203. Whole Human Leadership Skills with Victoria Pelletier

My guest Victoria Pelletier's journey has been nothing short of remarkable, ascending from a challenging upbringing to the pinnacles of corporate leadership, breaking barriers as the youngest COO at 24, a president at 35, and a CEO by 41. 
In this powerful conversation

• we turns the spotlight on her 'no excuses' philosophy, which has catapulted her to success. 
• We also tackle the transformative influence of personal branding and the critical role of diversity, equity, and inclusion in modern workplace cultures. 
• We unravel the threads of what it means to link one's career to a purpose that resonates deeply, while also highlighting the importance of acquiring skills for the future and clear-cut ways to measure success. 
• and we talk about how the pandemic has reshaped our perceptions of productivity and paved the way for a flexible work culture that champions outcomes over office hours. This shift holds a magnifying glass to the changing narratives around what it means to be productive and trustful in a professional environment.

Closing out, the insights shared by Victoria serve as a powerful reminder that we each hold the pen to script our personal brand narrative. By owning your journey, you unlock the potential to be an unstoppable force in whatever path you choose.

Join us for this episode, not just to listen to a story of triumph against adversity, but to be inspired to author your own tale of achievement.

Find the full shownotes here

From Chaos to Peace Consulting Inc - https://connygraf.com

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Transcript

Conny Graf: 0:00

Welcome to my podcast from Chaos to Peace with Conny. I am Conny Graf and your host, and I will explore with you how a few minutes a day can keep the chaos away. And with chaos we're talking about the physical, digital, social, financial, mental, emotional and spiritual clutter that can accumulate in our life and business. In every episode, I want to make you aware how clutter is so much more than you think, how it affects your finances and how clearing your clutter leads to more time, more money and more peace. Let's go. Well. Hello, my friend. Welcome to the podcast. I am Conny Graf, your host. Thank you so much for allowing me back into your ears. I'm very excited to welcome Victoria Pelletier as a guest today.

Conny Graf: 0:58

Victoria is a 20-plus year corporate executive board director, number one selling author and a prolific motivational and inspirational speaker. She wrote a book called Unstoppable Stories of Changemakers who Dare to Make a Difference, and her next book is about to come out, called Influence Unleashed Forging a Lasting Legacy through Personal Branding. In our conversation, we're talking about how she had to overcome adversity in her childhood, which led her to create a life of no excuses, and this made her unstoppable. This turned into her being the youngest chief operating officer at 24, a president by 35 and a CEO by 41. We talk about whole human leadership and what that means, the importance of personal branding and its impact, and the power of DEI diversity, equity and inclusion in our workplace and our workplace cultures. Okay, without further ado, let's jump into this powerful conversation with the unstoppable Victoria Pelletier. Welcome, victoria, I'm excited to have you as a guest on a podcast. How are you today?

Victoria Pelletier: 2:27

I'm fantastic. Thanks for having me, Conny.

Conny Graf: 2:30

I'm so glad you're here, so please tell my audience. I have an international audience. Tell my audience, where in the world are you located? And then I always ask my guests to tell us something surprising about them that has nothing to do with what we're talking about afterwards.

Victoria Pelletier: 2:47

So I'm a very proud Canadian. However, I live very, very far south in the United States. I live in Miami Beach, florida. I think my Canadian blood, although very accustomed to the snow, wanted to escape it. So that's one of the things I love about being down down here and surprising fat. Well, it will be so surprising now that I said I'm Canadian but that I played hockey. I've played hockey for 20 years, although there's very little of that down here in Florida, so I miss it greatly, but it's one of the things that I love the most in terms of one of my like fitness activities over the last many years.

Conny Graf: 3:24

Wow, I do find that very surprising. So I'm Swiss and we have lots of hockey in Switzerland, and I live in Canada now where there's lots of hockey, but I don't play hockey. So I do find it surprising, but it's awesome. I only watched hockey when I was younger. I watched a lot. So, yeah, yeah, so awesome. So let's dive in. Because you curated a life of no excuses and I heard you say that because you had to overcome so much adversity early on in your life, you were so driven to and became unstoppable. Can you give us the condensed version of what got you here to be unstoppable and living a life of no excuses For?

Victoria Pelletier: 4:11

sure. So I overcame pretty extreme trauma in my youth. I was born to a drug addicted teenager who was quite abusive to me, and so I went in and out of the child welfare system a number of times and I was fortunate, however, to be adopted by a loving family. However, they were lower on the socioeconomic sort of totem pole, if you will, and so one of my mom told me when I think I was 11 she's like Tori, you need to be better than us. And she meant vocationally, educationally, why, I'll tell you she didn't need to say those things, because those two aspects of sort of the trauma and the biology and circumstance I was born into, and then just kind of where we sat socioeconomically and the circumstances behind that, that became kind of my fuel, my drive, my why, if you will? Because I was determined I'm going to be better than, again, biology or circumstance and that, although I only started using the unstoppable term probably 10 or 15 years ago, that was really my nature and so it was overcoming a significant amount.

Victoria Pelletier: 5:13

However, I will say there's a little bit of DNA in that as well. You know, fight or flight, I'm a fighter, and so for me the no excuses, the unstoppable is a meaning that I personally will not let any obstacle, challenge or adversity stop me from achieving the goal or objective I've set for myself, and no excuses. Which drives my children crazy is more the fact that we have choice, and it doesn't mean that we don't deeply feel the emotion that occurs when one of these things happens to us, but we have a choice in terms of how we're going to move forward and deal with that, and so that that's what it's all about for me and that's how I live my life.

Conny Graf: 5:54

I find it interesting that you say that you have some DNA in you to be a fighter, because I just read the book willpower doesn't work by dr Benjamin Hardy and he says the environment shapes how we are and so the when you would go by that, then your environment, like you said, on the lower scale of the sociological level, would have maybe suggested that you're staying there, right. So you do think, or no, ask differently. Do you think we do need to have a certain buck in ourselves to be a fighter rather than taking on the environment, or can we learn to become a fighter?

Victoria Pelletier: 6:42

I think it's a little bit of both, and so I think you're the innate nature like. You're either born with a certain mindset or not. I think so. I do think there's some of that that just is there in that DNA. However, I do believe that you can learn to be resilient, that you can learn to live with a very different philosophy versus what you might actually feel like, that you might alternatively like want to do so. I don't think it's either, or I think it's both. However, I do lean a little bit more heavily into learning and modeling thoughts, action, behaviors that get you towards your goal.

Conny Graf: 7:26

Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, totally, and I think he said that too. He just said the environment has such a big effect on you that you're almost doomed to stay in the environment, so you have to get out of the environment. But, yeah, so I love it. I love also that unstoppable. I kind of see myself maybe not as crazy and in a positive way as you are, but you were very young, so you were really on the achieving and on the trajectory to go to places towards the moon, because you were the youngest chief operating officer at the age of 24, and then a president by 35 and a CEO at age 41,. I have to read this so I get it right, because it's very impressive. So that got you there, and now you're an expert in leadership, right, and so I wanna talk with you about leadership, because you have a different approach. You call it whole human leadership. So what is the significance and why did you end up here? So that has to do with your story, I would think.

Victoria Pelletier: 8:45

Yeah, so my expertise in leadership comes from the fact that I have been a leader now for over 30 years. My first leadership role was at age 14. I became the assistant manager of the shoe store that I worked at while I was in high school and actually that's a passion for me. I thought I was gonna be a lawyer, but when I got into the business world, when I worked throughout university in leadership capacity, I realized how much I enjoyed that. However, I made some pretty significant missteps Early in my particularly my executive leadership roles.

Victoria Pelletier: 9:18

I learned in my like mid to late 20s that I had a nickname as the Iron Maiden, and that is a result of, I think, a couple of things. One is my lived experience. I was very afraid to show vulnerable people and to show vulnerability and talk about my lived experiences, because I didn't want anyone to question whether I not only had earned my seat at the table, but also the dynamic and this is the other piece as a woman in business. So for me, I showed up in leadership with a bit of a mask on. I was all business all the time. I'm not going to be vulnerable with you. We're gonna get right to the heart of the agenda and get stuff done and my leadership journey, I learned that I needed to act very differently, and my best friend nicknamed me Turtle, and so that's. I'm a very tough exterior, very resilient, but actually inside I'm all soft and marshmallowy Like I cry at the Humane Society commercials that kind of thing that needed to show up in my leadership style. And so whole human leadership is the recognition of failure I had by showing up in a very particular way and how much better it was, as a leader, for me to be vulnerable, to be authentic and to create the safe space for my team to do the same.

Victoria Pelletier: 10:40

So whole human leadership is about being vulnerable. It's about being authentic. It includes being transparent, but not that we sacrifice performance in doing so, not that we don't operate with. You know to borrow Kim Scott's phrase from Radical Candor right that we're not going to be giving the feedback that people need to hear to move things forward. It's recognition of all of those things and how we show up and creating a much better again environment for our team. That's where I spent a lot of my time coaching the team members that work for me all of Humor, leaders as well, and then whether it's standing on public stages. I have a book coming out on this topic and it's I'm hoping that people can learn to do it differently from the get-go. There are things I wish my 20-year-old self knew that I now do well into my 40s.

Conny Graf: 11:31

Yeah, I agree. But then on the other hand, so like when we look back 30 years or even just 20 years, I think the time wasn't the same as it is now. So I had the nickname, you had the nickname Iron Maiden, I had the nickname Tough Cookie.

Conny Graf: 11:46

But I think as women we kind of had to be a bit that way, because it was very like you couldn't really show emotions in the boardroom when you were the only woman in a way right, because right away it would be said, oh, you're just like a teary-eyed whatever, and of course that's why we don't have women usually, right. And so you kind of had to be this way, and it was really rare that you met somebody, a man or somebody who identifies as a man, being more vulnerable, and if he was, then only in the one-on-one and for sure not in the boardroom. That's at least my experience. So I totally love where we go in the world towards more integrating these areas. But I think that was just how it was back then in a way too, otherwise you wouldn't have made it where you are right, I agree, I do.

Victoria Pelletier: 12:54

I think I've seen a seismic shift in business and I actually think COVID helped with this. In that you're right, this is the way it's been done for all these years, and for many women felt, and I felt that I needed to show up much like my male counterparts Again, I want to feel like as the only woman at the boardroom table, like I belong here, and so I think that's part of it. But also, employees have demanded something very, very different, and so I've seen an evolution. I think COVID helped.

Victoria Pelletier: 13:25

I think the pendulum was already swinging, but when there became no separation, when we all worked from our homes, we all had to work together to make sure that we were able to do things that gave us greater purpose and joy, and so I think a big part of whole human leadership is to help connect that for our employees, the work that they do.

Victoria Pelletier: 13:52

What kind of purpose and impact does it have in the broader scheme of things? Like if you're putting cogs into a certain like, understand how that still contributes to the outcome, and so I think that's why I think that when you're putting cogs into the environment, like if you want something very different, it's also known that employees don't just quit companies, they quit bosses, and so there's now a need to shift to a very different way of leading in a different type of environment that employees want to work in, and in large part because there's been a talent shortage as well, and so I think that's why I think that's why I think that people are responding to that. I hope for many of them it's just not lipstick on a pig.

Conny Graf: 14:38

Yes. But now of course you come from the employee level and you say employees expect and want something different. But I hear the other side where all the employers say, oh, we can't get decent employees anymore. So I'm thinking it also shifts what the workspace or the workplace and the companies expect from the employees. Then, as a counter effect in a way, right.

Victoria Pelletier: 15:13

Yeah, I think I don't love the social media headlines that came about around the great resignation quiet, these kinds of things. Again, I think that's connected to what did, what did the employees want, and they had very different expectations. So there was, there was this challenge created for employers. But I think that becomes there needs to be a very hard look at one skill, so marry skills and look at it rather than just like roll profiles, like at a macro level. Start to distill that down to skills Because, again, technology is changing the way we all work and even if if you don't think you work in a technology company, you do.

Victoria Pelletier: 15:53

I mean it enables the way in which we all operate every day. And so let's look at the skills that are required, and both the technical or functional skills as well as the human skills I don't like calling them soft skills the human skills and the importance around that. Find what gets people excited. I've got a Gen Z, or at home, or well, not at home. I'm an empty nester. Now my older one, who's, you know, 23, will be 24 in a few months.

Victoria Pelletier: 16:21

They look at job security around, the investment in their their professional development. So again, go back to skills what skills are needed for today and where is it evolving to as a combination of strategy, new product services and technology for future? And how are we building a path for them? That's, that's how they're focused. And so employers, yes, facing a challenge right now, but they need to start connecting the work that people do again purpose and impact, understand the skills that they have and where the skills are going, and building a bridge for them. And then the last thing I'll say, Conny, is also around being really clear on how success is measured and what outcomes are being measured and the incentives associated with that, Because I've worked in far too many organizations who say they want one thing, yet incent on something very different than can often drive incredibly poor behavior and then therefore low morale and low employee satisfaction.

Conny Graf: 17:20

Yeah, I really love your answer Because I just remember when I was young, 23, we didn't have these labels of Gen C and all that. That came later, I think. But I always heard to, oh, today's youth, they're useless, they don't want to work and and our, our world is doomed. And I mean, that was again so and it's always. It always seems like we're we're banging on the young, young generation that actually moves us forward in a way, right, because it makes us have to change our set, set ways that we're having. And so I don't like, I don't, I don't like all these labels, although I understand sometimes why we have them, so we kind of know exactly what we're talking, or we think we know what we're talking about. But this constant saying, oh, the young ones are not there, they can't work anymore and we're all doomed, I don't like it.

Conny Graf: 18:21

So I love your answer. Thank you very much. I you also said somewhere in an interview I heard you say there should be no schedules, only only deliverables, right, and so that, I think, is also something that especially young ones require, right, they don't want to just come and sit in the office for 10 hours and and and, when they could, could do it in three. Let's say like that or that working from home is probably similar to is like, as long as I deliver what you asked me to do, I should be able to do it wherever I want to do it. Is that what you mean with it, or do you have more, a deeper meaning in this?

Victoria Pelletier: 19:05

It means a couple of things, and one of which is the way in which you just described it, Conny, and so for me, that there are no schedules, just deliverables, has been like a mantra that I've had, and it long before COVID ever hit. In fact, I always created the flexibility and capacity for my team around how they got their work done, so you didn't have to ask me for permission to leave early for a doctor's appointment or a children's sporting event. We have commitments to our teams internally and to our clients or customers externally, and so be clear on what outcomes we are expecting, what deliverables we need to provide and buy when Although I actually also say manage my expectations if I'm too aggressive on when those deliverables are to be met and sometimes we don't have flexibility, you know. You know cash is king and that comes from our clients, and sometimes we're, you know, need to work more aggressively on those things, and so I mean it in that way, and that I want to focus on the outcomes. What's how success is going to be measured, what deliverables we have, and when you choose to get that done. I don't really care to be honest. But it's also about creating trust with our teams and as if, again, covid didn't prove in and productivity was higher.

Victoria Pelletier: 20:28

I think of my time, you know, in some of the largest cities where I was, you know in North America, commuting, and we're talking one to two hours each way like, how much more productive am I being able to like, eliminate that? You know from my schedule and you know seeing bums in seats, as they say, doesn't mean that people are actually being productive. So I think, going back to creating safe spaces, creating trust, and that comes with with flexibility and allowing our teams to work in a way that is also more aligned to I don't like this, as I said, whole humans. We show up our experience. What happened to us on the weekend shows up at work. We're working out of our homes in many cases. So let's just recognize it's all life. Don't ask me about balance. For me it's work-life integration. Let's figure out how to make it all work and that is another part of how I believe we should be leading in business. So no schedules, just deliverables means many things, but I think ultimately again should be the way in which we're leading and operating going forward.

Conny Graf: 21:31

Yeah, I think when it's more about control, when we're saying like you have to sit here in the office for eight hours, for me visible it's control, but it's counterproductive. And I think, like I had, I had early on a boss. When I was 22 or so, I had a boss. I was so good at my job to brag a bit. Actually, I replaced one and a half employees that they had before and I could go home early because he said as long as you pick up the phone when the phone is ringing, you can be wherever you want to. So I there were innovative bosses back then already but I do really believe too that the pandemic helped. So many companies said, oh, we could never have remote workers, that wouldn't work, they would just slack off and sit in front of the TV all day. And the pandemic proved it's not true. And yeah, the two hours of commute brings so much stress right that we could that you could get more rested employees to that then are more productive.

Victoria Pelletier: 22:36

Yeah.

Conny Graf: 22:37

Yeah, yeah. And so I love the term whole, whole human leadership. Where, where do you put the DEI in it, into it, the diversity, diversity, equity? I can't say. Diversity equity inclusion. Man, oh man, this morning can't speak. I would think that fits into this umbrella term as well. It's a buzzword right now and it's very important topic, but I love the term whole human leadership so much.

Victoria Pelletier: 23:11

Better Talk about it is very much a part. So it's hard to describe what I mean and hold human leadership in one sentence because, as I said, vulnerability and authenticity, the way in which we communicate, but a big part of that is also the who and how we, we lead in business, and DEI is a pretty significant part of that. It's around recognizing. Going back to skills, what are the skills that people have and what can be, what can be taught, and so what I, you know, what I see is it's, you know, there's data that actually shows that, when we talk just from a gender perspective for a second, that women do not apply for jobs unless they believe they meet nine or 10 out of the 10 skills criteria, where men typically do it with only five or six. So that's a confidence issue. That's one element, but the reality is, I think, as a leader, it's incumbent upon me to identify potential and I can train and coach and mentor to the rest, and so I'm. I will very happily find someone that has very different elements of diversity, and diversity is so broad and there's a lot of intersectionality of those elements. So it's not gender, it's not just race, it's not just sex, sexuality, it's lived experience, it's different functional experience within business, all these different elements.

Victoria Pelletier: 24:32

I want to create diversity within the team and in doing so, I'm going to need to find people who don't have all of the skills and criteria, but I want to know that they also have propensity to learn. I also want to see that. What, what do they bring to the team? How are they going to fit in? And, again, it's my job to bridge that gap. And so I have a phrase I use with many things and DEI is one of the places they use it as well around strategic intentionality. So if we want to move the needle on advancing diversity in our, our teams, our companies, our communities that you know much more broadly, then we need to be really strategic around how we attract talent, where do we go, and you know, to find them and how do we keep them. So, again, it's also, you know, find creating the right kind of inclusive environment where they feel like they can belong and they can show up as them, their whole selves. Again, that's part of being a whole human leader.

Conny Graf: 25:28

And you say there is a crucial aspect of unconscious bias that we have to be aware of. So where, where, where would you say we have to be careful, because I think the unconscious bias is dangerous because it is unconscious.

Victoria Pelletier: 25:45

Yeah, it is in the unconscious bias is, you know, recognize that people do business with people they like and trust and want to therefore do business with, or, in this case, hire, and the biases that come is we like and trust people because we have shared interests, experiences, etc.

Victoria Pelletier: 26:03

And so if we're not breaking outside of that to find people that are different than us, that have different passions, values and experiences, then we continue to do more of the same thing all the time, and so there's a need to most, most companies seem to be doing some kind of unconscious bias training, but the reality is it's unconscious by its nature. So this goes back to the intentionality, and so for me it's. Let's be really clear about the place in which we're starting from and hold one another accountable to the progress that's going to be made again and advancing or moving the needle forward. And so that intentionality means, you know, as a hiring manager, if I get a slate of candidates that all look the same or come with the same educational experience, I need to be challenging the recruiter that's working directly with me and I also I need to be looking for those things as well to recognize, recognize that.

Conny Graf: 27:03

Yeah, it's. I I'm trying to wreck my brain where I read somewhere one leader. He said he has intentionally a right hand person that has the complete opposite way of looking at things, to keep him in check. And I like, while you were talking, I'm like where did I read this and who was this? I forgot, but I thought it was so genius, right, he had, he had his vision, he had, he knew where he wanted to go, but he had this naysayer almost like he didn't call it that way, but it's my short version of saying it he had this naysayer on purpose next to him who would constantly throw all the things at him why this was not a good idea, why this doesn't work, I think, especially to get his unconscious bias and all his blind spots uncovered right.

Victoria Pelletier: 27:58

So I thought I was jeez, you know, I think that's great and I think that's why, actually, we need to foster dissent in the workplace.

Victoria Pelletier: 28:07

You know I'm at some point we can agree to disagree and there's a hierarchy. For a reason, however, I want people to challenge me and one of the reasons I left there are many reasons I left one of the organizations that I once worked for, but one of the biggest issues I saw was the CEO. She would. She only wanted to hire people or keep people around her that were basically yes people. They were never gonna tell her no or challenge her.

Victoria Pelletier: 28:36

And that's very, very going back to again. More of the same. Now, in this case, yay that it was a female CEO where there's far too many, particularly in the Fortune 500, but surrounding ourselves with people who aren't going to challenge our way of thinking and doing well, not, it's. You know what they say. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again. You know, expecting different results.

Conny Graf: 29:01

And expecting a different result yeah, exactly. Or expecting to move forward and make progress, which is probably not gonna happen. So now, in a way, we're talking always about the bigger corporations, but how can we get this down to smaller, like micro businesses that pop up everywhere too? I don't know how big your business right now is, but I'm basically a micro business with personal brands. How can we, as smaller businesses, take these whole human leadership and DEI ideas and incorporate them into our small little world? What would you suggest?

Victoria Pelletier: 29:47

So for me, it's a philosophy and it's a mindset. And so if it's a micro business, no, you can't have representation across all areas of diversity, because you might just not be large enough to do that. However, as I said, it's mindset, regardless of whether you're a solopreneur and like using contractors or a business of 10, 100, 1000, the reality is the way in which you show up and lead should not change, regardless of business size. Again, I think it's a mindset and the philosophy in which and the way in which you show up, and that should not be different because of the size of your business. And I think there's opportunities, however, for micro businesses. So you might not have a ton of employees, but when you use contractors or vendors for other things, that's your opportunity. Then you might have two employees, so you're not gonna have it potentially a ton of diversity, but how do you think about that when you're choosing the people that you're gonna work with or hire to help support? So I think there's other ways of being and showing up, regardless of size of business.

Conny Graf: 30:55

Yeah, what I was also thinking like when I was preparing for this interview and going a little bit through your material. I was thinking like how can I attract a more diverse clientele to, maybe as a small business, right, so how would I have to show up, or where are my blind spots where I'm not showing up in a way that I present myself with this mindset? That's kind of what I was wondering, right, like, in a way, we attract, kind of like with our energy, of course, what we do already. So I don't have, I noticed I don't have an extremely diverse clientele, but that is not because I wouldn't wanna have a more diverse clientele. That's kind of where my question came from.

Victoria Pelletier: 31:48

Well, so one of the things I had will very much attribute my own career success to, and one of the areas I also spent a significant amount of time talking and coaching on, is around your personal brand and how you show up. And so there's four things I think are really important around brand, and most people only focus on the first one. The first one is what do you do? What's your subject matter, expertise, what industry do you know, et cetera. And most people go, okay, that's it. Well, no, like to my phrase earlier, people do business with people they like trust and wanna do business with. So it's more than that, it's what you do and what your expertise is.

Victoria Pelletier: 32:26

The next part is what's your story? What, again, values, passions, interests, lived experience, what elements do you wanna cause that builds connection with people? The next one is what makes you different from others? What's kind of that unique value proposition? So why would someone choose to hire you versus someone else who has that same expertise or experiences you do? And then the last one is legacy and impact and like what do you want to be known for? And once you've curated all of those those are all elements of your brand. You then need to think about where you're going, Like who's the audience that I want to attract, whether that's cause you want to be hired, you want to sell to someone, whether it's because you wanna get a book deal, whatever the goal or objective is and who's that audience, you need to understand the message that's important to them and connect it back to that broader brand. That's that combination of those four areas I shared.

Conny Graf: 33:25

Yeah, that makes sense. I will have to start looking into that and thinking about that, yeah, and getting more clear around it, let's say like that. So before we want to wrap up, I want to have one more question. So if we pull out the crystal ball now, what do you see? Where we're going with all of this whole human leadership, with this DEI? Did you have any insights where the future of our work will be?

Victoria Pelletier: 33:59

Well, I hope that this kind of leadership and creating greater DEI within our workplaces becomes just standard. What we've seen over the last number of years is there's mandates to do it, whether it's the NASDAQ or S&P, requiring diversity on boards and within the workplaces. I hope that just becomes the way we operate. Period. And where I see that going, there is recognition. Today it's more people see it as the right thing to do or because they're legislated to do it. But the reality is there's data that proves the results of doing it, whether it's increase in innovation and problem solving, the reduction of risk by having greater diversity in the workforce, the fact that we see higher performance because people feel like they belong, they're much more engaged and therefore their productivity rises. So I see this being much more of the standard way of operating versus the way we talked about. That you and I would have seen 20, 30 years ago in business. That was much more of this top down approach. I see this changing and becoming much more of the way of the future.

Conny Graf: 35:15

I think that would be wonderful is maybe the wrong word.

Conny Graf: 35:18

No, that would be awesome, because to me it's like, okay, it should just be normal, and I don't mean normal with what we usually call normal, which is mostly sick. But just so, a given, just a given. Maybe that's the better word than normal. A given, yeah. So where can people find you? If they're now intrigued about what we were talking about, you, tell us a little bit. Where can they find you? What do you do for your clients? And also about your new book. I'm excited.

Victoria Pelletier: 35:52

Awesome. Well, so I have a website which is victoria-peltacom, and then people can choose to link out and connect with me on whatever other social media platform they choose LinkedIn, facebook, instagram Although I will also say, if you just Google me, that should hopefully demonstrate that I've been very focused on my personal brand for a long time, because I will come up everywhere. And then, in terms of the work that I do, beyond being a C-suite executive, I am a professional public speaker and I talk in a number of topics around resilience, personal branding, leadership and culture, dei. I also do a limited amount of coaching on a few of those topics, and two books are coming out. Actually, one is on personal branding. That one's going to come out in early 2024, likely in February, and then a few months later I will have one coming out on whole human leadership and how to advance that forward in our businesses.

Conny Graf: 36:46

Oh, wow, I will put those two books on top of my very long list. So I'm an avid reader, but the list of books I want to read is also very long, but I'm very interested in those Awesome. So before we wrap up, do you have any last words? Or did I not ask you something that you feel like that should still belong in this conversation that we had, or anything else that comes to your mind that you want to say?

Victoria Pelletier: 37:15

I know you asked me a lot, so that's great, Conny. Thank you, you kept me on my toes for sure. The one thing I would state is part of being unstoppable is recognizing that you were the CEO of you brand you, and so you curate and define the narrative in which you want people to know you. So, going back to sort of personal brand, but also, whatever your version of success looks like for you, you are in control and they connected to that. No excuses. You make a choice in terms of how you're going to achieve that goal or objective of yourself and move forward. So I want people to recognize that they have control and can claim power over their careers or, more broadly, like even personally the goals or objectives that they set for themselves.

Conny Graf: 38:01

Yeah, thank you, I totally agree. Thank you that very beautiful last words. Thanks so much, victoria, for your time, thanks for having me.