Today, host Lorie Jones spotlights Laura Garfield, co-founder of Idea Decanter and accidental author of Find Your #Finfluence, who has carved out a unique space in video marketing for finance and healthcare. Laura reveals the real story behind building a career that blends creativity with strategy, even when life demands a daring pivot.
You will be drawn to Laura’s candid honesty about the lessons learned from “accidental” entrepreneurship and the surprising power of authentic self-promotion. She explains why being on video matters, even when it’s uncomfortable. She brings actionable insights for the woman who is ready to take control of her personal brand, find her genius zone, and say yes to opportunities on a path that is uncertain and non-linear.
If you’re ready to amplify your strengths and brand, and champion other ambitious women along the way, don’t miss this episode.
Show Highlights:
- Find Your #Finfluence on using video to build authority. [05:37]
- Pivoting from specialist to generalist owner to niche owner. [10:29]
- Should passion or research drive a business launch? [15:45]
- Key post-COVID signals on video presentation skills. [18:33]
- What if your woman’s intuition rejects consultant advice? [22:26]
- Exiting the linear career mindset early with purpose. [25:27]
- Why your network is a financial decision and career currency. [29:22]
- Advice to save half your income from the first paycheck. [30:59]
- Working women over generations and the reality of trade-offs. [37:53]
- Is there a “right” work–life balance women must achieve? [42:55]
- The power of building a personal brand that belongs to you. [46:47]
DM Laura Garfield on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauragarfield/ or find her on the Idea Decanter website at https://ideadecanter.com/team/.
If you enjoyed this episode, please go to Apple Podcasts and leave a review!
For more information about Lorie Jones, go to https://fearlessfinancialadvisors.com/fearless-females.
00:00.73
Lorie Jones
So Laura, my first question is always my favorite. I love books so much. I love reading it at 10. What is your favorite book?
00:08.62
Laura
Oh my gosh, is it too self-promoting to say my own book?
00:12.75
Lorie Jones
Not at all.
00:13.17
Laura
I just dropped Find Your Fenfluence this year. And um there are many things on my Audible account that I would highly recommend. Many of many things on my bookshelf.
00:25.73
Laura
But I got to say my own book. Like it’s hard to talk about yourself, but let’s let’s do it.
00:28.72
Lorie Jones
I love that.
00:32.12
Laura
Let’s own it.
00:33.13
Lorie Jones
Yes, I love that. So it just is it kind of because I actually picked up the book. But it’s about I think now it’s closer to four until I get to it on my big, huge, major stack of books.
00:45.86
Lorie Jones
So tell me a little bit about it. Is it it does it just talk about how to get started with video or?
00:50.56
Laura
It does.
00:51.70
Lorie Jones
Okay.
00:51.93
Laura
It’s supposed to be inspirational, not aspirational. So making video seem more accessible. um It actually wasn’t in my roadmap to write a book. I wrote a book several decades ago with my mom um about generational differences for women in the workplace.
01:16.23
Laura
And it was a slog through um surveys and data collection and writes and rewrites and co-authoring. And it was exciting and we got published, but um I kind of felt like in life that box had been checked for me and I didn’t need to do it again.
01:35.79
Laura
But last year, back in 2024, I launched an interview series with financial advisors who were killing it in video and wanted to share their secrets with the world.
01:49.98
Laura
And it was sort of a short form video interview that was supposed to be about eight minutes. And then the conversation started going longer. And then I thought, well, this is going to turn into a podcast, even though I’m a video person.
02:01.79
Laura
And so we have the eight minute and the short clip videos and the longer audio podcasts.
02:02.43
Lorie Jones
I don’t
02:07.89
Laura
And then I realized, like, I have so much good stuff here that we I should turn this into a book. And so I took all of the tips um from these folks I’d interviewed and created this framework for how any of us could do it, how any of us could get our voices out there and and kind of our message and a add our perspective and our knowledge and expertise to the massive amount of noise that’s out there.
02:40.94
Laura
and It is a framework for doing that in a thoughtful way and in authority building way. And there are lots of little snippets from folks who have been there and done that um who help show you how to do it.
02:56.37
Lorie Jones
I love that at 10 because i have looked on the internet for, in fact, I just had a client today that asked me like, where do I find good information about what different kinds of accounts there are and what different kinds of investments, like good education. They don’t, they do not educate you in school on investments unless you are a finance major.
03:16.97
Lorie Jones
You don’t get that basic information and video is a really good way of, of putting it forward, but I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been through like the tick tock black hole you’ve got the finance bros telling you what to do about your finances. And I’m like, Oh, isn’t there any good video that, that is like informative and, and interesting, but also not like bad, just bad advice.
03:45.30
Laura
Yeah, there is a world a lifetime times a hundred of bad financial advice floating out there on YouTube and TikTok and Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn.
04:00.18
Laura
There’s so much bad advice that, um you know, committing yourself to putting, being that voice of reason is, is scary. I mean, not all of us want to be on camera.
04:16.34
Laura
But that’s how more and more of us are learning these days and giving people a chance um and you yourself a chance to get that message out is is kind of the whole reason I spent the time writing the book.
04:31.31
Lorie Jones
Yeah, I love it. I love that you’re an accidental author.
04:34.62
Laura
Yeah.
04:34.83
Lorie Jones
Like, yeah, yeah, that’s, that’s what I call myself.
04:35.86
Laura
And the accidental podcasters.
04:40.46
Lorie Jones
I’m like, I accidentally did this because I just am so important. I think it’s so important to get women’s stories out there. So I, I had to do a podcast and I didn’t necessarily set out to do this.
04:48.97
Laura
Yeah.
04:52.93
Lorie Jones
So I think it’s funny that we’ve got that in common. So tell me a little bit, Laura, about yourself. Tell me about how you kind of got started. Like, like, did you know what you wanted to be at age five or did that come later?
05:06.78
Lorie Jones
um how did you, how did you take the route to where you are today? Just a little bit about you.
05:11.70
Laura
Well, my TV news career definitely was discovered in my teens, and i pursued that all ah all through my undergrad and um ah you know out into the working world in my first TV news job in Hastings, Nebraska, um because you start in small town local TV news and you work your way up, and I did. I ended up at CBS News in New York and then CNN in Atlanta, and that was kind of over the span of a decade.
05:40.83
Laura
but There was a point in there when i had had a couple of kids and my husband’s job came to him and said, we need to transfer you to the West Coast. So we were moving from Atlanta to Portland.
05:53.62
Laura
And I realized like this was sort of the end of the broadcast chapter of my life because in news, you climb your way up the ladder, typically you don’t go back down to the local news levels. So when You make it to the network. You don’t go back to local. And we were going to Portland, Oregon, and there was really no network option there.
06:18.45
Laura
And I realized, just like I became an accidental author this time, that I needed to become sort of an accidental entrepreneur because i had built this strong resume of TV news, and it didn’t translate very well as I was putting out my resume for jobs outside of broadcast.
06:44.23
Laura
And so after being frustrated with a job search for about six months, I um had a very good friend who was, whose husband was getting transferred to the West coast and she was sort of in a similar situation and we got together and we thought, well, let’s start a business.
07:05.80
Laura
And, I wouldn’t recommend starting the way that we started because it was with um some creative ideas and probably not enough research.
07:18.93
Laura
We had the um chops to know what we were doing in video, but we didn’t have the um the homework.
07:29.04
Laura
We hadn’t done the homework ah when we decided that the wine industry was going to be our focus.
07:30.09
Lorie Jones
Thank
07:35.85
Laura
And as it turns out, there are a lot of great visual stories to tell. And there were 800 wineries in Oregon and 900 in Washington at the time.
07:47.19
Laura
So there were plenty of businesses. But what we didn’t know was that most of them were very agricultural kind of businesses, that they were farmers running these wineries.
07:58.46
Laura
And those farmers didn’t have big budgets for video marketing. um So as we started making videos about the harvest and the crush and pushing them out and sharing them with the world, um some financial advisors I knew and folks in healthcare care started reaching out and saying, hey, we’re looking into video now too. It was 2014.
08:19.09
Laura
And so we just said yes, as I think most new entrepreneurs need to. so A year into the business, we took a hard look at the books and said, wow, these wine guys are trying to trade cases of wine for our work and our financial services clients and our healthcare care clients are paying the bills. So how does the mortgage stack up here?
08:45.98
Lorie Jones
yeah
08:46.39
Laura
So at the end of the day, we became you know more targeted on an in yeah on industries that fit better. And then as we moved through, we’ve been in business 11 years now.
08:57.83
Laura
We continue to niche down and we focus on financial services, which I would recommend for any business owner. um you know the With marketing, the more narrow your target, the more you can reach them.
09:14.91
Lorie Jones
Yeah, yeah. As you niche down, you get ah really good idea of what their problems are and stuff like that. So, so um what, so it was, it was just the move that was the impetus between like, ah i can’t do this anymore, because they’re just, there’s there’s no job for me in Oregon.
09:35.90
Laura
Yeah, it really was the move. I mean, I think I’d also hit a point in my career. i had taken a step back in between New York and Atlanta to have a couple of babies.
09:46.15
Laura
And when you go back to work post kids, you know, it feels different and you have sort of a different hierarchy of of decision making. And so for me, being an entrepreneur, starting a company um gave me the kind of flexibility and freedom that I was looking for as a mom.
10:08.73
Laura
So it all just, there were enough boxes checked in favor of starting my own thing that that’s where we ended up.
10:18.79
Lorie Jones
um And you said you would not recommend doing it the way you did. So let’s go back and just talk about that.
10:24.65
Laura
Okay.
10:25.20
Lorie Jones
Like, and are there are there things that you’re like, oh, don’t do this? Like, i I know we were just talking beforehand. You came out with like three things that you would have done differently as far as publishing your book.
10:36.70
Lorie Jones
So. Let’s get nitty gritty. What are the things you would have done differently?
10:40.47
Laura
Yeah, the things I would have done differently, launching a business, looking back on it, you get a lot of advice about doing the research and putting together a business plan.
10:51.50
Laura
And especially if you’re a creative, that probably rubs you the wrong way. Like, well, no, let me just pursue this. And I think there should be a balance of both. You have to have that fire and the energy to go for what you see.
11:05.86
Laura
but If I could have gone back in time and done some evaluation of what are the typical marketing budgets for these mom and pop wineries across the Willamette Valley in Oregon, then I might have said, well, there’s really no future potential of building a business that’s successful.
11:30.53
Laura
with this as your target audience.
11:30.57
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm.
11:31.97
Laura
And so I might have come to it instead of, you know, in the first 12 or 18 months of the business, we might’ve done that before we even launched. ah had would Would I have realized that there was a need in financial services or healthcare at the time?
11:46.48
Laura
i don’t know. So some of it is also pursuing that creative thing that drives you like, and in those first few years of business, I think it’s so important to say yes To as much as you can, because there’s, you know, sometimes the universe is guiding you and helping you figure out which direction to go.
12:06.79
Lorie Jones
yeah
12:09.77
Laura
And then you have to do that full 180 and learn the hard lesson of starting to say no.
12:18.16
Lorie Jones
Yeah, that is. And, and that, and it seems to be like, you can’t skip those steps in my opinion. Like you you, you have to, you have to go through some of those, some of it you can learn by example, but a lot of it, you really have to learn being in the trenches because, because you,
12:37.42
Lorie Jones
You can’t learn any other way. You can’t get that. and that And that skill of saying yes and then saying no is hard.
12:49.09
Laura
That trial by fire applies to video too. And I talk to people all the time that want to kind of shortcut their way into like being great on camera. And the truth is just like in business, like the beginning sucks.
13:04.89
Laura
Your first video is going to be your worst video. And so getting past that and knowing like I have to work my way through this in order to get better. um Same applies to being an entrepreneur, I think.
13:18.94
Lorie Jones
Yeah. What is the best investment you’ve made in yourself, Laura? If you can kind of look back over your journey, your career journey, the whole, is there something that you’ve done that you’re like, oh my gosh, that made all the difference in my life. I’m so glad I did that.
13:35.88
Laura
I would say that my new year’s resolution of 2020 and was to have it be my year of public speaking.
13:48.97
Laura
And so for some people stepping in front of the camera is terrifying for other people stepping up on stage in front of an audience is terrifying. And I fell into the latter crowd, but I knew that the more I used my voice at industry conferences, the more people I could impact.
14:10.18
Laura
And so 2020 was my year of public speaking. And at the beginning of that year in January, I launched into a public speaking program um called Crazy Good Talks and worked my way through some of the curriculum and some of the meetings before COVID-19.
14:25.08
Lorie Jones
me
14:33.77
Laura
totally shut down my year of public speaking. i did have some opportunities later that year to do virtual public speaking, but it really isn’t the same as that gut clenching, stepping onto a stage in front of an audience that could get distracted easily and look at their phones or yawn and totally throw you off and you can panic and forget what you’re supposed to say.
14:47.77
Lorie Jones
Mm.
15:00.44
Laura
So anyway, um I marched through that year and followed the curriculum and um really hunkered down and honed that craft. And then moving into 2021 and as the world opened back up, becoming a public speaker never could have happened without the confidence I gained um being trained.
15:13.69
Lorie Jones
Thank you.
15:25.81
Laura
So if there’s anyone listening who thinks, you know, I would like to speak, like get some support in doing that because there are tricks of the trade. There are things you should be doing to you know, catch your viewers or your audience’s attention, to market yourself.
15:47.79
Laura
um And those aren’t things that you would necessarily know. So save yourself the time and the trouble by finding yourself a good coach.
15:57.20
Lorie Jones
Oh, yeah. Yeah. i And I’ve looked at the crazy good talks as well. I think it’s funny you said that you’re like either um you don’t like getting in front of video or you don’t like getting in front of audiences. What about those of us who are like, no, I’m both.
16:12.11
Laura
That is a hard no.
16:14.53
Lorie Jones
Yeah.
16:15.84
Laura
Well, I i think that we are moving as a society from we all used to love to read and we there has been a shift and I think it happened around COVID to us watching and it happens on social media.
16:15.85
Lorie Jones
But
16:33.17
Laura
It’s happening on YouTube where there’s something like 5 billion active monthly users. I think The latest stat I read was that we were watching something like 17 of video content a week.
16:51.70
Lorie Jones
Wow.
16:52.38
Laura
It’s lot.
16:52.97
Lorie Jones
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, and, and it, it is a good point. Like i I, use video all the time to teach me something or to help me learn something.
17:03.25
Laura
Hmm.
17:04.13
Lorie Jones
I feel like sometimes you can get it quickly. If you just, if you, if you have somebody tell you or show you, you get it so much quicker sometimes than, than reading, but I do love reading.
17:17.37
Lorie Jones
So it’s a ah hard thing, right?
17:17.52
Laura
I would say that
17:19.88
Lorie Jones
So what about, um about the worst advice that someone gave you? Can you think back along your journey and figure out like what was the worst advice someone ever told you? And did you take it?
17:37.26
Laura
ah would say that
17:42.62
Laura
There have been different consultants through the years who have pointed my co-founder and in a direction that something inside of me was pushing against.
18:02.38
Laura
And this doesn’t get to one specific thing that’s been said to me, but more of a feeling inside. that this is not in alignment with the direction i think we should be going.
18:18.52
Laura
And there have been plenty of times where I haven’t listened to that inner voice that down the road i wish I had So
18:31.48
Laura
i think what I have learned is to give myself the space to really reflect and listen to that and really and it does take time.
18:41.73
Laura
Like it it was never natural for me to think, oh, I really know what I’m doing here. I’m an expert because I wasn’t, I was just figuring it out as I went.
18:46.58
Lorie Jones
yeah
18:50.80
Lorie Jones
Yeah, that it really is hard. And I was just going to ask, like how do you figure out which of it, because there’s this whole book called Don’t Trust Your Gut, where you’re not supposed to trust like that gut intuition. You’re supposed to go with the more cerebral or studied response or something like that. But but I’ve heard and found in my own life that sometimes Like you should trust your gut. So how do you know when you should and when you shouldn’t?
19:20.64
Laura
I heard that too once. I was interviewing someone and they said, oh yeah, you should never trust your gut. And I’m not in that camp at all.
19:31.08
Laura
I think that listening to that quiet voice inside you is really important. And I think that’s an advantage that we have as fearless women.
19:44.33
Laura
um As leaders, I think it’s an attribute that females bring to leadership that men can’t necessarily do. And I will say that it was a dude that said, oh don’t listen to your gut.
20:02.97
Lorie Jones
yeah That’s interesting. I’ve never really thought of it along gender lines, but that might be true. like like Maybe our gut or intuition works a little bit differently.
20:13.97
Lorie Jones
That’s so interesting.
20:14.19
Laura
Mm-hmm.
20:16.17
Lorie Jones
What about do-over? like is that I have so many of these where I’m like, oh my goodness, I wish I could go back and do that again. But is there a situation that you can think of where you’re like, if I could do that again, knowing what I know now, I’m going to take all my knowledge back, I would do it differently.
20:32.52
Lorie Jones
and And tell me why or how.
20:36.99
Laura
I would say we touched on this when we launched Idea to Cantor. If I could do over the research that went into our target audience, um that would have been helpful.
20:49.16
Laura
um If I could do over my last chapter ah in broadcasting, it my I might have chosen to exit a little sooner than I had instead of waiting for circumstances to kind of force that.
21:06.69
Laura
But I think that in our careers, we invest, I mean, I’ve got a couple of kids on the path to college that are in high school and, you know, we’re investing more and more every year into their educations and we invested a lot into our education. So I think that we have this idea that our career needs to be very linear and the freedom ah and the courage it takes to you know, make a big detour i is is challenging. um So I think we get kind of caught in this um tunnel vision of this is what I’ve been trained to do and this is where I need to stay.
21:51.87
Laura
and um if I could go back for myself and open up that door a little sooner and say, you know, let’s get creative here and figure out how the and your passion could be used in a different way, that would have been great.
22:10.50
Lorie Jones
Yeah, I like that idea because they talk about the genius zone a lot. Something that you’re really good at something that you love and something that the world needs. And and where those intersect, you’re working in your genius zone.
22:25.26
Lorie Jones
And i like i I’m always curious as to like, well, what’s my genius zone? Because I like so many different things. And i I think that the our kids specifically, I’ve got you know five in that and that age range and they are taught there’s really only, there’s one way of doing it.
22:38.48
Laura
Thank you.
22:44.30
Lorie Jones
and it’s the right way. And you do this first, and then you do this, and then you do that. And the end result is you get this high powered career that in, you know, finance or whatever it is you want to do, but you have to take these steps in this order to get there.
23:00.97
Lorie Jones
And, and what you’re saying is maybe, maybe we should question that a little bit. Maybe, maybe our path is a little bit different or a little bit divergent from that, but it will get us to what we we were meant to do, what we were really put on this earth to do a little sooner, working in our genius zone.
23:24.43
Lorie Jones
Is that right?
23:24.48
Laura
There’s this quote about at the end of our lives, we have the chance to step around like like we’ve been behind the tapestry the whole time and we get to step around to the front and see how it all makes sense.
23:39.80
Laura
It all comes together in this beautiful woven tapestry. And I love that visual. And it’s a good one to remind yourself when you’re thinking like, this isn’t going how I thought it was going to go Like this not going to make sense at the end.
23:56.54
Lorie Jones
Yeah. Yeah. Well, i I hope I get to see that one day because as you’re as you’re working behind it, you do tend to think that, well, maybe they know something i don’t know. and And you know maybe i should be maybe be following this path rather than trying to you know, bring a little pink and fun into finance.
24:15.79
Lorie Jones
Like maybe I shouldn’t be trying to do these things. So it’s, it’s just, it’s, it’s really interesting to, to think that, that maybe that is, maybe that does get you to who you’re meant to be little bit, a little bit sooner.
24:29.43
Laura
keep bringing the pink and fun into finance.
24:30.05
Lorie Jones
think, I think so.
24:33.40
Laura
Finance needs it.
24:35.25
Lorie Jones
I think so. yeah, so What about speaking of finance, if you could if you could give yourself a great big high five for one past financial win, what would that be?
24:52.77
Laura
I feel like I have stumbled into success. um We have developed some amazing relationships through the years that sometimes pan out into much bigger opportunities than I ever dreamed was possible. um So, you know, if I could give myself a high five, and I think in that spirit of just zone of genius, you know, what you are good at and doing more of that, it is that
25:27.65
Laura
you know I’m a kind of a relationship person and I like to relate to people. And so being able to um build relationships and build friendships with people um has truly been the secret to the success of our business.
25:44.58
Laura
And so I guess I’d just give myself high five for liking to get to know people.
25:50.81
Lorie Jones
yeah Yeah, that that curiosity that, um tell me more about yourself for that.
25:53.93
Laura
Mm-hmm.
25:56.32
Lorie Jones
I’m so interested in what you do. um That, you know, building your network. I had one guest a year ago or so tell me that your network is your um currency, is your here career currency.
26:11.35
Laura
Yeah.
26:13.57
Lorie Jones
and And thinking of it in that way makes it a little bit… yeah more concrete and analytical for those finance people in us. But, but yeah, that it, it’s interesting that I asked what the most, uh, the best financial decision and you came with relationships, but it works.
26:23.79
Laura
yeah
26:34.31
Lorie Jones
That is the best financial decision. It’s,
26:36.88
Laura
There was, and this is not a financial decision that I made, but there was an advisor i was working with probably eight years ago who was doing this series called Smart About Money.
26:53.82
Laura
And so it was all of these foundational things that you could be teaching your kids about money. And she did a ah piece on your first paycheck. And her advice was save half, set aside half of everything you make from the get go.
27:13.58
Laura
And I thought, wow, like my parents instilled some good financial fundamentals for me, but I certainly wasn’t saving half. And when I started in TV news in Hastings, Nebraska, i was making $14,000 year.
27:33.09
Laura
And the idea of saving half of that would have blown my mind. But I think back on it and I could have had a roommate instead of paying the full rent and having my own place. um There are probably ways that I could have cut corners enough to do that.
27:51.55
Laura
And it’s definitely a lesson that I talked to both of my teenagers about.
27:51.90
Lorie Jones
and
27:57.71
Laura
And in, I mean, today’s world, it’s getting harder and harder to to save and everything is so expensive. But um if you can set up for success by doing that early, I think it’s such an advantage.
28:12.79
Lorie Jones
Yeah, it is. ah i And I remember my youngest daughter coming in and sitting down on my bed when she got her first paycheck and she asked me, mom, So what do I do? Like, how much do I save?
28:23.39
Laura
Hmm.
28:24.89
Lorie Jones
and I’m like, well, you know, if you wanted to be really far ahead, you could save like half. You’re not you don’t have very many bills right now. Like you you might be able to do that.
28:34.01
Laura
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
28:36.16
Lorie Jones
And she did. and it set her up for a really strong, you know, ah strong financial future. So I love that. But I but I I do want to say that I loved the answer about your your network.
28:50.97
Lorie Jones
your, your currency, your, um, your, your career currency.
28:53.84
Laura
okay
28:56.55
Lorie Jones
I think that, I think that’s really important. So
29:00.18
Laura
I also, and my co-founder could tell you this, like have trouble giving myself a high five for much of anything. So that one is a tough kind of curve ball question for me.
29:13.26
Lorie Jones
what, what scared you the most when you first started out on your journey? were you Did anything scare you or Did everything scare you? Does it still scare you today? Like, what did you learn about that?
29:25.94
Laura
Yeah, I mean, we started business business in an in well I didn’t know much about wine um before we launched into that business though I knew a lot about video and the same can be said for when we pivoted into finance I mean I certainly wasn’t a math major in college and I wasn’t you know focused on econ And we ended up doing a lot of work in healthcare care back then and a lot of like medical imaging. And I knew nothing about an MRI or a CT before we launched into that.
30:02.86
Laura
And I just figured it out. And so I think sometimes that’s the most important piece of advice someone could hear is that, you know, you don’t have to know it all.
30:18.44
Lorie Jones
So did when that’s a really good question, because, you know, a lot of times as women, we feel a lot of imposter syndrome. We don’t know everything. So it makes us really uncomfortable if we’re not fully prepared to answer all the questions. So how did you get through that scared feeling or that?
30:38.43
Lorie Jones
I’m not exactly sure what this means, but I can figure it out. Like, how did you get from from I’m scared to death or I’m scared about this too. i got this. I’m good.
30:49.41
Laura
Is it… fake it until you make it Is that an okay answer?
30:52.99
Lorie Jones
Yeah. Yeah.
30:54.79
Laura
it is kind of astonishing to realize it creeps up on you that you step into your role and your expertise. And at some point, it kind of just is there with you and you have that confidence you need. And until you get there, you just have to put your head down and focus on doing the best job that you can and you know making the adjustments along the way to to find more success.
31:26.76
Lorie Jones
I love that. i actually just wrote an article about that yesterday, which that talks about, you have to take that first step, that first fearless step, you have to take it without having the ability to know that, that you’re going to succeed.
31:42.39
Lorie Jones
And, and the courage comes and the, um, the sense of accomplishment comes and that sense of,
31:42.54
Laura
Yeah.
31:51.11
Lorie Jones
of being good at what you’re doing comes later. But that first step, you have to take it when you don’t know whether you’re going to be good at it, huh?
31:55.20
Laura
and
32:00.49
Laura
Just have to dive right in even if the water’s cold.
32:04.20
Lorie Jones
Yeah. Yeah. Um, but I will say that through like the different interviews that I’ve given and the different guests that I’ve met, that a lot of times, like even if that step turns out to be a bad one and you fail miserably, you can usually pick yourself back up again.
32:21.53
Lorie Jones
And it it usually doesn’t determine the rest of your life. So so there there is something to be said about, hey, this is scary and I am taking this step.
32:25.00
Laura
you
32:32.37
Lorie Jones
but But if i fall flat on my face, what’s the worst that’s going to happen?
32:37.85
Laura
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it is scary to have the courage to
32:46.04
Laura
be a complete failure, but knowing that we actually learn more from our failures than we do from our successes is at least somewhat of an encouragement. I mean, that doesn’t make those days sting any less or, you know, those failed business initiatives or even those failed companies hurt any less. But knowing that the only thing you have control over is the introspection of looking at a situation and saying,
33:20.16
Laura
What can I learn from this? How can I do it better next time?
33:25.23
Lorie Jones
Yeah, it was the quote. I love that quote. Something’s like, try, fail, pick yourself up, fail better next time. Something like that. I don’t, I probably should look it up because I probably just murdered it. But what about um throughout your career journey?
33:43.66
Lorie Jones
Have you run into any unique challenges because you were a female? Yeah.
33:51.12
Laura
think that’s a very interesting question to ask someone with a broadcast background. I don’t know if you’ve spent any time watching the morning show on Apple, um but I got a lot of questions from folks I knew once um that show came out about, and some of the scandals about what happens kind of behind the scenes um in newsrooms.
34:01.13
Lorie Jones
you
34:19.42
Laura
Like, was this your experience? And i don’t know if i was TV news in a sweet spot, ah but I never really had those moments where I felt like trying to climb the ladder within journalism came with some compromise that um would end up in a lawsuit.
34:46.08
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm.
34:46.57
Laura
So luckily i I don’t really have um those stories to tell. And I mentioned that my mom and I had written a book several decades ago on and the difference between the way baby boomer women experienced work and Gen X women. And now as a Gen X female business leader with millennial and ah Gen Z employees. Like I think maybe this book needs needs to be updated um because that the journey continues. But the experience between what my mom went through and what I have gone through as a Gen X woman is so starkly different. And she was um an executive and at one point in finance and
35:38.12
Laura
I will ah remember this photo. They went to the Broadmoor in Colorado um on a retreat and there was a leadership photo of like 50 of them there.
35:50.92
Laura
and every single one except my mom was in a was a man in a suit. And she had to wear a suits with like little bow ties.
35:57.52
Lorie Jones
yeah
36:00.41
Laura
but
36:00.66
Lorie Jones
Wow.
36:01.47
Laura
And her experience um as a leader in corporate America was so dramatically different than then my career and the things that the baby boomer women had to do to break the glass ceiling. I just am so grateful for the sacrifices that they made in their perseverance to change the world. And I think about the way um legi Gen X women are changing the world for our um ah sometimes very
36:37.45
Laura
touchy-feely Gen Z kids. um So I hope at least I can have somewhat of a positive impact in my own company and my own little corner of the world ah to to make a difference.
36:50.98
Lorie Jones
Yeah. Yeah. And i I too realize that we are carried on the shoulders of those women who did break the glass ceilings, who did him you know venture out into the workforce and make a spot where now women have the chance to be anything.
36:59.50
Laura
Mm-hmm.
37:07.33
Lorie Jones
like We really can. There’s really not a lot of um industries that are closed to us. There may be more that are you know more male dominated than other industries, but there’s nothing can’t, I don’t have to tell my daughter, Oh, you can’t do that because you’re not a guy.
37:18.48
Laura
Yeah.
37:25.12
Lorie Jones
Right. And, and what a blessing that, and hopefully we, we continue that and leave our daughters in a better place and then they can just finish it up and fix it for us.
37:26.42
Laura
yeah one One of the findings of the research my mom and I did that
37:36.36
Lorie Jones
Right.
37:41.89
Laura
the work that the baby boomer women had done to present to their daughters. Like this is the world is your oyster. You can do anything.
37:53.35
Laura
And i was sitting in my later twenties in a newsroom in Omaha, Nebraska, feeling like, yeah, I was brought up told being told that I could be anything. And man, like this career is feeling really frustrating to me.
38:11.12
Laura
and I think what we discovered through our research was that the message that you can do anything is great, but it needs to be delivered with the message that you also have to pay your dues to get there. And so that doesn’t mean that the six-figure job is going to land on your doorstep ah the moment you walk out of college. And unfortunately, I think our and New college grads are finding that out the very hard way.
38:41.07
Laura
But realizing that, like, you can do anything, but there is a lot of work that needs to go into getting there.
38:49.84
Lorie Jones
Yeah, yeah, I would, I would agree with that, that, that their options are limitless, but you do have to put forth that you got to take that, that work, you got to put the work in, you just do.
38:59.52
Laura
Yeah.
39:02.50
Laura
Yep.
39:05.02
Lorie Jones
What about, Laura, what is the thing you are most proud of?
39:10.53
Laura
i I am most proud of building a work-life balance. And I don’t think I was cut out to be a full-time mom um because I get a lot of satisfaction out of running a successful business and creating you know an environment where people want to work and mentoring people and I get really excited about working with a team.
39:41.71
Laura
So I almost need that interaction and that validation, I guess, that comes from you know success at work. But being a present mom has been really important to me.
39:54.93
Laura
And i think it’s exciting that we live in a day and age where you can um choose a path, where you can you know off-ramp, which I did for
39:56.79
Lorie Jones
you
40:07.63
Laura
three and a half years and just did a little freelance work before on ramped back into my career. um But you can choose your own path. And um I have done countless hours of work from a laptop sitting at a ho hockey rink because I’m a hockey mom um and having the flexibility to ah kind of show up as a mom in the way that I want and as a business leader.
40:37.17
Laura
has been very, very rewarding for me.
40:40.24
Lorie Jones
And that takes that takes actual work. That is an actual skill set. I’m not so great at it. I do not have that that that great balance. but But I do really admire those that that can do that and and and show the rest of us how it’s how it works, how it should be done. Yeah.
41:04.29
Laura
Well, I do think that it’s worth putting out there that there’s no one pathway to success.
41:12.81
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm.
41:12.89
Laura
I know many women who have run, you know, 60 hour a week careers for decades and are still great moms, like maybe a little left less, less balanced, but, you know, still showing up with their kids in their time the way they want to.
41:12.95
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm.
41:31.71
Laura
So there’s no, and you know, some fantastic moms out there you career is not their priority at all. So it’s it’s exciting to know that there are many pathways to it.
41:44.33
Lorie Jones
Yeah, there’s lots of different ways to do it. And it and it looks right.
41:46.74
Laura
Yeah.
41:48.98
Lorie Jones
You know, all of the ways are the right way to do it for you. um Except for maybe, i i do tend to work like 20 hour days, and that’s not the right way to do it.
41:59.96
Lorie Jones
I figured out. Yeah. but
42:01.95
Laura
self-ca la Self-care, self-care.
42:03.69
Lorie Jones
I know, but I’m still working on figuring out the right way to do that. So, but, but I will say that, yeah, I agree with you.
42:09.10
Laura
Mm-hmm.
42:11.79
Lorie Jones
I think there’s a lot of different ways you can come to success as, as a mom, as a, as an entrepreneur, as a, ah you know, a full-time career woman.
42:23.37
Lorie Jones
And, and I love that women in my experience are the ones that I’ve dealt with through my career. are really open to to, like supporting that, you know, there but like your success doesn’t look like my success.
42:40.48
Lorie Jones
We’re different and we come at it in different ways, but we can both be proud of each other and support each other and lift each other and being successful in our own ways.
42:45.56
Laura
Yeah. Yeah.
42:49.50
Lorie Jones
And I love that about the, the, the cohort of women that we are in right now. It’s so fun.
42:59.22
Laura
yeah
43:02.39
Lorie Jones
Any advice for a young lady who’s just starting down the path that you’re so successful at that could help her be successful like you?
43:13.14
Laura
I would say that you need to be a broadcaster of your own brand. And this wasn’t, excuse me, this wasn’t really a thing when I was in my twenties or my thirties, but realizing that the, um,
43:35.34
Laura
I don’t want to say attention in a negative way, but the um the authority, the brand recognition that you can build in for yourself is something that you can take to any job, no matter where you go.
43:51.55
Laura
And so I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn. That’s sort of the platform that is the focus for our business. And when my 14-year-old gets, you know,
44:05.81
Laura
out of college and and and into a career, if LinkedIn is still around, I would say, you know, figure out a way that you can build your own authority that is separate from just your job.
44:21.98
Laura
um Because The bigger audience and the more, ah I mean, we’ we’re in an attention driven society. And so the the bigger audience that you have, the the more reputation that you have, the more valuable that makes you.
44:38.58
Lorie Jones
Yeah, I like that idea, the personal brand watching the new watching the the new group of Gen z as they come up.
44:52.37
Lorie Jones
they’re They’re good at that. They’re actually pretty decent at that, aren’t they?
44:53.65
Laura
They’re good.
44:56.77
Lorie Jones
They could teach us quite a bit about it, huh?
44:56.85
Laura
hey
44:59.20
Laura
They sure can. And I am such a huge fan of Sherry Fitz. I mean, you and I met at Sherry’s conference and her idea behind owning your personal brand, developing your personal brand has been inspirational to me. And as ah as a leader of a company and as someone who promotes ah video marketing, it really took me hearing Sherry’s message to give myself permission to say, i don’t have to be talking about the company all the time.
45:33.84
Laura
Like I can go out and, you know, passionately declare um what I know and what I think is important aside from the company.
45:34.72
Lorie Jones
yeah
45:44.37
Laura
um It doesn’t all have to be about the business.
45:48.24
Lorie Jones
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. An important message. So thank you. Thank you so much for just sharing your journey and sharing a little bit about your story and sharing some of your wisdom. And if I have a young lady who wants to Talk, ask question, pick your brain just a little bit. How does she get in touch with you?
46:09.04
Laura
A great way would be to find me on LinkedIn and shoot me a DM. I’m Laura Garfield and it should be pretty easy to pick out the co-founder of Idea to Cantor and send me a message. I would love to connect.
46:22.14
Lorie Jones
Well, thank you. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
46:25.73
Laura
Thanks for having me, Laurie.