Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey Victors, welcome to this episode of the Victory Show. If this is the first time you're joining us, I'm Rachel League with Bestseller by Design. Our founder, Travis Cody is the best selling author of 16 books and we've had the privilege of helping hundreds of business consultants, founders and entrepreneurs write and publish their own best selling books as well. Through that journey, we've discovered a fascinating pattern. Most businesses really struggle to break past the seven figure revenue mark on the on this show, I sit down with some of the world's most successful CEOs, leaders and business owners to uncover the strategies they used to scale way past that mark so you can do the same. So get ready for some deep insights and actionable takeaways that you can implement in your life and business. Starting now. Today's guest is Tracy Dokes, a highly accomplished CEO, director and technology strategist whose work is transforming the digital landscape across North Carolina and beyond. As president and CEO of MCNC, Tracy leads a $70 million organization dedicated to eliminating the digital divide by delivering essential broadband infrastructure to education, state government and nonprofit healthcare clients. Under her leadership, MCNC is building the resilient network and cybersecurity capabilities that communities need to thrive in a rapidly evolving world. Prior to mcnc, Tracy held executive roles with Duke Health and the State of North Carolina, where she oversaw statewide cybersecurity operational services, broadband infrastructure, strategic IT planning, and the NC911 board. She serves on numerous boards including the center for Internet Security, the Quilt, Rewriting the Code, and advisory boards at North Carolina State University. Throughout her career, Tracy has been recognized with honors such as the Triangle Business Journal's Women in Business Award, the Public CIO Award, and multiple distinguished alumni awards from North Carolina State University, where she earned her engineering degree. Her leadership is not only operational it's visionary aligning strategy, ethics and equity to prepare infrastructure for the future where both risk and innovation are accelerating. Tracy, welcome to the show.
[00:02:03] Speaker B: Thank you Rachel. It's great to be here.
[00:02:05] Speaker A: Tracey, you've built a remarkable career across healthcare, government and broadband infrastructure. What first inspired you to pursue a path at this intersection of technology and public service?
[00:02:16] Speaker B: I don't think anything is inspired me to it. I think it was just the journey and how it worked out. And so as you mentioned, I do have an engineering degree, but I was a really good computer programmer. And so when I graduated I became a consultant and started work in the government space and then moved over into healthcare with an insurance company and clinical informatics. But again, the basis for all of it was always still technology.
And so as I've moved up in my career as somebody who was a technologist and engineer, brain just parlayed itself into technology and business and how we run businesses. And so with my current role, that is the intersection to all of those things. As you mentioned, through broadband connectivity. We also have a cybersecurity practice which is something that's near and dear to my heart and should be to everyone, particularly healthcare. Right. Because that we're seeing a lot of bad actors and threats that are happening across the landscape with health care and as well as public sector and education. But I, I would like to say there was some special recipe, but it really just happened to be my interest and the opportunities that came along that I felt I could grow from, I could learn from and I could contribute to.
[00:03:47] Speaker A: Yes, that intellectual curios. Were there any specific elements of the technology space that really excited you?
[00:03:55] Speaker B: Specific elements. You know, when I was growing in my career, software was just really where I focused my time and energy from creating and developing software, to managing software projects, to managing people that develop software into the more broader sense of infrastructure that supported software and how you evaluate that through the stack. Right. To create software that creates a service for a business or individuals. And I think that's where the business mind took over from, you know, the creation of software to how it helps others goals and strategies to be successful at what they do. And I think these days, of course, AI, quantum, some of those more emerging technologies are fascinating because of what they can do. They've been around for a long time, but we're all talking about them right now. And so for mcnc, it's figuring out how do we incorporate that to support our clients across our communities.
[00:05:06] Speaker A: And when you think about cutting edge technology, what's the approach to figuring out how you integrate it and make it the highest and best use for your specific organization?
[00:05:16] Speaker B: By asking by. You have to know what your demand is going to be. And just like in any business, what is the demand going to be? What is it that people have the ability or want to pay for that advances their goals within their organization. And then part of it is what do we see as industry trends. And so for our organization, we, we see that many researchers are doing work around AI and what they need is infrastructure to be able to do that. So GPU as a service is something that would be really meaningful for them or a quantum testbed for researchers would be really meaningful for them for research so that they can develop the next big cutting edge thing that helps society.
[00:06:07] Speaker A: Was There a moment early in your career when you realized that you wanted to not just be a part of the organizations, but really lead them through this transformation and growth.
[00:06:17] Speaker B: Everywhere I've been, that's what I've always wanted to do. And so having an impact, and it doesn't even have to have my name on it, but having an impact everywhere I go is very important to me. And I know it sounds trite and a little bit cliche, but. But I really mean that when I say that, and I see every role as a new challenge with this particular organization. Coming in during COVID was a challenge in and of itself, and I made the, you know, the transformation from a CIO to a CEO. It wasn't as difficult for someone like me because I had that business background and financial background. So it made perfect sense that that would be the next step in my career. But joining MCNC and the people that they have there, the culture that we currently have, is incredible. I've never been at a place like this, so it made my job much easier as it relates to developing strategy, because the operations work right. The people that are there, they know what they do. They know what they're here to do. So coming in and reevaluating mission and value was not very difficult. Everybody knew what they were there to do, but also developing a strategy, where do we want to go from here? How do we want to pivot for the sustainability of this organization?
And I think that's where the work really is, because that's organizational change, management. There's some psychology in that. Not just for the employees, but for my board, who I answer to, who happen to be a lot of clients. So, you know, walking that fine line between, please don't mess my stuff up that I have today versus, hey, we need to be able to also do some new stuff. So we'll continue to do the old stuff that you really. Or the existing stuff that you really like. And so there's a balance there as a president and CEO, to be able to assure and persuade at the same time. And it's. It's nuanced and. And different from what I've had to do in the past. For the employees, it was more of a yes, put me in coach. Tell me where I need to be, tell me what my role is in this new strategy that we are all working towards. And so that part was fun. The other part, not as fun, but still an important part. When you're pivoting an organization to ensure that it exists long after I leave.
[00:09:04] Speaker A: I think you touched on so many interesting points and I, I want to circle back to a couple of them. Tell us a little bit about you said, you know, it was not as easy doing this new element. So how did you figure out how to do that? And you've clearly done it very effectively. Did you rely on mentors or was it just a learn as you go process?
[00:09:25] Speaker B: If I didn't have mentors, I don't know what I would do.
Mentors and sounding boards are incredibly important to make sure that you are not in an echo chamber. Right. Where you're talking to people that are just going to talk back the very thing that you're saying to them. I need to be challenged on the ideas that, that we're creating and developing. And if I'm not, then that, that's a disservice to me and it's a disservice to everyone else. And so with the new strategy, actually had this last version, I had a consulting firm come in and we brainstormed amongst ourselves hard before we started to move into working with the organization, with our clients, with our board. So that there was a structured framework for how we were going to talk about this stuff and that I wasn't asking leading questions to get to the place that I wanted them to be, but to the place that we needed to be, regardless of how I may have felt about it, if that makes sense.
[00:10:37] Speaker A: Absolutely. I mean that self awareness, to be able to separate what you see as the true vision versus putting the organization and that longevity you mentioned at the core, I think is really the mark of a good leader. Not just a, you know, CEO, but someone who is truly leading the organization to its, its next phase of growth. And you touched on also something I thought it was really interesting is I was thinking, how do you come in to this organization that's already built out, you're now the CEO and get people to trust you quickly so you can do that. Organizational change management. Tell us about the trust building process.
[00:11:14] Speaker B: My approach coming into a new organization is strategy. That is the first order of business is working on a strategy together. And it's not just the result, but it's also the process because that's what binds and bonds us together as we go through this process. So I'm a firm believer in the five obsessions of an extraordinary executive and building that cohesive leadership team, whether it's a senior leadership team and then the managers that report to them. Anybody that manages people across the organization. If we are not cohesive in our thought processes in Terms of what's the mission, what's the values, the strategy that we all have skin in the game, invested in and put our mark on.
That is how, in my opinion, good teams are developed. Because you have a North Star that you're all shooting for and you're all speaking the same language about how you do that. And then even the way that we evaluate ourselves is directly related to the strategy that we've built together. So there's no guessing, there's no wondering.
There shouldn't be anybody in the organization that's thinking they're a cog in the wheel because everyone has a role to play, from the janitorial staff to my chief operating officer. And I talk to everyone the same in that regard because everybody is important in what we do and how we serve our clients in our community.
So having that first the cohesive leadership team, the mission and values, and then building that strategy right out of the gate, the process of building that, in my opinion, is what builds the bond. And then the teams are easier to create after that.
[00:13:10] Speaker A: How did you assess what needs you had to fill on the team versus working with existing talent and forming that for the next phase of growth?
[00:13:20] Speaker B: Listening. I had to really, as we were building out this strategy, I was listening not just for tone, but also for capacity, for competency, for capabilities, so that I could understand where the gaps were. And I did. As we went through that strategy process, I did start to understand, okay, we need more of this and less of that. So I'm going to need to make some organizational shifts in order to accommodate that. But the way that I communicate and talk about that is not, hey, we're going to have a reorganization. It's, hey, we've all agreed to these things that we want to be able to do, so we have to position ourselves to be able to do that thing. So here's the recommendation of how we do that. If you've got some edits to this, then certainly bring them to the table so we can discuss them. This is the recommendation that I and others have for how we position ourselves and leaving the door open for, hey, there might be more tweaks that we make along the way because nothing is etched in stone. There's things that you, that you figure out along the way. It's like, ah, that didn't work as well, or, ah, yes, that's working great, let's do more of that.
I did do that. There were some pretty big shifts since I've been there, and five years on August 1st that I really had to make some bigger investments in. As it related to marketing, as it related to our cybersecurity practice, as it related to business development because. And innovation. But we didn't have those investments because prior to that it was more around continuing to operate this really vibrant research and education network.
Well, connectivity is not a sustainable revenue. So over time that margin gets smaller and smaller. So we have to find other ways of revenue diversification in order to sustain ourselves. And being able to talk to the staff and our board in a different way about revenue and business where that just wasn't the way that they've talked about the organization before for it was mainly focused on community. How do we, how do we help our community?
Yeah, that's true. But we have to be here for our community in order to help them. So yeah, there's ways that we have to pivot in order to be able to continue to do that.
[00:15:57] Speaker A: Sounds like you have a real gift for getting buy in from others on the team. And you have a really logical approach to laying out both the strategy that people are excited to get behind and then the suggested approach to executing that. And I'm sure some of that comes from your engineering background. But tell us, particularly on the people side, how have you honed that ability to get people on your team?
[00:16:19] Speaker B: And that's interesting because, you know, another part of my role is advocacy. So I've talked to people in Congress, I've talked to people in our state legislature, you know, having to appeal to all, all audiences enough for them to listen to you and for you to appreciate, appreciate where their interests are in the thing that you're doing. And I think that's a key component to my success. When I am talking to people over the years, you know, starting out in engineering and being a technologist, it is a predominantly male, both of them are predominantly male fields. And so I started out wanting to be like a man. So I'm going to be cutthroat and I'm going to be. And not that those are definitions of a man, but it's the stereotypical way that we see that type of leader.
And what I found out that it made me less approachable because of the way that I was doing, made me less come across as less sensitive to people and inauthentic. So those three things right there are kind of the opposite of those three things are where trust comes from. And so if I was pushing those things that I thought made me a good leader came.
I came to an understanding that people still aren't trusting me. I'M still not engaging with them in a really productive way in order to get to where we need to be. And so over time, I started to learn that, okay, I have to be authentically me and what is that? And once I started to appreciate, it is the way I tell stories, it is the way that I can connect with people. So if I'm talking with, you know, someone from North Carolina, I'm not originally from North Carolina, but I'm from a really small town in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. So I can relate to rural North Carolina because I come from a place that was really small, terrible connectivity opportunities, not as great.
And so being able to find that underlying commonality with people is very, very important. And then you can build from there. And being open, if it means that I'm a little bit more vulnerable about something that I think we can both relate to, it's important that I do that. It's important that I do that to build the trust. And so with employees, people, whether it's anybody, including my family, you want to be acknowledged. You want to be acknowledged for what you know. You want to be acknowledged for how you feel, the work that you do. And that observation for people means that I have an appreciation for that, whether I've observed them work, whether. Whether I have read about them, whether I have researched them, whether I have found, you know, in conversation, a way for us to meet in the middle when we're talking about things. That has been my real claim to fame. A good friend of mine told me once that my resume and what I look like on paper versus the way that I am in person are very, very different. Because I could look like anyone else on paper, but the way that I am in person and my passion and enthusiasm for what I do, who I am and what I can do is really strong. And it shows through when you talk to me, not when you read about me. And so I think that's the connection that I have with people and, and how that trust has really helped in that connection.
[00:20:05] Speaker A: I will say, when I read your bio, it comes through that you are passionate because of how much you have accomplished in the space. And I think it would be hard to do so much without a passion for it. But I agree, of course, the in person enthusiasm is just brimming. And I loved that you connected the stakeholder management really to building that trust and understanding what's in it for all the different parties and getting them on your team. And can you take us through an example of maybe one of the first Big decisions that you made that realigned the orientation of the organization. And what did that look like, both from an execution standpoint and also from the stakeholder management that we've been talking about.
[00:20:47] Speaker B: There are so many examples of that over my career. So if I could hearken back probably to my last role as state cio, because it translates very similar into. Into what I do today, understanding where the biggest pain points are and why they're there, who they affect and what happens when you change them. So, for example, at the state of North Carolina, when I worked for the governor, we had a really big problem.
The agencies not trusting the state CIO and the state CIO's office prior to me coming because the prices were too high and they were not transparent. And the legislators were calling into question the credibility of that office because other agencies were complaining, hey, this isn't right. This isn't right. The bills aren't transparent, all of those things. And so sitting down when I first walked in the door with finance and with the service owners in saying, walk me through exactly how we develop costs for services.
Now, this is. This is how we develop the cost, and we're charging back for the cost. How does that compare to industry?
Because this is not a bubble. We can't just say, well, these are all the people that we have and we have to cover these people. That's not good enough. Because they could.
They're not a captive audience. They could still go outside of state government and get their services. It would be a pain for them to do. But enough complaining to the legislature. They will write it into law that they can do that, and that's not what any of us want.
So let's figure out all of those things and compare it to industry and then go back to our clients and customers and show them, okay, this is what we used to charge, and this is why it looked that way. But here's what our new charges look like, and here's how it compares to others in the industry. And then I presented that to the legislature. This is what we're doing. We are reducing costs by this, this, and this, which will improve the relationships with these agencies and increase their own revenue and help them by some percentage to be able to meet the goals of their constituents that use their services.
So, you know, starting from one place to end up at another place that didn't just include clients, but it also included stakeholders like constituents that use DMV services or Department of Revenue for taxes or health and human services.
So that was really important to start one place and then move out right to what is meaningful. And what matters at MCNC is a little different because they already had this model, this cost model that was great. It was about building new services for sustainability.
And so being able to articulate that to the board as to why we need to do those things and why we need to make those investments to the staff. As to this, you're doing this, but in time you may be doing that. And here's why. This is great for you and for the organization. So I felt like I rambled a little bit on that one, but I'm hoping that I answered the question from the pain points to how it includes and affects stakeholders at the end of the process.
[00:24:22] Speaker A: Absolutely. I love how you said you start at the nexus and then you move out through the various rings of the impact that the change would have. And it's really sounds like you're able to articulate not just what it means for you and your organization, but for the entire ecosystem. And by doing that work for the other people that you're trying to get on board, as opposed to putting the onus on them to understand what is the impact, you really lighten the burden and make it a lot easier for them to get on board or to at least understand what your potential strategic decision could do for more than just your organization. I think that's really smart.
You know, as you think about scaling the business, managing organizational change as a lever to do that. Tell us about a time that there was maybe a bump in the road and how you navigated that.
[00:25:16] Speaker B: So many bumps. So, so many bumps. I had a very large implementation of a new system and a new set of systems. And what we found out as we were doing focus groups with employees is that we had a huge gap between what they know and what they need to know.
And it was pretty significant.
In addition to that, the skills that they had that they were being paid pretty handsomely for were no longer viable and needed. The new skills didn't warrant that type of salary. So that was a very. That had to be a really thoughtful process without having to lay a whole bunch of people off and hire a whole bunch of new people. Could we do a combination of training for the people who were interested and perhaps reapplying for the roles that we needed now, which may have meant in some cases a reduction in the salary that they had because we didn't need those skills any longer. I would like to say that that was easy, but it wasn't. But that's what we needed to do in order to support all of these new systems. And it was a multi hundred million dollar project that, you know, from a technology standpoint, there was no way to accomplish that with the current skill set that we had. But there was also an organizational change, management and morale issue that had to be overcome as well. I think that was one of the most difficult times in my career. A lot of times. It's not all, it's not about the technology.
It is almost about the people and the processes associated with the people.
You know, something similar in, in my last role before I came to mcnc when we started looking at those pricing models. Well, why do we have all these people in here? They're not doing these things. It may be time for them to either move, shift to something else, or maybe time for, you know, retirement. And so those are really difficult decisions that are made, but they're made for the betterment of the organization.
And I find those things in particular because they're people oriented and they're not technology oriented, that they are the hardest because it's a, it's a balance between business and people being able to focus on. Yes, I have to balance those things. But there's goals here that we have to make sure that we are meeting for for the organization.
In that case for the state of North Carolina, for mcnc, of course it would be for the state of North Carolina as well and the communities that we serve. And so I think any of the people, strictly people related, big decisions of organizational change management for me have been the most difficult.
[00:28:30] Speaker A: Yes. Thank you for your vulnerability and sharing that I hear in your voice that it really is such a challenging thing, which I think is the mark of a good leader, that you have the empathy for the individual while making large scale change to the organization. And your role and your job is to focus on improving the organization and scaling the organization, but still keeping the people that form the organization at the core. As you do make these more challenging decisions, which I'm sure a lot of leaders face, decisions that maybe the team is not super excited about or it doesn't feel, feel great to everyone. How do you maintain your own resilience and focus on what you and the rest of the stakeholders that you've aligned with believe is the right strategy? When there are naysayers or you're getting.
[00:29:22] Speaker B: Negative feedback, who is the hockey players at Wayne Gretzky?
You look to where you want the puck to be, not where it is right now. And I continue to focus on what the naysayers are saying right now. About what I'm doing right now, I won't get to where it is I want to be. So I do have to have the discernment around what is noise and what are real gems in that noise that I need to pay attention to. And otherwise. It is very difficult to be resilient if you are responding to every little thing in your environment that you feel. Because this is completely you, it's not necessarily fact based that you feel may be a negative to what it is that needs to be accomplished. So this laser like focus on this is where we, we all agree that we need to go. And I strongly believe where we need to go. And I have to be able to filter out the noise to be able to get there. Now that doesn't mean that I don't pull in a few of my board members to check myself. Hey, board member, okay, this, this is what we all agree to. These are a few things that, that are kind of sticking out there for me. Could you give me some advice on the best way to handle that and should I really be ignoring that or in your experience, have you seen another way of approaching that thing? So I'm not afraid of asking people who know more than me, our board members of the very, very accomplished in terms of where they've been and what they've done, which is really great about having a board that you can, can rely on and they're supportive. And I have used that to be able to filter out the noise so that I can, and I say this to my team all the time, you know, lift your head up above the fray and stay there in order to get the work done.
[00:31:24] Speaker A: I mean, that was my next question is how do you parse the signal from the noise? Because I'm sure there are so many opinions coming at you and it, it sounds like, you know, gut checking that with others, in addition to sort of just honing a gut feeling within yourself is, is the key.
[00:31:41] Speaker B: It is honing a gut feeling in yourself and it's also about who you surround yourself with. Right. And so you want to be around people who are doing really great things too.
And so in my earlier days, I think the circles that I was in were also other people who were naysayers and then your tendency is to fall into that same way of thinking. And I feel over time I've elevated in my way of thinking to know what things are, things that can be focused on and what things might be second or third priority to pay attention to right now. And I'm a strong believer that Things will eventually fall into place if you have your focus on the things that matter, the things that are the. That are the priorities for the organization. For me personally, for my board, for. For other stakeholders, that's the way. For me, in order to understand. When I hear something over here, it's like, is that directly related to this, this, or this? No. I'm going to have to leave that right now and see where that ends up landing eventually.
That alignment with what it is I'm trying to accomplish is key. And if it's not aligned with that, then I should not be spending my time on it.
[00:33:18] Speaker A: The ability to focus on a few things sounds like a really important skill. And in this current environment where there are so many distractions, how do you lock in multitasker.
[00:33:31] Speaker B: She was always doing a whole bunch of things at one time, and I just thought that was the coolest thing. And then over time, as she was growing, she said, you know what I learned? There's no such thing. There is no such thing as multitasking. You have to know what the two or three things are that are important to you and focus on those two or three things. It doesn't mean you do it all at one time, but if this is your priority, the other things that you're doing should be strategically aligned to meeting this priority. If it's the books that you read, if it's the people that you talk to, to. If it's the news that you get, it should all be centered around what it is you're trying to accomplish, because what you ingest is what you become. And that, to me, is what helps me keep very, very focused on what I need to be doing. Because, let's face it, in this world and all of the competition for our attention, it is easy to get distracted. It is easy to follow every little sound and every little bump, and you would be paralyzed by that. And I can't. I don't have the capacity to do that. And for me, peace is the ultimate goal for Tracy and in her life, and that is the anti.
[00:35:03] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm sure it takes a real discipline to be able to do that. And I think it probably ties back to understanding your why and like you said, even whether you're doing it personally or for your organization. Tying out all the circles, the concentric circles, of what does this impact? What is the ultimate outcome? And does that align with what we're doing here at the center?
[00:35:25] Speaker B: Exactly. In the concentric circles is spot on. I talk about that with my staff all the time. It's like, we'll start here, and then we'll get here, and then we'll get here, and then we'll get here. We can't start here, or we'll never get to where we need to be. And so it's funny that you're using that same analogy, because I talk about that all the time.
[00:35:44] Speaker A: Well, you. You described it beautifully, so the image came right to my mind.
Tracy, what does victory look like to you today?
[00:35:51] Speaker B: Very to me.
I think I.
I spoke a little bit about peace, but peace for Tracy is also that sense that you've made a positive, significant impact to the people that you serve. So in the nonprofit space and the public sector space, I feel like ultimately I am a public servant, whether I'm working in those spaces or not. And I believe in ensuring that everybody in our community has the same opportunity to be great. And so for the organization that I'm in, if you don't have 100 gigs up and 100 gig down to be able to get your health care via telehealth, or to educate yourself or to find a job, then I've not done my job. And that does not give me peace. My job is to ensure that that happens for the cybersecurity that sits on top of our network. If we are able to protect the people that are on the network and their data that is on the network, that gives me some fulfillment and knowing that I'm having that, we are having this impact in a positive way. The thing about cyber security, though, the success is when nothing happens.
So that's kind of electricity. Yeah.
The light comes on. You don't celebrate every day, but you definitely notice when the light doesn't come on. Right, Right. And then you're groaning about that. So many years ago, I took a test called know your strengths, and my number one strength was significant. And it wasn't that I wanted to be significant.
It was that I wanted the work that I do to be significant. And that's what gives me peace, and that's what gives me joy, and that's what I would see is victory in my life. And I feel like that is my legacy. Not that I'm going anywhere anytime soon, but I want to be known as a person who has done that for the people that are around her and her communities. My friends, my family, I want them all to be able to feel that for me.
[00:38:09] Speaker A: It seems like you've been really skilled at honing a sense of purpose in every level of the organization, from the bottom, most rung to your Fellow C suite members. And that just comes from you being your authentic self and knowing what drives you, having that the why defined your purpose and then infusing that into the rest of your organization. And I think a lot of times people probably think of that as a nice to have, not a need to have. There are all these very tangible, execution oriented things that need to get done and they take a lot of time and energy.
But I think it's really wonderful how you have articulated that you continue to pour into your entire organization because everyone is a critical member in achieving those greater strategic initiatives.
[00:38:57] Speaker B: Agreed, Agreed. And I will say two big things are tenacity and perseverance. You've got to be really fierce when you are holding on to something that you want to see happen. And I think people lose that when they get tired.
[00:39:15] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. Because I'm sure there is a lot of weight and responsibility on your shoulders as the leader of this enormous organization that has such a big impact. And so to be able to still balance the small everyday moments with the people that create your organization, I think shows a real ability to focus on different buckets and to switch between the different priorities and keeping that on the table as a priority. Tracy, if you had to give your younger self one piece of advice, what would it be?
[00:39:46] Speaker B: Make sure that you find your tribe. And when I say that, I mean, you know, a group of people that can grow with you over time. They shouldn't be people that you work with, they shouldn't be people that you work for, but they should be people that attend, that tell you the truth about what you're doing, that you can vent to and listen when it's time to listen. Where you can let your hair down and talk and vent about the things that bother you, about the accomplishments that you have, about the new opportunities that are coming down the pike. Because they will cheer for you, they will cry with you, they will help you figure out ways of solving a problem that you may not have. And they also help you get perspective. Because the worst thing you can do as a leader is to live at work and only at work. Perspective is extremely important for thinking freely and being able to focus. And so. And also not to be afraid to have hobbies that take some of your time, that you're good at what you do because you focus. Can you get other hobbits habits where you can also focus that aren't work related? Because I found over the years that that's important that I have that too, where my younger self would have just work, work work, work, work. Because that's what life is about. And that's not what life is about. And it's not success either.
[00:41:21] Speaker A: That's probably not sustainable either.
[00:41:23] Speaker B: Absolutely not. Well, beautiful.
[00:41:25] Speaker A: Beautifully said. I appreciate how all of your answers really come back to looking at a person as a whole. And that's really how you've been able to grow and scale your businesses successfully, as well as the authenticity that continues to be a core tenet of how you operate day to day, and then the positive outcomes of that, of building trust with others. So, Tracy, this has been a very insightful and frankly, so much fun conversation. So thank you so much for your time and for joining us on the Victory Show.
[00:41:53] Speaker B: Thank you for having me.
