Hello, sun listeners. Thank you for joining us today. My name is Ryan Bankston, founder of CIO Legal, and I’m happy to be joined by Nicole waters, founder of 525 Coachin and Amplify Women Tampa Bay.

She’s also an edge District of St. Pete board member. Nicole, thank you for joining us today. It’s wonderful to be here.

Tell us about the draw framework. Absolutely. So this is at the heart of all of my conversations with my clients.

It’s draw for D. In doing discovery, we always start with lots of questions. How are people feeling? Where are those thoughts and ideas coming from? And we do a lot of reflection and discovery.

And of course, it’s all about accountability and action. And then we reflect on the wins and celebrate all of the progress that we make through doing that questioning and reflection and accountability. Right.

Because real progress happens when we celebrate our wins so that we’re able to move forward. Wow. Wow.

This is incredible. So the draw framework, this is something that it’s like a five to five coaching original, right? Something you came up with and you’ve been using it for a few years now with several clients? Yes, absolutely. Because I really focus on helping people find gaps, widening their perspective.

And I feel like when we take time to draw out, essentially, right. Where these things could be coming from, where the barrier is coming from, let’s sketch this out. Let’s really see it for what it is.

We are able to find solutions and find that momentum to move forward. And that’s where the draw framework came from. It’s wonderful.

It’s very powerful. It makes me think of kind of the more matured sales processes and consulting, like the consultants that are very successful tend to focus on discovery. Right.

And designing solutions to meet a unique problem as opposed to just, you know, here’s the box. You get what’s on the COVID Right. So I could see where that applies to coaching and many other things, I suppose, in business.

Right. Where. Where else could we use that draw framework in business? I think it really can be used at every step of the day.

Right. So if you’re working with your team, one of the pet peeves. Right.

Is when I’m working with young managers or even some senior managers and they say, well, I told my team, I told them, I told them. And I’m like, okay, well, that didn’t work. Clearly you’re not getting that shift in behavior that you’re looking for.

Let’s try asking some questions. Yeah, right. Let’s start doing some discovery.

What might be some barriers that you’re not seeing from your perspective, what are they not telling you? And so there’s really been very few places in business where I haven’t been able to apply the DRAW framework. And everyone wants to be able to be seen and heard. And you show that you’re hearing them by reflecting back what you heard, reflecting back on what they want.

And then of course you can’t move forward without action and accountability. And that accountability language is sometimes a barrier. And by identifying that earlier, then you’re able to move forward.

And again, real movement and real sustainability happens. When you acknowledge that progress by celebrating the win. Yeah, that’s wonderful.

I’ve seen that so many times in management. Well, really in management, I was going to say management and leadership, but it’s really, it seems to me more like a management problem. Especially like new managers, they come in, they think, okay, my position is this job description on paper, and I’ve got, you know, this is my purview, this list of things and these KPIs or what have you.

And, and then they think about it very top down, like I’m an enforcer, you know, I got to make sure people follow the rules, that they’re hitting their goals, that they’re not cheating the company or whatever, you know. And I’ve heard so often in books or from, from coaches talking about active listening. Right? But I don’t hear them often kind of frame it as discovery, you know, they’re like, oh, you just got to listen to your people, you got to get feedback, you know, but kind of reframing it as
discovery, that it seems very powerful to me, you know, because it implies an intention beyond just like we got to hear what people are saying, Right? Yeah.

What do you think? I love the, the whole angle of discovery from the perspective of who doesn’t want to discover things. Right. And there’s this, there’s this perspective with discovery versus like I’m going to ask a bunch of questions, like questions mights, you know, that’s essentially how you get there.

But you don’t want people to feel like there’s interrogation, right. You want to feel alignment. And you do that by saying, we want to discover this together.

You know, what might be some of the barriers that you’re experiencing. And that really brings people together, it pulls people in because there is this sense of we’re going to discover this together through a meaningful conversation. And yeah, active listening is really important, but how do you demonstrate that you’re listening to someone is that you’re able to reflect back to them that this is what I heard you say.

Of course, this is what’s bubbling up for me. Based on what they’re sharing with you, then people know that you care. And that gets to what you were talking about is a manager comes in or leader of any kind comes in and says, I’m going to do this, I’m going to achieve these goals, I’m going to move my people.

Well, you move people by finding what motivates them, what inspires them. When people know that you care because you want them to be part of the process, then you can actually motivate them. Right.

We’re all adults. Nobody wants to be told what to do, even if they’re being paid to do it. Right.

Yeah. It’s much easier to move people when you feel like you’re giving them some agency. Yeah, absolutely.

And you can find that alignment Right. To the business outcomes. Or maybe you identify that it’s not going to work and it’s not a good fit.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a break in that relationship. Maybe it just needs to be redefined. Right.

If you don’t go through discovery, you’ll never. You’ll just always be right, kicking the rock. Absolutely.

That is wonderful. That’s a very powerful framework. So in coaching, you work with a lot of business owners.

I specifically work with business owners and business leaders. And I like to say that I work with successful business owners and leaders and I say that because I do my best work with people who know what they want and typically even how to get there. Right.

But they have some sort of barrier, a gap in perspective, a blind spot, and they just, they know for a fact that they’re not going to be able to get past it without some help. And that’s where I come in. And I can help with scaling your business, creating a stronger team.

And it’s not necessarily because I have some, you know, magic bullet that works. It’s more about helping you shift how you’re communicating, how you’re leading or how you’re seeing your business to make sure that you’re reaching your full potential. Yeah, that makes sense.

What’s one of the most common barriers you see your successful business owner clients struggle with? The biggest one, I would say, is communication. Right. They know what they want for their team or business, but really being able to communicate that effectively and then communicating with their team, which is a two way, you know, communication is a two way conversation.

And sometimes we are so passionate about what we want that we skip that step. And skip that acknowledgement that. Okay, well again, kind of going back to what I said earlier.

Instead of just telling your team, let them know what the plan is and then do some discovery. Does this plan sound. Yeah.

Like it follows our mission. Does this plan sound like it’s a reflection of what we’re wanting to achieve as a team? So primarily I do work with community or. I’m sorry.

Well, I work with community leaders as well, but primarily business owners and business leaders. Yeah. I was just reflecting on all the hype around AI and I kind of had this knee jerk like, okay, well if communication’s a big struggle, I could see where a lot of business owners are like, oh well, ChatGPT or you know, my AI solution of choice will just help me with that.

They’ll write my emails and my speeches, but it’s probably not going to do much to help them listen, is it? No, that AI is not going to listen for you. Now of course it’s recording conversations. It’s excellent at summarizing meeting notes and creating to do’s and that’s wonderful.

But it’s from a very tactical perspective. It’s not really understanding again what I said earlier about what is really motivating and inspiring your team, your client, your prospective client that really takes the human reflection and element. Yeah.

You won’t find the alignment just using an AI chat tool to rehash the conversation you just had with a human. I will say though, with AI, if you are a business owner who is not embracing this tool. Right.

You will lose your competitive edge if there is no business out there right now that cannot afford to be leveraging it as a tool. Right. And some people are saying, well, you know, I don’t want AI to take my job or I don’t want AI to close my business because I become irrelevant.

No, you become irrelevant when you’re not using the tool. Right. And so anyone who’s intimidated by AI, I would say lean into it, learn the basics.

Start with how do I communicate with this tool? Just Google how do I communicate with AI and you’ll start to really see the value. And again, it’s a tool, it’s not going to take things over, it’s not independent from all the other things that are necessary to run your business. Yeah, yeah.

But it’s also not the, at least not currently like the solution for everything. Right. It doesn’t solve every problem.

It’s not necessarily a hack for business that’s going to let you cut your staff in half and reduce all of your Costs by some huge percentage number. I mean, I could see where that could happen in certain specific use cases, but generally I feel like it can be a distraction or a stumbling block for some people because they lose their focus on what’s really important. And sometimes that’s your team.

Yeah, well. And AI is a complicated system and not in a bad way, but again, you can’t. It’s a tool.

So even when it is helping you with cost savings or working with a leaner staff, you still have to audit its outcomes. Right. You have to audit whatever you’re getting back from it.

Right, right. There is a naive approach to, especially for newcomers to AI that they want to just copy and paste. Oh, that sounds great.

I’ll just put it in here. No, you really should still customize that output to make sure that it is your voice, that it is a decision on your business that is reflective of the direction that you want to go into. Because it’s a great tool.

It’s going to give you some great solutions. But it’s, you know, AI has been around for centuries. Honestly, when you look at the history of AI, it’s being used in a very modern way right now, which makes the tool and the users vulnerable.

We just need to be responsible. We need to not just black and white this opportunity to use this competitive tool. Right, yeah, yeah, I agree.

I could talk about AI this entire episode. It’s just such a hot topic. And so many, at least in my industry, which I mostly focus on legal it, there’s just a lot coming out about it and there’s a lot to say.

I feel like there’s a lot of AI tools out there that have many, many years of development and even use that are kind of underutilized and in many ways more powerful than the ones that tend to get more attention for their, you know, their flashiness. But they don’t necessarily offer as much opportunity in the legal practice. And I give a couple of examples.

You know, something we hear about a lot are like briefs that get filed and they cite cases that don’t exist. Right. Because somebody’s not doing what you said.

You know, they’re not. They’re not checking the work, they’re not auditing the work. They’re just taking whatever they get out of their prompt, assuming it’s accurate, and then, you know, trying to pass that off as their work product.

And many people have gotten in trouble with that. But there’s also tools out there that don’t get necessarily as much attention, except for in very specific spaces like in eDiscovery, where AI takes audio or video and transcribes it, right. And then helps cull a lot of records.

Like somebody that has a million or half a million records through discovery, and they need to figure out where the 17 that make my case and AI tools specifically designed for that use case, which aren’t necessarily like a chat program, do that in just a few minutes. They can. Well, probably takes more than a few minutes to get the data in the system.

But once it’s in the system and analyzed, just takes a few minutes for them to be able to call those records down and kind of reduce half a million records into to maybe a couple hundred that they can then review over a couple of days. Or maybe they even get down to like 20 records and they’re like, whoo, now they’re in. Now they’re building their case.

You know, instead of just like going through and tagging a bunch of stuff that’s irrelevant. Well, I think you touched on something really important too, is that there are a number of AI tools out there. I mean, and one of the things that I learned at a recent seminar are two websites.

I’ll try to recite them properly because depending on what you’re trying to do, right. Are you trying to use it for research? Are you trying to use it for data mining? And you should always. This is always fun.

You get data back from, let’s call it ChatGPT, and you ask it a question, or you say, I need this information. Then ask it, where did you find this information? Or what was your source for this information? And you’ll be surprised. Sometimes it will say, oh, I just guessed, or I got it off the Internet.

And you have to be very careful, especially if you’re inputting that into your work, where you as a professional need to be seen as credible. But there is. I’m trying to think of the website.

It’s called. Well, one of them is there is an AI tool for that dot com. Oh, interesting.

Literally, it’s called there is an AITool for that dot com. And then the other one is top topaitools.com so this will take you to a website that then you can plug in what you need it for, graphic design or research. And then it will give you more specifically.

Okay, these might be some AI tools that you want to look at. That’s awesome. Going back to auditing every tool, you should date them.

You should date these tools, test them out, do the trials. Don’t just automatically pay for the tools. Try it.

Because it may not be exactly what you need, but there will be another tool out there that you do. Or it may be what you need now, but three months from now it falls behind or something better comes out. I mean, that’s happening a lot.

At least over the past year, especially in legal. We had so many different AI startups that are promising this and that and then some other big vendor that’s been around for 30 years and you know, in their specific silo, they release an AI tool and it just shuts all the others down, you know. And if you signed up for a year with some startup that’s no longer relevant three months from now, it can be a little tough.

Absolutely. Yeah. But we didn’t come here just to talk about AI.

Really, we didn’t come here to talk about AI at all. But I feel like that happens to folks a lot these days. You know, everyone is AI.

Yeah. You can’t avoid it. We were talking once and you gave me some great advice when I was talking about how I’ll go into community events sometimes and I’ll get like 30 seconds or two minutes to stand up and do my introduction or say my piece because I sponsored some dinner or whatever.

And we were talking about that and you gave me great advice. You said that 30 seconds should be a success story. Right.

And that those are often very powerful in promoting engagement or giving something. Giving somebody a reason to come talk to you and ask more. Yeah.

What are one of your 30 second success stories? I draw the picture for the audience to understand the relationship between a business owner and a coach. And really it is having that opportunity to escape what a lot of us call. We’re very isolated at the top.

We’re very isolated as a business owner and having that ability to pick up the phone and call a trusted source, talk through your idea, talk through your excitement, and get some really valuable feedback that allows you to move beyond that moment or beyond that barrier. And that is where I feel everyone would benefit from. A coach is having that opportunity to have access to someone else that builds out what I like to call your success team and you eliminate that feeling or that mindset of
isolation.

Got it. That’s wonderful. I love how you.

I love the callback to draw. Right. The draw framework and then now drawing out.

That’s good. It’s funny, we had Jordan, who’s here in the studio with us today. He’s the naming creative audio director.

Thank you, Jordan, for. For being patient with us and helping us sound great. But Jordan and I were talking before you Came in about kind of this.

This exact thing. We were talking about objectives and, like, key results and KPIs and what’s the difference between a KPI and a metric? And. And we did.

We talked about some of this exact things like, you can’t just take one. And then that’s like. That’s.

The entire business is built around that. You know, it’s. Usually there’s more to it than that.

And then how a KPI, if it doesn’t have a goal, it’s just a metric. You can call it a KPI, but it’s not really a KPI if there’s not a goal. Absolutely.

It’s just a metric. It’s just a measurement of what? No, no. Gotta have the goal.

It’s gotta be tracking progress to that goal. And they need to change. You know, I’ve been in a number of different organizations throughout my 30 years in corporate America, where I look at a scorecard or I’m being measured against a scorecard, and I push back and I say, how long have we been using this scorecard? Right.

Is this scorecard still serving us? And are these metrics, to your point, still moving us to the end goal? Because I feel like sometimes we just get really comfortable in a measurement, and then we don’t even remember why we’re measuring that particular goal. We know it’s important, but we don’t know where to tether it to. And when people don’t have that, why, then it becomes really difficult to get them to move in that direction.

Of course. Yeah. You gotta have meaning, be able to extract meaning from it.

Right. And I’ve seen it so much where some KPI doesn’t actually connect to a business outcome. And it’s like, well, what’s the point? You know? So it’s just.

Is this just busy work? Yeah. Or are we really accomplishing something here? I like that. Tell me about Amplify Women, Tampa Bay.

How did it have such a successful launch? So it had a successful launch because it had a very clear purpose. When I left the financial industry, I left with a lot of knowledge of gaps in the system. And so I work with a lot of business owners who would come into the financial institution to open a business account, which I was so proud that they were acknowledging.

You’ve got to separate your business operations, expenses, and income from your personal. So I would get in conversation, do some discovery with these particular customers, and then start asking them, do you know about your resources? Do you know about the SBA? Do you know about the St. Pete greenhouse. Do you know about Embark Collective in Tampa? And too often the answer was no.

And these are typically federally funded agencies that have all of these free services to business owners or low cost, whatever the case may be. But these are tools, these are classes, seminars, mentors that are available to you, and they simply were not taking advantage of them. So when I left corporate last June, a friend of mine nudged me and said, we should do a women’s empowerment conference.

And I said, oh, that would be great. But little did this person know who gave me this wonderful inspiration. I don’t do anything small.

I don’t know how to have small impact. And so we turned it into a two day summit. And we brought in the sba, we brought in the greenhouse, we brought in Score.

And then the audience was business owners. And we educated them on all of the different resources and opportunities. And one of our speakers at this year’s event, her name is Rose Legsty and she’s from RL Engineering and Tech.

She spoke on government contracts and how as business owners, we should not be so focused on just B2B or B2C, but also look at our municipalities and our government as a customer. And with some slight adjustments in how you are presenting your company, you can open up a lot of different opportunities. And that was really eye opening.

And, and so again, the success of year one was really based on the ability to bridge this gap, bring real resources and real business owners together. And later I found out, two months after last year’s amplify, which happened in November, was that there was someone who didn’t realize that they could get a loan from the sba. After hearing CJ from SBA speak about their different products and services, she took advantage of applying, got a $30,000 loan within a month of the event, and was able to
maintain her business and even scale it.

Wow. And this is someone who suffered after Covid and was at a risk of closing her business. Wow.

Wow. So we’re really, we’re really proud to create this environment and ecosystem for people to thrive. That’s wonderful.

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That speaker you were talking about, I saw where they were invited back this year by popular demand. Absolutely. So much.

And that topic is. It hits home for me because I have certainly looked at potential government contracts and got a little bit excited because I thought there was an opportunity there. There probably was.

And I talked myself out of it because I start to dig in and it’s so complicated. Like, and signed up with the municipality and then all these requirements that have to be submitted with the rfp, and then I’m starting to get lost and I get discouraged. And I think, well, it’s easier to get out there, business to business, engage with the business, to have a conversation.

I can get on a discovery call with somebody and in 30 minutes know whether or not we’re going to move forward. Whereas this RFP process is going to be six months of me pulling my hair out, not knowing if I just invested a couple of hours into this document that’s ultimately not going to, you know, bring me anything, which is probably not the right way to look at it because it’s an exercise of some muscles. Makes it easier next time.

Right. Three hours this time. Maybe it’ll be less next time.

But then again, of course, it depends on the rfp, because some of those requirements, when you submit are, like, pretty. They are intimidating. They can be.

And I will tell you the best way to learn, the best way to make the path forward easier is to do is learn through experience and, you know, make the investment in you and with your time. I know that sometimes it takes a little effort. But I will also tell you as someone who is woman Certified, who is LGBTQ certified, and as of yesterday, I am St. Peter Pete City Minority Women Owned certified that.

Congratulations. Thank you. Once you have all of your paperwork and all your requirements together, which does take a little time, then you’ve got it.

Now you’ve got these things together, and it’s much easier to execute with the RFPs. You can pick and choose which RFPS you want to answer. And if you’re up for the challenge and you really want to get to know yourself and your services and your product, which is a great way to identify maybe where some gaps are, is to go through that process.

And they always say you miss 100% of the shots that you don’t take. Yeah. So, you know, I believe in that.

I always encourage that. It’s sometimes hard in the beginning, but once you do it, once Once you have all of your elements together, it’s much easier. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

I’ve certainly heard encouraging stories from folks that say that once they got through, they were like one of three or maybe even the only business that met all the requirements and made the submission on time. But I’ve also heard stories and been part of the group that you spend hours and you never actually get there. And the bully voice in my head, you know, tries to tell me I’m not worthy.

Well, and you know, it’s all about perspective. It’s all about a mindset. So even the RFPs that don’t go in your direction, I encourage you to reflect back on it and say, well, what did I learn either about myself, my business, this process? What did I learn that I would not have otherwise gained? And then you see that it was not done in vain.

Right. And that’s easier said than done sometimes, but it is an important part of the process and it is what will help you be more successful next time. Yeah, that’s wonderful.

It sounds like I could get something out of coming to Amplify Women Tampa Bay and hearing this speaker. Absolutely. And she’s just one of many in the lineup on Friday and on Saturday, we have one on one actual workshop table opportunities.

So we will have 11 different workshops across the different topics where you’re sitting in a small group and you’re able to learn directly from a subject matter expert you and ask questions. And it is a really unique opportunity. And my goal as an event host is to make sure that when you leave Amplify Women Tampa Bay Summit that you are already steps within the process of whatever you need to get past a barrier that you were not able to get past prior to coming to this summit.

Oh, that’s. That’s wonderful. Do you think some of the folks coming back this year will have some wins and success stories to share that started as some inspiration or dream in their heart from last year? Absolutely.

Absolutely. I can think of two or three off the top of my head right now. One was a startup for an accelerator and there was some great partnership done there and there significant movement since the event in November.

And then another small business, a woman owned business that she is now capturing customers and really making moves and scaling her business as a result of what she learned at Amplify. So I see. And what’s unfortunate is that there’s other success stories out there.

I just haven’t heard them, but I know that they’re happening because I’m seeing participants succeed in what they’re doing. I’m seeing it on social and other things like that. Yeah.

Yeah. That’s awesome. What’s one of the workshops you’re excited about? So I’m really excited about our trademarking and intellectual property.

Oh, yeah. We have an attorney from Tampa. Her name is Vanessa Ferguson, who’s going to be joining us.

I’m really interested to learn more about, like, okay, how do I start the process of even auditing information before I start paying for an attorney to help me through the process? Like, what can I do on my own? And she shared a few tips with me personally, and I was like, oh, my God, this is really helpful. Yeah. And then intellectual property right now, we talked a lot about AI.

Right. So what is that intellectual property that I. I have? How do I protect it and even how do I provide it as a product or service that I can monetize? Right? Yeah. Yeah.

That’s something I feel like I need to spend time on, but I never really think about much. It seems like one of those. That it’ll come up and bite me when it’s too late.

Right. That’s. That sounds like a really cool workshop that a lot of folks could get value out of.

Yep. And that’s. Gosh, who’s counting? But I think it’s like, just over 80 days.

It’s August 8th and 9th at the James Museum in downtown St. Pete. Wow, that is coming up soon. Yeah.

Yeah, that’s going to be. How. How would folks sign up? So you can go to amplifywomentampabay.com you’ll see the lineup of speakers and workshops.

You’ll see information about our closing reception, which is going to be a magic show at Zoo Magic Theater. Oh, cool. And, yeah, there’s a lot of great information there and a recap from last year, so we’d love to have everyone check it out.

That is awesome. That is awesome. I saw that you do have sponsors of the event.

Is that a new thing this year? It is not a new thing. I think any successful event really is able to get there through collaboration and what’s amazing. And I let all my sponsors know I want this event to be a vehicle for them to promote a product, a service, an initiative that will really help their awareness within the market.

And I think there’s a lot of opportunities there because it’s a fun event. And when you can attach your product and your brand to an experience, it makes it that much more memorable and approachable. And so it’s easy to see a commercial Or a billboard.

But when somebody says that they experience something because your brand made it possible, that’s a real magic. Yeah. Is there a cutoff date for new sponsors for this year? It’ll be August 1st.

Okay, got it. So, for example, we have table sponsors available. And I love this because a table sponsor allows you as a brand to invite your customers, your vendors, your team into a unique opportunity where you get to get to know each other in a different way.

Because it’s not a networker. You’re experiencing something collectively and you’re helping a great cause where we support women business owners and entrepreneurs in Tampa Bay. Yeah, absolutely.

I’ll say. From my experience being a table sponsor at events, something that surprised me was the number of connections and growth I got from mingling with other table sponsors. Not just the folks in the event that I’m trying to get by the table and join the raffle or, you know, whatever, but the table next to me.

Because at least the ones I’ve been in, like, we’re. We’re at the same event, so we have something in common. Right.

And. And that typically just informs alignment in other areas in our business. And maybe we can refer to each other, maybe we can collabor, maybe we can find other events like this to support.

So I strongly encourage anybody interested in sponsoring, look into it, give it a go. There’s so many ways your business can grow. We talked a little bit about growing a business through community and service.

Has that always been a pillar of your strategy? With 525 coaching? 100%, yeah. It starts with service. People want to do business with people that they know and they trust.

And the only way to. Well, I take that back. There’s many ways.

But a key way that I have been able to do this is make myself accessible. Right. So I started serving my community in ways of leadership.

So getting on boards, allowing people to see how I think, how I decision make, how I can serve them, but also by doing complimentary information sessions, either about building communication skills or setting effective goals. And these were open and available to the public, and people were able to come at will and see how this particular service could benefit them. Right.

So when you become accessible, when you become approachable to people, then they are less intimidated. Right. By you or your business.

So I’m going to go back. Just a few moments ago, you had asked me about my 32nd. My 32nd pitch or why I recommend if you have just a few minutes to stand up to give a success story, is that because your business name might not necessarily be super intuitive or when you stand up and talk about what you do, it might be language that is very industry specific and people can’t really bolt onto that.

But if you can share a story, story where you really served someone, where you really moved the needle for that consumer, then people can say, I want that. And that’s where the real beauty of service comes from, is really showing people how you can help them. And that in turn will help you.

That’s wonderful. That makes a lot of sense. Has this always been easy for you? It comes natural.

I won’t always say it’s easy, but it does come very natural to me. For me, everything I do is rooted in service and sometimes to my detriment. But the impact that my service has on others brings me a level of gratification that cannot be bought or sold.

And that is really important to me. How do you balance the amount of time and energy you put into service versus the amount of time and energy you put into your business and hitting the business goals that you need to for that business to remain successful? That’s a great question. I think that’s a very common challenge with business owners because we tend to do what we enjoy and we tend to do what we want, which is not always income generating.

And so I would recommend just having very clear goals. You know, something we talked about earlier. Goals and KPIs have things that you can measure your success by and be able to reflect on those each week.

And more importantly, before you say yes to something, look at that and say, will this drive me closer to a business goal? Will this put me in the path of a potential customer? Will this put me in front of a potential opportunity that either today or in the future will serve my business? So you have to be very intentional about where you’re spending your time and your talent and your resources. And sometimes that means saying no to things that you want to do so that you can do the things you need
to do to be successful. And that’s really where a coach comes in, because there’s that accountability part, right? So when we talk about draw and we get to the action and accountability part, a coach can really keep you in line and help you audit.

Well, was that action, you know, a good use of your time? Was it what really is going to help you grow your business, or was it just something that felt good? And, you know, we want to do both from time to time, but the coach is really going to help hold you accountable to. I know you wanted to do that, but you could have been home, you know, writing that script, or, you know, taking a closer look at your products and services, or checking your pricing or a number of other things. Is that
something you find where you’re having a conversation with yourself about that, with some of the service that you’ve done in the past? Absolutely.

I am growing, I am definitely growing my business. And this is what’s interesting, is that I’m a business owner, I’m also a community leader. And each day I would say I consciously wake up, I look at my agenda and I have to evaluate what did I put on my calendar? How is this serving the greater good, whatever that good is for the day, is it a goal that I need to achieve? Like, for example, we talked about sponsorships.

There are a certain level of sponsorships that I need to get for amplify. So is what I’m doing throughout the day serving that goal, serving my customers, my clients? And so, yeah, it’s a daily discipline. It’s a daily audit.

That sounds like a lot of work. It’s a discipline. And honestly, if you look at athletes, if you look at very successful athletes, even when they’re at the top of their game, they don’t stop working hard, right? Yeah, right.

They don’t stop going to practice, they don’t stop showing up, they don’t stop pushing themselves for something great. And so at any point that you think that you can stop that discipline of your mindset and of your behaviors, that is a slippery slope back to potentially mediocrity or plateauing. Just getting comfortable.

Yeah. So do you measure, when you’re thinking about that, how do you measure? Do you measure by your impact or by your happiness? Both. Yeah, both.

I would tell you that especially as a coach, the impact has to be there. I have to be able to see that my clients are moving forward either in how they make themselves more comfortable because they’ve shifted their mindset or because they’re evaluating their product and service and made a difference. To be more competitive, more profitable, that impact must be there and you know, the prophets must follow.

But it honestly. And that goes for community leadership too. When I’m making decisions as a community leader, it’s not the decision I’m making for myself, it’s the decision that I’m making for the impact on the community.

And not even for today, but in the future. So we’re making a decision today. What is going to be the long term impact in our community? What’s going to be the long term impact on my client? So, yeah, what Are some of the impacts that you’ve been involved with at the Edge district? Oh, I love this question because I take this one very seriously.

So in the Edge district, which I like to clarify this too, we are from 1st Ave. North to 1st Ave. South and from 17th to MLK or 9th.

So not a very big district, but a very important district. And a district where a lot of development is happening right now. Yeah.

And so we work very closely with the developers, and the city is wonderful about really pushing the developers to communicate with us, get our feedback, which when I say our feedback, we are representing every business owner in the district. So what is the impact of that developer on the business? You know, is it preventing them from having parking? Is it preventing them from having access to a container for their garbage or whatever the case might be? So we are constantly looking at that impact.
So we are making a decision with the developer.

We look at it from a lot of different perspectives and then we make decisions, understanding that that decision has a long impact for our businesses. Fun fact. The way things are going right now and the development that we’re seeing with the Viv building, the new central, which is where the garage is going at the old police department.

Yeah. The Edge is positioned right now to be the densest district in the dentist city in the densest county in the state of Florida. Holy moly.

That’s a huge responsibility for us because while that sounds great for business. Right. Because there’s a lot of people, a lot of foot traffic.

Yeah. We have to think about infrastructure. We also have to think about the quality of life that we’re creating for these residents who will be moving into our business district.

And so at the Edge district, what we’ve done is we actually just launched a residential committee so that these residents also have a voice at the table. And we’re creating an ecosystem where we’re working collaboratively together and saying we want these businesses to be able to meet the needs of the consumers, the residents who are here and beyond, of course, and vice versa. Yeah.

And so I really do feel like the Edge leadership, the Edge district leadership, really is that cohesive glue that makes it all happen. Yeah. That’s awesome.

It’s a huge responsibility too. It’s very fun. But we have to be very responsible in how we are responding to developers, to the city and to residents.

Well, I feel like you must be doing a great job, and there’s a lot of folks involved and invested in the success of the district. In my short time in St. Pete, part of what helped me fall in love with it was the Edge District and being comfortable there, seeing a lot of young families there, seeing that St. Pete could really be a great place for me to start a family. And when I have a child, being able to bring her to some of these events.

Some of my early introductions into Edge District was going to Indy Market, back when it used to close, like the whole street from Green Bench all the way down to the corner. And I would just see all these strollers and young kids playing around Green Bench and stuff. Or then Cage Brewing, going to some of the events, family events at Cage Brewing.

And I was just like, wow, this city is amazing. Yeah. And then I saw like all the growth with a lot of the buildings going up, some of these residential buildings.

And my wife used to often comment, like, traffic down here is going to get so bad. It’s going to get so bad and so much worse. And I haven’t really seen that.

I’ve seen some slowdowns on Central, but like, if you’re on Central, you kind of expect it. But on First North, first south, like, I’m still just blowing through, you know. Yeah.

And not really hitting some of this lot of downs. Even though everything’s building up around and it seems like we’re going to get locked up and it’s going to be a nightmare driving through here. But that just hasn’t happened.

I think that, that, I mean, there’s a lot that goes into that, but it’s cool to see the growth and then to not have some of those downsides that I fear. Yeah. Well.

And growth does come with growing pains and it’s going to be a slow burn. As you mentioned, all of these developments are now going up. But for instance, off Bomb Ave, which is where Meso Market is and things that you were talking about, that building will start moving residents in in October, November and January and February.

Then we’re going to start to feel what that expansive population is going to have in regards to parking options. We do have a lot of great options here though too. Between the Sun Runner, our trolleys, it’s bikable.

So we do want to start looking at some alternative transportation options because parking is going to become a challenge. But in the Edge District, we do have a couple parking garages that are being erected right now, which is thankful, you know, we’ll have those solutions. But this is all part of a growing city, is that, you know, what is the infrastructure and what is the impact on our residents? You know, when you live here and you’re part of the growth as it’s happening, it’s a little bit
harder to maybe acknowledge.

Oh, wow. You know, there is a bit of a slowdown. There is a little bit harder to find a parking spot.

But it is happening and it is something that we all need to be mindful of and also explore alternative options in regards to transportation. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. There’s been many times I’ve ridden the Sun Runner and I find it to make kind of things more fun because I’m like, oh, I don’t have to drive.

I can just go get on the bus. Like the worst thing that’s going to happen is I’m going to get to the stop and it’s going to be like, oh, 10 minutes minutes before the next bus. It’s like, oh, what am I going to do for 10 minutes? But it’s just been, it’s been pretty easy.

But we’re almost out of time. Before we go, how could folks find you? The best way to find me is 525coaching.com. LinkedIn is also a wonderful way to connect with me and of course, amplify women.

Tampa Bay is at the heart and soul of what I’m doing right now as a servant leader in helping business owners, entrepreneurs and community leaders. Awesome. Awesome.

Well, if you out there are a solo or small firm practicing attorney and you could benefit from an IT specialist coming in and maybe helping you out with some of the challenges or putting some thought into where some of your time and resources should be invested for your firm’s growth, you can look me up at CIO legal or find me on LinkedIn. Thank you for joining us today. Some leaders keep coming back.

We have a lot of different hosts that host episodes across a very diverse range of topics. A lot of topics focusing on small businesses and small business owners and how we can come together as a community and help each other grow. But also a lot of topics for individuals dealing with struggles in their lives or hoping to grow spiritually or sometimes we just get together and talk about good books.

So if you like to read, look us up. Thank you, Sam.