EP1: Welcome to Culture is an Inside Job
Welcome to Culture is an Inside Job: The podcast on building an authentic, engaging, and Inspiring culture. At Coaching For Culture, we believe building work culture starts with executive leaders.
If you are ready to get real and dig deep into your own self-awareness, determine how you want to show up in the world, understand HOW to do that, AND take aligned action to transform your leadership and those around you, then this podcast is for you!
In our Culture Is An Inside Job Podcast, we help executive leaders answer the question: “How am I showing up in the world?” Co-hosts Karen Benoy Preston, Wendy Roop, Scott McGohan get to the heart of leadership, exploring the notion that teams and businesses thrive when they’re being led from a place of authenticity. And authentic leadership starts by knowing yourself.
Episode 1:
In this episode, we introduce you to our podcast and to our team. We’ll also share why culture is important enough to us to decide to start a podcast and what we hope you gain from it.
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Email Us
Wendy: wendyroopcoaching@gmail.com
Karen: karen@kbpcoaching.com
Scott: psmcgohan@mcgohanbrabender.com
Full Transcription
Scott
“Welcome, friends. Wendy and Karen. Glad to be here. Let's just talk about maybe who you are, why you care, and what you're all about. Wendy, can we start with you? “
Wendy
”Sure. My name, is Wendy Roop. I am a mom of five kids, two stepdaughters and and three of my own kids. And they all range from the age of 17, all the way up to 26. I'm a wife to my husband, Andy. And of course, very close to all my members of my family. But family is really, really important to me. I've been a certified coach since 2015. My background is basically many years of human resources and people development. As Scott mentioned, culture is extremely important to me as well for for many reasons.
Scott
“Plus, you're just a blast to be around because you have no energy.”
Wendy
“NONE!” I'm very, very quiet and subdued.
Scott
“Karen, tell us about yourself.”
Karen
“Thanks, Scott. Let's kind of piggyback off how Wendy did this. I would say I'm a mom. I have three daughters, 20 to 20 and 14. And let's see. Most of my experience in the working world was in health care as a broker, much like yourself, Scott. So I worked for a tech brokerage. We took care of employee benefits outside of, you know, a couple of large firms in Manhattan. And while I loved that experience when we were down minding the business, it just made sense for me to consider what else there might be for me. And so coaching seemed to be a really cool idea, and I have not looked back since then. Two was certified in 2015. So not only have I been coaching, but I also have built my own tool for coaches all around values and am looking to certify coaches using this tool so they have access and understand how to go deeper and peeling back some of the layers of untruths that we are aligned with and limiting beliefs that we have that we really have no idea that we're aligned from a fear based perspective. So I really enjoy being able to take fear and catalyze it from truth.
Wendy
“And by the way, that tool is very awesome. Well, I think Karen, just like one, realized that most insurance brokers are hot messes and she wanted to save the planet or the spirit of it. And so and that so now that's that's awesome culture to me.”
Unknown
Much like you guys, it's it's one of these things we're seeing right now in the world is so incredibly important. And we've had this upheaval of culture being ripped apart and tossed around and and self culture. I think we'll talk a lot about that. Right. But the idea of culture within ourselves, most of us are struggling in some little way.
Unknown
Some are struggling in big ways. Organizations, the same thing, just culture's kind of a mess right now. So I'm here because I think this is a really important opportunity. The biggest word from your intro, Scott, was impact. So we're here to help impact, impact individuals, organizations, communities really find their truth. Well, glad you're in my life. Yeah, thank you.
Unknown
Ditto. Well, my name about you smile. My name is Scott Maco. And just like the Karen and Wendy, I am a husband and married to my best friend. Her name is Lori. We're married 34 years. Got a daughter? Her name's Courtney. She's 30. I keep telling everyone she's 31. She's actually 32. Two grandchildren, Jackson and Alison. Those of us that have grandchildren should understand that we should have had grandkids first.
Unknown
This planet would be really nice and there would be no need to talk about culture if we were run around this world with a bunch of grandkids. Our son in law named Jack. My son who's actually helping us with this podcast that I'm looking at his logo right now. His name is Taylor McGowan. He's 29. Beautiful kid. Just a great old soul film maker, owns his own company.
Unknown
Very proud of him. Married to a beautiful girl named Meg. And she's a schoolteacher. And I've been in employee benefits for 32 years now. I've learned a lot of hard lessons about culture. Most of them I'm responsible for the good, the bad and the ugly. But what I like to tell people is I don't use my past, you know, to torture myself.
Unknown
I use my past to be useful for others. And then hopefully what you'll learn through this experience is my opinion is the mirror is a wonderful place to find a friend. And then when we can look in the mirror and, and look back and actually smile at the person coming back and that mirror, that life just gets simpler for all.
Unknown
Beautiful. You're here to that. So how did you two meet? Yeah. I mean, that's a good story. That is a good story. So let's see. Karen, what was that? March of 2019? Right. We went on a retreat together. Well, not together, but we each went to this retreat that was an upstate New York that was being held by one Ida way and Ipek.
Unknown
And we happened I think it was actually towards the end of the time it was like a weekend retreat. And at the end, towards the end of the retreat, we happened to sit at a table together and we just started talking and we just felt that connection and and then just continued to stay in touch for many reasons.
Unknown
And Karen actually coached me around several things during our, you know, relationship over the last couple of years. And then we've just been, you know, stepping into some work together and just became really good friends. So that's my that's my part. What about you, Karen? Yeah, it was there was nothing short of divine when we sat down together.
Unknown
And so the synchronicities that have come from that moment were obviously conspired upon from this greater universe. So, yeah, what we get to create together as is nothing short of the same divine. So I really look forward to that. And so being here with you guys now is a part of that. Absolutely. Well then, Wendy, you worked with McGowan Brabender for how many years?
Unknown
Seven, almost seven. And she had to deal with my manic shenanigans. I loved it. My noggin. And then you stepped out, and then you went to another organization and coaching and in leadership. And we've stayed we've stayed close ever since. Oh, yes. And I just I just have to say, I mean, really, those years at Margo and Brabender were an incredible experience.
Unknown
And, you know, we had a great relationship, Scott then. And I'm thankful that we've continued that. And part of the reason is because I think a lot of our values are similar and, and obviously why we're jumping into this work now with this podcast with Karen. So yeah, I'm thankful for your friendship. Well, I think one of the things too is, you know, growing up, I mean, so we learn culture in a variety of different ways, right?
Unknown
So we there's family culture, right? We learn a lot about culture and school growing up, how to adapt, how to fit in, what does that look like? And then our first job, right? So our very first job, what does that look like? What culture, what what assets do we pick up? What assets do we maybe look at and say, I don't want that.
Unknown
I was going through them away. And then, you know, as we get older, we get smarter, Schoch or even my son. So my son's listening right now. He's 29. I'm sure right now he thinks I'm a lot smarter than he did when I when he was like 15 or 14. I can relate because my 14 year old thinks I'm a big my 17 year old, too.
Unknown
Yeah. We don't know anything right now. Yeah, I just got the text from her a few minutes ago. Sorry, Mom. If I wasn't very nice to you this morning, if she apologized. You know what that means, Karen? That means she wants something in about an hour. Okay, I will be listening for that. Yeah, but when we think about, you know, one is this podcast and what we're going to talk about and hopefully what we'll do is just get really deep in regards to why this is really, really important.
Unknown
But maybe, Karen, I'll start with you. So like why like from the highest level, why is this so important to Karen today? Mm. I love that question. I go back to the word impact. Influence. I think what happened to me probably in about 2016, whenever I was trying to figure out a niche as a coach and I struggled with that, my mentor coach said, you know, Karen, it doesn't have to be about who it can be about what.
Unknown
And from that moment, she knew, as did most of the others in my peer group knew how important values were to me and that I had this really innate ability to kind of pick up, that there was a values challenge to someone. And I would always say, what value is that being challenged? And so it was easy for me to move right into values as where I wanted to hone in on my experience as a coach and my in my gift as a coach.
Unknown
So I believe that in order to look at culture, that's the first that's the foundation of culture is where do your values lie? How aligned are you? Are you taking aligned action? And so we talk about self culture. This is an incredibly important piece of being able to you can't really understand who you are until you understand the foundation that you have been brought up upon.
Unknown
And in that being brought up, some of that is not useful anymore, but we don't know it until we peel it back right. So I think that's why most importantly, I'm here for impact influence to be able to help people understand how they can reach their full potential and get rid of all the limiting beliefs, realign with their values, and really take hold of their own self culture in order to create a culture that we as humans in our full potential to reach.
Unknown
I love the learning beliefs too. I mean, we tell ourselves some crazy stories. How about you, Wendy? All of us. I can't wait to talk about all those crazy things. Oh, my God. It's. It's crazy. Yeah, I think. Scott. Well, I'm going to get among your vulnerable real quick in this because this is all attached to my why and my why or my purpose, which another coach friend really helped me discover this to put it into words over the last this last year is to connect and collaborate with people in order to help them to see the value that they bring to the world so they can make a bigger difference.
Unknown
And and so they can be the best version of themselves. And so why is that important to me? I think while, you know, we all have lots of stories starting when we were young, I think the biggest, impactful story as far as why this is important to me is because my kid's father took his own life in 2012.
Unknown
And, you know, in that moment and then the years after that, it's the realization of how important it is for people to understand their value, other people speaking to them as far as what their value is and then fast forward to 2019. My my dad passed away and while it was a different story, I don't believe my dad passed away understanding the value, huge impactful value that he brought to the world.
Unknown
And so all of that to me comes back to culture. And like Karen was talking about and Scott, you mentioned and the things that you've been saying, it really it really does start with self and it starts with understanding our internal culture and the value that we bring to the world. And when we do that, then there's the ripple effect that we, most of us want to help other people.
Unknown
Right. Want to most of us want to make an impact. But that's it's really important to me that that people see that because I've seen the absolute worst of that when someone and people don't. So my my goal is this is just one of the places that I think by us creating the space for ourselves and other people to also I use this phrase a lot you know it's that gives give ourselves space and grace to really to be able to understand who we are as people and then again create that ripple effect.
Unknown
So that's my guy. Well, you know, Wendy, and one is. Thank you. And then secondly, I've watched you kind of one when that event happened and then I and I watched you kind of I watched to heal and then I watched you heal your your family and your kids. And then I watched you kind of say, you know, maybe there's somebody else out there that's hurting.
Unknown
And I want to let them know that they're loved and they're cared for. And then they try to different. And so I've really appreciated that. And I know, you know, we like to have a lot of fun and laugh and stuff like that. But I also know that there's there there is deep meaning behind this work. And it's and it's and it probably is reflective of our own experience and where we came from.
Unknown
Absolutely. And it's a journey, right? Like it's in my opinion, it's it's it's not, you know, we don't ever arrive. And I think that's an important message to get across to everybody to, is that this is absolutely, you know, a journey and you don't have to do it alone. You know, you don't have to figure life out alone and and what you bring to the world and all of that.
Unknown
So I loved growing up, you know, when I was a kid, I was actually a real introvert, believe it or not. I don't know. I don't I like to see that you to have to be by myself. And I used to like to write poetry and and no kidding, but I had to wear a patch in the third grade.
Unknown
I had a lazy eye. So one eye that turns and and and, you know, and ever since like that, when people would end all the stupid pirate jokes and all that stuff too. And, and then from that point on, I just tried to fit in wherever you told me I needed to fit in is where I fit in, not what I wanted.
Unknown
And and that just turned into a really hot mess for a year. And quite frankly, even for, you know, for decades and even today, I mean, you know, by the grace of God, I know I'm a better person than I was yesterday. And, you know, I've tried to make most of the amends that that have of needing to make.
Unknown
And and even as a father, you know, I wish I could go back. I wish there some things I could do differently. But, you know, the hard work that you do and then all of a sudden being a look yourself in the mirror and smile back and say, you know what, you're you're a pretty good person, care. And then watching watching especially I love like Wendy will spend two days with some high school students this week and watching them and be able to tell them hey like you are good enough your talent, if you are smart enough to make a huge difference in this world and there are lessons that you don't have to learn.
Unknown
And and one of the things I love talking to organizations about and even these young high school students about is if you don't have care and this goes to you, if you don't have your values defined or at least outlined or at least some sort of part of your soul, a company will define them for you. So you better be very careful.
Unknown
And the luck, you know, the odds of somebody jumping into a really good company with a really good culture that really cares about people, let's just say it's slim to none. But even if you're brand new in that organization, you fall into that organization. You have no you have no reference point of what a Babylon is. Right? So, yeah, I'm going to leave this space.
Unknown
I'm going to go somewhere else, and then you wake up. It's like, man, was that a bad call? And so, I don't know. I just love watching people and especially my big passion is, you know, how do you reach out to the lonely, broken, tired and afraid and, you know, and how you just kind of put your arms around them, whether it be, you know, physically or mentally or emotionally and let them know that it's okay and then love them up.
Unknown
Yeah, that really is. I mean, you've got a lot of sweet spots, but that is really one of your sweet spots. And the other thing I'll say is just the opportunity that, you know, that I did get to work with you. I got to see it in action, you know, everything that you're saying. So you know, you're not a CEO of a company who just talks about the importance of culture and then goes and does something completely different.
Unknown
You know, you've always been really since I've worked with you, been, you know, really transparent as far as where you were and where you came from and really honest about that. And then just, you know, how you have the opportunity to transform that. And and you, you know, you you call out you call out those things to right those mistakes that you make.
Unknown
Just like all of us do. So that's I think that's so important to call out that we're all just we're all human and real and none of us are perfect. So if we were, let's just say we had 20 episodes under our belt. What's something that you would hope for? Like it was like hope for Karen. Go. Oh, I like that question.
Unknown
Mm. We have a great audience. We have people interested in coming to share their thoughts and views. We gain more insights from from that, an opportunity for me to learn and grow. There is nothing that juices me up anymore. So. So something like that. I would love I would love organizations to come calling upon us and our expertize to come and help them with their culture.
Unknown
Absolutely. I don't know what more can we ask for now. So similar to what what you said, Karen, and I think if I had to add anything, it is you know, at the end of every episode that we are challenging our listeners to say, gosh, what am I called to do or called to be differently today than I was yesterday?
Unknown
Because of what I just got done listening to and what is that call to action? And so we, you know, really being able to challenge our listeners in that way now. And I love that. And I also think that, you know, hopefully we can we can be useful for other people. Hopefully we be useful to other organizations. And then, you know, hopefully some people even challenge us in our in our thinking and maybe provoke us to think differently about that.
Unknown
And, you know, I think what I would love is especially those people that might be stuck in a poor culture, Kathy or I might give them courage and and allow them to be brave and either try to alter their culture inside their organization or raise their hand and say, I'm going somewhere else. And then, you know, just watching, watching some brave people make, you know, make a big, big difference.
Unknown
And then even other organizations that it's probably the organizations out there that say, I don't have a culture that probably have a great culture. It's the organizations say we have a great culture, good pagan. I don't know. I used to because I mean, there's so many great humble organizations out there. They're quiet, right? Yeah. They just get up and they work and they care and they love and they do all that great stuff.
Unknown
They just don't have Ping-Pong tables, you know, and ball chairs. They just care. Does that make sense? Oh, yeah, buddy. Lately. Yeah. So it's funny because I could go back to one of my favorite value words that I've debriefed multiple times, and it's balance. And so when balance is very high on someone's list, it's because they're they're striving to have that once they don't have it.
Unknown
Obviously, it's it's more an aspiration. So just like what you said, organizations that don't tout culture are really doing a great job with culture. So the same thing, people that have great balance don't need it to be high on their list. The other thing that I think of is you guys were talking to is that Karen and I talk about this a lot with each other and with coaching clients and so forth, but it's my hope for our listeners too, is that realization that no matter what they're facing and they're going through, they have choice, love that they get to react.
Unknown
They get to choose how they react to their circumstances. And my hope is that the things that we're sharing will help them with that. It's like, Well, that's great, but how do we do it, right? Yeah, absolutely. I think that's where you and I will be able to help that impact significantly, too, because of the coaching mindset we have that understanding of how to help them shift from a victim mindset, feeling frustrated or feeling helpless to understand the compassion and curiosity that it takes to get to the creative reframe, to be able to understand there's a different perspective instead of the one that they're stuck in currently now.
Unknown
So cool. This team, I think is just so great because we've got, you know, Scott, who brings all of the experience that he has from both life and, you know, running a very nice company and everything that comes into that. And then, you know, Karen, your and I experience is just again life and work but also, you know, as coaches.
Unknown
So I think we make a pretty good team, you guys. Oh, yeah. And COVID has made this so much more complicated and icy and questionable. And so if we as we kind of as we begin to jump off, if we could maybe encourage our listeners to go inside and think about something before they join us again, what's what what's what's something compelling that we can encourage them to to think about.
Unknown
I my thought is the simple question of why is culture important to you and what is important about you being a part of a podcast like this where we're diving deep into culture. So I think that would be that would be my challenge and I like that. Yeah. Yeah. I think for me it's hopefully it's reflective enough to where instead of going at a culture they don't like, what part of themselves do they not like in that culture?
Unknown
So as you think about like I hear a lot of times people I don't like, I don't like that about the company and the challenges, the fact that you can do something about it. The question is, you know, is it the right thing to do? Is it the right time to make that decision? Right. And how does that how does that impact how does that impact me?
Unknown
You know, who knows? Who knows? But I can't say so much right now. Well, I've had fun. I don't know about you two. And I'm I'm really looking forward to our journey together. And then I'm really looking forward to hopefully, you know, we have some folks that have listened to us and lean in and learn and and help us sort out and absolutely teach us.
Unknown
Yeah, I'm excited about the journey. And hey, we have to. We also say thanks to Taylor Wright for helping us to do the back end with all of this for the podcast. Yeah, he does. Thank you, Taylor. He is a great filmmaker. Yes, he is a great husband. I you know, it's funny, as I was walking through, he's going to hate that I'm telling the story and I know he's listening to me.
Unknown
But there was a there's a company here that makes wheels for, you know, race cars. And he's probably laughing at me like, no, that's not what they make him for. But whatever we were walking through the plant where they make him and the owner kind of he he grabbed me by the shirt and pulled me back and he said, Hey, he goes and I might even cry, but he goes, I want you to watch this.
Unknown
I go out and he goes, I want you to watch. I want you to watch how these employees lean into your son because they they adore him. They're crazy about him. Watch his kindness as he walks through this through this factory manufacturing. And I watched it. And, I mean, it was just like every single person, you know, their eyes lit up.
Unknown
They started smiling. They knew him by name. And it's because he had a he just had that the patients and the time, you know, to listen and to learn and and and to care about care about them. So I appreciate him. I know he's my son. Maybe I'm biased, but. Well, he gave me a great amount of time and patience through these last few days getting us set up with the technology.
Unknown
So absolutely I am a testament to that. Scott, you don't have to be just a father to recognize somebody who's kind and patient. So thank you, Samuel Adams So that would be literally awesome. Well, join us next time and if people want to get a hold of Hollywood, they can email:
Wendy: wendyroopcoaching@gmail.com
Karen: karen@kbpcoaching.com
Scott: psmcgohan@mcgohanbrabender.com
Thanks for listening and have an amazing day.