#awinewith Victoria Brown
MEET Victoria
Victoria is the Founder of Brighten Project.
Find Victoria here:
Brighten Project website or Instagram @brightenproject.
Transcript
Danielle Lewis (00:06):
All right. Tours. We're here.
Victoria Brown (00:09):
We made it.
Danielle Lewis (00:10):
We did. Welcome to Spark tv. I'm so excited to have you on the show.
Victoria Brown (00:15):
Me too. I'm excited to be here. Do you have your wine? I forgot to ask before.
Danielle Lewis (00:19):
Oh my God, I don't have a wine. Do you have a wine?
Victoria Brown (00:22):
I've got water.
Danielle Lewis (00:24):
I've got water too. Oh my God. We're really letting the team
Victoria Brown (00:30):
Stop everything. We are bringing hydrated Queen energy. That's fine.
Danielle Lewis (00:34):
That's right, that's right. Well, and it is funny because of daylight savings. Now it's even earlier for me over in wa. So it's like 10 o'clock in the morning and I've been having a wine sometimes I'm like, this is not a healthy podcast. This really messes up my day. I'm role
Victoria Brown (00:51):
Modeling right now. It's
Danielle Lewis (00:53):
Personal brand situation. I know, I know. But I must admit actually less people at the start of the year have shown up with wine. So I feel like we're all on a little bit of a get shit done. Be good to ourselves. Don't let Danny lead you astray. Kind of us make
Victoria Brown (01:11):
Good decisions.
Danielle Lewis (01:13):
Yeah. I hope that works out for everybody. I'll be over here with my wine this afternoon.
Victoria Brown (01:21):
Well, I hope you do have one this afternoon or else I would be worried about your soul and your spirit.
Danielle Lewis (01:27):
I appreciate that. I feel like you see me. It is true though. We spoke about this before we hit record. That is my plan. I've got my non-negotiables that I have to do, and then it's only fucking Tuesday and it's been a crazy start. So I'm like, I need a wine and I'm going to read some pages in my book and it's going to be a perfect end to the day. So I'm very excited. Very much looking forward to that.
Victoria Brown (01:51):
Yeah, we're earning it.
Danielle Lewis (01:52):
Yeah, totally. We are. Okay, let's stop talking about wine.
Victoria Brown (01:57):
Okay. Yeah.
Danielle Lewis (01:57):
Otherwise you and I are going to just rabbit hole all day. Let's tell the Spark community what it is you do.
Victoria Brown (02:06):
Yes, I'd love to. So I run the Brighton project, which is a leadership consultancy for wildly ambitious leaders, and I kind of work with two customer groups. The first one is new leaders who are really excited but also kind of a bit nervous, and I'll get in there and help them really stabilize themselves in their first leadership role. And then the second group is more established leaders who are like, I'm doing really well, but I need some help with my team. And then I'll come in and we'll do some really cool stuff, workshops, culture mapping, profiling, and get their team in that high performance state.
Danielle Lewis (02:48):
I love it. And why did you start this? Why are you so interested in supporting women in leadership?
Victoria Brown (02:56):
Oh my gosh. Where do I start with that? I think the biggest thing for me is, and you and I have similar backgrounds actually before I started this, I was 18 years in big corporate worlds. I know you were kind of sales and marketing and then I was really marketing and creative and I was loving it, doing activations, all that really cool shit that you're just like, I can't wait to tell people about this and working with teams and talent all over the world. But what I was really passionate about within that role was the opportunity to work with the young talent. Knowing the experience that I had as a young woman, kind of clawing your way up to the top. I was like, how can I make this better, easier, more fun for others? And just working with other leaders in the business, helping them find their best leadership style.
Danielle Lewis (03:50):
And so it's really interesting that you say that we had similar backgrounds because as you just explained that I was like, that's exactly what I'm trying to do with sales. Because yeah, I had 20 years in sales, everyone hates sales, especially women. And I'm like, no, it's so fun. All you do is talk to people all day. So the idea of taking a subject that perhaps is a little bit scary or uncharted territory or perhaps the way the world has done it in the past is a little bit not quite aligned to our queen vibes. Taking that subject and actually translating it into a way where women in business can enjoy it, have fun, fast track success, learn lots of good things. I love that.
Victoria Brown (04:37):
I mean, dude, that's exactly what I'm trying to do. I mean, I've been there. I've been that young exciting leader with colored hair thinking like, oh, I want to learn about leadership. And then you google it and it's all like, what? There's dudes in suits with important documents or guys on a boat and you're like, oh, okay, I guess am I not a leader? Because that's not the archetype they're aiming for.
Danielle Lewis (05:04):
Yeah.
Victoria Brown (05:05):
I think that's the same with sales. It is. Is that cowboys rogue kind of jock industry or function.
Danielle Lewis (05:14):
Totally. And every sales course I've ever taken has been taught by an old white American dude.
(05:21):
That's why I was like, okay, so I'm going to present my courses over wine because this needs a total shakeup. And even the terminology, I don't know what it's like in leadership, we should talk about that. But in sales, even the words sound who you're calling your potential customers, who are people that you work with so intimately and are huge part of your business success and you want to deliver some kind of transformation impact, which is very female vibes. We often want to make sure our customers are having these amazing journeys, but then we're calling them prospects and lead nurturing and they're a lead and they're this and that. I'm like, yeah, well, it kind of makes sense that it's so impersonal sales. It is taught so impersonally and it's taught. So strategy tactics versus you can really distill sales down into having more great conversations
Victoria Brown (06:20):
Like the relationships versus dehumanizing people that you want to bring into your world.
Danielle Lewis (06:27):
Totally. And I kind of assume that leadership is a little bit similar in the sense that there's probably some very dry ways to look at it, but you can distill it down to some really important functions.
Victoria Brown (06:42):
I think when you are thinking about leadership and it's just can be so stuffy and traditional and almost like esoteric and inaccessible and overly academic. And I think for the people who are out there in the trenches, leading teams making, when you lead a team, you're responsible for their livelihoods. This is how they live, they pay their rent. That's a big deal. And so then to turn around and want to better yourself, and it's like old white men in big traditional castles trying to tell you what to do. You're like, that's not what I want to do. When I'm thinking about everything I do with Brighton project, it has to be really practical. I want to equip leaders. Yeah, this is the best amazing leadership theories from the most amazing leadership minds in the world. Cool, inspirational, theoretical, but also this is what it looks like in real life and this is how I've applied it successfully and here's the framework you can use tomorrow. So it's so real, so tangible, so accessible. Let's just strip out all of that. Almost the stuff that feeds into your fear as well of like, oh, am I good enough? Am I a real, can I call myself a leader? That was such a massive rant.
Danielle Lewis (08:02):
No, but I love it because when I was, as you were talking, I was reflecting on my time in corporate and what leaders looked like to me in that environment. And all I could think of was an Excel spreadsheet of KPIs and thinking to myself as I was filling it out before a meeting, I don't know, I'm just writing words in this really to try and get through this checkbox for the quarter. And look, I think my experience with what a leader should look like and even caring about leadership only happened when I started my business because I was forced to be a leader myself. When I was in corporate, I was always in sales. And it's very much the harder you work, the better you do. I didn't really feel like a leader back then. So I think I had a funny view of it. I wasn't trying to be a leader, so I just looked at it as a checkbox almost management, not leadership. And then it wasn't until I started my own business and then I realized very quickly that I had to decide what type of leader I wanted to be and that it was a little bit more than a micromanaging spreadsheet with some KPIs.
Victoria Brown (09:21):
It's so true. You're right. There is that management piece. But then how do you elevate yourself into a leader with that vision? That's where am I going? Where am I taking my people and how is it going to be so inspiring and exciting enough that everyone wants to come along on that journey? And it was interesting when you and I were talking about leadership and you did have similar to me, very practical tips. It wasn't like leadership leading a business, raising millions in capital. It can come through, you can do it
Danielle Lewis (09:54):
Too.
Victoria Brown (09:56):
You were like, here's very specific things you can do. So I love that almost at image of leadership. It's like vision, but then supported by really practical tools. It's not just like, don't come up here and check a box. Here's how you're going to change the world.
Danielle Lewis (10:14):
And I love, you used the word intentional and I feel like, so the word intentional is really important for me, just not just in leadership, literally in every facet of life. I just feel like if you aren't really intentional about every area of your life, you just really end up waking up one day going, where the fuck did I get here? So I'm really, really passionate about people thinking about what they're doing and why they're doing it. So if you are leading a team, I almost think you kind of got to lead yourself first. You've actually,
Victoria Brown (10:54):
Oh my gosh, 1000%. If you can't lead yourself, you can't lead anyone else. That's a bit of a riff on RuPaul's if you can't love yourself, but it's so true. Totally. If you can't get yourself there, you can't take other people.
Danielle Lewis (11:09):
And it was interesting. I've never probably felt like I've been an amazing leader, but I did have someone say to me once they're like, they said it to. So someone was applying for a job at Scrunch, and I think that they were asking one of the people that they knew that worked there, what was I like to work for? And I remember hearing the feedback and it was like Danny's the type of leader that will also take out the trash, that there's no one else who'll be on the tools more than her. She's not just like a go get me coffee, go do this, go do that, and then kind of sit back with their feet on the desk. No one works harder than her. And I thought actually that's the biggest compliment, whether my leadership style was good or bad or needed improvement, and I think we can always improve. I was like, that was actually the biggest compliment for me is hearing that I was the type of person that made you want to work just as hard because I really believed in what it was we were trying to achieve. I dunno why I just told you that story. I can't remember intention.
Victoria Brown (12:17):
No intention. And I love that as well because, and I would love to know your vision or your vision for Spark as well, because when I think about what do you do with intention, that's how I ended up, I worked my ass off and I made a shit ton of money and I got to this epic career. And then you turn around and you go, oh, oops. Yes. Was this my dream? Yeah. Did I just work really hard and happened? And that's where I made that pivot. And I know you did too into like, oh, I have the power to create whatever I want. What is that dream, that vision? So what is the vision for Spark?
Danielle Lewis (12:59):
So for Spark, it's really around helping women understand that sales don't have to be shit, because I believe that loving sales is actually the key to living beyond your wildest dreams. And I'm not just talking about a business sense because I know look, and I know that I'm one of those annoying salespeople and I've been a salesperson my whole life, but I think everything is sales. Like going on a first date, you're kind of selling yourself to the other person, trying to convince your children to eat. Broccoli is sales. And then yes, hiring a team, especially when you're small and you can't offer massive salaries to people, you are selling to people, we are convincing people why you would be so amazing and why your vision's so amazing to work for. Then into the actually selling to customers, then into the raising millions of dollars.
(13:57):
And in the social media world we live in, it's all sales. The challenge is people think sales is bad. They think that the word sales is icky and not aligned to visions. If we reframe that and learn to look at sales as the impact we can make on other people's lives or the impact we can make on our own lives, and the fact that all it is is having more conversations and different conversations, figuring out what gets people to buying from us or doing the thing we want to do, when we can reframe that everything just falls into place and we can wake up in the morning and go live the life that we want to live and be intentional and have all of those goals written on the vision board and actually achieve them. So I think it is such a critical part of life, not just business. And so my vision is to help bridge that gap so that women especially can actually wake up and love their businesses and love their lives. I was probably supposed to say that in one sentence.
Victoria Brown (15:12):
I felt there was background, context, story, and then bam, you hit us with the vision. It was good. It's true.
Danielle Lewis (15:22):
But it's interesting because, and it's worth mentioning that I didn't get there, so I started Spark, oh my God, now I feel like I'm telling the stories. I'm supposed to be interviewing you. We'll circle back, we'll circle back, we'll
Victoria Brown (15:33):
Circle back. Yeah. Yeah.
Danielle Lewis (15:35):
So Spark was born in 2020, so as the pandemic was hitting, so I'd run Scrunch for 10 years and when I first started Scrunch tech platform, mostly guys, tech networking events, disgusting. So over time I built up this women in business network and the pandemic hit women really hard and it was literally just a how can I give away everything I know for free? And so that's how it started and we went out and got a government grant to bring it to life, but it doesn't look anything like it did on day one. The evolution, it just started as a how do I empower women and give them access to stuff for free? Then it has evolved over time and we've gotten to that vision is now the program looks so different, the membership looks so different. So I guess I would say that you are always learning as well. I know we're talking about being intentional, but I think we can also give ourselves permission to change. And as I loop this back to leadership,
(16:45):
I think you can work for a really shit leader. You don't have to adopt the things that they taught. You can choose to take what was good, take what was bad, and form your own vision. You can also be a leader and reflect on that and go, Ooh, I probably messed that up. I'm not going to do it that way next time. So I just think whether it's business, whether it's sales, whether it's leadership, whatever it is, whilst we want to have intention and a path and go forward in that direction, we still want to give ourselves the permission to learn and change our minds.
Victoria Brown (17:23):
I agree. And I know one of the questions that we were going to talk about was what are those secrets to how do you get successful? And it's something I think you do really well is just that free value for your audience and linking to what you were just saying about impact and vision. You just can never be afraid of giving away too much because ultimately you are feeding your vision and you're helping your audience. And yes, it's selling, but you're selling something that people want and need. When I think about what I'm doing with my Instagram for example, or I run some free workshops when leaders come along and they learn, and if they go and apply that and take one tiny step further in their leadership or their career, to me that's a win and I'm happy and that's feeding my vision. Even if they don't buy from me or they might come back and join my program months later, that feeds into my vision, which I've just realized I didn't even say I should have led with that, but my vision is more diversity in the boardrooms. I want more women, more non-binary people running big businesses, having that power to change the world, that's what the workforce needs, that's what our future needs and that's what drives me every single day. So finding those ways to feed that vision and like you said, reframing sales. Everything I do, I know, yes, I'm selling myself, I'm selling a program, but people want those people needed or else I wouldn't have a business.
Danielle Lewis (19:03):
It's so true. And I also, not that I relate everything back to sales, but I feel like as a leader, it is part of sales training is leadership, it is setting the example, it's being intentional. It is helping guide people to a transformation and helping them be successful on their journeys. That is sales in and of itself.
Victoria Brown (19:29):
Yeah, that's true. When I watched one of your free workshops, it was like a bunch of sales tactics, and as I was going through, I was like, well, that's marketing. Well, that's marketing too. Well, and then at the end I was like, it's all sales, it's all marketing, it's all you positioning yourself in the best way that you can to get your message across.
Danielle Lewis (19:51):
Totally. And it looks so, and that's the interesting thing I've learned is there's no one silver bullet, there's no one game changer. It is all of those tiny things, those tiny learnings, the positioning, the trying to explain what you do a little bit better the next day or having another conversation. It is all of those micro interactions and micro actions that actually makes the big difference.
Victoria Brown (20:24):
Absolutely.
Danielle Lewis (20:24):
But also business
Victoria Brown (20:26):
That also the tenant of building a successful business, it's that 1% better every day across all these different facets of things that you're doing. And then that is you can't copy that. No one can come in and steal your market position. You've just built and built and built. Whereas if you do have one silver bullet, it's someone who's come in and go, oh, that's what they did. Cool. I'll that
Danielle Lewis (20:48):
Totally, totally. And it's interesting, I saw this great business graphic the other day, and it's like even from a decision making point of view, taking really tiny steps is so much better if you're going to take a big risk or make a big decision, sometimes you kind of get stuck. You feel like, oh my god, if I actually do this is everything I've built so far going to disappear, burn to the ground, whatever you want to say. Whereas if you kind of take the little step forward in the direction of that risk or vision or decision or product or whatever, you can go, oh, okay, no, that wasn't quite right. This is what I got to do. And then the next one and then adjust. Adjust, and then you finally get there. But you've almost de-risked the situation as well. So I don't know, I just think there's really a lot of power in small,
Victoria Brown (21:44):
And that's a good lesson for young leaders too, is it like everything seems scary until you start, and then I think about when you have to move into your first flat or you move out of home for the first time, you're like, this is so scary. And then you do it and you're like, wow, that really wasn't that bad. Viewing something and then being in it is so different.
Danielle Lewis (22:08):
Yes. And do you think that that's like, I don't know, is that any part of your courses or mentoring to actually just do it to forget about the decision and just start taking the action?
Victoria Brown (22:23):
Yes, definitely. I think one of the most important things is there is so much fear around being a young, specifically a young female leader and making big, bold moves, big bold decisions. And how do you get out of that comfort zone through the fear into your growth and actually just making those decisions for your career? And a lot of the advice that I often give is, okay, two things, things I would relate to that actually. The first one is you just never care about what other people think of you, their opinion's, not your business. And if you continue to worry about something that you can't control someone else's opinion of you, you're just going to be crippled. You won't be able to do what you need to do. And as leaders, we have to make hard decisions. We have to let people go. We have to expand the team, we have to spend lots of money. And you can't do that if you're constantly like, oh, what's going to happen here? Yeah,
Danielle Lewis (23:27):
That's hard though.
Victoria Brown (23:29):
It is. But I always say, don't worry about what other people think of you. The only opinion that matters is are you proud of yourself? Do you stand by that decision? Have you done enough due diligence to confidently stand behind that decision? And then focusing on instead of caring about how other people think or do they like me, focus on how can I create that environment that's going to allow people to do their best work possible? And you'll find often when you focus on that, which you can absolutely control, people are going to like you anyway. And if they don't, you either don't notice or don't care or they just self-select themselves out of your way and you just get to focus on your vision and what you're doing. I was going to share this other leadership lesson actually in this same vein of decisions which I got from one of my favorite leaders or mentors. And he said, whenever you're making decisions, always make the decision that you'd happily be fired for. And I love that energy, and that's kind of what I take into everything that I do, my negotiations or discussions. If the worst case scenario was going to happen in this situation of my decision, can I live with that? And if I can, then I know I'm doing the right thing.
Danielle Lewis (24:51):
And I love that too because I feel like a lot of the time, the worst case scenario is kind of made up in our heads. It is not a lot of times where what I've thought in my brain might happen has actually happened. It's usually okay,
Victoria Brown (25:09):
You're like, what's the worst case scenario possible? And you're like, okay, the chair leg breaks and I fall off the cliff by accident and die. And then you're like, and what's the probability of that? And you're like, okay, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.
Danielle Lewis (25:24):
I can live with that. Yes, it's so true. It's so true. And I feel like it's really interesting because I feel like a lot of the things that you're talking about from a leadership point of view, well, and it makes sense I guess as business owners, we are leaders, whether we're in it on our own or managing a team or we have a team, but a lot of the lessons apply, right? So did being a great leader in your corporate career, do you think that that set you up for being a business owner or was there a leap you still had to take? How did you actually navigate going from working for somebody else to running your own show?
Victoria Brown (26:07):
Oh wow. So I think the biggest change was when you're in a business, there are clear ceilings, there's the highest you can go in your job, there's the maximum amount of product you can sell to hit revenue. So there's limits on what you can do. And then when you move into your own business, there's limits that you place on yourself.
Danielle Lewis (26:32):
Oh God,
Victoria Brown (26:34):
Preach,
Danielle Lewis (26:35):
Right?
Victoria Brown (26:36):
Amen. Yeah.
(26:40):
There were so many things that I didn't even realize or know about myself until I was in this position of like, gosh, you already shared this When we were chatting earlier, I didn't know I was going to hate putting my face on social media. I didn't know that was my own limit that I was going to put there. I didn't know that I was going to be like, oh, you can't charge that or You'll never make that. You can't afford that supply. You can't outsource. And then all of a sudden you start asking yourself, why not? Why can't I be the most well-known leadership expert in the world? Why can't I sell this program? Why can't I sell myself?
Danielle Lewis (27:18):
You are the only person that can actually hold yourself back from achieving that giant big vision.
Victoria Brown (27:26):
Yes, I saw this. Great. Are we allowed to say memes?
Danielle Lewis (27:31):
Yeah, totally. We can do, can do whatever we
Victoria Brown (27:36):
Absolutely explaining that we're prisoners of our own limits. And I was like, we are. Just take them away. Ask yourself why not identify what's holding you back and coach yourself through it. So I was lucky that I had all of these great skills that I used for other people that I could go, oh, it's a great time to start coaching myself through these self-limiting beliefs.
Danielle Lewis (28:03):
And I feel like I was just chatting to somebody this morning actually, and it's so funny because I say this in sales, I can tell you how to create a sales strategy and how to create a sales process that it's like it exists as a step-by-step guide. But if you don't have the right mindset, if you are blocking yourself, you actually don't do it. It's so weird. The idea that we put limits on ourselves is just so interesting because you're right, why not? Why couldn't I be the best X, y, Z in on the planet? It's like because I'm so freaked out that I won't actually take the first step because I'm so in my own way that I won't email my dream client.
Victoria Brown (28:46):
And then, okay, worst case scenario, what's the worst that can happen? They delete your email. Okay, ouch. You'll be fine.
Danielle Lewis (28:56):
You probably don't even know they delete it. They just ghost you. Right?
Victoria Brown (29:01):
Absolutely.
Danielle Lewis (29:02):
It's so true. It's like what is the worst case scenario? The worst case scenario is almost we need to reframe it. I think people think that the worst case scenario is that they'll be a failure, that they won't succeed. It was a big bust and I'm like, I think that the worst case scenario is being in the exact same place and having never tried to grow. That is horrendous for me. I'd rather because there are things that you can do to mitigate risk. If I reach out to my ideal client and they say no, then I'm just in the same place. I'm still either, if I've got a full-time job, I'm working. So there are risk mitigation strategies. You don't have to quit before you start your business. You can go and prove the model if you really wanted to. Squarespace gives you a 14 day free trial.
(30:02):
You can literally create a website landing page with whatever your idea is, go try and sell it to somebody without having quit your job. So there are kind of things that you can do to take the risk that are not actually risky at all. But I think we do block ourselves and go, oh my God. Well what if they all say no? It's like, well, if they all say no, then you're just in the same place. So that's cool. Think of another idea, try something else. But what if they all said yes? Then you are the biggest person in the planet that does whatever you want to do.
Victoria Brown (30:37):
And even just pushing that a bit further, if someone's like, oh, worst case scenario is I fail. It's like, so what would you do? Let's step that out. Okay, so your idea hasn't worked. What are you going to do? Well, I'll pick myself back up again and I'll go get a job or I'll try a different idea. And it's like, and can you do those things? Yes, you can. So nothing is that bad. Failure is growth anyway. It's an opportunity. It's the next step towards getting closer to the next thing that's going to work or your next big lesson. I mean, I've had a few businesses that didn't work and they were very expensive lessons. And you go, that's the price of an MB, A and I. Yeah, an
Danielle Lewis (31:22):
Education. Totally. And I love too, so going back to leadership skills, lessons about not caring what other people think, I think that that's a big roadblock for business owners as well. So I think applying it to both leaders and business owners is that we do worry about what our friends will think, our family will think. Strangers on the internet who we've never met will think, but that's actually, I love this because for me, in my mind I go, there are so many people not trying. If you just keep trying, you are guaranteed to succeed. So it's like it's cool
Victoria Brown (32:03):
To try. It's
Danielle Lewis (32:05):
Not cool to try
Victoria Brown (32:08):
And even just thinking, so what? Okay, okay, so you fail and you're like, oh, I'm really embarrassed in front of my friends and family. They're going to know that I failed. Okay, well they know that you've failed. Are they more likely to step in and try and help you or are they going to point their finger at you and go, what? And idiot, you fuck this up. How embarrassed. I think we all know the people that we care about, they're going to step in the people that we don't care about. Sure, they might be the ones to point their finger and laugh, but you don't care about them. So it doesn't really matter. But true, that fear of failure is so real for business owners and leaders too.
Danielle Lewis (32:49):
We've just got to get over ourselves. It's easier said than done. How do you do it? How do you do it on days where you don't want to show up on social media or you don't want to have a card conversation or you are feeling like, oh my god, what do you do?
Victoria Brown (33:05):
This is so cheesy, but I just have to go back to the vision. That's the fuel that's powering everything else. If I don't want to do it, then what if there was a leader who needed to hear from me that day and I didn't show up? And I've had so many examples where I'll talk about something and someone will DM me off the story and just go, oh my God, I really needed to hear that You don't understand. And then I'm like, that's okay. Go brush your hair. Get your little face out there. It's just remembering why you're doing it. Just coming back to your purpose,
Danielle Lewis (33:44):
Which is I think why it's so important to be intentional about your purpose and make sure that it does get you up in the morning.
Victoria Brown (33:52):
Yes. One of the first things that within this leadership accelerator I get my leaders to do is we do a vision building exercise. It is literally like, why are you getting up in the morning? What is setting your soul on fire? Why do you care so much? And the amount of leaders that it just stops in their tracks and they're like, why have I never thought about this? Why has no one asked me these questions before? And you're like, yeah, well it's time now. And you can tell straight away the ones that will be writing their vision and you can look at that and go, they are going to change their jobs within the next few months straight away. They've already just unearthed something about themselves that they didn't even really know was there.
Danielle Lewis (34:37):
Well, and it's really interesting, the power of questions, it always flaw. That's probably something that I've learned that I think is the most helpful thing I have in my toolkit for life is asking myself really important questions because I feel like it's so easy to get stuck in your to-do list whether you are, I remember being in a corporate job and it's like you could work 24 hours a day. Nothing was ever done. And that's exactly how it's in business too. The to-do list is so long, if I just didn't sleep for the rest of the year, I still wouldn't have everything done that I need to do or wanted to do.
(35:19):
So one of the most powerful things for me is the ability to actually stop and ask myself really powerful questions like the why do you care? Why is that goal on your vision board? Why do you actually want to do, how's it going to make you feel? Is that the legacy you want to lead? There's so many different questions you can ask yourself. And I think that we get so stuck in guilt if we're not just running, running, running all the time, then we're not being productive. We're not working. But the actual power of reflection and really shining a light on what it is we're doing has such a power to course correct and make sure that we're not wasting time doing things that aren't actually going to give us that joy to wake up in the morning and tackle the next big adventure,
Victoria Brown (36:11):
Feed the mission, stay on track. Even just questions for other people too. Isn't it like building a real relationship where you ask someone, what would you be happy to be fired for? And then you learn something insane about them that you probably would never have known. It's like it's just putting more intention, more reality and tangibility and purpose behind everything that you're doing. Owning a business, building relationships, being a leader,
Danielle Lewis (36:41):
I love that It's fluid, right? As well. Just thinking about, we've probably blurred lines of leadership, sales, running a business life mission, and I think long gone are the days of the work-life balance. I feel like, and I dunno what your position on this is as a leader, but I feel like everything has to compliment, in my opinion. I feel like I need to be happy in all of those areas and have them really intentionally created because I know the lines will blur. There will be days where I am working on the couch and not being as an attentive partner as it should be, but also then communicating what I'm doing and why it's important and what the mission is. And my partner's very on board with the empire that we're building. So all good. But I don't know. I feel like all of this is leading to me to the fact that you do need to be very intentional and ask yourself those questions about all areas of your life because they are all going to blend.
Victoria Brown (37:49):
My position on this is it's player's choice, especially for someone who runs their own business. I think you would probably be so much more comfortable with a very fluid, and I always say life, work balance than maybe the people that you employ. And that's something that you have to respect. It's interesting, I have just done a series of content on work is not your family and
Danielle Lewis (38:13):
Love that.
Victoria Brown (38:15):
And then talking to people about, instead of tricking people into work, we're just a family. Actually ask them what kind of boundaries do they want? People often don't want to share a lot about themselves at work. They don't want to feel like they've got to tell you everything about how their sickness evolved over the weekend or their surgery that they've just had or what they did. I think as leaders, it's like what boundaries do you want? And I'm going to advocate for them. I'm going to champion them and respect them so that if they really want to, and most people need this, they can just leave work and go have a beautiful personal life away from you, away from the stress of your business, your job, and just let them do that. But as business owners, we're a little bit more lenient with stuff like that. We're like, I will just work on the week and they will do this. But that's a decision we are making because lit up by our passion, and as long as we're not forcing that on other people, I think is probably the line.
Danielle Lewis (39:17):
Totally. I think you really have to learn that lesson. I learned that lesson the hard way. No, I assumed everyone would work as hard as me. And then I realized that you are right. I was the one that made that choice. But also I love it. Don't get me wrong. I find joy in having a stupid idea on a Saturday and then just jumping onto my laptop and building out a landing major that actually, I love that. That's time very well spent to me. But I realized that that's not everyone's cup of tea. Other people want to be at brunch. No judgment,
Victoria Brown (40:00):
Zero judgment. Do your bottomless brunch gal.
Danielle Lewis (40:03):
Yeah, exactly. But you spot on. You are right. You have to let people make their own decisions
Victoria Brown (40:10):
And respect them too.
Danielle Lewis (40:12):
Yeah.
Victoria Brown (40:13):
Why did you react like that when I said work is not your family?
Danielle Lewis (40:17):
I reflecting on the various iterations of scrunch, I remember the co-founder of Launch in the early days very much had that family vibes and would talk about that and call. I dunno, it just felt weird. And it felt weird for me as a leader trying to be friends with everybody and then trying to tell 'em that they weren't doing their jobs. Probably that was really difficult for me. And look, don't get me wrong, I will have a wine. I am actually an advocate of having a wine during an interview. Like we are going to spend a lot of time together. Do we want to hang out? What's the vibe? But also you need to be an employee. So I just felt as it pushed towards family vibes, it got too hard to manage people and actually make sure that they were doing what they were supposed to be doing. And as a result, because I didn't want to manage them hard enough, I ended up doing things like that they should have been doing because I'm also a little bit of a softie. So I just went, oh, we've got to really make this a workplace.
Victoria Brown (41:23):
Yeah, let's a work culture, not a family culture. And going back to our questions, if we're a family, are you the parents and your employees of the children? Do you all get drunk and fight on the holidays? It's so problematic. It's so problematic. And you're right, it means that you don't have the right boundaries in place to then go, Hey, look, we're friendly at work. We have a good time, but I need to pull you up a little bit on this performance. I've got some feedback for you and I don't want you to cry because we're not family. This is
Danielle Lewis (41:57):
Totally, and it's really hard to change that. Let me tell you. So when you fostered a culture of family, family, fun, fun, fun, everything's a big laugh. A tech startup to actually then grow to the next level is so hard. When you start going, remember how we were all fun and there were no processes and procedures and we all just did whatever, and now we're like fucking serious and we have shareholders to report to and we need to scale and we need to grow and we need to do this. And putting those in place, we lost staff because we stopped being fun. And it was just really, it was not being intentional. We kind of just landed into this idea in this business, and we're treating it like a startup and a family and a bunch of friends getting together and doing their thing, which was fun for a minute, but not sustainable and not intentional. And I would never do it that way again, ever.
Victoria Brown (43:02):
It's very
Danielle Lewis (43:03):
So I love it though. But I love it because Instagram life is all, you see people sharing stories of drinks in the office and having a good time and oh my God, I love the person next to me, whoever Cindy, Stacy, Bob, whoever is next to me. Then they form their relationships. I think it's really difficult to see all of that and then go, oh my God, I've got to create a fun office and I've got to have knockoff drinks on a Friday, or I've got to have morning teas. I've got to remember everyone's birthdays. I've got to be this fun boss. I think it's really hard not to look at what's going on on social media and in the media and not feel like
Victoria Brown (43:51):
You're missing a step if you're not creating a playground for adults, really, most people, they want to work. They want to do their best work and yes, have a little bit of fun, but so much more enjoyment and achievement and accomplishment comes from doing good shit. If you ask someone, would you rather go and play ping pong all day or would you rather play a little bit of ping pong, have some great snacks, but then deliver a project that you were fucking proud of? People would choose the project.
Danielle Lewis (44:22):
Totally, totally. Oh my God, I feel like we could talk all day.
Victoria Brown (44:27):
I know. Okay. Alright, let's bring it home. Let's
Danielle Lewis (44:31):
Bring it home. Alright, so let's reflect. I'm just reflecting on the people who are dialing in to Spark tv. They are amazing women in business and a lot of them are actually at the stage where they're starting to manage freelancers or bring on their first team members. What kind of piece of advice would you give new leaders? So people who are running their business and they're now in this leadership position, what are some first steps that one might take to be intentional about how things might look in our businesses?
Victoria Brown (45:11):
At the risk of repeating ourselves a thousand times? Love it. Have a vision. Make sure you know exactly why you're here and what you're doing, why you care, why you need people. And then also in the sense of that culture piece, when you're hiring, bringing on people, make sure that you like them. So many people go, oh, it's the right CV on paper. Go for the person that you can work with that you can argue with, that you can give tough feedback to because hard skills you can teach, but relationships, behavioral skills, that's so much harder to reverse engineer for someone and make decisions that you're proud of, that you'll be okay with your worst case scenario.
Danielle Lewis (45:59):
I love it. So
Victoria Brown (46:00):
Do we also finish with the, don't care what anyone thinks of you.
Danielle Lewis (46:04):
Yes. Hell yes. That is just the cherry on top.
Victoria Brown (46:08):
Yeah, just sprinkle that little.
Danielle Lewis (46:10):
Oh, so good. Thank you so much for your time and the conversation and the epic nuggets of wisdom. I know everyone listening in, we've gotten a lot of value out of that. So thank you for your time.
Victoria Brown (46:23):
Thanks Danny. Right back at you.
