode, host Darshan Mehta chats to a new guest, delving into the AHA Moments that impacted their personal journey as and those that drove success in their professional life. After all, conversations are the path to insights.

Speaker B: On this episode, I'm going to be speaking with Heather Eason. She is a serial Entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience as a prominent business leader, electrical engineer, and entrepreneur with significant experience in the power and energy sector. She is best known as the founder, president and chief executive officer of uh, Select Power Systems, a company focused on engineering, procurement, and construction projects related to grid modernization and the power industry. Heather decided to start select power systems in 2017 with a mission to approach things in a different way. After less than five years, the company grew to encompass a national footprint. Heather has been featured in various business and entrepreneurial publications, sharing insights on innovation, leadership, and her journey as a first generation college graduate and successful business founder. And she's done this with also being the most important role of all, being a mom. Isn't that correct?

Speaker C: That's correct, yes.

Speaker B: So let's just jump into. Tell me a little bit about yourself and the Aha Moments that have brought you to where you are now.

Speaker C: Absolutely. So just to kind of give you the background. So I was 16 when I found out I was pregnant with my son. And that was probably my first Aha moment that it was like, okay, I got to by myself, figure out a way to provide for my son and myself financially. And so I started engineering school and I got an electrical engineering degree. And during the process of getting the degree, I got married. My husband has three kids. So combined we have a blended family of, uh, four kids and two adults or six of us. And we have four dogs. So it's a full house. And I absolutely love my family. They're what motivates me and keeps pushing me to do more and do better. And part of why I want to make sure I set a stage for other females in STEM and female entrepreneurs is because I want to show my daughter, hey, it can be done. You can do this.

Speaker B: So based on what you said, most people would say, wow, that's crazy. That's impossible. So how did you balance business and family? And perhaps you can give some tips as many as you want. That you think really helped you. One, recognize the balance and two, maintain it.

Speaker C: Yeah. And that's not easy. It really isn't. Ah, mom guilt, parent guilt, it's a real thing. And no matter how good you think you're doing, you're still going to have that moment where you just feel like you're failing. But it's okay. You're probably not. My advice is block off your calendar for personal things, just like you do for business. You block your calendar off for a business meeting, Block your calendar off your kids or your husband in time to spend with your family. So put, uh, it on your calendar, make sure it happens. And when things come up at work, and, um, they always do when someone says, hey, can you stay late? Or hey, can you do this or that, say, here's what I can do, don't tell them no, just say, can't do that because my daughter has something after school or my son has something after school, say, here's what I can do tomorrow, I can come in early, possibly, or, you know, I can work on it at a different time, but I can't tonight. And as long as you're giving people other options and other alternatives, they're going to be flexible, they're going to work with you and you're going to be able to get the work done. Still be seen as a high potential employee. Be a great parent, you can do both. And probably my last tip would be, when you're at work, focus on work. When you're at home, focus on your family. I am notorious. I will put my work cell phone in my car. And that way it's not even in my hands, it's not in my purse, I can't touch it. Nobody can call and interrupt, nobody can send an, uh, email, because let's face it, a lot of times these work phones, they end up taking way too much time. And nine times out, uh, of ten, you're responding to something that could have waited till in the morning. So when you're with your family, put your phone away, cut it off, put it on, do not disturb and focus that time on your kids and your family and what you're doing with them. And it does make a big difference when you're focused and totally present when you're with them the couple times you might miss something. And I have, I'm going to be honest, I missed a couple of important things. The really important things. I always showed up for the regular baseball games. I didn't always make it to them, but I always made it to the playoff games. So give yourself a little bit of grace. It's not easy, but in this climate today, pretty much everybody has to have two working parents just to make the bills.

Speaker B: So are you saying you're also carrying two phones, one personal, one business, on a regular basis?

Speaker C: I used uh, to. Yes. I have transitioned to where my personal phone is now, also my work phone. So I just carry one. But for a very long time, I carry two phones at all times.

Speaker B: Well, actually, some of these newer phones allow you to have more than one line at the same time. Right. So you can basically have a personal line on the phone and a business line, and when you want to turn off the office one, you can. Right?

Speaker C: Exactly. Yeah. It's a lot easier to do it that way.

Speaker B: So before you did this, did you have to establish a language protocol within the family so they understood you, or they just got it once you started doing this? Because it sounds like you established one at work, but you must have already done one at home first, right?

Speaker C: Yeah. It's interesting because as I've gone through my career, my family has learned and adapted with me. We kind of do it together. And so what I say is, I integrate work and life. So there are times when I'm in the home office and they know, okay, mom's at work. Do not disturb her. Be quiet until the door opens. Once the door opens, hey, it's free for all. And that's great. And so you kind of establish those boundaries. And one of the things that I even started doing is when I got off work, I would go into my bedroom and shut my door, take my makeup off, put my hair up in a ponytail, put on house pants and comfy clothes that when I came out, uh, of the room, then I was in mom mode. But before I went in there and did all that, my brain's racing with work. But that helped me to make a demarcation, physically and mentally, of, uh, okay, I'm switching from work to mom.

Speaker B: You're saying a lot of interesting things, amazing things. Is this by intuition, or did you really think about this, or are you just following your gut the whole time? If so, how did you learn to be as intuitive as it sounds like you are?

Speaker C: I would say that it is a mix of just learning as you go through life. Failure is the best teacher. It really is. When you fail, you can really learn some great lessons. And probably the biggest thing that I had to learn to do is when I failed. Look at it as a blessing, as a gift. It's an opportunity to Learn and grow and do better as opposed to getting marred down in the failure and all I failed. Uh, I'm a failure. Oh, this is horrible. This is a gift. This is an opportunity to improve. So when you get negative feedback or you hear something that maybe you didn't exceed expectations on, take that, think about it, look in the mirror, self analyze, and then figure out a way to improve yourself and your processes to prevent that in the future so that going forward you succeed in everything that you do. And not that I'm ever going to be perfect, because I'm not, because no person is. But, you know, you got to give yourself grace to fail. And when you fail, you know, when you have that moment where your kid's upset that you missed a baseball game, then, you know, you self evaluate and you look and you say, okay, how can I do better? And really that's what I've done over the years. And that's how I've developed a process for me and my family to be able to navigate running my business as well as being a mom.

Speaker B: Now that's really interesting. You kind of outline the whole steps in a way to do this. It's kind of a, ah, you know, launch, listen, and then if you see that you made a mistake again, I changed it from a failure, meaning I think you're at the juncture where you can make actually a mistake and learn or you can actually make a mistake and fail. What I mean by that is if you mistake and learn, that means you didn't fail. That means you learn and start the loop again. Right. But if you mistake and fail and you don't learn from it, that's the failure. What do you think?

Speaker C: No, I totally, completely agree with you. Yes. If you learn from it and you improve and get better, then again it's a positive, it's an, uh, opportunity for improvement. And so it's a good thing. But if you fail and you don't learn your lesson, you're going to marry it, uh, until you learn that lesson. So, hey, get it done the first time because you don't want to get in this just mire of failure and doing the same thing wrong over and over again. Learn it the first time, improve, move forward, let it go.

Speaker B: And that sounds like that's the process to enhance your gut.

Speaker C: Absolutely. It's funny, they talk about women's intuition and for the longest time I didn't put a lot of merit in that because I was like men, women were all the same. We're all human humanity, Homo sapiens. You know, we're all the same. But actually, women do kind of have a sixth sense. And once you start listening to that little voice, once you start paying attention to your gut, it will really prevent you from making some huge mistakes in business, especially with hiring. If I have any hesitation in hiring, I will not make an offer to a candidate.

Speaker B: You know, it's interesting because that thought occurred to me when we talked earlier about your children. When you'd find the boundaries and they couldn't reach you, they know we're not going to reach mom. So I'm sure in many cases that forced them to think on their own, and that's just taking an extra 15, 20, 30 seconds. That improved their gut as well, as opposed to just relying on you all the time, because of course they know you're there. But, you know, this is the kind of things when you set boundaries and it builds them their confidence and their ability to trust their gut. Is that correct?

Speaker C: Oh, absolutely. I have four wonderful children, and my goal in raising my kids is to make them independent and healthy, happy, independent, self sufficient. I want to be that mom that when they get to be an adult, they've done their education, they're ready to go. I want to push them out of the bird's nest. You want to be the mom that kicks them out of the bird's nest and say, hey, go off, go fly. I've trained you, I've taught you, go do something great. And so I don't want to have boomerang kids. I don't want to have kids living in the basement. No, I love you. I'm going to raise you, and then I'm going to kick you out of the nest.

Speaker B: So this is your version of ongoing tough love without being so tough.

Speaker C: Exactly. Exactly. I told my kids, while you're in school, I will make your life easy. As soon as you graduate with your bachelor's degree, you need to figure out life. You got 30 days. And a lot of people think that's harsh, but what it did is it gave my kids the motivation once they graduated to figure out where they're going to work, where they're going to live, how they're going to do life. And it worked. All of them did it within 30 days of graduation. All of them had jobs, all of them had a place to live. All of them were stable. They're young adults now, and I think it's great.

Speaker B: So what was the plan B, just in case it went beyond 30 days?

Speaker C: I didn't look at the calendar. I'll Be honest with you, if they had gone, um, 32 would have been

Speaker B: fine. Now the kids are going, geez, mom, always.

Speaker C: I know, don't. I hope they're not watching this because then they'd be like, man, I could have had another couple of days.

Speaker B: Yeah, I could have another week of vacation.

Speaker C: Exactly.

Speaker B: That's funny. So let's go beyond that. I think now we understand how you're able to focus and do things. Your family was your orchestra helping you. And then what led you to pursue your career in power grids, which I think most people are looking to say, this woman's not in the power grids and you're definitely in the power grids.

Speaker C: Oh, absolutely. So my dad was an operator at one of the nuclear plants for Duke Energy years and years ago. And he would come home and he would tell me stories and he would explain the nuclear reaction process to me. And I just, I found it interesting and I, uh, found it really interesting. I think I want to do that. And so when I was looking at what I was going to do long term, I was like, power industry, it just fits. It's something that's been part of my life for a long time. Been interested in it. I actually took some master level electrical power classes when I was still in my bachelor's because at first I thought I was going to go ahead and get a master's. So I did some of the dual credit classes. But, uh, you know, married, I had four kids. As soon as I graduated with my bachelor's, couldn't do a master's. I didn't get a freaking job. I needed money, so that's what I did. But I had a good foundation and I was interested. So power grids just made sense to me.

Speaker B: You might have said, I need freaking money. You're entering a world which is dominated by men. So this is not like an easy thing. You know, if you just need a freaking money, there's lots of other things you could have done that were a lot easier. And I can understand your background that you got from your father and stuff, but why did you decide, hey, I'm going to go with something that's good for me, but I know it's going to be a male dominated arena.

Speaker C: Definitely. I mean, from the get go, when I was in class, I was the only female engineer in my class. There were no other females in class. So from the very start I realized it was very male dominated. And I guess my personality is, uh, I'm a little bit hard headed. And the more you tell Me, I can't do something, the more I'm going to prove you wrong. So whenever I ran across a professor that told me women shouldn't be engineers, which I did, by the way, I had not one, but two female professors tell me that females should not be in engineering 2. And I'm like, challenge accepted. I'm going to prove you wrong. And so that part of my personality just came out and I just doubled down and I was like, uh, all right. The more you tell me I can't do it, the more you put roadblocks in my way, the more I'm going to climb over them, the more successful I'm going to be.

Speaker B: So what I'm hearing from you is rejection is fuel.

Speaker C: Absolutely.

Speaker B: But in this case, it's not just fuel, it's rocket fuel.

Speaker C: Absolutely. Yeah, it's definitely a huge m motivator for me. If you tell me I can't do something, I'm going to freaking do it. Uh, I will move the mountain, I'll take the rocket ship to Mars. Whatever I got to do, I'm going to make it happen. If you tell me I can't.

Speaker B: What aha moment led you to have that kind of thought process, to have rejection be rocket fuel?

Speaker C: I guess it wasn't one particular aha, uh, moment. It was little moments. Being from a small town that's a Bible Belt community, getting pregnant at 16, it wasn't my choice, but I don't believe in abortion. Uh, and so I'm like, you know what, I'm 16. This horrible thing happened to me. But I've got to figure out how to move forward and live life and take care of my son to the best of my ability to. And so that kind of was the first aha moment that, okay, you're going to have to be successful, you're going to have to do something because this was thrust upon me. And at the end of the day, it's like, sit down and I could cry, but that's not going to get me anywhere. I tell my kids, you get a two day pity party if something horrible happens in life. You can lay in the bed, you can cry, you can eat a gallon of ice cream, do whatever you need to do. You get two days on that third day, you get, you get up, you take a shower and you get to work. You put your boots on, pull your bootstraps up, uh, and you start figuring shit out. And that's what I tell my kids. You get two days. Third day, you better get on the life. So

Speaker B: now you sure your kids are counting? Because you weren't counting 30 days, you'll know that now.

Speaker C: I count those two days, believe me. My son had love of his life dump him. And, oh, he was so pitiful. You know how teenage boys are so pitiful. You know, heartbroken, crying, sad, blue. I'm like, all right, you get two days. He's like, but she was the love of my life. And I'm like, I don't care. You get two days. And the third day, we wanted to be all sad and blue. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. You stop that. It's third day. You get over it. You move on. You don't have time to be sad. You don't have time to wallow in the blues. You got to get up and you got to get at life. And I'm like, I don't want to hear her name again. If I hear her name out of your mouth, I'm going to charge you 20 bucks.

Speaker B: Did you become rich?

Speaker C: Well, so here's another thing that. And I probably did a bad job of this. So with my kids, whenever I would find them for doing some behavior that they needed correcting, I would take that money and put it in a jar. And once they had corrected that behavior successfully, I would give them their money back. I would give them the jar. So, you know, it turned out to be a reward for when they learned to get past whatever it was, they got all their money back. So it was a big lump sum of money and they were all happy. But of course, now when I find them, it doesn't mean anything because I know they're going to get it back eventually.

Speaker B: I just had an aha moment with you because we often talk about aha moments, and I've never mentioned it, but I think you hit upon something really important. Aha moments are one thing, but they're the summation of many aha moments we'll have throughout our process. So how did you distinguish many aha, um moments to the aha moment?

Speaker C: Yeah, so it's interesting because you're exactly right. As we go through life, there are these little aha, um moments. There are these little things that make you say, okay, maybe I can do this, maybe I can do that. The big ones are the pivotal, life changing ones. When you're an employee and you decide you want to start your own business, there was probably a pretty big aha moment that got you there. My aha moment. And I'll be honest and transparent. I was fired. So the company that I Worked for somebody, had started a rumor. I was starting my own engineering firm, and I absolutely was not. But I started getting phone calls from friends and people that knew me saying, hey, we're here to start your own company. I think that's great. Want to help you. Let me know how you know. When you get it rolling. Let me know. I want to help you. And I'm like, I'm not starting my own company. I don't know where this rumor came from, but I'm not. And I probably got, I don't know, a half a dozen calls. And then the boss that I worked for called me and fired me because I was starting my own company, which, again, I was not. But that was an aha moment for me because it planted a seed. And it's like, you know what? If all these people think I can, and if that company was scared enough to fire me because they thought I was competition, maybe I can. Maybe I should. At the time, there were no other female owned engineering firms in the United States. There were none. And I was like, okay, let's figure this out. Let's do this. And I took two years to get there because again, I was not looking at starting my own company at the beginning when the rumor went around. But it planted the seed. And I thought about it. And then two years later, honestly, I was working for a guy that I hated. I was at a company, I had a boss, loved him, he was awesome. We were on the same page. We communicated well. He moved on, got a new boss. I, uh, hated this guy. We were not on the same page. We could not get along. He was doing things that were totally illegal. And I was like, you know, what if it gets caught? Because he was doing SOX compliance issues. I mean, that's federal government stuff. You don't mess with that. I was like, if I'm here and I don't say something and he gets found out because I was here and I knew about it, it hurt me. And so I was like, you know what? I'm just going to resign. I'm going to start my own firm. This is a great aha moment. I don't want to work for people I don't like. I'd rather work for myself. And so again, it was an aha moment. But it was kind of two big aha moments that built on each other to get me to start my company.

Speaker B: So that was how long ago now?

Speaker C: This fall will be eight years.

Speaker B: So where are you now in terms of employees and roughly range of revenue? I don't need exact just to get an idea of how much you've accomplished in eight years.

Speaker C: We're about 5 million in revenue annually.

Speaker B: And how many employees now?

Speaker C: Well, the employees, I think we've got 35 right now, I'll be honest, because I started the business eight years ago. I went from being an owner, operator, doing everything, to having an aha moment of, hey, hey, I can't do everything. I need to hire people to help me, as I've hired people to help me. You end up kind of diversifying and handing people hats. And so once you get to that point, I'm not dealing directly with every employee anymore. I try to be as engaged as I can, but I don't get to talk to my employees directly anymore. There's too many of them. They're doing too many varied things. And so I have managers that manage the employees.

Speaker B: So it sounds like I suspect you might have used the same principle you did with the big family with this as well. Right. You set boundaries, they can always access you, but it's just a matter of going through the right protocol. So is that a correct assumption on my part?

Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. I tell everybody I've had the same cell phone number since 2003. So if you've ever had my cell phone number, you still have it. Call me anytime. And I've had employees call me about various things. Occasionally it'll be a situation where maybe they're not communicating well with their manager and they'll call me and ask for help with that relationship. But I've even had employees call, um, me and say, hey, I'm going on vacation with my in laws. I know you used to live in Orlando, where's a really good restaurant, I could take them. And so even restaurant recommendations I've had employees call me about, which I think is great. And I want to be fully accessible, open door, even though we're remote, so we don't really have doors. But I always want to be available to all my employees and. And also all my clients.

Speaker A: Do you love hearing about people's aha moments? Is there a guest you would like to hear from, or do you have a question for Darshan? If So, head to iResearch.com or drop a comment for us here. Better yet, leave us a review so we can keep bringing you stories and insights each week. And whilst you're there, hit that subscribe button to ensure you don't miss any future episodes. Thank you for listening. Now back to the show.

Speaker B: So what have you identified are the successful traits that, uh, Entrepreneurs should really embrace.

Speaker C: Entrepreneurs have to be relentless. You have to have grit. Perseverance is really the key. There have been so many times that I could have given, uh, up, closed the door, walked away, but just persevering and just saying, no, I'm not going to do it. I'm going to stick in here and I'm going to make it happen. Being hard headed and being bullheaded and just saying no, I'm not going to give up. It's important. So you just have to persist. I tell people that businesses will eventually get big enough that they'll gain their own inertia and they'll just continue to move forward with little inputs from you. At first you're pushing the rock up the hill. It's a huge effort. But once you get to a point where your business is old enough and long enough and you know, stable enough, it's going to be big enough that it's going to have its own momentum. It's going to roll down the hill and you're not going to have to do anything. It's just going to perpetuate itself.

Speaker B: So I want to define persistence a little bit more because I've been in this position and I'm going to describe it and you tell me if this sounds like what your felt and what you know. Now I think we all reach a moment in our lives where you say, oh my God, the universe is throwing everything at us and it's just, I can't do anything, I'm done. But that's your moment. That's your pivotal aha, uh, moment. Are you going to laugh or are you going to cry? Neither is wrong, neither is right. But if you choose to laugh, then it's going back to something that we talked about earlier. You had a juncture now and if you learn from it, you're going to laugh. And uh, if you haven't learned from it, then you're going to go back in that loop and you'll learn eventually again. Does that sound about right?

Speaker C: That does sound right. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, and it's okay to cry. That's one of the things that I have.

Speaker B: That's your two day rule, right?

Speaker C: Exactly. You get two days, have your pity party, cry if you want to, third day, get to work, laugh through it, see the positive, but don't give up. And one of the things I will say that I've seen, that I thank God have not fallen prey to, but I've seen, uh, and coached other women that have. When things start to pile up nine times out of 10, that's when the coach is going to approach you and say, hey, I can fix all your problems if you'll give me $30,000. And that's not going to help. They're not going to solve your problems. You own your business. You run your business honestly. If you sit in a quiet room and you think about it, you know how to fix your business. You know how to fix what's wrong. You don't need to pay $30,000 to somebody to tell you things that you already know. So keep your cash in the bank, Go into a quiet room, Think about it. You know the answer. Solve your own problems. Don't overpay consultants and coaches to fix it for you. Because nine times out of ten, they're not again. I never fell prey to this, thank goodness. But a lot of the women that, um, I've mentored have. That would be something I would just like to caution everybody about.

Speaker B: Well, you bring up something interesting and I think this is something I too have learned. As you go through life, you realize there's going to be cycles in life that are out of your control. For example, when things are going really, really bad, I kind of know, well, you know, I think I'm going to come up to an inflection point which is, do you cry or do you laugh? And if you laugh, you're going to go back up again. And when you get to the top and you say, hey, life is great. This is amazing, be careful, you're coming to another inflection point and the loop continues. Do you know what I'm saying?

Speaker C: Absolutely. Anytime you're at the P or the Valley, that's a time that you're going to have to say, okay, what's my aha. Uh, here. Where is my pivot point? And be able to move out of that. Now, uh, I will say this. When times are good, take the moment to appreciate it. And that talking to myself on this one, by the way, because I do not do this well, when things are good and things are positive and everything's moving well, take the time to celebrate. Do something.

Speaker B: So have your two day party. Right?

Speaker C: Right, exactly. Have a party. Stop and appreciate where you're at and what you're doing, because it will change. The cycle will turn and things will start going down and things will get bad. So when it's good, celebrate the win, celebrate the successes. It'll make it easier when you go in through the valley to get through it.

Speaker B: But not only that, I think going back to earlier by this time, if you've done this enough times, you're going to hone in your gut and you're going to know before the valley or the peak hits. So you can modulate even at a lower level, and that continues the wave signal. Right. Because if you do it at peaks and valleys, the wave signal gets tighter. Look at this. Uh, I think I'm talking electrical terms.

Speaker C: Everybody loves power. Absolutely.

Speaker B: Maybe you can define in your own words better than I can. With an improved gut, you can learn to modulate the wavelength.

Speaker C: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. You can control your own emotions. I think is probably the thing for me. When things are bad, don't let yourself get into deep, dark depression. You can be sad, but not depressed. And there is a big difference. And so over time, you learn to control your emotions, and that helps you to be sad, that not get depressed, not get wallowed down in it. Ah. And so, absolutely, use your gut. Experience is great if you've been there, done that before. You know, recently had a situation where I had a client was not paying. I mean, it's middle of the year. We have invoices from 2024 that had not been paid. And you're coming up on payroll. You're like, oh, my God, what are we going to do? This client's not paying yet. And, you know, the invoices are legitimate. You know, the money is going to come in eventually. And it's like, hey, we've been here before. Experience tells me, use the line of credit, make the payroll, and the client will pay you eventually. And it happens. But, you know, because of experience, because you've been there, done that, you don't freak out, your hair's not on fire. You're not running around like a chicken with his head cut off. You're calm and you say, you know what? It's cool. Don't worry about it. We'll use the line of credit, we'll make payroll, and then when the client pays the invoices, we pay off the line of credit and we keep going. And so I think experience also gives us the ability to regulate our emotions.

Speaker B: I agree with you. I think emotions play an important role, but it's keeping within the range so that they don't overpower you. And then you make a bad decision. I think that is something that humans learn through experience. For example, you have a lot of kids, and maybe you can tell me if I'm correct. You probably told each one of them, don't touch the stove, don't touch the stove. But they had to do it once. So they got that experience. They say, oh yeah, mom's right.

Speaker C: You know, it's funny that kids are great and then they become teenagers and it's like they get snatched by body snatchers or something and their brain sucked out and goes away for a couple of years because you go from mom where your kids listen to you and then when they're a teenager, they think you're an alien. You're just stupid. They don't listen to anything you say. And then about 23, it seems like 23, their brain gets put back in their head and then they're like, oh, maybe I should listen to her. It's just interesting how you go through that phase with kids, but yet when they're teenagers, they don't listen to you. They think you're stupid, they think you know nothing, but they always come back around. And then later on when they're adults, they're like, you know what, you were right. Thank you for telling me that. And I didn't listen then, but I listen now and it works.

Speaker B: Yeah, everybody has their own process because they think it's different for them. But ultimately experience is the best teacher. But you already laid those brown posts earlier on as markers. Ah, for them. And they kept coming back to that and that keeps them on the right track.

Speaker C: Absolutely. You know, I'm very proud of my kids. I love my kids now they're young adults and they're all working professionals and they're all making their own way and it's phenomenal and it's great and it's awesome to see. And my 30 year old son, um, today I was talking to him before the podcast and we were just chit chatting about this or that and he was like, why don't you just tell me what to do? And I'm like, well, I don't tell you what to do.

Speaker B: You were definitely not going to do that,

Speaker C: right? I'm like, I'm going to tell you what to do. I've never told you what to do. I'm like, as your mom, I've given you recommendations and I've explained to you why and I've walked you through the thought process on why to do something or why not to do something. I said that I raised you to think for yourself. Said, I'm not going to tell you what to do because I taught you how to think. And you know the answer. I don't have to say it. I said, you're 30 years old. I'm not your mom anymore. I'm not going to tell you what to do. And he's like, yeah, but he's like, it'd be so much easier if you just tell me. And I'm like, yeah, the life's not easy. Unfortunately, life's never going to be easy. So you have to figure out how to navigate it and get through it. And same with entrepreneurship. It's not going to be easy, but it's worth it.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. So what are you envisioning? You want to go into the future to have future aha, uh, moments for you and your business?

Speaker C: So I think the next phase for me is figuring out how big I want to grow. When I initially started, I was an owner operator, and I had one other person with me, which is me and one guy. And then as we've grown over the years, we had a high of 52 employees. And I personally saw the limitation in myself that I was like, okay, I can't handle this many. I've got to shrink. I've got to pull back. So I intentionally made the decision to shrink the company and to pull back and to not continue the rapid growth and to just say, okay, we're going to get smaller. That is manageable. We're going to focus on doing the best things that we can in our core competencies, and we're not going to be focused on growth. We're going to be focused on client satisfaction. And so I've done that for a while now. And so now my next aha moment is, you hear it all the time. You grow or die. And so I'm like, okay, do I need to get back in the growth mindset? Do I need to try to do the 10x or whatever? Do I need to try to improve by 20% EBITDA every year? Are those goals that I want to put into place? Is now the time? And so that's probably going to be my biggest next aha, uh, moment. Because I know personally I have a limitation on the size of company I can manage. So if I'm going to get back to growth, I'm going to need people to come in that can help, that can come in and say, okay, I've managed engineering teams of 100 people, and I can do it. Let me come in. Let me help you. So I'm going to have to have the aha moment at some point. Do I want to keep it small and risk not growing, or do I want to get back to a growth pattern? And so that's my next inflection point.

Speaker B: This is really interesting because this is, again, the same thing I was going to ask you. I think you made a choice. You realized that if you wanted to manage at a higher level, you'd have to relearn new process and skills on your own. And that's not something you were interested in. And, uh, then you said, basically, people talk about growth, but then you have to define growth for you, right? Do you want growth to be revenues or do you want growth to be growing deeper relationships with customers to solidify your revenue? Is that what I'm hearing?

Speaker C: Absolutely, I guess. For me, what is being successful to you? And a lot of people say, well, I want to be wealthy. Okay, how do you define wealth? Because everybody defines wealth a little bit different. For me, being wealthy is having the flexibility to spend the time with my family that I want to spend. Yeah, I work hard, but I want to be able to play hard too. So that to me, if I can find that integration with work and my family, that to me is wealth. That is success. But there are other people. And I mean, you mentioned it. People change, people grow. People go through phases. I went through the phase where it was, okay, I need to make more money. I need to have the bigger title. I need to exceed all the KPIs, I need to have a better P and L spreadsheet than anybody else in the company. I was very competitive and I wanted to be the best of the best. Well, now for me, that has changed. That's no longer what I seek, that's no longer what I desire. And so as a business owner, I think we need to decide that too. What is success defined as for us? You know, is it having 1, 2, 3 really satisfied, really good clients that are almost partners with you? Is it the 10x growth? Is it? I want to have engineering firms in 70 locations around the globe. There are companies that do that. Quanta does that. I'm happy for them. That is not my desire, that's not my goal. And I think that's what every business owner needs to decide. What is your definition of success? What are you going to strive for? And that can change over time.

Speaker B: So what's your definition of success?

Speaker C: Definitely, for me, success is living a healthy, wealthy life. And when I say wealth, I don't mean rich, I don't mean money. I mean having the flexibility and the control of my life to do what I want to, when I want to. If I want to go camping, let's hook the camper up to the truck, let's go camping for four days. And being able to do that without Having to go to a boss, cap in hand, and say, can I please take four days off? I don't have to do that. I, uh, go to my team and I say, hey, we're going to be camping for the next four days. If you need me, you text me and I will get back to you as soon as I can. If you can handle it, you're empowered, you handle it. And the team actually enjoys that. It also gives me the ability to measure how the team does without me, because I've always thought the best managers should have a team that can function without them being there. You've empowered them, you've trained them, you've given them the support they need, and they can do it without you. That, to me, is a great manager.

Speaker B: Yes. I think the ultimate currency for you is not real money, is freedom of time.

Speaker C: Absolutely. It's the freedom and flexibility to do what I want to and I want to.

Speaker B: Well, that was great. My last question for you is, if you could have lunch, dinner or, uh, drinks with anyone in the world, who would it be and why?

Speaker C: I'm going to say today, alive, it's going to be Elon Musk. I mean, he is just so fascinating. He. And I don't agree with everything he says and does, but he's definitely made an impact and he's done changes in the world. And I would love to just sit down and have a drink with him and just ask him a couple of questions. Not necessarily, how are you going to get to Mars? Although the nerd in me would love to have that conversation. I would love to nerd out. I would ask him things like, how did you get the intuition to say, okay, we need this? I mean, Tesla and EV cars, that was an easy one. You could see the writing on the wall. You could see where the industry was going. You could see that it was a good play. But some of the other stuff that he's done, it's like, what made you think that was what we needed at this moment? How did you have that clairvoyance? How did he have the aha moments to get into what he got into? Because as you're looking at legacy, legacy is making an impact beyond your life. So, uh, if you want to be remembered, I mean, let's face it, most people within two generations after they die, nobody knows who they were, nobody knows anything about them. Nobody remembers their name. They're totally forgotten. So if you want to have your memory go beyond two generations, you've got to do something impactful that makes a difference and so how do you have those aha moments and those strokes of brilliance to say, okay, I'm going to do this and it's going to make an impact?

Speaker B: Well, I have a feeling you've kind of answered the question. I mean, I don't know. I haven't had drinks with him, but I think you've already answered the question. He's honed in his gut.

Speaker C: True.

Speaker B: What's the other question you want to ask him?

Speaker C: I would want to ask him honestly about the population, his position on population. I want to ask him a little bit more about that because going back to the 1960s, there was this overpopulation fear. And I think it continues to be. I mean, you look, I've got four young adult kids that only one of them wants kids. None of the rest of them want kids. My oldest son, my middle son, my younger son, Zero desire to have kids. Now my daughter has two little girls. But I share Elon's opinion that we need to have more babies because more people give us more opportunities for brilliant minds to be born to find the solutions. I believe in human ingenuity, and I think we can probably engineer our way out of any problem, but we have to have the brains and the opportunity and the will to do it. And so I'm an advocate of having more kids. But how do you tell someone who's struggling, who can't buy their first house because the housing prices are too expensive and the interest rates too high, how do you tell that person, hey, you need to go ahead and have a kid? I know you can't afford them and you might worry about how you're going to feed them, but you need to have a kid. I do that. I mean, because he's doing it. He's telling people to have more babies. I think he's got 13 or something. Good Lord, I couldn't even imagine. I love my four, but that's all I want.

Speaker B: But I'm curious, how does the role of AI play into this? Because AI is going to be eliminating a lot of jobs, right or no?

Speaker C: I think AI ultimately will be a tool in our toolbox for us to use. I don't think AI is going to overtake us. This is my personal opinion. I think AI is going to be a tool for us to use to improve and further humanity. And I think if we look at it as a tool and, okay, how can we use this tool to the best of our abilities, it can take us to the next step. I'm not worried about AI ah, taking over and maybe I'm naive, but I'm just not. I think it's going to be an awesome tool for us to use.

Speaker B: I agree with you as well. But real quick, I don't want to take this too long, but I'm real curious. How are you currently using AI in your business? Is that one one of the things that led you to become more efficient with 35 versus 53 plus?

Speaker C: So I honestly don't understand AI well enough. And I had the opportunity to join the Furman University Strategic AI Board. And so I am actually taking classes so that I can learn about AI through Furman University and how it can be used and some of these case studies where AI has been used successfully in business. So I'm in a learning phase right now. I'm still learning about AI. I'm not really implementing it yet, but I'm looking forward to what it can do for us.

Speaker B: Well, I think you just hit the last Aha, uh, moment for all of us, and that is you can feed it or you can learn more about it. The choice is yours, right?

Speaker C: Absolutely.

Speaker B: Well, listen, this has been a fantastic conversation. I really appreciate Heather, and I, uh, hope to reconnect with you again and see what you're up to. And I think you're always going to be doing something interesting. So again, thank you very much and enjoy the rest of your day.

Speaker C: Absolutely. Thank you for your time. I appreciate it.

Speaker D: Getting to AHA was brought to you by iResearch. To find out more about us, head to iResearch.com and make sure to search for Getting to, uh, Aha In Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and anywhere else podcasts are found. And don't forget to click follow to ensure you don't miss any future episodes. Thank you for listening.