Episode 11 - Karley Cunningham - Creating Culture and Brands

Karley Cunningham is a business owner and an adventurous and beautiful human. This was such an amazing conversation with a true entrepreneur that has an amazing spirit, she helps her clients understand how to create an internal and external culture in order to accelerate their business.

 

Leighann Lovely  00:19

If you are an HR professional business owner or at the operations level trying to understand what people want. You may be struggling our systems have been shocked practices have been questioned and culture is the leading conversation. Let's learn how culture is created, sustained, and why it should be the leading conversation when discussing hiring, training and retention. This is the foundation of any business and it's time to address it. So tune in to Let's Talk HR humanizing the conversation. We tackle topics that influencers of change need to understand and struggle to overcome every day, such as where to start, and what the new workforce wants and how to attract and keep positive momentum going. I'm your host Leighann Lovely.

 

Leighann Lovely  01:07

Grand strategist and Business Growth accelerator. Karley Cunningham, takes businesses from competitive spaces out into Blue Ocean Territory, where they can confidently stand out and thrive as brand leaders in their sector, who are international client based benefits from accelerated growth, profit and stability as her innovative surefire method provides them with a surefire strategy and toolkit that enables them to charge a premium, attract ideal clients and outpace their competitors. Karley entrepreneurial success story is featured in the awarded book, the wildest net by Pam Slim, believing deeply in the practice of givers gain, she's developed a global network and rarely goes a day without making a referral or connection when not focusing on the business or expanding her network. She can be found somewhere in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest with her wife and dog in their four by four. Karley, Welcome to Let's Talk HR. I'm excited to have this conversation with you today.

 

Karley Cunningham  02:21

It's such a pleasure to be here.

 

Leighann Lovely  02:23

Well, why don't we start off? Why don't you tell me a little bit about yourself?

 

Karley Cunningham  02:27

Where would you like me to start? You want me start business side or professional side?

 

Leighann Lovely  02:31

Wherever you want to start?

 

Karley Cunningham  02:32

How about the business side or professional side? How about personal side or as well? It's off to a good start. There we go. Yes, I have the memory of a goldfish. All right. So let's go personal since I completely skipped over that the first time. I am in North Vancouver right born and raised about an hour southwest of Toronto in Ontario. So I have North border from you and I moved out here because I have an absolute passion for the trails in the mountains and I spend anytime that I'm not at my desk and having great conversations like this on the trails, trail running and mountain biking.

 

Leighann Lovely  03:11

That is awesome. And just a moment ago you showed me your your your little companion that you have your your puppy or your pets not so much a puppy a dog does he or she ever join you.

 

Karley Cunningham  03:23

He is now retired because he's 10 and a half but he was definitely because he's Border Collie Springer retriever cross who's a phenomenal trail dog and I so miss having him at my side on the trails. But he gets to enjoy his his time now going at his own pace.

 

Leighann Lovely  03:38

That's awesome. So, so why don't you tell me a little bit now about what you do professionally do.

 

Karley Cunningham  03:47

During the day, I work with agents of change the disruptors, the innovators, changemakers makers, those who whose business purpose is to make this world a better place for all of us. And in particular, it's interesting, I was having conversation yesterday and I said, you know making positive change? Well, everybody has a different opinion of what positive changes. And so I'm I'm thinking of reverse revising that to saying those who do no harm. So change makers, innovators disruptors, who are changing the world so that we do less or do no harm.

 

Leighann Lovely  04:25

That that is, hey, that's awesome. Because yeah, you're right, everybody. Everybody who believes that they're making change, most people think that they're doing it for the right reasons. But that may not necessarily be the same or be in line with what the next person thinks is the right reasons.

 

Karley Cunningham  04:51

Yeah, are there right reasons. Right. Right. Thank you Supreme Court.

 

Leighann Lovely  04:56

Right. And and I suppose that going back to do an episode you haven't heard this episode, it hasn't actually launched yet. But going back to something that I heard on Episode One that will soon launch that I spoke with Mr. Andy wines, he said if it is legal, moral or ethical, and it can pass those tests then. Okay, but we have to have a referee of what those things are, right? Well, absolutely. And as he would say, you know, when it comes to legal that's, that's somebody else that's deciding that, but the moral and ethical thing, there has to be a referee of, of at each individual company, or I suppose the things that you are the people that you are working with, you decide on what and who you want to work with, when it comes to on to those things, correct?

 

Karley Cunningham  05:50

Yeah, definitely.

 

Leighann Lovely  05:51

So tell me a little bit more about how, you know, how are you helping them? How are you helping those influencers of change? Change things, you know, what is your what is your business? What is your model? What is your?

 

Karley Cunningham  06:05

What's my thing? What's your thing? What's my thing? So for the past 20, something years, I have worked at the intersection of visual communications, sales and business development, marketing and branding. And so where I really fell in love in that journey was with developing company brands. Because it's easy to say I develop brands, but that could be a personal brand, that could be a product brand. That could be, you know, a brand name product. But what I really enjoy doing is working with business owners and leaders and their leadership teams to get clear on who they are, what they do, the value they deliver, to the right audiences for them, and how to differentiate themselves in crowded markets to effectively push themselves away from red ocean out into Blue Ocean Territory.

 

Leighann Lovely  07:02

Awesome. So you are you're self employed, you're the business owner, correct? have Big Bold Brands, and that you've been running now for that business has been in place for what, 14 and a half years? So you go out you work with them to figure out how do I either rebrand myself were properly brand myself or market myself. But there's, when we when we spoke, there was something that you had originally when we originally spoke you and you'd said something to me, that really resonated with me. And I know this because I wrote it down. And when I talk with people, I write down these things that like, all of a sudden, it's like a light bulb goes off. You said, it's not just about branding your business for, you know, externally. It's also branding your business internally. So tell me a little bit you know about that, because this really goes to, you know, you can you can tell people, Hey, here's who I am. But if you don't hold it close to the chest, or tell your internal employees, this is who we are. Are you really what you're telling the world you are?

 

Karley Cunningham  08:12

Often not? Right, right, because there's there's a gap. And I call that the brand gap. And it's always hard to illustrate with your hands on a podcast. But if you imagine, you know, holding up both hands, palms side down, and they're flat, you imagine one side being one side of the gap. And the other. The other side of the gap is, you know, what stories you want and believe your company to be and you want people to be telling be at your employees, be it your clients, be it your clients clients, you know, and what they're actually saying, How far is that gap? Is it a little Is it is it? Is it there no gap? Because everybody is doing so consistently? Is there a little gap? Because you know, there's always the telephone game, so to speak? Or is it a Grand Canyon sized gap? When we tell you having just done the Grand Canyon, that's a pretty big gap. So when we talk about in internal versus external brand, there's a couple of layers to that. So the internal brand is what it what is everyone internally believe the company to be? And I'm sure because of your background and what you do, you are well versed in the term HR brand. Well, here's the interesting piece for me. So I've worked in the if we're talking bigger organization, I've worked in the marketing side of things. And so you know, if you imagine circles making up all the departments, we're kind of in often times in opposing places on that larger circle at the company. And so typically what happens as a business grows, the brand gets formed either by an external party or by the internal party because someone's been brought in and marketing the company grows, someone like yourself gets added in an HR position, looks at the Glassdoor description goes, Oh, okay. So we need to work on that. We need to build an HR brand. That challenge I have with that is we've got to siloed brands and congratulations. Now we've got sometimes some polar opposite things going on. And in reality, when I talk about building a company brand from the inside out my methodology puts it in the leadership house and brings the leaders into the company to agree on. Why did we start this business? What is our purpose beyond making profit? What are our guiding principles? Right? Okay, our values, you know, what, what tools and measures are we using to determine that everybody's acting in alignment with the desired behaviors, and the guiding principles of our company. And when we talked about the business owners, and we get that tight in, when we're talking small to midsize businesses, especially people leave other businesses for their passion, much like I did. And for reasons of I left my business because I left the company that I was working for great agency, love the people. But quite simply put, I was starting a mountain bike race career, and my boss wouldn't give me the time off that I needed to improve my Canadian standing. So I was like, Well, this is interesting. And so I quit to follow my passion. And I started to freelance and then it's effectively led me down this path to building my own business. But the understanding of that is, I left for certain reasons, I bring myself to the business, I bring my own beliefs, my dreams, my passions, my ways of being and doing to the business. And if you simply take a business owner, or partners, or a leadership team, and you allow someone externally to brand them, like you would a product, we're going to do the market research, we're going to figure out where the gap is in the market, we're going to figure out how to how to, in a way manipulate the differentiation of this, and we're gonna wrap you know, the new beverage can in pink, because it's going to be for girls, 14 to 17, yada, yada, yada, right? The problem with that is, you can't do that to people, right, or you can't just find a gap in the market and tell them this is who they're going to be. And this is who they're going to work with. Because those those dreams, that passion, the ways of being and doing, they need to be that live that for them to authentically show up. And also for them to be able to actually do it. Right. So if you just wrap them externally, from the outside based on market statistics and data, I call that the itchy sweater, because you can sell it to them for a little bit but eventually having to live it becomes uncomfortable, it gets itchy,

 

Leighann Lovely  12:35

Right? Absolutely. How does one I guess then get them to choose to want to wear and I guess I'm going to take a tagline from the company I work at want to wear the company jersey. I mean, and show up in it every day, and play on their company team and do the rah rah

 

Karley Cunningham  12:59

Question. Yeah, great question. Well, we start with the leadership, whatever that looks like solopreneur like myself, moving into I was in a business partnership for a while. And ironically enough, the reason our company dissolved, even though it was growing was because we were values misaligned. So bring that leadership team or person to the table, and you go through the exercise of taking through in our method, it's called the surefire method. What's your purpose? Thanks, Simon. Sinek start with why. You know why, why? What gets you out of bed in the morning about this company, even on your worst days, you know, when the kids have had you up all night, or you've just felt I can see you smiling? You've been there at all? Have you ever had that happen? You know, in my case, the dogs had a rough night hate something on the trail. And of course, it could not come up at seven o'clock at night. It's always three in the morning. But on those worst days, you're feeling crappy. It's you know, I live on the west coast or the west coast, it's raining and you're just like, I really don't want to do this. But what why why get out of bed why go serve your clients, why go serve your customers why go make the widget the thing the whatever it is that you produce or service and we start there, we start with the heart of the company because the head can justify anything but the heart will always tell you you're wrong. And then we define the guiding principles we get into what is the character persona of the company and how do we want it to make people feel and I say it being almost this personified body beyond it's the agreed upon agreements of what is this company and I always tell character as describe it as imagine that we were going to send the company into it becomes a person you know that a little bit of Disney magic and it walks into the into the client party, the anniversary party, the whatever the trade show, how would it show up? And so then the other piece of that is the three to five year vision like where is this company? and going so talk to us about your dream, and then come back to three to five years, which is a neurologically, our brains can wrap itself around, it becomes real, be unlocked on the timeline spectrum, we can't really imagine anything beyond three to five years. So scientists say. So, we refer to those as the fundamental beliefs and truths of the business. And there are some other ones, but those are the real, intrinsic pieces. And so then when you say, okay, so we get clear on those. And then you say, Okay, well, how do we attract other people? Well, effectively, you're using those tools, as filters to hire your people. Do they believe what we believe? are they passionate about art? where we're headed? Does that get them excited? Do they believe in our purpose? Are they values aligned with us? Right? And do we feel like they could personify the character and make people feel the way we want them to feel?

 

Leighann Lovely  15:50

Well, and if you do everything that you just said, well enough, you have then created an entire workforce of people who are out advertising on your behalf. And I'm not talking about about the widget that you're creating, or the product that you're creating, I'm talking about advertising to come and work for you. Advertising that when you have an open job, and they're saying, you know, and you say, hey, and this is just an added kicker of, you know, we'll give you a $50 gas card. And right now, I could definitely use a 52 card. I could use a $2 gas card or anything to get that gas price down. Anyways. I mean, if a company would say, hey, we'll give you you know, a referral bonus to anybody. And now you've done everything, all of what you just said, properly, your, your employees now become your greatest asset, to finding people to come and work for you. Because if you are treating them, right, you they understand your vision, just as much as as you understand your vision, your path, your passion, all of all of the things, all of the things, then all of the sudden, it is that much easier to hire, because the people, your entire workforce has now become the advertisement of why they should work at that company. And you have 20, 30, 150, 1000 people saying, oh, you should come work at this company. It is awesome. The culture is great. They treat us like great people, they don't treat you like a number. And and then retaining people is that much easier because people aren't running out the door because they have, you know, they feel like a number. This is my area of expertise of, hey, treat people the way they should be treated. You want if you I'm so tired of people saying we have a hiring problem. Really, you have a hiring problem. How many people have you hired in the last six months? Well, we've hired 10. Okay, how many people have left? Oh, well, only three of them stuck, you don't have a hiring problem. You have a retention problem. And if you have a retention problem, you better be looking at your culture, you better be looking at your management, you better be looking at all the things because that hiring problem is not the problem. If you're hiring people, and they're leaving, you have a retention problem. And if you have a retention problem, you most likely have a culture problem.

 

Karley Cunningham  18:23

And a brand problem and a brand brand and culture egg chicken and egg. Yeah. And here's the other interesting piece, I'm just going to a couple things I want to pull on there just so it doesn't get missed. So it's not just enough to put those words down on paper. When you develop your purpose, your guiding principles, all those elements, you need to take them off the page, you need to put them into action. We call it integrating them within your systems and processes and activating them within your people. That's where the rubber really hits the road. And you're absolutely right. When that happens and people all It's so cheesy metaphor, put them all on the boat, and they'll all be you know, sitting in the right direction, rowing in the right cadence and know where they're going. Right? How many companies get siloed simply because they all believe something different about where they're headed, and what the what their purpose is that contributes to the bigger purpose. Yeah. And I agree with you on the retention problem part. What I'm starting to hear companies are doing is they're doing stay interviews, because people are throwing money around willy nilly right now because all I hear is oh, so and so is paying this much more and so and so is giving this amount of bonus just to get people to stay. Well, we know that after a certain percentage, because studies have shown that money isn't everything. Now money does talk but it's not everything. So what if you sat down with your staff if you have any fear of any one leaving or even maybe it's just your A players really like oh, if I was going to scoop them up because we know there's a lot of employees feeling going on right now. Do a stay interview that is going to give you that as the litmus test for is your brand what you believe it to be, hire an outside person to do it, even if it's someone, even if it's a VA make up the questions, have someone do stay interviews with your rockstars with or maybe with a sprinkling of people throughout each department and just read it, they'll tell you,

 

Leighann Lovely  20:21

Right, if in here that I am. So I've been in the industry, you know, my listeners know how long I've been in the industry and beating a dead horse and you know, a long time, a long time. And during my time of corporate HR, and when somebody came in and they gave notice, it was hands down, it was okay, we'll schedule your exit interview, figure out who you know, is going to sit in on that it was hands down. Because, again, I understand there was also this was before you know, 2008 when when the world decided that all of the sudden your team of you know for HR people is now only one HR person and that HR person has to do everything and it's like overwhelming for that person. And we've never recovered from that, ever. i It drives me crazy that we never The world never recovered from that. It there was a complete shift. Everybody got laid off that was in human resources. And departments never rehired those numbers back up to where they should be. Because there's way too much responsibility put on one person that is supposed to and then those people get burned out. And then they become mean. Not all of them. Not all of them. There's my little my little

 

Karley Cunningham  21:43

but it gets you but here's the other thing. One person can only handle policies and procedures and like the the admin stuff that is the eye drying, want to scratch my eyeballs out work well who's actually working on the culture? Right? And if your people are your greatest asset, hmm, expense or investment?

 

Leighann Lovely  22:04

Correct. Right. So, but during that time, it was it was an exit interview, why are you leaving us? You know, and you actually got feedback from these individuals, because one, you weren't treating them like a pariah for leaving. You were like, Hey, we genuinely want to know why you're leaving us. Now. It's like, okay, you're leaving us? Great. Boom, out the door. Bring in the next person. Why? You know, there are people who they give notice, and companies are like, they either say, Okay, we'll give you $5,000 More to stay. And they say no, I'm sorry, I'm still leaving. And they're like, Okay, fine. See you later, get out of here. Hey, stop doing stop treating people like that, like, well, you know, when you when you talk to companies, they're like, we just don't have time, we don't have time for it, we need we need to move on and find somebody else. Well, maybe if you shifted back to the way that it was, you wouldn't have as many people doing this, and you would find time to reinvest back into your people. And you won't have the turnover, you won't have the, you know, 25% turnover that you have. And that's, that's ridiculous, maybe you would have a 10% turnover rate versus the mean 25%. And think right now is being nice. You know, in some industries, the turnover rate, you know, on the production floor is 50%. You know, and the ones that do stay have been there for 15, 20 years

 

Karley Cunningham  23:36

And they're probably just too scared or comfortable to leave, right?

 

Leighann Lovely  23:39

Because that, because there have an I hate to call out an age group, but many of them are some of the older population, that that is what they did. They have been there, they're going to stay until they retire, they're not going to make a move. It's part of their generation, it's part of their that's what it's ingrained into them, they're going to write it out, no matter what. And that's it. And many of those may be also very highly compensated and are just they don't, they're not interested in leaving. So that's great. But you're never going to be able to retain the younger generation coming in if you're not treating them the way that the culture of the country now demands. And this has been a cultural shift. So I'm off on a rant let's bring this back to you talking and not me Yes, I do this I can

 

Karley Cunningham  24:37

I can rant too I got I got it. That's a real man and a few minutes probably.

 

Leighann Lovely  24:43

So now you you you go in you really focus in on that you know internal culture. So at any point or at what point do you say okay, now we've we've really honed in, we've got your internal culture working. I would have to assume that it's a pretty Quick and easy shift ago, okay, now, we've done all of the, I mean, it told me if I'm wrong, but now you've done kind of the back work to say, now you just have to flip this and make this your external culture.

 

Karley Cunningham  25:15

Yeah, I mean there's there's not even a flip. One of the diagrams that I came up with people are loving. And I say that almost shocked. I mean I knew it was you know, you test you test it okay I'm going to I'm a metaphor person. So sometimes my metaphors just don't land. And I'm married to someone who doesn't think in metaphor, so often they don't land and that's no criticism. It's just it's I know, I've hit a really good one when it when it lands, right, because different people think different ways. And I'm a visual thinker. And so my hope is, is that your, your audience, our listeners, they can visualize this. But so imagine that the brand is a watercolor pigment. And it's this beautiful bright color that you love. And so we've we've we've mixed the color, which is is your brand, it's has the all the alchemy of what colors we're going to add in there. And then you leadership is at the center of your company. And so every time we practice, living our brand and integrating it into our systems and activating it amongst our people, now imagine taking some of that pigment and dropping it in each department. So if we imagine that the departments are circles around that center circle, and they're doing the same thing, so every time those actions are happening, water is getting added. And so that pigment blends out from the inside out of each circle, as well as the leadership house. And then it fills up all the internal circles, because everybody's saying what we want and need them to say about us, everybody is taking actions that are aligned, they're going in the same direction. And so these beautiful colors or whatever color it is that you've chosen to be your brand colors, so to speak. It just it just naturally flows out of the company and influences everyone you touch.

 

Leighann Lovely  26:59

That's awesome. And I love the metaphor, by the way, because I'm thinking I'm, I'm an artist, I will fall, self proclaimed. I know that I'm actually an artist, my daughter loves my artwork, but I love you know, if you've ever watched paint do that, it is really cool in the way that it does it and to think of that, and the way that it would work at a company is that's really, it's very beautiful. Because it's also true, because you're right, you get it everybody flowing in the same way. And yes, this is exactly what we were just kind of talking about is that your people become your greatest asset and greatest sales tool. If you get everybody thinking and working in unison in the same way. So

 

Karley Cunningham  27:48

And so somebody somebody out there, you know, Italy, smart, intelligent question, or it's always the heckler in the room goes, What if your target audiences don't like the color you picked? Right. But that's the thing as you build these strategic tools, the ones I haven't talked about yet. So the internal tools in my diagram is our is our big bold brand we call the big bold brand raspberry. That is the purpose, the vision, the guiding principles, the character, and then we the next color we turned in the model, as you imagine a Jenga board moving its way up, is we actually change the next set of tack on tools to blue, because that's where we want to make a distinction that now we're talking about something that is external to the company. So defining the target audience profiles, we are making a conscious choice. So it can't just be all about us. But the foundation and the roots need to be about us and then where do we build from there. And that's where we go deep and understanding your ideal target audiences notice I didn't say ideal clients or ideal customers, because our business has touched so many more people than just the customers. So the next profile I always develop is your strategic partners now whether that be a partner that you need in a and what my coach calls a peanut butter and jelly partnership where you fit together and serve your clients really well. One almost needs the other to be that great tasting piece of Wonder Bread or pieces of Wonder Bread to stick together. But also where was I gonna totally distracted myself with the metaphor it must be after three and I'm I'm almost hungry but but looking at our referral partners it might be the the other companies who refer people who also work with your target audience. So are they working with them before after and sending them your way? So looking at all the the audience's in in sequential and priority order, and that it's at that point that we form that fine balance so for the smart aleck in the room or the smart person depending upon how they had set it in their head, you know, where they heckling me in their head out there and listener land but yeah, we're not going to pick hot pink if we've got an audience So that doesn't resonate with that color. Right? Find that fine balance between the two.

 

Leighann Lovely  30:04

Yeah, that's cool. That's, that's really, you know, I've never really thought of engaging somebody who's well, you don't? When you think of them putting a marketing plan you putting branding on something you don't think of that from an internal business position standpoint, right? You think of, oh, I'm going to brand my company and you think, Well, how does? How does? How's the world gonna look at us? You don't think that? How do we look at ourselves? How do we how do we present as you know, I don't want to say the low man on the totem pole. I hate that, you know, I'm, but if I'm the janitor, or I'm the machine operator, I'm not thinking of what our brand looks like. But for somebody to come in and say, okay, but we we want to engage you in how that looks for everybody. And then to how you know, to see that change and evolve. That that's awesome. That's really awesome.

 

Karley Cunningham  31:03

Yeah, it comes back to how do we want to make people feel? It's not just about the external people, right? If we think about the doers in the company, you know, how is how was the guy or gal on the loading dock, responding to those that are delivering your product? Right? That's kind of an important partner. Right? If they're the grumpy, Cranky person, and you're just, you know, the greatest, my biggest pet peeve on the HR side is, oh, that's just Sally. She's just like that she's been here 20 years, it's okay. She's just allowed to be cranky. You know, the exception to the culture rule where it even gets toxic. Oh, we know that she's a bully, but we just we just leave her over there on the shipping dock. Wow. I can't even tell you how many times I encounter that. Or the other one is the Yeah, but they're our greatest sales rep. Like they double everyone else's. Okay, but they're still in a hole. Right? How do you think that, like, if they're serving, like any more than everybody else, they're touching that many more people. Do you really want them out their

 

Leighann Lovely  32:09

Failure to act or address an issue? When somebody is. And I've, I've seen it happen, I have sat there and seen somebody act out in front of management's. And that manager has failed to correct behavior. And I'm not saying that the right action would have been to correct it in front of anybody. But they failed to even follow back up and correct. The negative behavior that happened in front of all of these other people, which tells all of those other people, that it's okay to act that way. Really, it's okay to say that, you know, XYZ, I hate salespeople. I, that's that's the one that I hear a lot. Because salespeople Yes, salespeople bring in the work. And if you're a worker B, you're gonna hate the salesperson, right? And the salesperson is coming back and saying, Hey, did you get this done? Because their client is asking them, when is my order gonna come out? I hear that constantly. Well, salespeople are such a pain in the butt. Now, salesperson needs to be courteous one they rely on. So if they are being a, an evil, yeah, they need to be then it needs to be addressed. It needs to be fixed. But on the flip side of that, the people who are constantly you know, hating on the salesperson because How dare that person bring me work? Well, yeah, that person stopped bringing you work, you wouldn't have a job. So there's, I mean, there's always that push and pull of, Hey, guys, like, just find a way to get and I say, find a way to get along. But sometimes it's not that simple, right? No, management needs to come in and be like, Okay, wait a second guys. Like really? Is Is he or she doing something that's that irritating? Like, I don't know, bringing you job? And really, salesperson? Is this person doing something? Really, that's, they're trying to do their job, but maybe XYZ is happening and they don't have the product? Or they don't have? Okay, another tangent? Okay, here's what I would really like to go. So you I mean, obviously, you what, 14 and a half years ago, you went out on your own but you made a comment about part of the reason that you would, you'd made that choice and it was because of something personal that happened in your life, you had decided that you had a passion for biking and and you had a boss that was not willing to work with you on that. And I kind of want to get a little bit more into your personal story. So yeah, tell me a little bit more about you know, about that what what was that driver that find the end? Was it scary? Because I mean going out on your own? And it's been a wild but yeah, tell me tell me a little bit more about that.

 

Karley Cunningham  35:10

What is it ignorance is bliss so so funny enough he I always say you have to look back and what are the what are the the sliding doors moment kind of kind of things. So So I had I ended a relationship and or it was ended I don't remember which now it was so long ago, but it came to an end. And so you know, what a women do they either go shopping or they cut their hair or they do both. And so I went shopping and I bought myself a truck. Right? I've always I've always been a tomboy. So I bought myself a truck. And I'm like, I need a toy for the back. Because what's the point of owning a truck other otherwise. And so it was kind of a toss up between a jetski or a mountain bike, and I didn't have dock access. I mean, there's lots of lakes in Ontario, but I didn't have dock access. So I was like, Well, how's that gonna work? Alright, leave it to me to always be practical. So, yeah, so I bought the mountain bike. And I started riding with the guys at the shop and I'm actually laughing in my head because I went out for the first ride and I was I fell so many times I flew over the handlebars, like he did every probably everything possible wrong. Bless the guys, they were so kind and patient with me. And I think because I was just so excited that they were just like, Okay, we'll just come along. And I think they had a few good laughs too, because I'm really good at throwing expletives around. So I was so bruised and battered. It was like I had baseball size or softball sized bruises on my on my legs. And the next week, I showed up in the mechanic of the shop who also came on the rise. He was missing the week before and he goes, Oh, are you? Are you here to get your bike fixed? I heard about your ride last week. I'm like, No, I'm here to ride. He's like, That's awesome. Like, they didn't think they would ever see me. Yeah. But I absolutely fell in love with mountain biking. And so long story short, just some was like you should try a race. I tried to race it was fun. And I met a couple of women in the race. And they're like, Oh, if you really enjoy this, you should check out this all women's team. And I ended up on that all women's team. And within a couple years I was I was moving my way up to the elite level, my first season I finished second in the province. And so there was some potential there, I've always been an athlete, I've always been a high performing athlete, and I do well with a training plan, I structure my business very similarly, a lot of the concepts that I use in my business, like you can throw me a great business concept, and I can understand it, but it doesn't. It almost like it goes in one ear out the other sometimes it bounces off my forehead, like I can get it but I don't it's it's not visceral retainment for me, but athletics is and that's. So I'll use training structures in my business, like you cannot go 100% All the time, you have to have a rest period and a down period. And so you can't always design that depending upon what kind of business you run. But you can recognize when you have a downtime, and it took me a lot of years to learn this, don't freak out. Enjoy your downtime. Because if you're good at what you do, and you're consistent with your marketing actions, and you deliver a great product or service, that word of mouth is going to work for you. I mean, you can't just sit around and do nothing. But you can you can back off the pedal a little bit. Right. And so yeah, so I eventually moved west to improve my Canadian standing. And then I prompt myself promptly burnt myself out with Adrenal Fatigue within I probably had it. But I got here and my body literally gave out on me. It was like nah, not playing anymore. Sorry. No. So, yeah.

 

Leighann Lovely  38:52

So when all of this was happening, you were working. And you were training or did you did you take time off work?

 

Karley Cunningham  39:03

Yeah. So, you know, that was always one of my pet peeves in the race scene, is you had some of these really talented university students who, you know, they ended in May, they picked up their training mum and dad paid the tab for them to drive all over the country. And mum and dad's really nice car or fly and paid for their hotels. And here I was working. At that point before I quit my job before I drove West. I was working 40 hours a week. So I was up at five driving to the place where I worked, which was about 45 minutes away, meeting my coach either at the gym or to go for a ride, showering, changing, working an eight hour day leaving and if I hadn't written that morning, I was getting on my bike where I was going to the gym. And so I was training five to six days a week. Wow. So I wonder why. Renal fatigue.

 

Leighann Lovely  39:57

So not so I'm not familiar with what had Adrenal Fatigue is was that permanent?

 

Karley Cunningham  40:04

Um, so if you imagine your adrenals, that the adrenaline is a to my understanding, and someone's probably going to be like, You're so wrong, but in because I'm a visual thinker, I envision my adrenals, like, a container with adrenal fluid. Yeah, probably totally wrong. But that's how it was explained to me in a way. And, you know, it's like burning through the gas in your car. And if you're not putting gas back in, well, then eventually it just doesn't drive. And so how it came about, for me, some of the symptoms were interesting. When it was full on for me, I would go out for a training ride, I would get a cold or a flu, or, you know, my body was just no and my, I wasn't doing enough stretching, so everything was super tight. And I was 26 years old, and my back would cease up. And I would have to get pretty much helped out a bed and walked around the block in the morning. Like, there's like an 86 year old. And it was just, you know, lack of knowing lack of know how back in the day, it was training women like they were small men, which doesn't work because we have very different compositions and very different hormones. So yeah, it was a bit of a nightmare. I do now have to be careful how hard I push myself physically and even just in the business. And what was interesting is adrenal fatigue wasn't a recognized problem by Western medicine. Oh, back when I had it, they were like, oh, yeah, that's just a myth. And then research started to happen. And so the only place I could have if I could have afforded it, because keeping in mind that I'm now paying to travel myself across the country, to race, I'm driving all over the place on weekends. So you know, seeing a naturopath they were pretty much the only people who were treating our practitioners that were treating it at the time. But fast forward 10 years after that, I started seeing entrepreneurs with adrenal fatigue.

 

Leighann Lovely  41:57

Right. Interesting. So this is not just, this isn't just a sports thing. This is actually Oh, wow. Interesting. I mean, you know, I, I suppose I've heard I've heard of it. I've never, nobody's ever actually explained like, well, this is what it is. But I mean, that's, that's really interesting.

 

Karley Cunningham  42:20

Yeah, so you fight, fight or flight, right? Your your adrenals fire, when there needs to be a fight or flight. And so entrepreneurs are always hustling, they're always moving. They're always firefighting, they're working ridiculous hours. I've heard entrepreneurs say, I haven't taken a holiday in eight years, right? I'm like, Excuse me, what? Winter down season,

 

Leighann Lovely  42:41

Right? We all need that. You know, here's interesting. I've always been a huge milk drinker. And when I was really young, I had a bone density test. And I was told that you you really need you should take calcium, you should you should take a lot of calcium, and I know that my grandmother had problems with her bones and, and then when I was in basic training, I started having problems with and this was put, this is potassium, but I also saw I started having really bad, you know, you wake up and you're like your muscles completely. Like, seized. Well, I started really having problems with that when I was in the military. And then I had I had shin splints. I was I was an athlete and in high school and everything. I was a soccer player. I always had shin splints. Well, one was in basic training. And somebody explained this to me during the day, you know, you shed bone you shed you know, all these different things at night when you rest is when your body rebuilds or regrows your bone mass, all of this other stuff and they said if you don't get enough sleep at night and solid sleep, you don't sleep it can do very harmful damage to that cycle. Well, I had shin splints really bad in the military, they started coming back and I wasn't sleeping properly. I you know, you're 17 years old, you're in a completely crazy environment. Though shin splints eventually turned into shin splints to stress fractures, eventually to an actual break in my out bone. And when I came back, they did a nuke med scan. And I have never in my life, like they're like, oh, so the hotspots are all lit up. And I'm like, what the whole thing's lit up and on the lower extremities and they're like, Yeah, you really shouldn't be walking. I'm like, You got to be kidding me. My hips I have now permanent bursitis and bilateral hips, my knees my patellas were swollen, the tops of my feet. All of them had stress reactions. So it's it's no joke like when your body when you're not properly taken care of, and I'm 17 years old. I do didn't realize that, you know, this is happening. And you, you're in basic training, you can't go, you can't go to him and be like, Yeah, I think I need some calcium, you know, it's just not something you do

 

Karley Cunningham  45:14

Excuse me, can I go to the pharmacy, please?

 

Leighann Lovely  45:15

Right? Be like, What is wrong with get get back, you know, information and

 

Karley Cunningham  45:22

Fall in line soldier.

 

Leighann Lovely  45:24

Right fall in line. But I mean, it was I was in physical therapy for, you know, for almost a year, you know, I'm still I still have problems with my hips, because of, you know, because of that time period. But it's no joke you, your your body. It does try to give you signs, it's just them. We

 

Karley Cunningham  45:44

Oh, it'll scream at you all day long. You just need to learn to listen. So I So here's, here's an interesting one. And I'm going to bring it back to an equation that I think helps anybody in any given time, but the Oh, my God in learning your body is sometimes like what signals it's sending you. I know that if I'm craving salt, and soda pop, I, I'm dehydrated. I haven't had enough water right now that's counterintuitive. Why would it be craving salt? Well, because salt retains water within your body. Right? Right. So all these nerdy things you learn when you're an athlete, but overall, what we're both saying is paying attention to your body. And there's a great equation, stress plus rest equals growth. So no stress and all rest, no growth. All stress, no rest, no growth. And that comes out of a great book, if anybody is interested in performance. And it's actually a business book written by one of the top like, he trains marathoners, he's a he's a running coach, and then also by a business professional, and it's called peak performance. And it does exactly what I've been doing for years is taking principles from sport and applying them to business or and applying them to personal success. Right? It's a brilliant book.

 

Leighann Lovely  47:03

Interesting. Well, and that's it, why not take why not take something that I mean, the discipline that it takes somebody in, in sports to become a, you know, effective athlete, and high performing athlete, it's the same mindset. It's just like golf. And I'm not a golfer. So I can't speak to personal experience. But I live amongst golfers, my, my dad, my brother, it's one of those and I tried to golf at a very young age, and I want to start golfing again, because I think I can do it now. Because I am a very focused and you know, it's the same thing with it's a mind game. It's not about how strong you are to hit that ball. It all it's not about, you know, swinging the hardest, it's not about being powerful. It all comes down to your concentration, your ability to control, and, you know, be precise and to hit properly and to it's patience, that it has absolutely nothing to do with a powerful swing. And yes, of course, if you have a stronger swing, you could maybe hit it a little bit harder. But

 

Karley Cunningham  48:11

You still have to play well. It's interesting because I played the junior tour because I looked up to my grandfather, and he was a golfer. And so he gave me a book or maybe it was a VCR tape. videotape. Remember those things? Yes. But it was it was it was all about playing smart goal, right? So it doesn't you I mean, you can smack the crap out of that ball. But if you're not paying attention to everything that's going on, knowing where your next lie is thinking two shots ahead. You know, it's it's about playing smart,

 

Leighann Lovely  48:38

Right? And any sports is. Same with soccer. If it's not, you're not just running to get the ball and then kick it you have to be thinking about once I get the ball, which direction am I going and who is going to be open? Am I going to take it directly to the goal? Am I going to look for the next open pass? Am I going to you know, you have to be that's any sports. It's the same thing with any business that you're in, especially in a sales role, especially in you know, I'm not just calling somebody to be like, Hi, I'm Leanne. How are you today? Oh, good. Okay, well, this was a great call. You know, you I'm sorry. I'm in sales, obviously. So, you know, it's

 

Karley Cunningham  49:19

Awesome. I was about to start playing along with you.

 

Leighann Lovely  49:23

But you know, you're calling and being like, hey, you know, and you can't, you have to have a flow, you have to have a purpose. You have to have a hook that somebody's like, oh, I want to talk to you so that they don't immediately be like a sales call. Okay, great. Yep. By and hang up on you. You have to give value. And you have to know, you know, as the salesperson calling, you have to know when to pivot. If that person is all of a sudden, like, Yeah, this isn't valuable. Otherwise, you're gonna get hung up on what for the most case I don't get hung up on because I'm calling business business. It's more hung hanging up on people when you're

 

Karley Cunningham  49:54

Cool, but it's also about building your relationship. Correct? Correct. Right.

 

Leighann Lovely  49:59

Absolutely. 100% in any business, it's about building relationships in any contact. And that's different than a way, the way that it was 15 years ago, 15 years ago, it was a lot more about the more transactional, hey, let's get this deal done and go our separate ways. Maybe, maybe a little bit more like 20 years ago, 15 years ago, we were going more towards the relationship 10 years ago, a lot more towards the relationship five years ago, it was like, how do we become friends, you know, and get business done today. It's like, Let's hang out, get to know each other. And if we like each other, let's do some business.

 

Karley Cunningham  50:43

Yeah, absolutely. And let's talk about how it's gone so far the other way. I've seen a couple posts lately, but the one that stands out, the most to me, is a business owner who's been who's been ranting, and rightly so on LinkedIn about some of the sit like she's like, What do you people do all day besides stalk me, she goes, I have so many bad reach out sales. Like I have to shut off my social media, like my business thrives off social. But now I get spam so much by people trying to sell me stuff that I can't even be on social media. And she posted one the other day that somebody stalked all of her profiles, and wrote her an email, just like, hey, how's your cat fluffy, or, you know, insert cat's name? Like they had looked up her pets names, and that was kind of their opening line. And she's like, now I feel threatened. Like, now you're like, that's creepy. Now, sure, it gets to me. Oh, yeah,

 

Leighann Lovely  51:47

That would creep out. Right? Yeah. Well, it it creeps me out. When I mentioned to my husband, hey, do we need to buy a new vacuum cleaner? And then like three different options of vacuum cleaners pop up on my cell phone? I'm like, What the hell's going on? I'm like, somebody's in our house listening.

 

Karley Cunningham  52:03

But it's true. Well, even the phone lines I called about we need our washer fixed. I called yesterday. And I said, I booked the appointment. And I said, Oh, do you need my address? She goes, Oh, no, I can see that you're at xx x road. And then I said, Oh, you probably knew my note unit number. She's like, No, I know what unit number I'm like, Whoa, what?

 

Leighann Lovely  52:23

Right? It's creepy. It's, it's very creepy. So

 

Karley Cunningham  52:28

Why are we talking about being human? Right? The world is moving so far away. You know, it's almost coming full circle, like it's gone. So, so much to being everybody was a number in the 70s in the 80s. Then it became about personal relationship. And now we're coming that full circle where AI is making it creepy again, right? Like it's humanizing thing. So it's, you know, life's about being human.

 

Leighann Lovely  52:51

And that's, it's, it's funny, because my generation was the generation of let's take pictures of our, of our dicks and send it to people. And then we all got, you know, we got burned for that, right? Well, I don't have that. So I, I didn't get personally burned for that. But I am of that stupid, idiotic generation of, hey, let's be idiots and send dick pics. Sorry, yes. I love that. Now, the younger generation goes, holy crap. Who are these idiots that were in front of us? I'm never doing that. And they've gotten wildly private on social media. So there's a whole younger generation that are not on Facebook. They're not taking. I mean, I'm sure they take some stupid selfies and stuff like that. But they're not taking pictures, inappropriate pictures of themselves because they've learned from us. Thank God. Thank God, they learned from us. So they're, they're not being you know, so now we are flipping to the other, like the other side going back to anonymity? Correct. They're realizing, Oh, I shouldn't tag where I am, when I'm a 17 year old or 16 year old or 18 year old girl. Because that actually could cause somebody to figure out where I am. And maybe it could be a bad thing. Whereas my generation's like, Oh, let me tell you where I'm at. And, you know, I'm here now. And gee, that do you think that maybe he's not agree? Oh,

 

Karley Cunningham  54:22

I had my lesson with being stalked by an unknown number by an unknown person. And it was terrifying. And it just happened to be at a point where I was living on my own

 

Leighann Lovely  54:34

Right. And I and I used to, I never used to do that. I was not on Facebook. I never used to take pictures. I never posted them. And my friends always were like, Why aren't you on Facebook? And I'm like, I have an account. I choose not to take pictures everywhere. I am a single woman who lives alone. Why would I put where I am? Why? I don't need to put pictures of my dinner. Nobody gives a shit what I'm eating. Again. Sorry. Anybody out there? Who was thing is that

 

Karley Cunningham  55:02

Apologize to other foodie listeners today?

 

Leighann Lovely  55:07

Yes. Okay, we are at time because we have gone off on a random weird tangent. So the question of the season? Yes. If you could go back to your younger self and give yourself advice, when would you go back? And what advice would you give yourself,

 

Karley Cunningham  55:24

Take more chances and fail fast?

 

Leighann Lovely  55:29

And what age would that be? That you gave that advice to?

 

Karley Cunningham  55:33

I would, I would say, when I started my business, I would say in my mid 20s, I mean, you spend so much of your younger life, remember that ignorance is bliss part? Absolutely, you know, hopefully got some parents to put some bumpers on the lanes for you. But you know, as as a young woman, you stepped in, you transition from awkward teenage pneus into womanhood. And then society puts all these expectations on you, and all these shoulders on you, and all the end and all these barriers on you. Trust your gut, go after what you want. Fail fast, you know, take more chances.

 

Leighann Lovely  56:08

That's awesome. That's That's brilliant. And I agree. Feel fast. bounce back quickly, quicker.

 

Karley Cunningham  56:16

Yeah. And when you win, celebrate the wins, dammit. Women are so good at being like, oh, no, no, I didn't deserve that. You know, I've raised I've congratulated women for running incredible races where they've won. Well, they could have had a better day or that like they did.

 

Leighann Lovely  56:33

Right? The time could have been better. And you're like, wait, wait, you, you just you just ran a marathon, my girlfriend? My one girlfriend runs marathons. And I'm like, Why do you do this? And at the end of every race, she's like, I don't know why I do this.

 

Karley Cunningham  56:49

There's a certain running and writing distance where you get to the end, you're like, why do I do this? Right? You lose your why? Because your body's like, I'm so done with you.

 

Leighann Lovely  56:57

Right? Right. I, hey, two miles. That's my max. Like, and I did that only because I had to I was in the military. And it was like, you have to run two miles. Okay, great. I think it was at the time that I was, you know, required to do this. I did it in 17 Min. And I'm going to I'm going to boast about this in 17 minutes. And I think it was 58 seconds on a broken leg.

 

Karley Cunningham  57:18

Nice. So oh,

 

Leighann Lovely  57:22

I didn't know it was broken at the time that I started running, of course. But after I hit the finish line, I collapsed, at which point then they took me to med and med said, Here's your X Ray and I went with shit. It's broken. Yes, it is. You probably shouldn't walk on it. Probably should have told me that before I read the two miles but I won't anymore.

 

Karley Cunningham  57:44

Okay, point to my resilient my resilience comment, right? Like, just just go for it. Yeah, you're more resilient and you think you are.

 

Leighann Lovely  57:52

You can do anything you put your mind to.

 

Karley Cunningham  57:55

Absolutely.

 

Leighann Lovely  57:57

If somebody wanted to reach out to you, how would they go about doing that? And

 

Karley Cunningham  58:02

you can find me on LinkedIn. That is the place which I socialize the most. So Carly Cunningham and gets Carly is spelled K A R L E Y. And Cunningham is just like you expect it to be. and my website is big, bold brand.com

 

Leighann Lovely  58:18

Excellent. And I will have that in the show notes as well. So anybody can amazing there and check it out. So thank you so much. This was an awesome conversation. I truly

 

Karley Cunningham  58:26

So much fun. Hopefully those have left along with us. Yes.

 

Leighann Lovely  58:32

Thank you again for listening to Let's Talk HR. I appreciate your time and support without you the audience this would not be possible. So don't forget that if you enjoyed this episode to follow us like us or share us. Have a wonderful day.

 

LinkedIN – https://www.linkedin.com/in/karleycunningham/

 

E-mail – karley@bigboldbrand.com

 

Wedsite – https://www.bigboldbrand.com/

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, business, brand, company, call, leaving, shin splints, person, salesperson, problem, culture, bit, treating, guiding principles, years, adrenal fatigue, purpose, hr, work, imagine