The Power of Caring Leadership with Traycee Mayer | RR295

Janice Porter: 00:00:02

Music. Hello everyone, and welcome to this

Janice Porter: 00:00:04

latest episode of relationships rule. This as we record is our

Janice Porter: 00:00:09

first episode of 2025 I'm excited to have my guest with me

Janice Porter: 00:00:14

today, Tracy Meyer, welcome Tracy. First of

Traycee Mayer: 00:00:17

all, Oh, thank you, Janice. And I'm so excited.

Traycee Mayer: 00:00:20

Yes, it is the seventh of January, and we're getting used

Traycee Mayer: 00:00:24

to 2025 already. I know happy me. I'm so excited.

Janice Porter: 00:00:28

My pleasure. Tracy and I just met recently in

Janice Porter: 00:00:32

in the fall, and have had some great conversations about what

Janice Porter: 00:00:36

she does and what I do in our kids and our grandkids. And so

Janice Porter: 00:00:40

it's kind of, it's, it's kind of fun to have her on my podcast

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and be able to share with you her expertise and her passion. I

Janice Porter: 00:00:50

think, for for what she does shows through. And I know that

Janice Porter: 00:00:56

Tracy wrote a book, had a book published last year called the

Janice Porter: 00:01:00

leadership contradiction, choosing a path of love and

Janice Porter: 00:01:04

kindness, and it kind of challenges, I think she

Janice Porter: 00:01:09

challenges the traditional leadership paradigms by

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advocating for empathy, love and kindness as core leadership

Janice Porter: 00:01:16

principles. And I wanted to start there, because that's

Janice Porter: 00:01:21

actually in a way, yeah, against the grain, right? And so can you

Janice Porter: 00:01:26

talk to our audience about that and and what you think is it

Janice Porter: 00:01:30

like a path that you're leading to change people that way, or is

Janice Porter: 00:01:36

it something that you've noticed over the years, because I know

Janice Porter: 00:01:40

you've been in this industry of coaching for a long time. What

Janice Porter: 00:01:46

was it? How did that come to be? Oh

Traycee Mayer: 00:01:48

my goodness. So thank you for asking Janice. And

Traycee Mayer: 00:01:52

yes, I've enjoyed getting to know you, by the way, and it's

Traycee Mayer: 00:01:55

when we talk about our grand, grand babies. But so yeah, I

Traycee Mayer: 00:02:01

wrote the book that leadership contradiction was, which was

Traycee Mayer: 00:02:04

something I coined, kind of post COVID. I had been on a hike

Traycee Mayer: 00:02:09

during that time and doing a lot of reflecting, and at one point,

Traycee Mayer: 00:02:14

and I talk about this at the beginning of the book, I kind of

Traycee Mayer: 00:02:16

felt this, this something kind of caused me to pause and to

Traycee Mayer: 00:02:22

look kind of back where I had come from, on on the hike. And

Traycee Mayer: 00:02:26

then it was a canyon I had hiked for many years, and then look

Traycee Mayer: 00:02:29

forward and, and at that moment in time, you know, I was 55

Traycee Mayer: 00:02:34

years old, and, you know, I kind of felt like everything in my

Traycee Mayer: 00:02:37

life had, kind of like the decisions had been made and, you

Traycee Mayer: 00:02:40

know, my path was set, and there was this really incredible

Traycee Mayer: 00:02:44

moment where I thought, wow, the biggest decisions are still

Traycee Mayer: 00:02:47

ahead of me. And you know, it prompted me to start talking

Traycee Mayer: 00:02:53

about this thing that happened, and I had taken some notes for

Traycee Mayer: 00:02:57

myself. And you know, before I know it, you know, people were

Traycee Mayer: 00:02:59

saying, oh my gosh, you need to write a book about this, because

Traycee Mayer: 00:03:02

you do think differently about about the way leadership should

Traycee Mayer: 00:03:05

be. So I reflected back on on my many years, 40 years of

Traycee Mayer: 00:03:09

leadership, and I always have felt like it is important to

Traycee Mayer: 00:03:15

love and care for your employees. It's important to be

Traycee Mayer: 00:03:18

kind. It's important, you know, all of that is, is the driver

Traycee Mayer: 00:03:21

for success in business. Now, I know that there are other great

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leaders out there, like, like Mary, Mary Barra, with, with,

Traycee Mayer: 00:03:29

with jams. You know, she's a huge advocate of kindness at

Traycee Mayer: 00:03:31

work and such. And there's some great success stories, and one

Traycee Mayer: 00:03:35

of them as well. You know, when I reflect back, my success was

Traycee Mayer: 00:03:39

because my employees felt cared for. They felt that, that I was

Traycee Mayer: 00:03:45

a leader and that they would follow me, you know, I didn't

Traycee Mayer: 00:03:49

have to look back and see if they were there. I cared about

Traycee Mayer: 00:03:51

them, and they knew I they, you know, I knew they cared about

Traycee Mayer: 00:03:55

me. And so, so that, that to me, is leadership. The leadership

Traycee Mayer: 00:03:58

contradiction, on the other hand, is, is a topic, or, I

Traycee Mayer: 00:04:03

guess, a title I coined, and I because I believe that leaders

Traycee Mayer: 00:04:06

disqualify themselves from being leaders. They can be called

Traycee Mayer: 00:04:09

managers or bosses, but when they don't really care about

Traycee Mayer: 00:04:13

their employees, and I mean, really take the time to know who

Traycee Mayer: 00:04:16

they are, you know what's important to them. You know how

Traycee Mayer: 00:04:19

they can help them succeed, you know, then, you know, don't call

Traycee Mayer: 00:04:24

yourself a leader, because they're probably not really

Traycee Mayer: 00:04:26

following you. They're probably just getting through their days.

Traycee Mayer: 00:04:29

You know, I know I've had a few jobs of that myself, even as a

Traycee Mayer: 00:04:33

leader, I've always had, you know, reported to the president

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of the company, or whomever it might be. So yeah, it's all

Traycee Mayer: 00:04:41

based upon a path that I feel like I've been traveling, and I

Traycee Mayer: 00:04:44

have something new that I'm getting ready to release

Traycee Mayer: 00:04:46

probably next month, that I've been working on for a dozen

Traycee Mayer: 00:04:49

years, that exactly is tied into the pathways and how we how we

Traycee Mayer: 00:04:56

lead, whether that's a family or business. Business, a community

Traycee Mayer: 00:05:01

nonprofit, your neighborhood group, whatever it is. And so

Traycee Mayer: 00:05:06

yeah, that's a long answer to how passionate and excited I get

Traycee Mayer: 00:05:10

about leadership and and you know how we really can impact

Traycee Mayer: 00:05:14

other people's lives?

Janice Porter: 00:05:16

Well, I wonder. I'm curious about the fact I

Janice Porter: 00:05:20

know I think you were in the hospitality industry for many

Janice Porter: 00:05:23

years, and that's where your leadership skills were honed,

Janice Porter: 00:05:26

right in your path for doing that. And that, to me, seems

Janice Porter: 00:05:31

like that should be a place that that industry should be a place

Janice Porter: 00:05:35

where people care about people, because it's a whole thing about

Janice Porter: 00:05:39

looking after your guests, right? And is that true, or is

Janice Porter: 00:05:43

there a lot of the opposite that goes on, and so you had to fight

Janice Porter: 00:05:48

to make that change?

Traycee Mayer: 00:05:53

So I would say that that there's not a lot of

Traycee Mayer: 00:05:57

that like I wouldn't say that that is the overwhelming drive.

Traycee Mayer: 00:06:00

Yes, hospitality should be and mostly is focused in that way.

Traycee Mayer: 00:06:06

It could always be more, just like any kind, yeah, so in

Traycee Mayer: 00:06:10

hospitality, oh, I'm sorry. So it's okay. It's not only our

Traycee Mayer: 00:06:13

guests that are important, but I think that's, that's the part

Traycee Mayer: 00:06:16

that I want to talk about, that I think sometimes we are so

Traycee Mayer: 00:06:20

focused on the guests that we forget. It's about the employees

Traycee Mayer: 00:06:23

that make the success. So you So, as a general manager, for a

Traycee Mayer: 00:06:29

number of years in full service hotels, I said to my employees,

Traycee Mayer: 00:06:32

you know what? I will take great care of you. You take great care

Traycee Mayer: 00:06:35

of the guests. Because my job was really wasn't about walking

Traycee Mayer: 00:06:39

around, you know, with a big title and making, you know, X

Traycee Mayer: 00:06:43

amount of dollars or what have you, but, but at the end of the

Traycee Mayer: 00:06:46

day, I felt my my responsibility during that part of my career,

Traycee Mayer: 00:06:50

which is about 25 years of my career, that that it was to help

Traycee Mayer: 00:06:55

those people grow and help them feel appreciated and loved in

Traycee Mayer: 00:07:00

their workplace. So that is not always present, and I've heard

Traycee Mayer: 00:07:05

that today, as I as I continue to coach folks in that industry,

Traycee Mayer: 00:07:10

as well as others

Janice Porter: 00:07:12

well. You know, my daughter has, in the past

Janice Porter: 00:07:16

year, has taken on a role that's bigger than she's ever done

Janice Porter: 00:07:19

before, and she now has a team of about 10 people and that she

Janice Porter: 00:07:25

looks after. And so she's learning the next level of

Janice Porter: 00:07:28

leadership. And this was her first holiday season coming, you

Janice Porter: 00:07:34

know, with this group of people and everything, and she reverted

Janice Porter: 00:07:38

right back to what is her core, which is so lovely, which was

Janice Porter: 00:07:42

she had to make hand created cards for each of her people on

Janice Porter: 00:07:47

her team, as well, as, you know, and got them very thoughtful

Janice Porter: 00:07:51

gifts. And that is her to the core. And I thought, wow, Sarah,

Janice Porter: 00:07:56

you're going to put, you know, that's going to be something

Janice Porter: 00:07:59

that's going to stand out for each of them. I don't think I

Janice Porter: 00:08:02

said this to her, actually, because it was so thoughtful,

Janice Porter: 00:08:05

and it did mean, you know, something special. And so I was

Janice Porter: 00:08:08

that's what I think of. When you talk about what you're talking

Janice Porter: 00:08:12

you know, what you talk about. I think she's got that gene, and I

Janice Porter: 00:08:15

love that because, yeah, it's important to make people feel

Janice Porter: 00:08:19

special and important, because you give, they will give Right,

Traycee Mayer: 00:08:24

absolutely and, and I love that, and I'd love to

Traycee Mayer: 00:08:27

meet your daughter, because it is so true. You know, there,

Traycee Mayer: 00:08:31

there are so many schools of thought out there that that that

Traycee Mayer: 00:08:35

contradict what we believe is true, or what we see is true, is

Traycee Mayer: 00:08:38

because they say, Well, how can you, you know, spend your time,

Traycee Mayer: 00:08:41

you know, being so nice to people. You know, what about the

Traycee Mayer: 00:08:44

line? And it's like, you know what, we can't meet the bottom

Traycee Mayer: 00:08:48

line on our own, because that's not, you know that that is, yes,

Traycee Mayer: 00:08:50

important. That's why we're general managers, or we're

Traycee Mayer: 00:08:53

senior directors or leaders. But at the end of the day, it's the

Traycee Mayer: 00:08:56

employees who help drive that success of the company as a

Traycee Mayer: 00:08:59

whole, and and it does matter, and we can bring love and

Traycee Mayer: 00:09:03

kindness back to work. You know, for a while it had a bad name,

Traycee Mayer: 00:09:07

you know, I write about that in my book too. Love is not a four

Traycee Mayer: 00:09:10

letter word, you know, because, because some people did the

Traycee Mayer: 00:09:14

wrong things at work. And, and, you know, it became, you can't,

Traycee Mayer: 00:09:18

you know, you can't even shake people's hands. You can't pat

Traycee Mayer: 00:09:20

them on the back, but I'm here to say that we need to bring

Traycee Mayer: 00:09:24

that back, because you spend 40 hours a week plus with people at

Traycee Mayer: 00:09:28

work, whether or not you're, you know, virtual or, you know, on a

Traycee Mayer: 00:09:34

zoom all day, you're still spending time with those people.

Traycee Mayer: 00:09:37

And it does matter that you care for them and that you connect

Traycee Mayer: 00:09:40

with them.

Janice Porter: 00:09:41

You know, that's that's actually brings up a

Janice Porter: 00:09:44

thought for me, because since COVID, of course, there's still

Janice Porter: 00:09:50

a lot of people who are working in isolation at home, possibly

Janice Porter: 00:09:54

by choice, because it's just and maybe not on some regard. But. I

Janice Porter: 00:10:00

see in in some people that I know that that's hurting them,

Janice Porter: 00:10:04

because there's no social connection real people

Janice Porter: 00:10:09

connection with their organization and it I don't know

Janice Porter: 00:10:15

there's no love. There is what it looks like to me. Do you find

Janice Porter: 00:10:19

yourself talking to those kinds of companies and encouraging

Janice Porter: 00:10:23

ways to make that happen. Or, you know what?

Traycee Mayer: 00:10:28

I don't know? Yeah, absolutely. So you know, I

Traycee Mayer: 00:10:31

still do, because I moved across the country this this year, I

Traycee Mayer: 00:10:36

still do some virtual coaching, but I also I'll travel anywhere

Traycee Mayer: 00:10:41

in the world, and I like to do hybrid coaching, where, you

Traycee Mayer: 00:10:46

know, I can do a couple of sessions with someone online and

Traycee Mayer: 00:10:50

do some virtual coaching. And I think you can get, you know, you

Traycee Mayer: 00:10:53

can, you can, if you're, if everybody's open to being very

Traycee Mayer: 00:10:56

transparent honest, you can definitely make some headway.

Traycee Mayer: 00:10:59

But I like to also, when I'm working with teams, is after

Traycee Mayer: 00:11:01

I've done some private coaching online. Is, is go into the

Traycee Mayer: 00:11:05

office or, you know, meets, Meet the Team somewhere where we

Traycee Mayer: 00:11:10

could all meet in person. Because as great as we've been

Traycee Mayer: 00:11:14

able to get through virtual meetings, it is, it is true,

Traycee Mayer: 00:11:19

still, that that in person, contact is so crucial to us as a

Traycee Mayer: 00:11:24

human and, you know, there you can make even better headway. So

Traycee Mayer: 00:11:30

for everybody out there who is still stuck in the virtual

Traycee Mayer: 00:11:35

world, and there's, there's so many excuses, right? I know when

Traycee Mayer: 00:11:37

I was in California, it was traffic, you know, here I could

Traycee Mayer: 00:11:42

say because it's was six degrees this morning when I went to meet

Traycee Mayer: 00:11:46

for breakfast. But guess what? I got in my car and it was six

Traycee Mayer: 00:11:49

degrees and I went and met a client at a coffee shop about 10

Traycee Mayer: 00:11:55

minutes to my office, absolutely and I'm so excited and thrilled

Traycee Mayer: 00:12:00

that here in the Midwest, where there's snow, is crazy people,

Traycee Mayer: 00:12:04

even more than I've ever seen, love to meet in person. So snow,

Traycee Mayer: 00:12:10

rain, yeah, ice, we still meet. So I'm kind of joyful about

Traycee Mayer: 00:12:16

that. So yeah, it's time for us to continue, whether we're

Traycee Mayer: 00:12:22

networking or we're talking with a client, there is something

Traycee Mayer: 00:12:27

really special about looking at someone eye to eye. Yeah, that's

Janice Porter: 00:12:31

true. There is Yeah. It's been a while for me.

Janice Porter: 00:12:35

I tend to have become a bit more of a recluse since all of that

Janice Porter: 00:12:40

happened, but I'm getting better at getting back out there and

Janice Porter: 00:12:45

changes. It's changes things for sure. So there are a lot of

Janice Porter: 00:12:50

leadership coaches out there, and I know for me, I teach, I do

Janice Porter: 00:12:56

LinkedIn training. There's a lot of LinkedIn trainers out there

Janice Porter: 00:12:58

as well. So when somebody is looking at hiring you as a

Janice Porter: 00:13:04

coach, I pretty much think I know what you're going to say.

Janice Porter: 00:13:10

But what do you say is the thing that makes you stand out from

Janice Porter: 00:13:15

the crowd? What's your USP? What's your unique selling

Janice Porter: 00:13:19

proposition? Absolutely, so

Traycee Mayer: 00:13:23

I am trained by UC Berkeley, in addition to my

Traycee Mayer: 00:13:27

40 years of leadership, just to solidify the idea that I help

Traycee Mayer: 00:13:34

find heart and meaning and hold space for people to kind of get

Traycee Mayer: 00:13:40

unstuck and figure out where they're they're headed. I hear a

Traycee Mayer: 00:13:44

lot about that nowadays that you know, people aren't quite sure.

Traycee Mayer: 00:13:48

They don't have clarity. They don't know where they're going.

Traycee Mayer: 00:13:50

And I am a coach that you know has a lot of talent, like other

Traycee Mayer: 00:13:57

coaches out there, but with 4040, years of leadership and

Traycee Mayer: 00:14:02

this huge compassionate heart, I help leaders soften up a little

Traycee Mayer: 00:14:08

and find their inner kindness and focus on their employees,

Traycee Mayer: 00:14:14

because it really is about the employees. It's not about us.

Traycee Mayer: 00:14:17

We're lucky as a leader we get to, you know, make, make X,

Traycee Mayer: 00:14:23

amount of dollars, and, you know, be in a bigger office,

Traycee Mayer: 00:14:28

what have you. But it's really about the employees. So I help

Traycee Mayer: 00:14:32

leaders level up so that they can develop the people that work

Traycee Mayer: 00:14:35

for them.

Janice Porter: 00:14:37

So I think more about the business owner, the

Janice Porter: 00:14:42

entrepreneur, because that's more my audience than the big

Janice Porter: 00:14:45

corporations. However, it's leading. It's leading self,

Janice Porter: 00:14:49

first, right, and then being able to lead others. But when I

Janice Porter: 00:14:56

lost my training, thought I. Uh, something you said about the can

Janice Porter: 00:15:04

you teach compassion in people, or is that something you're born

Janice Porter: 00:15:09

with?

Traycee Mayer: 00:15:10

I believe that you can teach it. And I actually

Traycee Mayer: 00:15:13

spoke to a group of women entrepreneurs last Friday. And

Traycee Mayer: 00:15:19

first of all, what you said about, you know, being an

Traycee Mayer: 00:15:21

entrepreneur, you know, it's, it is Elite is a leadership

Traycee Mayer: 00:15:24

position. You're leading your business, or you're leading

Traycee Mayer: 00:15:27

yourself. And the topic of my talk was permission to love

Traycee Mayer: 00:15:32

yourself first. And that's directly out of my book. So I, I

Traycee Mayer: 00:15:39

had some things that I had developed over the years, that I

Traycee Mayer: 00:15:41

didn't even realize that I was doing, you know, or that other

Traycee Mayer: 00:15:45

people would care about it, I guess is what I'm saying. I did

Traycee Mayer: 00:15:49

this thing called, PS, I love you, where I would take a day

Traycee Mayer: 00:15:52

off in the middle of the week and just drive to Palm Springs

Traycee Mayer: 00:15:54

and stay in a really nice hotel, buy myself a really nice dinner,

Traycee Mayer: 00:15:59

go shopping, lay out by the pool, you know, that kind of

Traycee Mayer: 00:16:02

stuff. So this talk that I, that I'm giving to a lot of women's

Traycee Mayer: 00:16:06

groups right now is, you know, love yourself first. You know,

Traycee Mayer: 00:16:09

you may be a senior vice president at a large

Traycee Mayer: 00:16:12

corporation, you may be an entrepreneur and the only person

Traycee Mayer: 00:16:15

that you're working for. You may have a small staff, but you

Traycee Mayer: 00:16:18

gotta love yourself first. And so, you know, we come up with

Traycee Mayer: 00:16:22

with little exercise on ways that they can take care of

Traycee Mayer: 00:16:26

themselves. Maybe it's just going out and buying a bouquet

Traycee Mayer: 00:16:29

of flowers and a nice candle or a bottle of wine and taking care

Traycee Mayer: 00:16:33

of, you know yourself at night. Because I believe that if you

Traycee Mayer: 00:16:37

don't love yourself first, you can't love anybody else. You

Traycee Mayer: 00:16:40

just can't you get stressed. You get you get anxious, you know.

Traycee Mayer: 00:16:45

And a lot of times we get, we get hung up in that as leaders,

Traycee Mayer: 00:16:49

we feel like, you know, we got to just give, give, give to

Traycee Mayer: 00:16:52

everybody else, whether it's our family at home or it's our, it's

Traycee Mayer: 00:16:55

our, it's our neighbors or our community or or it's the

Traycee Mayer: 00:16:59

employees that work that's great. But I'm saying, you know,

Traycee Mayer: 00:17:03

take care of yourself first. And so, yeah, a lot, a lot of the

Traycee Mayer: 00:17:07

coaching I'm doing is directly out of my book. There's, there's

Traycee Mayer: 00:17:10

things that you can just, you know, tab the pages, which I've

Traycee Mayer: 00:17:13

heard people do a lot, and they, they just do something that I

Traycee Mayer: 00:17:16

talk about doing. And that's nice of them. Yeah,

Janice Porter: 00:17:19

that's really nice. So do you have an Do you

Janice Porter: 00:17:26

have an example of where applying those love and kindness

Janice Porter: 00:17:35

examples in a difficult workplace led to a positive

Janice Porter: 00:17:41

outcome, yeah,

Traycee Mayer: 00:17:43

absolutely, one of the things that that happened

Traycee Mayer: 00:17:47

recently, the client that I just finished up with the last year,

Traycee Mayer: 00:17:51

they they had five different locations in in a particular

Traycee Mayer: 00:17:57

county And and so different managers managing different

Traycee Mayer: 00:18:00

locations, and many of them had never met, and a couple of them,

Traycee Mayer: 00:18:07

and one in particular was, was the low, low person on the totem

Traycee Mayer: 00:18:11

pole, so to speak, right? They they weren't doing their job

Traycee Mayer: 00:18:15

very well. I actually often do test calls first, if it has to

Traycee Mayer: 00:18:19

do with sales or operations, which which, likely it is,

Traycee Mayer: 00:18:23

regardless, regardless of what business I will do a mystery

Traycee Mayer: 00:18:27

call first and talk to the person as though I'm a customer.

Traycee Mayer: 00:18:30

Oh, fun, yeah. And, and then I'll give a report back to the

Traycee Mayer: 00:18:33

client as part of the beginning of the coaching, so we kind of,

Traycee Mayer: 00:18:38

I can give them an idea of where I'm headed. Well, this one

Traycee Mayer: 00:18:41

employee, I called to book a nice piece of business with them

Traycee Mayer: 00:18:46

at their hotel, and I never got a call back. And so, so that was

Traycee Mayer: 00:18:51

on the report, and and then I, you know, I got to call the

Traycee Mayer: 00:18:55

person and say, you know, and make sure they took my call and

Traycee Mayer: 00:18:59

said, you know, this is not a, you know, gotcha. This is not

Traycee Mayer: 00:19:02

you're going to lose your job, but this is, we got to change.

Traycee Mayer: 00:19:06

You know what's going on with you, and find out what's going

Traycee Mayer: 00:19:08

on. Why didn't you return my call, etc. So I worked with them

Traycee Mayer: 00:19:12

and had a couple of individual coaching sessions, and then we

Traycee Mayer: 00:19:16

brought everybody together from all five locations. They were

Traycee Mayer: 00:19:19

all within driving distance. One was a couple hours away, but we

Traycee Mayer: 00:19:22

got everybody together, and we started talking about different

Traycee Mayer: 00:19:25

tools and skills to help them get better at what they do,

Traycee Mayer: 00:19:30

because they could all learn from it. And I didn't have to

Traycee Mayer: 00:19:32

point out nobody else knew that that one person had had that,

Traycee Mayer: 00:19:36

that really bad call. But I think, actually, I think they

Traycee Mayer: 00:19:40

ended up bringing it up to the group because they realized that

Traycee Mayer: 00:19:43

they were being treated with compassion, with kindness, their

Traycee Mayer: 00:19:46

boss cared about their success, and even though the boss

Traycee Mayer: 00:19:49

couldn't figure out what was going on, because they got boss

Traycee Mayer: 00:19:52

stuff, leadership stuff, to do, right? Yeah, that's my job as a

Traycee Mayer: 00:19:57

coach, is to go in and find out what's wrong and fix it. So.

Traycee Mayer: 00:20:01

Yeah. So, you know, several weeks later, I went and met with

Traycee Mayer: 00:20:05

the regional vice president, and the first thing out of his mouth

Traycee Mayer: 00:20:08

was, Tracy, everybody's talking about the success of this

Traycee Mayer: 00:20:12

person, that they were going to fire them, and now they're one

Traycee Mayer: 00:20:15

of the top performing persons in the company. So they invested in

Traycee Mayer: 00:20:21

me as a coach to invest in their employees. And I was, I had the

Traycee Mayer: 00:20:26

time because that's what I was there for, to find out what the

Traycee Mayer: 00:20:29

problem was, to inspire that person to fix it, and to inspire

Traycee Mayer: 00:20:33

them as a group and build connections with them. And yeah,

Traycee Mayer: 00:20:37

that was that was pretty awesome to hear that. And I had heard,

Traycee Mayer: 00:20:40

well, yeah, the owner of the company has been talking about

Traycee Mayer: 00:20:42

it too, so haven't had a chance to meet, meet that person yet.

Traycee Mayer: 00:20:45

But of course, I'm looking forward to it because, yeah,

Traycee Mayer: 00:20:49

people are talking about it. And I have, I have lots of examples

Traycee Mayer: 00:20:52

like that, thank goodness. But it's, it's fun for me. You know,

Traycee Mayer: 00:20:56

that's more rewarding than than what I get paid. Just to know

Traycee Mayer: 00:20:58

that people are succeeding, yeah,

Janice Porter: 00:21:01

for sure. And the fact that just the mere fact

Janice Porter: 00:21:04

that as an employee, one would feel that they're being cared

Janice Porter: 00:21:10

about, cared for by their their management team, is a lot. I

Janice Porter: 00:21:17

mean, there's a lot of people like me, though, that don't ever

Janice Porter: 00:21:19

want to work for somebody else. They want to be their own boss

Janice Porter: 00:21:22

and so, but they have to do all those same things. You have to

Janice Porter: 00:21:26

show people that you care. If you don't show them that you

Janice Porter: 00:21:28

care, there's no incentive, you know, right? Yeah, and you said

Janice Porter: 00:21:36

something else so earlier about and I think it was more in a

Janice Porter: 00:21:40

career perspective, but you said there's people who don't know

Janice Porter: 00:21:44

where they're going or what's next, or they don't have right

Janice Porter: 00:21:47

and is that really important in today's world? Because I also

Janice Porter: 00:21:54

thought when you said that, that we don't know what our next

Janice Porter: 00:21:58

thing's going to be, because we change our jobs, and we change

Janice Porter: 00:22:01

our careers, and we change our our businesses more often now

Janice Porter: 00:22:05

than we ever have. So,

Traycee Mayer: 00:22:08

right? So yes, and that's so profound in

Traycee Mayer: 00:22:12

itself, right? So what it was, yeah, absolutely true Janice and

Traycee Mayer: 00:22:18

that, and that's, that's really to my point of, yes, there's a

Traycee Mayer: 00:22:23

lot of coaches out there and of all different qualifications and

Traycee Mayer: 00:22:26

so on and so forth. But I really, I fully, believe that

Traycee Mayer: 00:22:30

people do need guidance today, and both the leaders and the Oh,

Traycee Mayer: 00:22:35

please.

Janice Porter: 00:22:35

I wasn't suggesting that they didn't

Traycee Mayer: 00:22:39

know. I mean, that we don't have to change

Traycee Mayer: 00:22:43

jobs. We don't have to change employees as much as we seem to

Traycee Mayer: 00:22:48

think that we do that with with a good reset of the leader as

Traycee Mayer: 00:22:53

well as the employees. You know, we can salvage these, these

Traycee Mayer: 00:22:58

people where they're not horrible, they're just having

Traycee Mayer: 00:23:01

had the right training, they have the right guidance. You

Traycee Mayer: 00:23:04

know, we do impact people's trajectory, you know, their path

Traycee Mayer: 00:23:10

and so, yeah, I'm so glad that you brought that up, because I'm

Traycee Mayer: 00:23:13

concerned about the rapid overturn of talent of people in

Traycee Mayer: 00:23:18

jobs. You know, my last example was, was that point exactly. It

Traycee Mayer: 00:23:22

cost them more money to replace that employee than to to buy, to

Traycee Mayer: 00:23:26

pay for a coach to go fix the situation and actually bring the

Traycee Mayer: 00:23:30

whole team up to a better notch. So it's a good it's a good

Traycee Mayer: 00:23:34

business decision. Your coaches and and I'm finding that more

Traycee Mayer: 00:23:38

and more, you know, I coach leaders, and they're having such

Traycee Mayer: 00:23:42

success, instead of them now taking the time to coach their

Traycee Mayer: 00:23:46

employees. I just got a call last week from another client

Traycee Mayer: 00:23:48

who said, Can you coach my senior team? You know, because I

Traycee Mayer: 00:23:53

got to do my job, and I thank you who you've helped love, you

Traycee Mayer: 00:23:56

know, bring, you know, bring me to a new level. But I can do the

Traycee Mayer: 00:23:59

same with their team, and it's going to be where, you know,

Traycee Mayer: 00:24:05

she'll come back and she knows what to expect, you know, of her

Traycee Mayer: 00:24:08

team being trained. So, yeah, I'm super excited about that,

Traycee Mayer: 00:24:10

because that hopefully I'm only one, one coach. I do work with a

Traycee Mayer: 00:24:15

lot of other coaches, though, you know. So you know, one, one

Traycee Mayer: 00:24:19

person at a time will, try to change, you know, the way that

Traycee Mayer: 00:24:23

things are going, but yeah, hopefully the message gets out

Traycee Mayer: 00:24:25

there. Yeah, investing in a good coach who knows what they're

Traycee Mayer: 00:24:29

doing. Yeah, yeah. That's

Janice Porter: 00:24:31

definitely, definitely more more out there

Janice Porter: 00:24:35

now than ever before. I know. Okay, so let's dive. Let's just

Janice Porter: 00:24:41

take a left turn for a second. And I know that you have a very

Janice Porter: 00:24:45

full life on your own. You're scoot your license, or whatever

Janice Porter: 00:24:49

they call it, certified scuba diver, right big time. And have

Janice Porter: 00:24:55

been many places in the world doing that. That's amazing. It's

Janice Porter: 00:24:59

not my thing. Amazing, but amazing nevertheless, yeah, and,

Janice Porter: 00:25:03

and you like to travel, right? A lot, yes. So what's the most

Janice Porter: 00:25:07

exciting place you've been scuba diving? Oh, gosh,

Traycee Mayer: 00:25:12

that's a hard one, because I think there's a

Traycee Mayer: 00:25:14

toss up between Fiji and the Philippines and the Maldives.

Traycee Mayer: 00:25:18

You know, they're all amazing in their own way, and yet, Hawaii,

Traycee Mayer: 00:25:25

on the island of Oahu, is still my very favorite place to dive.

Traycee Mayer: 00:25:29

The clarity of the water is better than anywhere in the

Traycee Mayer: 00:25:32

world that I've traveled. So

Janice Porter: 00:25:34

why scuba diving? What brought when did you start

Janice Porter: 00:25:37

that?

Traycee Mayer: 00:25:38

I started it. Let's see it's getting it's hard

Traycee Mayer: 00:25:42

to believe it's been almost 15 years ago now, I was managing a

Traycee Mayer: 00:25:46

hotel in Waikiki Beach, and it had been a long process of

Traycee Mayer: 00:25:54

buying the hotel, interviewing 180 employees, hiring them all,

Traycee Mayer: 00:25:58

training them, doing some renovation. The hotel is a

Traycee Mayer: 00:26:02

stunning hotel. It's they've done so much more since, even

Traycee Mayer: 00:26:06

since I left 15 years ago, but so Queen Kapiolani is the one of

Traycee Mayer: 00:26:11

the most beautiful hotels in Waikiki Beach. And at one point,

Traycee Mayer: 00:26:15

you know, I didn't want to stay there because I had other, you

Traycee Mayer: 00:26:18

know, still family, and I had rather responsibilities to other

Traycee Mayer: 00:26:21

hotels in California, so I didn't stay and then when I went

Traycee Mayer: 00:26:25

back to to help support the team, I had a lot of free times

Traycee Mayer: 00:26:29

on my hands because they were doing such a phenomenal job. So

Traycee Mayer: 00:26:32

I started scuba diving, and that's kind of it's really

Traycee Mayer: 00:26:36

simple, but today I do work my scuba diving into my experiences

Traycee Mayer: 00:26:43

as a leadership coach. And there's a lot of you know,

Traycee Mayer: 00:26:47

spiritual experiences, both with scuba diving and I do a lot of

Traycee Mayer: 00:26:51

hiking. I just came back from Spain recently, and, yeah, all

Traycee Mayer: 00:26:55

of those trips the last dozen years or so are actually going

Traycee Mayer: 00:27:00

to be part of my new Oracle deck, which will be yes next

Traycee Mayer: 00:27:04

month. Yes, finished.

Janice Porter: 00:27:07

Okay, yes, that. That sounds exciting. I want to

Janice Porter: 00:27:10

know about that. Yeah. So it's, is it? So it's a card deck that

Janice Porter: 00:27:15

you just will pick one as or is it's not like tarot cards. It's

Janice Porter: 00:27:19

like, yes, pick a card a day kind of thing and see what it

Janice Porter: 00:27:23

has to say exactly.

Traycee Mayer: 00:27:24

And so an Oracle deck is, is just gives you, it

Traycee Mayer: 00:27:30

gives you, like, a suggestion on the direction that you're going

Traycee Mayer: 00:27:34

in. And so the my, my deck is called the leader paths Oracle

Traycee Mayer: 00:27:39

deck. I'm working on getting it to the printer this week,

Traycee Mayer: 00:27:43

actually, and it's 7075, photographs of places I've

Traycee Mayer: 00:27:48

traveled in the world and through, like I said, hiking,

Traycee Mayer: 00:27:52

scoop. There's some underwater pictures. There are, you know,

Traycee Mayer: 00:27:56

just a lot of different, different things that are have a

Traycee Mayer: 00:27:59

lot of really strong meaning to me. So I'll be producing some of

Traycee Mayer: 00:28:02

the the photographs in artwork that people can hang on their

Traycee Mayer: 00:28:06

walls as well. So yeah, you know, but at the end of the day,

Traycee Mayer: 00:28:09

it's so each one has a message for your path. So as your path

Traycee Mayer: 00:28:14

as a leader in your workplace, your path is leader in your

Traycee Mayer: 00:28:19

family. You know, your local church. You know, whatever it

Traycee Mayer: 00:28:22

might be, we all need guidance on where our path is going. So I

Traycee Mayer: 00:28:27

hope it will be very inspirational to,

Janice Porter: 00:28:29

Oh, sounds like it? Yes, definitely. So just a

Janice Porter: 00:28:34

couple of random questions I like to ask. My favorite word is

Janice Porter: 00:28:39

curiosity, and so I like to ask my guests whether you think

Janice Porter: 00:28:46

curiosity is innate or learned, and what you are most curious

Janice Porter: 00:28:51

about today. So two parts to the question. Well, the

Traycee Mayer: 00:28:55

first part, I think that part of it is innate,

Traycee Mayer: 00:28:59

but but it you can be trained to go, to be more curious. I think

Traycee Mayer: 00:29:04

it's a good habit to get in for us to be more curious. And

Traycee Mayer: 00:29:08

again, that that comes back to leadership, that comes back to

Traycee Mayer: 00:29:10

coaching. I think I've always been a curious person, but I

Traycee Mayer: 00:29:15

think my time spent at Berkeley, the Coaching Institute, they

Traycee Mayer: 00:29:20

actually teach you about framing questions with curiosity to the

Traycee Mayer: 00:29:26

clients that we coach Yes, so that allows me to answer that as

Traycee Mayer: 00:29:31

an affirmative on both, both cases. Okay, and then, what am I

Traycee Mayer: 00:29:34

curious about today? I'm curious about how I can, how I will

Traycee Mayer: 00:29:40

continue to be creative and artistic in this way that I had

Traycee Mayer: 00:29:44

never imagined, writing a book, doing this oracle deck, doing

Traycee Mayer: 00:29:50

custom workshops for leadership, and especially with right now,

Traycee Mayer: 00:29:56

talking to women about self, love, all of those things.

Traycee Mayer: 00:29:59

Because I'm curious about where my path is going, right, right?

Traycee Mayer: 00:30:04

Because, because it's exciting and it's fun, and I feel like

Traycee Mayer: 00:30:08

I'm combining this, the Spirit and of creativity and my heart

Traycee Mayer: 00:30:14

of kindness with what I do for a living. So how lucky am I?

Janice Porter: 00:30:19

Yeah, that's really special. I feel the same

Janice Porter: 00:30:21

way, in the sense that I'm always talking about gratitude

Janice Porter: 00:30:24

in terms of the clients that I work with, and how are they

Janice Porter: 00:30:27

showing gratitude to the people that they work with? Because so

Janice Porter: 00:30:32

often we just go next and we keep moving, and we don't really

Janice Porter: 00:30:36

show that appreciation that people need to hear and see

Janice Porter: 00:30:40

definitely, do Are you a reader or listen like do you like to

Janice Porter: 00:30:46

read real books still? Or do you read on an on a digital path? Do

Janice Porter: 00:30:52

you listen to auditory books? What do you do? Do you do

Janice Porter: 00:30:55

anything? Yeah, I

Traycee Mayer: 00:30:56

do a little bit of everything. I kind of mix it

Traycee Mayer: 00:30:59

up. I'm not I'm not stuck on one or the other. I think from one

Traycee Mayer: 00:31:02

to the next, I still have hard copies. There's, there's a

Traycee Mayer: 00:31:06

bookshelf behind me, so yeah, and I haven't done an audible on

Traycee Mayer: 00:31:11

my book yet. It's available on Kindle, and it's also on Amazon,

Traycee Mayer: 00:31:15

and a soft copy and Barnes and Noble. So I'm, I'm debating

Traycee Mayer: 00:31:19

whether I should, should do an audible version of my book,

Traycee Mayer: 00:31:22

because I know people have different ways of experiencing.

Janice Porter: 00:31:26

I know I'm drowning in books. And, yeah, I

Janice Porter: 00:31:29

don't read them all, you know, yeah, and I haven't decided on

Janice Porter: 00:31:33

using Audible yet, because that's just one more thing to

Janice Porter: 00:31:37

have a subscription to and that, you know, anyway. But, and are

Janice Porter: 00:31:43

you a movie person?

Traycee Mayer: 00:31:45

You know what? I don't watch a lot of movies, but

Traycee Mayer: 00:31:48

I actually did Sunday, I told myself I had the day off, even

Traycee Mayer: 00:31:52

though I was working on my finishing my card deck. I

Traycee Mayer: 00:31:56

watched that new wicked movie and at home, and I thought that

Traycee Mayer: 00:32:01

was fabulous. I've seen it. I read the book. I read that book

Traycee Mayer: 00:32:04

in Okay, oh my gosh. 20 years ago, I saw the performance at

Traycee Mayer: 00:32:10

the Pantages in Los Angeles, yeah, and so watching that movie

Traycee Mayer: 00:32:16

come to life was was pretty cool. And I wanted to see a

Traycee Mayer: 00:32:19

great

Janice Porter: 00:32:19

message, yeah, okay, I need to see it, but I

Janice Porter: 00:32:22

don't know if I'm going to get to the theater to see it, but

Janice Porter: 00:32:24

did it still work on the the big screen at home?

Traycee Mayer: 00:32:28

Absolutely. So, so you know, it's I shouldn't

Traycee Mayer: 00:32:32

say this. I don't want to give this away, but this is my

Traycee Mayer: 00:32:35

perception. So nobody's confirmed this, but this is my

Traycee Mayer: 00:32:37

perception that green witch, Elphaba, yeah, she never really

Traycee Mayer: 00:32:42

was wicked. She was misunderstood. Okay, yeah, okay.

Traycee Mayer: 00:32:48

She has a huge heart of kindness. It doesn't matter that

Traycee Mayer: 00:32:51

she's green,

Janice Porter: 00:32:53

well, and yeah, okay, I must watch it. Actually,

Janice Porter: 00:32:57

I might go see it this weekend. Thank you. Well, thank you. This

Janice Porter: 00:33:01

has been delightful. I always like to ask my guests if they

Janice Porter: 00:33:06

have one piece of wisdom they want to leave with my audience

Janice Porter: 00:33:10

around business, and then we'll call it a wrap.

Traycee Mayer: 00:33:14

Okay, so what comes to mind, first of all, is

Traycee Mayer: 00:33:18

your next the next client, or or employee, or might it be

Traycee Mayer: 00:33:26

yourself that you look at. So maybe you'll look at yourself in

Traycee Mayer: 00:33:31

the mirror, if it's you, or if it's an employee or a client, or

Traycee Mayer: 00:33:35

maybe it's a family member, ask them how they're doing today,

Traycee Mayer: 00:33:39

and we'll stop and wait for the answer. Yeah, we're all we're

Traycee Mayer: 00:33:44

all in too big of a rush, and we need to stop and realize that

Traycee Mayer: 00:33:47

the person in front of us, and that might be us, is really

Traycee Mayer: 00:33:51

important, and we need to take a moment to listen. That's

Janice Porter: 00:33:54

great advice. Thank you so much, Tracy. And

Janice Porter: 00:33:57

where can my audience find you? And I will put it in the show

Janice Porter: 00:33:59

notes as well,

Traycee Mayer: 00:34:00

yeah, absolutely, well, and certainly on LinkedIn.

Traycee Mayer: 00:34:04

But the best way to get in touch with me also is just go to my

Traycee Mayer: 00:34:08

website, b, u leadership.com and it's B, E, y, o, u

Traycee Mayer: 00:34:13

leadership.com there's a place on there where you can book 30

Traycee Mayer: 00:34:16

minutes to talk to me. My phone number is on there, email and

Traycee Mayer: 00:34:21

all of my other links, like Instagram and YouTube and and

Traycee Mayer: 00:34:27

LinkedIn. So okay,

Janice Porter: 00:34:29

thank you. Thank you so much. Appreciate you a

Janice Porter: 00:34:31

lot, and appreciate your wisdom. So thanks again, and to my

Janice Porter: 00:34:36

audience, thank you for being here and remember to stay

Janice Porter: 00:34:39

connected and be remembered.

Traycee Mayer: 00:34:42

Yay.