Blossom Your Awesome Podcast This Is How You Boss Up With Christy Pretzinger

Blossom Your Awesome Podcast This Is How You Boss Up With Christy Pretzinger

Christy Pretzinger is the owner and CEO of Writergirl.com

She is a boss for the ages who is always working on herself, showing up happy, leading teams who are happy and creating space within her organization for employees to access wellness and self-improvement.

Christy is a sought after speaker and mentor and brings us incredible value and powerful insights to bossing up.

She knows what it takes to lead a growing organization to success while ensuring her team is happy and thriving.

Listen in to this powerful conversation with Christy and I.

To learn more about Christy check out her site here.

To see more of my work check me out at my website

Where I write and cover mindfulness and other things to help you Blossom Your Awesome.

Or follow me on instagram where I post fairly regularly and ask an inquisitive question or two weekly in hopes of getting you thinking about your life and going deeper with it.

My Instagram - i_go_by_skd

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Transcript

Sue (00:01.245)
Hi there today on the show we have got Christy Pretzinger here with us. I am so honored and delighted to have you here. Welcome to the show.

Christy (00:09.922)
Thank you for having me. I'm happy to be here.

Sue (00:12.725)
Oh, I am so happy to have you here. Get into your story. You are a visionary innovator. You have transformed the landscape of healthcare content creation with your company, Writer Girl. And it's so cool some of what you do with your employees and all of that. So I wanna get into all of this with you. Give us the backstory, how and why and how you came up with this.

Christy (00:40.002)
Well, I'll give you the nutshell version because I've been doing it for a long time. But I started out freelancing as a freelance writer a long time ago. And then after I'd done that for about nine years, I joined a woman who had founded Writer Girl. And it was just a freelance writing business basically, but she had basically one large client. And as I was working with her, she wanted to take a maternity leave. And so she asked me to come on and do that. So she was having a high-risk pregnancy. And I said, of course.

So I did that, and then I joined her as an employee. And then after a few months, her largest client was indicted for accounting fraud. So she ended up being pregnant again. It kind of freaked her out. And she was like, I went out. And so I bought her out of the business and basically got the name, because there wasn't any recurring revenue at the time. Fast forward, I started bringing teams of writers to large projects. And then after another year, I was

I started bringing teams of writers to large hospital organization projects because I had landed a project with a hospital system that had three hospitals that were relaunching all at once. And so I brought teams of writers to them and I thought, oh, that'll be easy. You know, as an entrepreneur, you tell yourself the necessary lie. Oh, that'll be easy. And so I thought I would just go ahead and call in hospitals and they would just, hire me lickety split.

That didn't happen. Nobody in my town, in my city, would hire us at all. So I ended up going up to The Ohio State University and that was one of our largest, our first largest clients and they are still a client to this day and that's been since 2009.

Sue (02:23.193)
Wow, okay, so just correcting backtracking here for a moment because I think you said you founded it, but I think this is so cool that you took over. You saw this opportunity and seized it when you kind of came in as an employee, but what a fabulous name, right? Writer girl. And then you take over, seized that opportunity, and you took it to the next level, which I just speaks volumes to your...

ingenuity.

Christy (02:54.858)
Well, some of it is, you know, I always quote the Oracle of Oprah, because she says that luck is preparation meeting opportunity. And I was just working really hard at the time. I had a young child and my husband at the time had chosen to stay home. So I was the breadwinner. So I had no choice but to make sure that I was working. And then one of the things as I was building Writer Girl, the thing that actually became

the core of who we are, which is our culture. I said to my accountant at the time, if I can't build a business based on kindness, then I don't want to do it at all. And so I can say that now, looking back at that, probably not quite 20 years, maybe closer to 15 years, I can say that that's really been the driver for everything that I do. And it's created an environment where people can thrive and it's become really my passion more than anything else that we do.

Sue (03:53.593)
And where did that stem from? Was it through personal experience and having worked for and with unkind people? What was that like?

Christy (04:05.798)
I had a lot of jobs, even young. I didn't stay in jobs for a long time. I was usually about a year and a half. And I think the longest was about four and a half years. And in several of those places, I didn't think they treated people very well. A lot of times what I have seen happen, and actually as a business owner now, I really try to avoid, is that when you bring on someone into the same position that your current employee is in, you pay them more.

than the current employee who's already proven their value and does a really good job for you, but maybe market conditions have changed or something, but all other things being equal, not someone with more experience. I'm talking about all other things being equal or also what that position should pay, regardless of the person's, there should be a band within there of a pay. But we saw, I mean, I was hired when I was much younger to come in to work in a position with a dear friend of mine at the time. She had been there for a year and a half.

I was making more than her and she was training me how to do that job. And I just thought that didn't seem right. And I didn't like things like that. I'm much more egalitarian. And I just, I really, I had been so fortunate in my freelance career to be able to have a child, to be around for him, to kind of have more control over my life. And as I was building the business, I really wanted to be able to offer that to people who would join me as employees.

that we call it life work balance at Rider Girl, not work life balance, because I really want people to know that I mean it when I say that we work to live, we don't live to work. And yes, you do meaningful work and you do important work, but you're also treated as an adult. And that has always been something that's been the core of who I am and has become the core of our organization.

Sue (05:51.865)
Wow, I love this, Kristi. And what is it like for you personally? I mean, to have these values and bringing that to your organization and then seeing the profound impact like it's a really great beautiful thing and it encourages a better workspace and more success and all of that. I'm sure.

Christy (06:12.678)
Yeah, it's really humbling. I would tell you that it's truly humbling. Because when I think about this business and I think about the impact I have been able to have on the lives of people, whatever, however small or large that's been, I do find that humbling. I'm humbled when I hear the employees say they want to retire from Writer Girl and they're maybe in their 30s or 40s. I'm proud of that. I'm very proud of that. But I'm also.

keenly aware that I did not do this on my own. As the CEO and owner, I cast the vision, but I tell all of the employees, they're the ones who live it out every day. They protect this culture. If they didn't do that, it wouldn't be what it is. I mean, I think I have to set the example. And I think when I used to say when I was closer to the hiring process, when I'd bring people on, they didn't necessarily believe that I meant what I said, because everybody's been burned.

probably either had bad bosses or situations. So a lot of times they wouldn't believe what I say. So I always stress to people that trust is a long game and that the more people watch you, see what you do, see how you behave, they realize, oh, she actually did mean that. She really does mean life work balance. It really is okay if I go work at my kid's school during lunchtime. I don't have to clear it with someone before I go pick up my kid after school.

You know, those are all things that are kind of baked into who we are as an organization. That, you know, we trust you and you trust us. I always feel very appreciative that people are willing to give their best to this organization. And they do. I mean, these people are so whip smart and they work really hard and they do brilliant work and brilliant problem solving. And I'm very appreciative of that. And as a result, I try and reward them.

and compensate them appropriately, and also create this environment where they get to do that.

Sue (08:16.765)
I love it. So now you know what's so interesting is so many organizations are missing exactly this. It's kind of like you're coming at it from this more holistic inside out approach right? Like how can I get a bunch of happy fulfilled people together to do this awesome work versus how can I crank out productivity and crack the whip and

Christy (08:40.77)
Right.

Sue (08:46.244)
you know, show them who's boss.

Christy (08:48.286)
Right. Well, I think that I've said many times that earlier in my career before I was building Writer Girl, I have had myriad failures, like most people, and I've run things off the rails. And I think that having that happen, knowing that you can fail and make a mistake, at least in my experience, allowed me to not be ego-driven as I was building this. And I think that that's something that I've

I do see sometimes in other business owners is they think they're the best at doing certain things. And I always think, well, then you have a job. Why don't you hire someone and mentor them and teach them to be better at it than you? And acknowledge that if you're the smartest person in the room, you might be in the wrong room. You know, that I like not being the smartest person in the room. I have a very different perspective when I meet with my leadership team than they do because I'm not in the day-to-day. And I would never stick my nose in the day-to-day. I would completely mess it up.

So I ask different questions maybe than they do. So I have a different perspective, but that does in no way make me smarter than them. And I'm aware of that. You know, I think that that, I think that, you know, I guess it's that servant leadership, I suppose. I'm not, I'm a huge fan of that term, but I think just less ego driven. I've said frequently, fairly recently, that I feel like the world in which we live right now is really ripe for some...

feminine energy, and I do not mean that in a gender way. I mean that in, for example, someone somewhere decided that things like empathy and kindness and good listening and compassion, that those are soft skills. And actually, those are not soft skills. Those are very, very difficult skills. And they require intention and they require attention.

And those are the kind of things that I think about that are being called for now. And I think that we saw a lot of that during the pandemic when we had the great resignation. And at first people were like, well, what's happening? And then what really happened is people had really bad work environments and they left. They're like, the world's crazy. I'm not sticking around for a place that doesn't appreciate me and doesn't feed into me in any way. So that's what I mean when I say that the world in which we live is really ready for that kind of energy.

Sue (11:11.989)
and we need more people like you. So talk to us about this, you know, less ego driven approach. There's a huge component of self-confidence, self-development. I mean, all of this stuff you've got to be doing to bring as the CEO and owner less ego. So what does that look like for you?

Christy (11:34.774)
Well, I think when Writer Girl really began to grow, which was around 2009, I had a coach at the time who said to me, you know, you are Writer Girl and Writer Girl is you, and it won't grow until you do. And I really took that to heart. And so at that time, I'm not a huge business book reader. I mean, I have read many, of course, but I really like more personal development kind of reading, if I'm going to do nonfiction.

So I basically, every morning I got up and I sat in my chair and I meditated and I read various self-help books for lack of a better term. But I think that it's important as a leader to have insight into yourself, to know your strengths and weaknesses. And I think that you can't, that again has to happen with intention. You have to really be willing to look at that.

and then look a little deeper, you know, lift it up just a little bit more and be like, oh gosh, I wonder why I do that. I mean, there are many things about myself that I learned over time were very off-putting to my employees. And fortunately, the people that have been with me the longest, I think my longest term employee is 12 years, and then we have 11 and then nine, and so there's some very long-term employees. But those people have been comfortable enough with me and trust me enough.

that they have given me difficult feedback. And I can take that feedback and listen to it and moderate my behavior. You know, I'm a grownup. And if I can't moderate my behavior, then I really don't deserve to be sitting in this seat. If I'm doing something that is making someone feel inferior in some way, or if they feel like I'm not listening to them or something like that, I have to be able to moderate that behavior.

Sue (13:32.113)
Wow. Okay. So, you know, what I'm getting here is this, this humility, like profound sense of humility that you exude, which again, you know, coming back to that self-confidence piece, like, can you give us some practical guidance here on how one arrives at that place to really just not feel...

you know, threatened by other people or situations.

Christy (14:02.998)
Yeah, I think some of it comes with age, wisdom, right? You get a little bit older and you're not quite as concerned about that. Some of it I will say for me, I never have chased the money.

That was never the most important thing to me. Yeah, I want to make money. I've not had money and I've had money and I'll take money any day over not having it. But that's not ever been the most important thing. And I've said very clearly to my team, we're not growing this business so I can have more shoes. It's more about, we all love this opportunity. How can we grow so that we can share it with more people? Because I think the world needs this kind of place. People need to, we need to reinvent the way people look at the world of work.

It doesn't need to be this dreaded thing that you do. I never wanted to work somewhere that made me feel dread or that I wasn't looking forward to. And I wanted it to be an environment where I wanted to work. So, I mean, it really was out of self-interest, you know, to be honest with you. It's like, I wanted to work somewhere where I felt appreciated, where I was treated like an adult. So I thought, well, I'll just treat everybody else that way. And I will say, honestly, I can count on one hand the number of times I've been burned. In fact, I think one finger. And I think I can also count.

On one hand, the number of people who have left in all the years that we've done this. We have, I think, 30 or 32 employees, and I think that we've had less than five that have left. They tend to come and stay. So in terms of developing that, not chasing the money as a business owner, I think, is a very important thing. Obviously, you are in business. You need to understand that. You look at your finances, and you have a fiduciary responsibility.

as a CEO or owner to your business. And that's for your employees too. Obviously you have to do that or else there won't be a business. So I'm not dismissing that aspect of owning a business. It's very important. But one of the things that occurred to me once I was having dinner with some fellow business owners, friends of mine, and we were talking about justice topic. And I said, you know, I never really, I always look at my balance sheet, but I don't look at my business through that lens. It's almost like I look.

Christy (16:10.958)
through the lens of a cultural balance sheet. And so then I was like, oh, wow, that actually makes sense. It's an analogy you can explain to people who own businesses and have to look at a balance sheet. And you think about, well, you have assets and you have liabilities and you have equity. And so it's the same with culture. You build it just like you build a balance sheet. You have cultural equity, you have cultural liabilities and you have cultural assets. So what are you gonna do with all of those? How are you gonna manage those? And most importantly,

understanding that there are hidden costs on a balance sheet. And one of the biggest ones is employee turnover. That is a massive cost to a business. And it doesn't show up on a balance sheet. It's nowhere on a balance sheet. But we all know the cost of having people leave and all of that IP that walks right out the door when you've had this employee for a long time. So I started thinking kind of in that perspective. And then when I started really looking at all of this, I realized that

this long game of building this environment where people can thrive has indeed turned out to be incredibly profitable for the organization. Not only in the no hidden costs of very low turnover, but also because we extend our culture to our clients. And our mission is we build relationships one word at a time. And we live that out. And our clients feel that. And so as a result, you know,

It's a two-way relationship. It's not transactional. It's very much we build that relationship with them, and they, in turn, build it back with us. We've had several times that clients have allowed us to hold onto money that they prepaid that's run out on a contract. And we usually say, well, you can renew, and we'll carry that money over as long as you purchase the equal amount to what you have left. And one time we had a client who said, you know what?

We love this relationship. We've been challenging. We changed deadlines. We dragged our feet. We didn't respond. We're going to let you hold on to that, and we'll just start a new contract. And that was $150,000 that went to the bottom line of our business. And that is all because the team that worked with that client worked really hard to build a relationship with that client that worked for both parties. So again, to develop these skills, I think if you start looking at

Christy (18:33.462)
these soft skills is actually, especially if you're a business owner, looking at the fact that they impact your bottom line. If that's the way you always look at your business, well, this impacts your bottom line very directly. And so if that's the way you want to look at it, that's fine. But remember that it's a key element in the bottom line to your business. Did that answer your question, Sue?

Sue (18:59.705)
Um, that did that more than answered my question. I love that response because it's really giving, um, business owners this deeper insight, like, cause I get that they think or see things in a certain way. Right. So you're proposing, Hey, if it's about the bottom line, this is still about the bottom line. So I just think that's so awesome. And it just speaks volumes to how you see. Um,

the world and your business and those around it. Can you talk to us more about equity? Like building that team, just equity in the workplace and how you kind of encourage that.

Christy (19:47.094)
Well, there's actually, it's interesting that you choose the word equity because there is equity in a couple of ways, right? There's equity in terms of equality, right? People say they want pay equity or that kind of thing, but there's also equity in terms of like a balance sheet, which is kind of like the assets and the liabilities build your equity, right? I mean, your assets mind and your liabilities equal your equity. So, it's kind of a double entendre, if you will, with that word. So,

One of the ways that, first of all, our values are, we are empowered, curious, kind, and fun. And those values have never changed. We established those probably a good 10 years ago, I would think, when we finally did it. We were big enough, we were like, we probably should have like a mission, vision, values kind of thing. And so we developed those. And one of the things that we do to make sure that everyone in the organization is hardwired to actually live those values out is,

We have a monthly team meeting and we have an award. We call it the Woohoo Cup. But we have an award and what we do is people submit the names of people that they think. And what it is like for the month of, like last month, I think it was empowered. Who has demonstrated being empowered? Not that we make them empowered, they are empowered. How have they demonstrated that? That's a fine line, but it'll get you a different response. If you ask someone.

do you feel empowered? They're probably like, well, you don't really empower me and blah, blah. But if you say, how have you demonstrated empowerment? Whole different, whole different answer. And so anyway, what we do is we have people submit who best demonstrates empowerment, people submit it, and then we make a drawing and somebody gets the woohoo cup. I think now they get like a $10 Amazon card or something like that. But the important thing is that it helps people recognize one another, gives a forum for that, but also that it keeps those values top of mind.

Because a lot of time for companies, values are just like on the letterhead if anybody even has that anymore. But they're on a wall in an office. But nobody really lives them out. So I always say that we engineer the structures and processes to allow for the weaving of the tapestry. So we do the hard stuff, the hard skills, which are your structure and your processes. Those, I think, are actually the hard structure, the hard skills to allow for the weaving of the soft skills. And that way,

Christy (22:03.702)
those values are there all along. And so when everybody knows that, you know, we're all expected to be empowered, curious, kind, and fun. And what I say to people is those values are the thread that runs through our whole organization. And that way your decisions can hang on that thread.

And those values won't change. So you don't all of a sudden have to be like, oh, gosh, now they're different. Now we're something else. It's like, no, we're always gonna be empowered, curious, kind, and fine. We're always gonna be building relationships one word at a time. And that allows you to have an eye towards a long game in living those out with each other, with our vendors, and with our clients. So...

I don't know if that really answers the equity issue, but I do believe that what happens, the biggest equity that you develop in the terms of a cultural balance sheet with assets and liabilities, what you build is that culture. Simon Sinek calls it the circle of safety. Have you ever heard of that, the circle of safety? Yeah, so I'll just recap it quickly in case everybody doesn't know who's listening, but it's basically when a group of people feels like they are safe.

Sue (23:02.059)
Thank you.

Christy (23:10.61)
then they can work together to solve problems. And then the individual succeeds as does the collective whole. If people don't feel safe, they start turning on each other and it weakens. It weakens the surrounding tissue, if you will, of the organization. And so I look at that circle of safety, that environment where people can thrive as the actual equity that you build when you have an eye on that. And then that equity in turn really does affect the bottom line of your organization.

Sue (23:43.005)
Wow, what a great insight there on so many different fronts. And I love how you explain that because it speaks to what you do, this idea of helping people get clear with their content and clear with their messaging. And you are embodying that because like you say, you start with these kind of core values for yourself as an organization and you live that. And then you're, you know,

demonstrating that through the organization and through the work you put out there in the world. So I think that's so cool. I love that. Now, what about some practical guidance for anyone who wants to start their own business? Like, what do you think those key skills are, or, you know, character traits, or what does that person need to succeed?

Christy (24:39.574)
That's a great question, Sue. I think I do mentor younger businesses because I always say that I want to tell them all the ways that all the mistakes that I've made so they can go break it in a brand new way because we just no need to repeat ourselves. So one of the things when I do work with these younger businesses, I always say to them when they're beating themselves up, if you even have the guts to go out and start a business, very few people have the guts to do that. So pat yourself on the back right there.

It's a challenging thing to do. If it were easy, everybody would do it. It's not easy. And when you're building it, when you're the one selling and you're executing and you're worried about payroll if you have it or just paying contracted people that work with you and then making sure, oh my gosh, there's no pipeline here. I got to go out and sell again. I mean, it's a very, very challenging thing to do. And it doesn't matter whether it's running a business or a Taekwondo studio or a service business or, you know.

lawn care or PR, it doesn't matter. It's very, very challenging to get that going. And it's hard, it's really hard. I think that one of the things that is important as most people who start businesses kind of have this, but really recognizing it, is that you need to have a healthy relationship with risk.

If you're too risk averse, it'll never happen. Now you also can't be too risky, right? Because you'll end up losing everything. You don't want to bet the farm on something. So you have to have a healthy relationship with risk. And one of the things that I wish I would have had more of as I was building this business is mentors. You know, there are other business owners that will help you and they're eager to help you. They don't, you know, they don't want other people to make the same mistakes they made. And...

And so seek out that help if you can. There is an organization, it's a global organization in like 75 countries. It's called Entrepreneurs Organization, it's member led. To be an actual member of EO, you have to have a business with revenue of a million or more and be the owner. But they have a program, this is the one I mentor through, which is called the Accelerator Program. And for that program, if you have $250,000 in revenue, we work with you to get you to a million in a couple years.

Christy (26:54.526)
that's the intention of it, to help raise these people up. Because that is really hard to get from like $250 to a million. Because you're doing something completely different, and you don't know how. I mean, unless you're a serial entrepreneur and you've done it before, but most of us don't know how to do that. I mean, it's challenging. And so it's really great to reach out to those kind of organizations. I'm sure there are many others and different places that will put you in touch with other business owners that will mentor you and help you. I think that's.

really important. And then the other important thing is when you get that help, be willing to listen to it. You know, it's if you think that you know it all, then you just wow, that's really, really dangerous to think that you know it all. You have to be willing to be like, I did not know that. I did not know that, you know. And that's probably one of the biggest things that will help you really jumpstart whatever you're doing is being willing to listen to people who are a little further down the road than you.

incredibly helpful.

Sue (27:57.273)
Wow, what a great insight there in offering that response. I just love that. Now talk to us about your own personal journey. As you continue evolve and growing and growing your business, what is your biggest struggle today? What are you working on? What's challenging for you? And what does that look like?

Christy (28:24.734)
I'm working on my golf game and it's really bad. I'm just taking up golf and I'm not good at it, which is an interesting challenge. So I'm like, I figure stuff out for a living and I'm having a hard time figuring this one out. In terms of work challenge, I think that the biggest challenge for me right now and that thank goodness I have a wonderful leadership team and we are all tackling this together, is trying to figure out if the model we have is scalable to where we wanna go.

Sue (28:27.845)
Ha ha ha.

Christy (28:54.562)
You know, we are not a platform-based business. We have a lot of arms and legs, and it's highly custom, which is one of the things that we like about it, which in some ways insulates us from many things, such as chat GPT, because we excel at being human. So while we can use that as a tool, it would be difficult to replace the human aspect of the things that we do. But on the other hand, because of that, it makes it difficult to scale. So that's one of the things we're like, okay, well, how else could we...

do this that we could scale? Or is there something else we could do that is a little, you know, just a little over here, a little adjacent that would be something that would be more scalable and, you know, able to help us continue to grow? And I guess in my experience I've thought about and I've said before, it's like, I'm not all anxious about us growing and we have to be to 20 million or anything like that. But I...

do believe that people want to see growth because it creates opportunities for them in their career. If we're just stagnant, you know, they always say, what's that saying that if you're not moving forward and you think you're standing still, you're actually going backwards. And I wanna make sure that the people who work for Writer Girl feel that there are opportunities for them. And really the only way to have those opportunities is to continue to grow. So.

I would say probably that's the biggest thing. And learning, I'm constantly learning. I'm a lifelong learner. And I encourage that in all of our employees too. They all get personal development money every year that they can use towards whatever they want. It doesn't have to be work related because I wanna encourage people to keep learning about things that they care about, that they're passionate about. So for me, it's been interesting as we grow, like I said, going from 250 to a million is really hard. Going from a million to five is a whole nother ball game. Going from five to 10 is a whole nother ball game.

You know, you're running very different businesses and learning all the things that go with that. I find that really interesting, not terribly challenging. I mean, it is challenging. It's not easy. I don't mean it that way, but it's not like something that keeps me up at night. It's just, wow, I'm really learning something. And I have to become, in order to run a business that is 10 million instead of 7 million, I have to be a different leader. I have to be a different person. What does that mean? What am I gonna have to learn that I don't know now?

Christy (31:14.082)
and how is that going to be revealed to me? So those are the things that I find interesting and that kind of keep me going and keep me engaged.

Sue (31:23.277)
Wow, I love that. And now tell us, you know, for you, when you first took over, was there, because there's so much clarity in how you speak about it now, right? After all of these years of doing it and the self-development, and like you say, it's a lifelong journey. And so you're constantly working, you're growing, you're evolving, and you're conscious about what you're building and growing.

But what was that like in the beginning? Like, did you have this larger vision? Did that come along as you built it? Does that keep evolving as the business is evolving?

Christy (32:06.386)
Yeah, that's a big question.

I think I've always been someone who was really curious about myself and about other people. So that kind of probably started a lot of it and like the self-development, personal development kind of things. Many years ago, you have to think about how many years ago, probably 12 or 13 years ago, I learned about the Enneagram. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the Enneagram. It's a personality typing system, but it's different than any of the other ones that I've encountered because it looks at

your motivation for your behavior as opposed to your behavior. Because behaviors can look alike, but why you behave that way is completely different. So I learned a lot about that. And it changed the way I parented my son, because I learned about what worked for him and how I was actually really driving him crazy as a poor little 10-year-old. So it changed how I parented him. But it also changed the way I was growing the business.

because what it allowed me, and first of all, I exposed my whole team to it. At the time, it was a much smaller team. It was probably, I don't know, maybe five employees or something like that. And so we all were typed within this Enneagram type, because there's different types. And so we were all typed. And then we all learned to start looking at each other with that lens. So we could kind of see like, you would always, if you would look at someone's behavior, you'd think, oh, okay, I know this person.

always has a to-do list and feels really good when they check off the list and they want people to think of them as an achiever and as a winner and they want people to like them. So that's their driver, you know? So they're not really doing this because they're impatient. They're like, I have to do this because this is how I, this is how I define myself. I have to win by doing this. Somebody else might be like, they process really slowly. I process quickly.

Christy (34:06.954)
doesn't make me smarter, it just means I process faster. Other people process more slowly, more in their body. And it certainly doesn't mean that they're any less intelligent. It means they process different, and they bring something different to the conversation, certainly, than I do. So I learn to appreciate that. And so do the other people, because we all, in fact, we have an Enneagram Lunch and Learn, I think, this week, where we're going a little bit deeper with all of this so that everybody can learn to look at that way. So.

What I've had people say to me is, and I think this could be true, we've grown mostly through referral. Employees who are here refer their friends or people that they know. I talked to somebody and she happened to mention that her daughter was in HR and didn't like where she was working. I was like, oh, she should apply to Ryder or we're hiring our first HR coordinator. So now she works with Ryder and she's amazing. A good friend of mine was talking one day about her daughter and actually was our Indian gram coach. She was talking about her daughter who had helped her do all this training stuff.

Oh my gosh, she'd be great at Rider Girl. Do you think she'd want to work at Rider Girl? And she works at Rider Girl, and she's one of our best employees. So a lot of things happen that way, very organically. And I'm a believer in, you know, you attract things to you and the people that have been attracted to Rider Girl are very like-minded. You know, for example, we start all of our meetings that have three or more people with a meditation.

And a lot of people, when they first come, they're kind of like, what is this? You know, kind of think it's a little strange that you start with a meditation. But now everybody likes it. And in these other meetings, they have like 10 people in them. They'll rotate. And they'll assign it to someone. OK, so, you know, Kristen, it's your week to do it. What meditation are you doing? And so people do different ones. But the whole point of it is to bring everybody into the same space, you know, instead of, you know, how you fly into a meeting, especially if it's a virtual meeting. It's like,

you know, your kid's there, the dog's there, or you know, you just ate lunch or whatever, and you're not really present. And so that all helps people become more present. And so I think because we have this environment, people are attracted to it. And I found out too, because you know, everybody wants to buy businesses right now, so I get a lot of requests for that. And a couple of them recently have been within our industry, people that I have great respect for, and I really like them. I was kind of like, why would you, you know, why are you looking at Rider Girl? And by the way, we're not selling, but,

Christy (36:27.966)
they're like, because your culture, culture is everything. I'm like, wow, so people know that about us. I'm not exactly sure how that gets out into the ether. I think it might be the employees when they go to conferences and they talk about it and they talk about how much they like it there and things like that. I'm not exactly positive, but it's definitely out there. And then that is what has helped to grow it. And again, the people who work here.

want to bring the people that they like on because they've worked with them before and they're like, oh gosh, she'd be really good here. You know, I wonder if we have a spot for her here. Well, if we keep growing, maybe there's more spots for people like an HR coordinator or, you know, something that's completely different that doesn't exist now.

There was no plan those two. You never had a plan. Ha ha ha.

Sue (37:08.806)
Wow

Sue (37:13.441)
Oh my goodness, I just love it. So a couple of things. First and foremost, I just wanna thank you so much for everything you've shared here. You've had so many valuable insights and I think people are gonna have so many great takeaways from all of your wisdom and everything you've shared. So thank you so much.

Christy (37:36.606)
Well, I hope so. I mean, I would love to help other people who have an impact on culture, whether it's within an organization and you just have your own team, or people who own businesses, to realize the power that they have to really, really affect people's lives. I think it's the biggest privilege that you have is to really feed into people's lives and to recognize that and appreciate it.

You know, that it's so crazy. It like always makes me kind of choke up because I mean, it's, it's like a big deal. These are people, this is their lives. And you get to have an impact on that. Not many people get to do that. That's a big deal.

Sue (38:16.577)
Oh my God, I love that. That made me choke up for a second. Now, I just, you know, I get why you have had the success you've had. And I just, again, I think it's so awesome in everything you've brought here. So, you know, what's interesting what you just said, cause at the end, I always ask people, and you've already said so many amazing things and you kind of just said it, but in closing, what...

is that message you want to leave everyone with? What is your hope for everyone?

Christy (38:51.298)
probably really what I just said is that if you have, well, actually everybody has some sort of leadership role. You know what I mean? Whatever you do, you're leading somebody somewhere is watching you. And sometimes it's your kids or it's your friends or it's your employees or it's your coworkers or your clients, somebody's watching you. And what's that saying that it's important who you are when nobody's watching, but you're not aware that people are watching you. But...

But recognizing that you have an effect on the people around you, you know, I remember a long time ago reading somewhere and it actually became part of me, like I don't have the right because I'm having a bad day to make somebody else have a bad day. I don't have that right, you know, I just don't. So, you know, like, you know, even when you...

call somebody on the phone, like, you know, and they're customer service and you're mad about something, taking it on that person because they just answered the phone, it's not right. You know, it doesn't make you feel better. It doesn't accomplish anything. And you don't have the right to ruin their day, you know? It's so much more fun to be a bright light in someone's day than to be that dark cloud when they pick up the phone and you start shouting at them, you know? So just think about that.

Sue (40:11.645)
goodness I love it Christy you've been so awesome and I've just loved all of what you've shared so again I just thank you so much for your time today you've been wonderful

Christy (40:25.406)
Well, thank you for having me. This has been really delightful. I've enjoyed it. You asked great questions and I appreciate the opportunity to share with people. So thank you.

Sue (40:33.762)
Oh my God, you've been wonderful. Thank you so much.