Still Here: The Fight Within with Erica Dobbs, CEO of Dobbs Defense Solutions

Speaker A: Welcome to Outspoken, where we dive deep into the topics and intersection of technology, money, business and passion. I'm your host, Shana Cosgrove

Speaker B: Dobbs. Defense is nothing but a 100% replica of my military career. I took everything I learned over 36 years and poured it into this business. A lot of times people think, oh, cybersecurity is 100% technical. It's not. It's about people. It's about having the right relationship and more importantly, the right credentialing. When I decided to embark on this journey called the Navy, the first thing my family said amongst themselves, oh, she'll drop out. She's a wuss. She's so spoiled, she won't survive in the Navy. I was determined to not allow them to win.

Speaker A: At Nyla Technology Solutions, we believe America's warfighters deserve the absolute best technology advantage on the battlefield. We are an AI engineering company focused on helping the Department of War move faster, think smarter, and achieve true information dominance. Our team builds mission ready artificial intelligence, advanced data platforms and decision advantage capabilities that help leaders see clearly and act decisively in a world where the speed of information can determine victory. Nila is committed to delivering strength through innovation, ensuring our nation stays secure, competitive and ready for whatever comes next. Nyla Technology Solutions is an SBA certified 8A woman owned small business. Our contract vehicles include GSA MAS 8A Stars 3 and MDA Shield. For more information, partnering opportunities, or the latest job openings, please check out our website www.nylaio or email us at helloylaio. Tell me about your business, what's the name and tell me what it does and where you want it to go.

Speaker B: Sure. The name of the company is Dowel Sicken Solutions. We are a cybersecurity enterprise, IT business intelligence firm. I like to say boutique cyber because we're not that traditional company that says, oh, we just do R and M. We like to do work in the DevSecop opera. And then we also support testing, evaluation and then we do the traditional it, which is video teleconferencing. We do network engineering, software engineering, system engineering, type support. We actually touch every aspect of the IT infrastructure as a small business, which is not rare for most small businesses, but that's what we do because of the partners that we have. We've been afforded to actually have the depth and breadth of that. We do satellite too. Like we actually touch that side. And, um, I'm really excited about some work that we're getting ready to start doing on the geospatial side as well,

Speaker A: and where is the company based?

Speaker B: We are based in Landova, Maryland.

Speaker A: What are your certificates?

Speaker B: We're a small business.

Speaker A: Um. Tell me.

Speaker B: Go slow.

Speaker A: Say it slow.

Speaker B: So we are A woman owned Boom HubZone, Boom8. A Boom and SDVSB organization.

Speaker A: Say it again one more time for those who were like I was interrupting with my booms. Say it again. Slow rattle.

Speaker B: We're your unicorn. We're your company to come to for anything that you need to do. Because not only do we have the past performance to support it, but we also have those unique certifications called woman owned Pubzone 8 and SDBSD. What I've learned over the years is that you don't want to share too much. But I will tell you that we are CMMI M certified, we are CMMC certified, and we have ISO certifications. What I do now, because I've grown up is that I actually share that information with clients upon a request. But, uh, we're not posting on our website anymore.

Speaker A: Why not?

Speaker B: And it's not listed on our capability statement. We are growing up, Shayna. We're learning that your competitors will scour that and they will actually go and get those same certifications that you have. And you're no longer able to say you have a differentiator. What I do is I only disclose that to true partners, but more importantly, potential clients. Interesting. That's very strategic, right?

Speaker A: So how long have you been a hub zone? That's very unique.

Speaker B: We have been a hub zone now for, I want to say, a year and a half, two years. It's been nice. We have been in the hub zone in Baltimore, uh, right there by the national harbor. The harbor there in Baltimore. Then also right here in Land Oakland, Maryland, we have two hubzone locations that we have as a business. I love it because it helps you to be able to give back to the right community, people in the community that are in need. It's not just saying, oh, we have a hubzone certification, but it's the level of people that you're actually giving back to and actually changing the trajectory of their lives through being in a zone. So I love it.

Speaker A: Yeah, we were a Hub zone for 10 or 11 years. And one of the neat things was also seeing your employees move from a hub zone. They actually changed the hubzone program because what you want is the economic improvement of your people. You are essentially given a chance because you were going into an economically depressed area, which often means they don't have the same set of skills or opportunities that other people do. You might have to work with them a little bit more, and then they are able to move from that environment to typically a better one. It's neat that they finally allowed you to grandfather people in and count them, especially if they stayed working for your business. My first three people and my COO lived in a hub zone. My first employee, who is still with us today at 11 years, it was a hub zone as well.

Speaker B: It's amazing. I love it when people grow and you can look back and say, wow, we changed the trajectory of that individual's life by giving them an opportunity.

Speaker A: Who is your primary customer?

Speaker B: Our primary customer is dod, the Department of Defense. We have multiple clients in dod. We service, uh, Navy, Army, Fed, civil organization. So we support Jeanne Mae, then we help and support large bonds too, as a small business. This year, the strategic move for Dobbs is to not just keep all of our focus on the DoD clients. We're looking at more commercial clients now, and so we're connecting to partners that are actually aligned to the commercial sector. What I'm learning is that, uh, the same level of service that we're providing to our DoD clients is a commodity that's very much needed in the private sector. We're excited about being able to share the breadth and depth of what we do as a small business to these clients that we're partnering with in that sector.

Speaker A: That's really exciting. A new market is a very, very big change because the way that they buy their expectations, the practices, it's much more small, project based. It's not necessarily year over year guaranteed backlog of revenue that once you get the person in, they're showing up for five years, maybe 10 years. It's such a big change. When we went from the intel community to focusing on the Department of War, even that alone was a very massive, significant difference. Different hiring people, different practices. So as my company's grown, we are almost bifurcated by market. And we finally had to be like, no, everything is very two different streams. I was looking at going commercial last year and I'm like, I don't think I have the energy to try to break another market. I'm just going to try to get bigger in one market.

Speaker B: I came from this side.

Speaker A: Uh, what's this side, by the way? Let's back up. Pause. Tell us a little bit about you, Erica. She's giving me a dirty look. For those of you that are just listening, he is very humble and she doesn't like to talk, but you agreed to this, so tell us about who you are because of Course, it's going to lead to you starting the business. Give us a little bit about your history.

Speaker B: I'll tell you who I am. So I am a young kid. I used to be a young kid from the small city in Georgia called Hartwell, Georgia. I moved from there when I was in my early teens to Philadelphia. My journey began in Philadelphia when I was exposed to the United States Navy at, uh, Simon Gratz High School. I didn't know that I was a nerdy kid, but I was. They had me in a lot of advanced classes, but I didn't know if that's what they were doing. So I went to school as a 9th grader, and I was in classes with the 12th graders. When I was in 10th grade, I was in school with the seniors and juniors and then some college classes. And so in Philadelphia, they decided to put me in the engineering program. As a result of it, I would go to the Philadelphia Navy shipyard and I would work alongside Navy draftsmen and Navy shipbuilders. They sent me to Temple University as a high school student. I was exposed to this vast audience of engineers and technical people at an early age. When I graduated, I went to school at Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Florida, um, as a civil engineer major. Most people don't even know that I used to want to be an architect. I really enjoyed designing and drawing. When I was in school, I would go do my apprenticeship at the Navy shipyard with the actual designers and drafters. I wanted to actually build those things and design them. As time progressed over growing up, I went to college in Atlanta at a historical black university called Marsh Brown College. I go home for winter break, and one of my cousins, she's like, hey, let's join the Navy. I was a shelter kid. I'm the youngest of all of my siblings. I grew up like an only child. Struggle was not a part of my DNA. I, uh, was very shielded as a young kid. And so I grew up as an only child. Even though I had seven other siblings, they were all much older than I was. So I was the youngest one of all of them.

Speaker A: Always, babe, babies are the best.

Speaker B: Yeah. So Everybody was like 10, 15 years older than I was. Never lacked for anything as a kid. When I decided to embark on this journey called the Navy, the first thing my family said amongst themselves, oh, she'll drop out. She's a wuss. She's so spoiled. She won't survive in an 80. They were actually bidding on me coming back home and not surviving or dropping

Speaker A: out of M. You came home and you joined before finishing your degree?

Speaker B: Out of school, joined the Navy because my cousin's like, yo, let's go see the world. Let's do this. Then the recruiter's like, oh, you can get your education in the Navy, too. I'm a kid in school, and I'm thinking, okay, so I'm still there to get my education and see the world. I'm all in. I go sign up for the Navy. We do the ASV test, and my cousin doesn't pass. But I'm the one that has signed on the dotted lines. She doesn't get to go. I get to go. It's her dream, not mine. I'm, um, stuck. This is in the early 80s, so I'm stuck with this commitment to join the military. I shipped off to Orlando, Florida, for my first duty station. First time flying on the airplane. So all of these were first. And I'm freaking the heck out.

Speaker A: Drove to Florida from Philadelphia.

Speaker B: I go from Philadelphia back to Georgia with my family. When I graduated from high school, I joined the Navy from Georgia because I had left Philly, went to school in Florida, and then from Florida, I went to a historical black university in Atlanta, Georgia. While I was on winter break in Atlanta, I went home to my family in Georgia to hang out there, and that's where I joined the Navy from. So joining the Navy from there, they shipped me out. I'm, um, flying from Atlanta, Georgia, to Orlando, Florida, for boot camp. It was my first time flying on an airplane without somebody being with me. So I'm freaking the heck out. I get there, you get off the bus. It's so chaotic back then. You're, like, so scared. I was only 19 years old, so everything about it is just very chaotic. They're trying to acclimate you to being in boot camp. I get off this bus, they're screaming and hollering at me. And then someone decides, oh, wait, this kid looks good. Let's make her a leader. They put me in charge of eight people. Take a little moment, think about that. They make me a leader. And I'm trying to figure out, where am I going? I'm scared because it's my first time away from home without anybody being around me. And they have this thing called the Grinder, which is nothing but a big parking lot where you go out and run and work out and all that. In March, we're out on the Grinder marching. And I'll tell you, Shaina, uh, I cried a lot of days. You probably don't believe this about me. I Cried. Every time the plane would fly over, I would cry, I want to go home. But then I remember my siblings saying, she's not going to make it.

Speaker A: You're proud they bet against you and bet against me.

Speaker B: I was determined to not allow them to win. I actually ended up making it through boot camp, graduated there, and the sister that actually was betting on me, she actually came to my graduation. She said, I'm proud of you. We did not think you were going to make it. So I made it. I made it through boot camp, Speed and Ford. I started out in the Navy as an undesignated seaman. Most people don't even know what that means. That means that I came in the Navy without a classification because my recruiter did not tell me that, oh, you're a college student. You can come in as a naval officer. No, they just brought me in as a nobody enlisted sailor with no classification at the bottom of the barrel. So I worked my way up the ranks in the Navy from an E1, E7, from E7 to 01, and from 0105, I ended up getting my commissioning through a program called Limited Duty Officer Program, which is where you have to apply as an enlisted person to get into this program. Everything I did was on the job training. So I am, um, a 100% on the job train person from my naval career. I share that with you because now we get to today's time. As a CEO. I always tell individuals that I learned to be a leader when I was 19 years old right there in Orlando, Florida, when they put me in charge of eight other grown women that were all more mature and older than I was. But someone there in those ranks knew that I was a leader from the beginning. The most rewarding part is that when I commissioned to send a naval officer in the early 2000s, the chief at the time, she was a E6, which was the first class in the Navy. And when I saw her again, she was a Navy chief, and I had on my butter bars as a Navy ensign. She looked at me and she said, I always knew you would be a leader. I always knew you would go far in the Navy. She said, I'm so proud of you. You've never seen this emotional side of me, but I teared up. It was because of her seeing the leader in me when I didn't see it in myself that I actually forged through my naval career. So now let's say Dobbs Defense is nothing but a, uh, 100% replica of my military career. I took everything I learned over 36 years and poured it into this business. That's why people say, how did you do that? Why are you so successful with this? Because I was trained to do it for 36 years.

Speaker A: Can you tell us a little bit about your last few positions in the military? They were pretty interesting.

Speaker B: Sure. I was the executive officer at NCMS Washington D.C. which that job. I managed all cryptologic equipment, PKI knowledge management systems for the Navy, which issued cryptological equipment to the Coast Guard, Marine Corps and some civilian agencies. I also served at ah, Cyber Command. I was in charge of the 133 cyber teams there. So my job was to do the man training equip. So I did all of the training. I was in the readiness side so I made sure all of those teams were ready to go. During the era that I was there, they were still trying to make sure that they were fully operational. Some of them had the interim, but not all of them were fully operational. So my job was to get them there. While I was there, I made sure that half of the teams that were under my leadership were certified, especially headquarters teams. The other job I had was at disa, uh, Defense Information Security Agency. That job entailed being the lead for coalition operations as it related to cybersecurity, special operations and the black world. Then also supporting the TNE for the disa, uh, Enterprise Network, but also supporting DOT as well. It was a lot of fun doing that. So we met with all of the leaders across all the DoD entities. It wasn't just like one service. We supported all services, all agencies in that role. So that was the exposure I had there. Then of course my favorite place was on board. I was on board Cesarius Truman as the communications officer. But my favorite position was on the Theodore Roosevelt. I will tell you that I learned a lot from that role because I was the Combat Systems Information Security Officer, which means I managed the construction piece of uh, the ship being completely rebuilt, receiving, so it's called a refueling effort called rclh. That particular role actually helped me to be the better CEO today because it was dealing with project management for the whole ship and you're dealing with all of the communications to build out. It taught me how to do modernization better, how to pay attention to, but more importantly be that person that's present to ensure that project is going well across the board and engaging with the right key leaders. That was what the Navy entrusted me into. This is a billion dollar entity and I'm um, managing over $500 million of assets in this role. I tell People today that everything that the Roosevelt has now, from a communication standpoint, meaning their comm, cryptologic equipment, all of that, I designed it when I was in that role. That's what I did in the Navy.

Speaker A: That's awesome. How long were you in the Navy for?

Speaker B: 36 and a half years.

Speaker A: What made you stay in so long? That's a long time, right? Most people don't do 36 years.

Speaker B: Yeah. So I was prime listed. So as a prime listed Sailor at the 27 year mark, I tried to get out because I had did my time. But I was invited to transition over into the unrestricted line community. I was voluntold to do it. Not that, uh. What does that mean?

Speaker A: What does the unrestricted line mean?

Speaker B: It's a community where you're dealing with, specifically with your area of expertise. I was in communications, so that's what I focus on all the time. I was told to submit for the information professional community, which was a part of this career field. I was leaving my field as what they call the lending duty officer program, and I shipped it over to this community of information, uh, dominance is what they called it. When I did that, my time as an officer started over, but my time in the military did not. Because of that clock being reset. They was trying to force me to stay in the Navy an additional 20 years as an officer to retire where I had already did 27 years. You understand what I'm saying? When I submitted my time to retire, it kept getting declined. Means that my time in the Navy was declined three times. I tried to retire in 20, uh, 10 when I had the 27 year mark, but it wasn't approved. Then when I went to Cyber Command, I submitted my paperwork again and it was declined again for needs of the Navy. I was not happy about that because I had a job. I was going to go work at nsa. I was so excited about that. Most of you don't know this. I actually had to find someone to replace me in that role as a leader at nsa. One of my colleagues was getting out of the Air Force and so I went and had him to interview for the job and they gave it to him. M because of my recommendation and the fact that he was a good person, he was very smart and so he took that role. He took my job at NSA and I had to keep working in the Navy. And then from there I went to District.

Speaker A: After all these years, why didn't you just retire? Why did you start your business?

Speaker B: I was thinking about doing that, but then I realized that the Military had entrusted so much knowledge into my growth over the years. I had so much information that I know that would still be relevant today. I thought that if I retired in its entirety, that would have been selfish on m me, to be honest, because of the extensive knowledge that I had. And so as a result of it, I just decided that I would give back in a different way on my own terms because I didn't want anybody to control me again because I wasn't able to get out for 10 years. So instead of me going to work for someone else, I decided, okay, let me try my own company. If this doesn't work out, the worst thing that would happen is that I go get me a job. Seven years later, here we are, and things are going okay.

Speaker A: What's it like to have complete freedom after being directed and having such an authority structure? You have guidelines based upon what other people have done, but you don't have to follow that now. You have complete and utter freedom of nobody telling you what needs to be done by what time, or how it needs to be done, if anything at all. In fact, they don't want you to succeed.

Speaker B: The last part is interesting. Uh, one thing I've learned from my kind of servant is that you always have someone demanding something from you. I don't care if you're the CEO of a company, you still have deliverables. If you have clients, then you're answering to them. I think when you shape it in a different content, I'm always going to be reportable or subjected to someone if I'm going to be in business. As the CEO, I can control who I do business with somewhat. As you very well know, as a small business, when you're trying to stay relevant and doing your part in growing, there are some times that you take opportunities that you really wouldn't want to take. You take them, um, because you're trying to progress the company or do better by your employees. When I see that people doesn't want me to succeed, that's their problem, not mine. I've had a lot of that from day one of when I started the company. We don't like to use the term today called redlining, and I don't share it a lot, but as the CEO of Docs Defense Solutions, I've gone through that. In the very beginning of starting a company, I would receive advice from my mentors. They go, hey, I want you to go to the bank, put this in place, get this done, so that you can make sure you have working capital. I wasn't Afforded the opportunity to get working capital because I was redlined. Everybody received so much money during COVID the PPP funding. We as a company only received $16,000 during that time. Everybody else was getting thousands of dollars and they were just like, oh, I don't even need the money. I'm looking at them like I'm being punished because of the growth spurt that we had. Just because we had a growth spurt didn't mean that we were okay. In small business, I had to learn how to deal with struggle and real opposition. To be honest with you, I leaned on my military background and my military experience. And more importantly, knowing that this won't last always struggle don't last always. But ah, get there. When I had the naysayers that, uh, didn't want to see me succeed, they just gave me that vitamin and that energy to do better. Just like with my siblings, I wanted to make sure that they didn't win. I had to show them that I'm still going to be successful. No matter how you feel about it. One thing I'm grateful for is that I appreciate those individuals. To be honest with you, Shayna, I appreciate them more than the people that's patting me on my back. Because it's the people that's not patting me on my back that's giving me the difficult time that's hating on me or not want me to succeed. Those people push me to do better. Always. I'm grateful for them.

Speaker A: Sometimes it's, you're not ready. There was one company I worked with and they seemed very hard and difficult. I said, this is a standard. And finally we got to that standard and we had to get better. Now it's a great relationship. I understand that you got to level up. There's a lot of competition. There's a lot of businesses that they can choose to do work with. At the end of the day, they're either giving some random company a shot or your performance is so strong they can't ignore you. Or they're like, I'm going to give one company out of the many that are vying for the spot a shot.

Speaker B: I tell you the best experience I had and I won't mention the name of the individual or the organization that supported me. But I had 1pm um, he said to me, I'm going to give you a shot, and I'm only going to give you five people on this contract. If you prove yourself wrong, I'm going to kick you off the contract. But if you prove yourself to be a value add, I will show you how they do it for everybody else. I will train you and show you how things are done in the contracting world. When this individual took that chance on me as a small business, I was like, okay, I have to go all in and I have to make sure that I am successful and that I bring value to this team. So I learned that you, uh, get added because you bring value. There's a handout.

Speaker A: He was honest too, about it.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: It's rare that people are upfront and say, here's the expectations, here's what you have to achieve. Sometimes that can seem cold, but it's actually better because then people know what

Speaker B: the line is 100%. And that company helped me to grow, uh, in a lot of ways. There were things I was googling because I didn't even know what it was. I was like, okay, do I ask them or do I look like I don't know what the heck I'm talking about? I would just Google it to see what was going on and make sure I understood when I would do the performance. They were like, okay, you're doing really good. As a result of it. I became their first sub on that contract because of the fact that I did not want to let the person down that was taking a chance on me.

Speaker A: That's that human connection.

Speaker B: Human connection, that's key. It's all about relationships. Everything is about relationships. That's what I want and in it,

Speaker A: that's what I find so fascinating. Even to get it successfully deployed and working. It's all about relationships.

Speaker B: One thing, uh, I think, uh, a lot of times people think, oh, cybersecurity is 100% technical. It's not. It's about people. It's about having the right relationship and more importantly, the correct credentialing. If you're saying that, oh, we just do cyber security, but what about the other part of it? You can't just say, oh, we're cyber without people. The people is what make you successful. That to me is the missing piece.

Speaker A: It's the people using the information too, that you're protecting.

Speaker B: 100%.

Speaker A: It's always about the people or needing to access it. Okay.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: What's one of your favorite memories from either being in the military or starting and growing your business?

Speaker B: Since I'm a CEO now, I like to try to reflect on my journey as a CEO. The most rewarding memory that I had was I had just been in business for two or three years. One of my employees sent me a text. The employee was A single mom. M. And she said, Ms. Dobbs, I never dreamed of having me and my family in a place like this. But she said, because of you. Look at me standing in front of this new construction home that I'm building for me and my kids.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: I was violent because that's when I knew that as a CEO, you're running around doing a lot of things, but what you're doing the most is you're changing lives. Yeah, that was the most rewarding thing for me. The story just kept going when we were really small. Another moment that I reflect on is when I used to send little nuggets out to all the employees. I would just send them a motivational nugget for the day, letting them know how much I appreciate them. It wasn't religious based, it was just something motivational I would send to my employees. So one day I got busy and I, uh, didn't send it to this one particular group that I had. I had about 10 or 15 employees on this particular contract. And I forgot to send their morning nugget. Two of them text me separately and said, hey, Ms. Dobbs, ah, are you okay? And I was like, yeah, what's going on? They said, we're waiting on your motivational nuggets so that we can have our morning devotion together as a team. I thought, oh, wow. My employees was taking my nugget that I was trying to make sure was sanitized and not religious. They were taking it and making it their morning devotional as a team for their prayer time. I was like, wow, how cool is that?

Speaker A: That's awesome. Um, what's one of your favorite motivational quotes or things? Is there one that stands out to you?

Speaker B: I used to love several quotes. Um, I'll be honest with you, I've gone from quotes to just one single word. The thing that I use to keep me going is the word focus. The reason why I use that, uh, term, someone asked me the other day, what's your New Year's resolution? I said, I don't do New Year's resolutions. I only focus on one term. For the past three years, I've stood on that word focus. The reason why is because I realized that there's so much noise and so many distractions everywhere. You can look at other people and go, oh, I gotta do this, I need to do that. I want to implement, implement this in my business. I want to capture this. We need to go do all these certifications. Then I realized that, no, I don't. I just need to stay focused with staying focused. This past year, I take that word and I attach it to my strategic plan. So I build my strategic plan every year around the word focus. What do I want us to stay focused on? What type of growth do I want us to focus on? That's what I did last year, and it resulted in my dream team that I have to stay.

Speaker A: That's awesome. I love that. I had a rock that I wrote on, and my word of the year was process. All you can control is what you do, so you really can't control the outcome. Instead of saying, of course I want outcomes to happen, but I really can't control whether they happen or not. All, uh, I can do is really double down on the basics and getting the basics good and repeating it. I will tell you my favorite, one of my very favorite quotes, because you are a Navy person is a ship in the harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.

Speaker B: Okay. I love it. I love it.

Speaker A: I especially love it because there's a certain amount of bravery to going out and being the front and not knowing what the answers are, not figuring it out, and being the person whose judgment that other people are relying on as the final say. If you want to achieve anything, which the whole point of a ship is to go out and to cross and to achieve some land or arrive, uh, at some destination, you cannot do it. And it will not be a smooth, placid journey.

Speaker B: Not at all. I love that quote. It's nice. Yeah, I used to follow those quotes from different naval admirals and things like that. When I look at some of the quotes, I think the one that someone shared with me there was an animal lover. I'm gonna read it to you. It said, it's not the dog in the fight. It's the fight and the dogs. I said, okay. I, uh, like that because it keeps you grounded. Like you said in the very beginning, not everybody's happy for you. Not everybody wants to see you succeed. So it's not about the dog and the fight. It's the fight and the dog.

Speaker A: Sometimes the big dog is slow and tired and misses something that's clear. There's a lot of value in being small and nimble and tightly aligned.

Speaker B: Yes, most definitely. I'm just staying focused and staying true to myself. I will always compete with me. When I was in uniform going up through the Navy, I always competed with myself. My peers would think that we were in competition together, but they never knew that. The only person I competed with was me. If I didn't meet A standard or if I missed the mark, I was mad at myself because I was only competing with myself. I bring that same way of thinking into the business. I don't compete with my peers. When you tell me you're my competitor, I'm just looking at you like you're crazy because I'm not competing with you. You may be my competitor, but I can tell you I'm not your competitor because the only competitor that I have is the opposite. Solutions?

Speaker A: I'm smiling. For those of you who aren't on video, I'm smiling. Erica, last two questions. What is a book that you really love that you recommend to others?

Speaker B: So the book that I have really, really been focusing on is I just two. And the first one is whoever tells the best story wins. One of my mentors and advisors, he's a Navy admiral, he said, I need you to start focusing on your story. In order for you to do that, you need to read this book. That book actually helped me to come up with an analogy that goes all the way back to my early years as a kid. When you look at the story of Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner, I'll tell everybody you equate to the Roadrunner, but I'm, um, Wile E. Coyote. Because Wile E. Coyote, every time you looked at him, the Roadrunner would come and mess with him and he would mess up. He would screw things up, things would fall on his head. But what did he do? He had the tenacity to keep going. That's why I love that book. And I really appreciate my mentor for forcing me to read that book because it helped me to go back and reflect on what character do I resonate with most? And it is that Wile E. Coyote from the Roadrunner from back in the day. Sometimes they still play it now, but it's a cartoon character. If you look at Wile E. Coyote, he never gives up. It never gives up.

Speaker A: What is something about yourself that might surprise us? You'd like to be tight lipped? But tell it, tell it. Erica.

Speaker B: I'm not gonna share everything. I think that the most important thing for me right now is just family. I'm really big on family. I'm a big giver. She very well knows.

Speaker A: How many kids do you have?

Speaker B: I have two daughters, three grandkids. I'm, um, a proud grandma. That's my new thing now.

Speaker A: What's your grandma name?

Speaker B: They call me Nana. They used to call me Mommy, but then it was conflicting with my daughter's titles. My daughter and my Grandson came up with the name Nana. So I love it. I love being a grandpar because you get a do over with grandkids where you screwed up with your regular kids and so you can spoil them and have all the fun you want and say, oh, man, I should have did this better with my child. Now you get to do it over your grandkids. So that's my favorite thing to do, is spend time with grandkids when they come to visit. I love to spend a lot of quality time with them.

Speaker A: Is there anything I should have asked you that you want to share?

Speaker B: I think you hit me over the head for enough information.

Speaker A: I beat you over the head. I was smiled. Our tight lipped woman. Even getting this podcast was like years in the making.

Speaker B: Yes, I would say. Shannon, um, the most important thing that I would like to share is that, uh, I appreciate you as my friend. It's not every day that one can say that they have a friend like you. We're very strong willed women. We disrupt some people the wrong way. As we both know. We've been knowing each other now for at least about four years or more. And I thank you for being the same always. So thank you for being that friend.

Speaker A: You're welcome. I think I made you be my friend. But then you declared that we were friends. You were like, we're going to be friends. All right. I trust you, which is a huge one for you. Not everyone has earned your trust.

Speaker B: Yes, most definitely.

Speaker A: And you said, I earned your trust. And then we are friends.

Speaker B: And now we're friends.

Speaker A: Help each other and can talk honestly. That's a gift too. Being able to talk honestly.

Speaker B: Yes, most definitely. I appreciate you.

Speaker A: Thank you so much. Erica. Um, I appreciate you giving me this time and sharing it. Thanks so much for listening to today's podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard, please share it with friends and family. If you'd like to follow us on social media, you can find us on LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook under the Outspoken Podcast. Thanks again and until next time,