angishields, Author at Business RadioX ® Page

BRX Pro Tip: Is Your Market Ready for a BRX Studio?

July 9, 2025 by angishields

BRX Pro Tips

BRX Pro Tip: Is Your Market Ready for a BRX Studio?

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BRX Pro Tip: Is Your Market Ready for a BRX Studio?

Stone Payton: And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, how do you really know if your market is ready for a Business RadioX studio?

Lee Kantor: Well, this is something we’ve kind of figured out from having done this for a while. There’s five simple steps to quickly tell if your market is ready for a Business RadioX studio. This is something we ask all prospective studio partners if they’re interested to assess if they are ready, if their market is ready for us to be there.

Lee Kantor: Number one, we ask them to list all the people and companies that currently write them checks for the services that they deliver. So, we want to start building kind of this list of people who are already their current clients and people that they already do business with.

Lee Kantor: Next, we ask them to list all the people and potential industries that refer business to them, and that also kind of expands that list quite a bit. And then finally, we ask them to list all the business groups and business associations and nonprofits that they’re a member of and that all those people are a member of. So then, we have this large list.

Lee Kantor: And then finally, we ask them to pull all of the people in their LinkedIn community and their business network that they know personally. So we have this giant list now of all these people that are kind of connected to them locally in some form or fashion. And then what we ask them to do is simply ask them if they would appear on a show, a business interview show, that they are hosting, that spotlights business leaders in their community doing interesting things.

Lee Kantor: So once we have done this and we ask all of those people, “Hey, would you like to be a guest on this show about business, that’s about what you do,” then we know are people wanting to do that. If nobody wants to do that, then there’s a good chance your market’s not ready. If you get some people that want to do it, that’s encouraging.

Lee Kantor: Now, once you’ve gotten this kind of list going, you want to ask the people who said yes if they know other people as well. And then if you ask those people to be on the show, you now have a bigger list. And the bigger the list you have, the better indicator you have that your market is ready. And look, this is something that works or it doesn’t work. If you do this, if you go through this effort and identify all your potential guests for the show and the people that they know and you invite them on a show to just say, would you do this if this show exists, then you’re going to know if the market is ready. And a good market will have a wait list of dozens of potential guests so that if you know that you have, you know, ten, 20, 30 people that would appear on a show in your market, then you know that that’s a great indicator that your market is ready for a Business RadioX studio in that location.

Lee Kantor: So that’s how we start. We start with people we already know. We expand from there. We touch all the business kind of community as far as we know, and maybe one kind of connection level beyond that. And we invite them to be a guest on the show. If they say yes and that they’d be inclined to be a guest on the show like that, that is a fantastic indicator that that market is ready for a Business RadioX studio.

Robert Danna with Global Curiosity Institute

July 8, 2025 by angishields

Beyond the Uniform

Robert Danna with Global Curiosity Institute

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Robert Danna brings over 50 years of diverse leadership experience across science, engineering, military service, technology, and human capital strategy.

A former U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander, physicist, consulting engineer, and executive at Deloitte, Bob’s journey reflects a “career lattice” shaped by his unwavering curiosity and adaptability.

Now retired, he serves as a Fellow at the Global Curiosity Institute and continues to advise, invest, and mentor across industries.

In April 2024, Bob released his memoir, My Curious Life: If My Grandkids Ask About Me, Tell Them This, which Kirkus Reviews praised as “an engaging, curiosity-driven journey from the 1960s to the present.” The book—and his life—celebrates personal growth, exploration, and the power of asking questions.

In his conversation with Trisha Stetzel, Bob shared reflections on his military service, tech leadership, and post-retirement work in mentorship and community engagement.

He discussed the impact of cross-generational knowledge sharing, the need to maintain human connection in an AI-driven world, and how curiosity has remained a constant force in his life.

With humor and wisdom, Bob offered encouragement for lifelong learning and living with purpose.

Connect with Bob on LinkedIn.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Houston, Texas. It’s time for Houston Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Trisha Stetzel: Hello, Houston. Trisha Stetzel here bringing you another episode of Houston Business Radio. Beyond the uniform series. You know what that means. I am pleased to introduce you to my guest and fellow veteran today. Bob Danna is currently retired and serves as a fellow at the Global Curiosity Institute. With more than five decades of leadership experience as a physicist and officer in the US Navy. A consulting engineer and an expert in enterprise resource planning and human capital management. His life illustrates the power of curiosity in driving a professional and personal life, modeled as a career lattice. Bob, welcome to the show.

Bob Danna: Trisha, thank you so much. Really looking forward to our conversation.

Trisha Stetzel: I am too. So Bob, tell us more about you. I know I gave the big, nice summary of all of the amazing things that you’ve done, but who’s Bob?

Bob Danna: Yeah, Bob. I’m a New Yorker by, uh, by birth. And, uh, if you ask me. Oh. Uh, what? What are you. I’m a New Yorker. I live in Las Vegas right now. Uh, that’s where I retired. Um, but born in Brooklyn, I grew up on Long Island. Um, uh, a product of, uh, the, uh, the public school system. Uh, you know, elementary school. High school. Uh, went to Hunter College in Manhattan, uh, for a bachelor’s and master’s degree in physics. Um, I again, uh, the, uh, the education was incredible. Uh, wound up getting recruited by the nuclear navy, um, in 1975, uh, to teach, uh, at the Naval Nuclear Power School. So I was a physicist. Uh, the Navy needs, uh, physicists and mathematicians and chemists and electrical engineers to to teach the officers and enlisted personnel who are operating reactors, nuclear reactors on submarines and aircraft carriers. And so did that on active duty, then stayed in the reserves, actually moved over to nuclear weapons and was part of the theater nuclear Warfare project office. And we were we were doing our work to to look at the consequences of and mitigating, uh, theater, nuclear warfare. So if there in fact, you know, so I know a lot about nuclear weapons. I had a top secret clearance, uh, critical nuclear weapons design information access. But at the same time, I left active duty and then joined a consulting firm in 1980. And I’ve been a consultant, uh, one way or another, for 50 years. Uh, so, you know, initially, uh, in science and engineering, than in it than in human performance.

Bob Danna: Because that’s probably the most interesting thing that a scientist can look at is, is what makes a human a human. And, you know, what can I do to to address human performance? And then ultimately, I was a managing director, uh, at um, uh, Deloitte consulting, um, and uh, consulting in the areas of human performance. And so it was quite a, quite a run. All things considered. Uh, and, uh, I’m still very active. So I retired formally and now about, uh, probably 6 or 7 years ago. Uh, but I am very involved in the community, both local community and my professional community. And it’s give back time. So, uh, my definition of retirement, uh, for the audience, is, uh, I no longer take any, uh, money or compensation of any kind for whatever I do. Uh, so it’s all 100% pro bono. I’m doing it because I love it. If I don’t love what I’m doing, I don’t do it. So, um. And so, uh, it also means, uh, I no longer have any milestones, deliverables. I no longer am required. Sometimes I do that required to get up at three in the morning to take a call from, uh, from Europe or in the, in the midnight for Asia, whatever. Whatever. Uh, so that’s that’s my definition. It’s that kind of me. So it’s, uh, I’m having a good life. Uh, like I said, live in Las Vegas, still travel 4 or 5 months out of the year. And so it’s, uh, I can’t complain.

Trisha Stetzel: Amazing. You have lived such a full life. And thank you for your service. And thank you for your service again. Uh, post service and what you’re doing today. So, Bob, I happen to know that you released your memoir just last year called My Curious Life. Tell me more about that and why you decided to write My Curious Life.

Bob Danna: Sure. Yeah. Thanks, Trisha. Uh, actually, the title is My Curious Life. If my grandkids ask about me. Tell them this. Uh, so, number one, I’m not assuming that my grandkids will ever ask about. So what did grandpa actually do? Uh uh, I don’t think my daughter knows. Uh, so. So, you know, it’s hard to explain what I just gave a quick capsule on. So, uh, I started to actually go around the house and, you know, look at some of the things like, you know, my, my commanders shoulder boards and, and, and, you know, uh, you know, color devices and, uh, yeah. Oh, I here’s a, here’s a guidebook from the New York World’s Fair, uh, back in 64, 65. You know, so I started gathering those and tried to show it to them. Okay. They say this is what grandpa, you know, did. And he’s like, yeah. Uh, no. So I was like, okay, I gotta write it down. So at least I’m going to leave him something. So I started with notes, then it turned into pages. Then somebody said, well, yeah, this is kind of nice, so why don’t you kind of organize it into a book. And so I did so. You know, there it is. Uh, so it’s, uh, uh, it actually is a book. And now that there’s a book sitting on my desk, usually in the closet, uh, but it’s it’s kind of cool.

Bob Danna: So I the one thing that it’s, it’s I concluded from writing the book was, what is the one theme that’s gone through my entire life? I’m a curious guy. Okay. Um, you know, curiosity kind of drove everything. It allowed me to kind of open my mind every time and say, yeah, that kind of looks interesting. Maybe I should explore that. Maybe I should do that. Uh, and you can see by the twists and turns in the career. Um, yeah. And that’s why I call it a career and not a career path. Now there is there is no path unless you unless, you know, it’s like a, um, uh, you know, kind of one of these. Uh, and so, uh, so it allowed me to, to just kind of, uh, kind of move along, kind of write the book and get it, get it now to a point where I actually it’s getting some traction out there. People are saying, this is kind of interesting and there are some some interesting conclusions. And like I said, curiosity of the world, curiosity about other people and curiosity about oneself is what I try to address about Bob Danna. But then I think, you know, somebody reading it goes, mm. I think, yeah, I can take something away from that.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that that’s so much fun and I can’t wait to read that. And I might even tell my grandkids I don’t have any yet. But, you know, you should read Bob’s book. So I when I introduced you, uh, one of the titles that you have is fellow at Global Curiosity Institute. Tell me more about that.

Bob Danna: Yeah. The Global Curiosity Institute was founded, uh, now. Oh, probably maybe, uh, 6 or 7 years ago in Antwerp, Belgium. Uh, and the whole idea was globally okay to bring people together. And there’s a small group of fellows. I was invited, uh, to, uh, to be a fellow along with my partner, Lacey Lowe. She, she also has joined as a fellow, and she, in her own right is an incredible individual. Um, uh, and, uh, so, so, uh, the whole purpose of the, the, uh, the institute is to, in fact, promote, uh, kind of open mindedness, uh, to everything that’s going on in the world. So kind of questioning, be curious, uh, be skeptical, uh, you know, question, uh, you know, what what what the dogma is and then try to get to actually a point where you kind of understand, um, you know, what’s going on. So that’s why kind of the, the curiosity about the world, other people and yourself, you know, you start to kind of put those in buckets, uh, and, you know, it isn’t people in your neighborhood. Yeah, that would be that. That’s probably what most people do right now. But I want to I’m curious about people in the world, okay. In the world itself. So, you know, whether or not you you’re able to travel, uh, you know, just be able to go in and experience that in whatever way you can.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. So being curious is a skill, I think sometimes, especially for younger generations. And I know you spend a lot of time mentoring in that space. So how for those people who are not just off the cuff, genuinely curious, how how do you have those conversations with younger generations who are maybe more I I’ll use the description self-absorbed, and I don’t mean that in a negative way. I just mean that they’re doing the things for themselves right now. And as young people, we did too, or I did. I shouldn’t speak for everyone, but how are you having those conversations and creating that curiosity in the younger generations?

Bob Danna: I’d say I kind of draw their attention back to them being 4 45678 years old. Okay. It was natural, right? Uh, who? What? When? Where? How do you know that? Yeah. Yeah. How many times did you hear that from your kids? I certainly heard it from from from, you know. And so and I, you know, I was I was probably the most curious child that I could imagine who had, you know, probably a total pain in the butt. Um, but I draw their attention back to that, and it’s like, see if you can re-embrace that. Um, because if you can, it really allows you not to go down one specific channel, one specific kind of line of thinking, or just kind of listen to one opinion. Uh, it really asks you to step back into your, your into your, your childhood. Okay. And remember what that was like because it was pretty cool. Right. As a kid, you know, you’re you’re you’re always kind of doing all kinds of stuff and you love it. Right? It’s so exciting. Um, and so, uh, what I try to do is talk to folks and kids and especially Gen Z, um, because they’re going to need it. That’s a that’s a muscle that they will absolutely need. That’s going to be a life skill, uh, that they’re going to absolutely need. And if in fact, uh, they do do that and build that muscle, that it’s going to be, uh, something that’s going to be valuable to them for their entire lifetime.

Trisha Stetzel: Mhm. Absolutely. And uh, practicing that. Who what. When where why, how is a great place to start? I love to put those on a sticky note and just have them around with me.

Bob Danna: Right. I do I got a sticky note right here. Exactly.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah.

Bob Danna: Remind myself.

Trisha Stetzel: Absolutely. Um, so we’re about halfway through our conversation. I would love for you to share your contact information, Bob, in case someone is already curious. Curious how to connect with you, what is the best way?

Bob Danna: Yeah, the best way is, uh. Well, actually, there’s a couple of ways you can go to my website. Site, which is my curious life. Dot net. Okay. My curious life net. Um, and actually, uh, there’s kind of a summary of the book, a little bit more about what I’m doing because I’m doing some I’ll tell you other interesting things, and I’m very much into what’s going to go on with AI these days. Uh, artificial intelligence. Uh, so it’s on the, on the website and actually there’s the AI Bob on the website, who will explain the ten benefits of, uh, embracing curiosity. Um, so I’ve turned myself into AI, Bob. Uh, and so you’ll see that on the website as well. Uh, but there’s also a blog. There’s also a whole host of, of other podcasts that I’ve appeared as guest, etc.. So it’s a pretty rich site that you can you can kind of peruse, uh, but you can link to me on LinkedIn. So I’m still very active, uh, as a professional. So just find Bob, Dan or Robert Danna. And if you just put kind of Robert Dann at Deloitte. Uh, it is only one of me out there. Uh, and so, uh, two ends, please, Deanna. Um, and so that’s another way to do it. Uh, and then, uh, there’s actually, you know, on, on LinkedIn, you can you can actually reach out to me. Uh, with a with a message. Uh, on my website, you can reach out to me with a message. Uh, and so, uh, you know, any of those, those ways. I’m also on Substack right now. Uh, if any any of your listeners use Substack? I love Substack. Uh, so, uh, you’ll find me on Substack. Uh, as again, Robert. Danna. Uh, and, uh, you can, you can that goes, you know, obviously a bit more political, uh, but I’m also using my, uh, uh, my science, um, uh, science creds on that. Uh, so it’s some combination thereof. So it’s, uh, any of those ways would be would be great. And I love to interact with any of your listeners who are interested to, uh, to chat.

Trisha Stetzel: Beautiful. Thank you. And if you didn’t catch it, it’s Danna with two ends. D a n n in a just so that you can find Bob. And in some places it’s Robert. So Bob.

Bob Danna: And Trisha. Yeah. You had kind of. Trisha. Uh, I do have the book. You can find it on Amazon. So if you go on Amazon and put My Curious Life. Bob. Danna, boom. It’s right there. Uh, so.

Trisha Stetzel: Everybody should get a copy of Bob’s book.

Bob Danna: I do appreciate that.

Trisha Stetzel: Yes, absolutely. So, Bob, before you even brought up, I. I really wanted to take us that direction. Um, you know, just in the last few years, everything has really, um, turned internal. And so a lot of us individually are interfacing with AI and less with human beings. And so how do you bring this idea of genuine curiosity alongside of where the world is going with AI and this robot interface? How do you see these two things coming together?

Bob Danna: Yeah, I’m I’m actually quite positive on it. I’ve gone through now, you know, a couple of technical technology revolutions. I mean, I started in high school and college and in the Navy, um, uh, using a slide rule. Okay. Uh, if anybody knows that, you probably find it in the Smithsonian Institute these days. Um, uh, but, you know, that’s how we did calculations back then. So, you know, anybody says, well, I don’t know about it. And I was like, yeah, yeah, okay, fine. Whatever. Uh uh, so don’t be afraid. Just embrace and move forward. So I think the big thing is really trying to figuring out, um, as a, as, you know, an individual, your listeners, you and I. Um, so what value do we add? Human beings. Okay. Because the technology’s going to be there. So now how do you, in fact, uh, either the the easiest thing is just. So how do I actually, you know, query, uh, kind of an AI powered search engine. Okay. Well, that would be a good skill to have these days. Okay. That’s kind of basic skills, but even better. Uh, actually, I’m working with, uh, with a guy, Raja Regis, who’s putting together the Young Professionals playbook. So young professionals playbook.com. So we’re actually doing something that we’re trying to capture the kind of the insights, the experience, the wisdom of the Xers and the and the the boomers to try to pass it to, uh, the Gen Zs, um, specifically aimed at Gen Z.

Bob Danna: Okay. And in fact, it is a complete marriage of AI and, uh, and and the human intelligence. Uh, and so, uh, so on that I’ve actually worked on a module on curiosity. I’ve worked on a module on skepticism. I’ve worked on a module on embracing Stem. Um, and it’s all on the site. And actually, if you go to the one on curiosity, uh, you’d wind up finding, uh, an a, uh, uh, But who is in fact actually the host of the podcast. Okay. Who’s now interviewing I. Bob. Okay. Uh, and then there’s a song that’s generated about curiosity. Uh, on the side, there’s Q&A. There’s actually guests that come in. All of it is a marriage of AI and and and humans. Right. It couldn’t have been done without what was in my brain. But we also couldn’t have done that without actually embracing and taking advantage of the technology. So. So like I said, it’s going to be a fairly wide spectrum of things that you can do. Um, but it’s just trying to figure out, okay, well, number one, don’t resist. Embrace. Okay. And then if you embrace figuring out how you personally, uh, as a, as a human being, okay, with your insights, your experience, your wisdom, all of those kinds of things. How do you now take that okay to your advantage in actually working with AI to generate something that I and you probably could not have produced individually.

Trisha Stetzel: Mhm. Wow. Yeah. As you’re talking through that, I’m thinking about how I’m using AI for myself and for my business. And it’s amazing the knowledge that you can tap into, which also leads me down this path of finding ourselves sitting alone with our AI. So how do we continue to engage each other in this true, genuine human curiosity where we’re still talking to each other alongside of, of course, using AI and all of the technology that we have. But I see a lot of people pulling away from groups of people because they don’t need they think maybe they don’t need them, or it’s just easier to sit in their office and play with their bots, right? Instead of human interactions. So tell me more about that as I know you’re really into.

Bob Danna: That’s actually my biggest fear. Is that okay, so what I always tell everyone, uh, is it’s more important than ever at this point to resist that. Okay. Uh, you know, it takes a real effort because, you know, that’s kind of the easy way out, right? Um, and so actually being able to kind of participate in, you know, the community, however, that is okay. And you say, well, but I can’t really get, you know, get in my car and go, whatever. You don’t have to. That’s the beauty of today, right? We’re we’re on this, uh, you know, on this podcast, you can be on a zoom group. Okay. Uh, there’s all kinds of social, you know, elements of of all of these networks. Uh, and I would certainly say, you know, professionally, you try to do that. Try to join groups that are professionally aligned with what you are trying to do or what you’re doing if you’re doing it. Provide your insights and wisdom to the group. If you’re trying to get into it, listen and participate and absorb. But there’s obviously the human interaction is going to be where it’s all at. Okay. Over the next several years, um, you know, if you’re, you know, politically inclined, you don’t have to go up and get into a rally if you want to. That’s fantastic. If you don’t want to get online, participate in, you know, one or more of these kind of social networks. The beauty right now with this whole podcasting and community structure is that there’s no excuse. Even if you’re only sitting in your office, there’s no excuse not to socially be involved. Human involvement with as many different people from all over your community, all over the country, all over the world. Uh, and it gives you a totally different perspective. And there’s there’s no way that you’re going to be a functioning human being in this world if you don’t do that.

Trisha Stetzel: Mhm. Absolutely. And I’ve read studies and books. The book that comes to mind is The Blue Zone, and it talks about the importance of having that human community and people that right that you hang around with. It’s part of growing old and uh, being healthy as a human. So, Bob, uh, on a personal note, I’ve heard that you’re an event junkie. So can you tell me more about that?

Bob Danna: I am, uh, well, uh, well, I love going. And again, I do get up out of my office and go and do things. Uh, so I love life, like last night. Uh, Laci and I were at, uh, the Jimmy Kimmel’s comedy club here in, uh, in Las Vegas. So we do at night. And that’s the joke around the neighborhood. Uh, you know, where’s Lacey and Bob going tonight? Uh, yeah. Because, you know, everybody is. You know, we live, uh, probably 20, 25 minutes off of the strip, uh, you know, and so if I dropped you in my neighborhood, you never know you’re in Las Vegas. Um, but, you know, most of the folks here go. Oh, no, you have to go down to the strip and find a parking space. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It’s like, oh, come on. Yeah. So we go to to to shows and comedy clubs and go to dinner and just get out, okay. And I’ve always done that. I’ve always done that. Um, and then I’ve done things that are kind of crazy to like, I, I chase, uh, total solar eclipses. Um, and so my first one was back in the early 70s. Uh, you know, Carly Simon song, uh, he took his Learjet to Nova Scotia to see a total eclipse of the sun. Uh, well, yeah, I was in. I was in college. Uh, and we did go to Prince Edward Island to see it. I was in Manhattan, uh, in college. Uh, we didn’t take the Learjet. Uh, we took a, uh, a Volkswagen microbus, uh, up to Prince Edward Island.

Trisha Stetzel: A little different than the song.

Bob Danna: We can’t all the way, including on Prince Edward Island. Not to watch the eclipse, but, uh, since then, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve gone to, uh, take an eclipse cruise where we where we saw one. Uh, in the in the the the Sea of Cortez between Mazatlan and Cabo San Lucas and Austria. Uh, and then last, last year, I was with the Planetary Society in Texas. Uh, you know, Bill Nye the science guy. Uh, yeah. And, uh, you know, he had he and 800 of his closest friends myself, uh, were were in a field in Texas. Uh, watching the eclipse. So I so, again, I know that if you if you kind of think about it, I’ve traveled, like I said, all over the world, both for business and pleasure. So I like to get out. The key is once you get out and you’re doing things, uh, it again changes your whole perspective of everything. So, uh, that’s why. You know what I’m saying? I’m an experienced junkie. Chunky. Um. You know. Yeah, I like to read. Okay. I like the interface. You know, like we are here. Uh, but there’s nothing like actually going out, meeting people, doing things. Uh, and, you know, and. Yeah, I mean, I actually kind of lived modestly, but. Well. Okay. And the, well, part is not my home, not, you know, the car I drive or whatever the well part is. You know, how, how I pay for things to, to go out and and add to my experiences.

Trisha Stetzel: Oh, I love that. Thank you so much for sharing all of these stories. As we close today, I have one last question for you. And because you’re a fellow veteran and, uh, I want to celebrate this in my Beyond the Uniform series. My question to you is, how did your military experience really contribute to who you are today? Bob?

Bob Danna: Yeah, I would say, uh, you know, like I said, I was recruited to, uh, to be an instructor at the Naval Nuclear Power School, uh, in 1975. With that, I had to go down to DC, Crystal city. Uh, go through a whole battery of interviews, including being interviewed by Admiral Rickover. Um, the the father of the nuclear navy. Uh, and so, uh, that, uh, that and I actually interfaced with him a number of times after, after that, uh, when I was actually, uh, at nuke school and the like. Uh, but, um, one of the things that is the big takeaway, okay, uh, is, you know, what does the military instill in you? Okay. Number one, I’d say integrity. Uh, and so that’s the that’s the one thing that I think is, is, you know, if, in fact, you know, you’re in the military, uh, you know, yes, you’re going to get all of the, the kind of the teamwork and getting the mission done and all of those kinds of things. Uh, but the one thing that I think takes away that if you can bring it into science and engineering and business and everything else. Okay? I don’t care. Okay, but if you kind of never compromise your integrity, I’d say that changes your life. And that’s why military people. Okay. People who have been in the military kind of experience, the military and and that’s ingrained in you.

Bob Danna: Okay. That’s why that was that’s what makes I think. And I’ve hired hundreds of, of, uh, you know, uh, ex-military, um, because I know. Okay, I know what I’m going to get. I’m going to get somebody who who will never compromise their integrity. I can teach you everything else. I can, you know, develop everything else. I can do it. But if, in fact, somebody is not going to ever compromise their integrity, um, they are incredibly valuable, uh, to any business. Uh, certainly engineering, certainly the sciences. Uh, you know, whatever it might be. Um, uh, you know, anything that that, that requires, uh, a a a discipline. Lynn. Okay. Uh, I think is, is is what I, I, I what I took away and I tell you that’s I commented on the, on the book a number of times, including the list of the, the attributes that Rickover is looking for, uh, for, uh, for anyone in his program. He’s he’s long gone at this point. Sorry. The guy was great. Um, uh, but, um, but I, I’d say, you know, his list of attributes. If you go down that list, which is in the book as well. Um, uh, it’s it’s it’s something that that if you’re living in life by that those values, those guiding principles are things that, uh, you’re taking away from the military, but apply incredibly to any, any, any business.

Trisha Stetzel: That’s beautiful. Thank you, Bob. And by the way, you guys, if you didn’t catch it earlier, go to Amazon. You can find Bob’s memoir, My Curious Life. If my grandkids ask about me, tell them this Bob or Robert. Deanna. It’s Deanna. You can find it right there on Amazon. Bob, this has been so much fun today. I feel like you have to come back so we can talk about more stories.

Bob Danna: Come back anytime, Trisha.

Trisha Stetzel: I love.

Bob Danna: That. I love chatting with you.

Trisha Stetzel: Thank you. That would be so much fun. So, Bob, once again, tell people how they can find you, and then we’ll wrap the show.

Bob Danna: Sure. It’s again my curious life net. Um, uh, or, uh, go to LinkedIn. Uh, and just, you know, put in Robert Danna, my Curious life or Robert Danna. Um, Deloitte. Uh, and you’ll find me immediately. Uh, and so just kind of reach out, connect to me. Say hi. I heard you on on Trish’s program. Uh, yeah. Okay. Look forward to chatting and you’ll get a chat. I mean, I I’m I’m very open, and I love to, uh, to to speak to, uh, to individuals. And I also help a lot of folks. Um, like I said, don’t get paid for anything anymore. Okay. It’s all, you know. The joy I get out of actually giving back?

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. Thank you, Bob. And that’s how Bob and I found each other. We had mutual military contacts, and I reached out to Bob and he said, yes, I want to have a conversation. So thank you so much for being on with me today. This has been my pleasure to have you, and I look forward to our next conversation. Bob.

Bob Danna: Same here. Trisha. Hey, I loved it. Thank you so much.

Trisha Stetzel: Thank you. And that’s all the time we have for today. If you found value in this conversation, share it with a fellow entrepreneur, veteran or a Houston leader ready to grow. And be sure to follow, rate and review the show. It helps us reach more bold business minds just like yours. Your business, your leadership, and your legacy are built one intentional step at a time. So stay inspired, stay focused, and keep building the business and the life you deserve.

Dr. Madhuri Vasudevan with Baylor College of Medicine and The Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center

July 8, 2025 by angishields

Houston Business Radio

Dr. Madhuri Vasudevan with Baylor College of Medicine and The Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center

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Dr. Madhuri Vasudevan is a board-certified endocrinologist and faculty member at Baylor College of Medicine, known for her integrative approach to healing that unites science, nutrition, and holistic wellness.

Through her work—especially with veterans at the VA—she empowers patients to thrive by harnessing their body’s natural ability to heal, using both medical therapies and lifestyle-based strategies. Her online platform, Healthy Eating and Low Inflammatory Nutrition Garden, features vibrant, simple, and nutrient-rich recipes that support low-inflammation living.

In her conversation with Trisha Stetzel, Dr. Vasudevan shared her personal and professional journey, including her dedication to patient-centered care, her love for dance, and how movement and creativity influence her healing philosophy.

She opened up about recent health challenges, the lessons she’s learned in setting boundaries, and the importance of authentic friendships. Madhuri also spoke about her contribution to a collaborative book project, highlighting the role of community, collaboration, and optimism in navigating life’s challenges and creating positive change.

Connect with Dr. Vasudevan on Facebook.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Houston, Texas. It’s time for Houston Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Trisha Stetzel: Hello. Houston Trisha Stetzel here bringing you another episode of Houston Business Radio. I am so excited to have another sister on with me today. Dr. Madhuri Vasudevan is with me today. Uh, assistant professor of endocrinology at Baylor College of Medicine and the Michael E DeBakey VA medical center. Dr. Madhuri, an endocrinologist and faculty member at Baylor College of Medicine, empowers her patients to heal from within by harnessing their natural ability to thrive, not just survive, while thoughtfully integrating medical All therapies when needed. Doctor Madhuri, thank you so much for being on with me today.

Dr. Madhuri Vasudevan: It’s my pleasure. Thank you so much, Trisha. This is just an exciting opportunity and I’m really grateful to have it. Thank you.

Trisha Stetzel: Well, I’m so excited. So you and I met through, uh, Mel C, uh, for the Six Figure Chicks book. And I, when we were all introducing ourselves, I said I was a veteran. You said I work at the VA hospital, and I knew immediately that I was in the right room. I’m so excited to have you on, um, talking today. So tell us a little bit more about you, and then let’s dive into what you’re doing for your patients.

Dr. Madhuri Vasudevan: Okay. Wonderful. So, um, my background is I was born and raised here in Houston. Um, I went to school here, undergraduate here. And, um, some of the things I love to do as a child and still do is, uh, I love listening to music. I love dancing. All styles of dance. Any kind of music you put on, I’m ready to jump up and down and have fun. Yes, exactly. Um, and, uh, you know, I’ve made some. My best friends were through the medical school years and, um, training and everything that followed. Um, two kids and, you know, we we work here in the medical center. Um, as a physician, I initially in my medical school, years of training, I was be lining it to cardiology. I was fascinated by heart and physiology and was sure I wanted to do that. And I had a very kind of pivotal experience in my second year of training, where I met a young lady that was dealing with multiple chronic conditions, that looking at her and she and I were the same age. I thought to myself, what could have changed in her life that could have shaped her, or directed her in a way to protect herself, to heal her body and perhaps prevent the conditions that she was facing. And that really directed me and inspired me to pursue a fellowship training in endocrinology. So that’s the study of diabetes, hormones and metabolism. And, uh, I, uh, as a, uh, after completing my training, I came back to the VA back in 2012.

Dr. Madhuri Vasudevan: And I remember when I reached out to my chief at the time and I said, is there any job at the VA? You know, those are hard to come by, but could you tell me if there’s anything? And he said, as a matter of fact, there’s something about diabetes. And I said, sign me up. I’m ready. Pick me. And, uh, I was so excited when I got the job. Um, I was the first person here at the Houston VA to create a dedicated insulin pump program. So that’s my kind of clinical niche is in taking care of patients that have diabetes, that are on insulin pumps and devices that can help. Support their diabetes care. Protect them from high and low you know, extremes of blood sugar and really help protect their organs over time. And I love what I do. And through that experience of of starting these programs, what happens day to day during my practice is I talk a lot about food. I talk a lot about nutrition. And and lots of different questions come up that spurred my curiosity. So I started asking myself, learn. Let me learn a little bit about how food affects the body. And so that is my love is how to help patients heal through nutrition, heal through holistic means, reduce their inflammation in the body, and use the medications that are there as life saving measures. So a nutshell. Yeah, that’s.

Trisha Stetzel: A good coconut shell that you do so much in all of the communities that you’re supporting and with your patients. And thank you for being such an amazing human being. Uh, number one. And then, of course, as a physician helping people. And I love that you’re talking about food, because when we take care of our bodies, our bodies are our amazing machines, right? And they can heal themselves in a lot of cases when we’re feeding them the right food and nutrition. Yeah. Oh my gosh, I love that. So one of the things if it’s okay, I’m going to kind of pivot to to you, you’re a physician. You work in multiple areas. You have two daughters. You have a lot going on in your life. So how how are you able to set boundaries or how do you learn or have you learned to really set boundaries in the work that you’re doing?

Dr. Madhuri Vasudevan: I think that is one of the best questions and most kind of deep questions that a lot of women face when we’re busy with work and busy with life. And, uh, So let’s see. Setting boundaries. This is a difficult question. Um, from the time I was a kid and through my training years. The recurring theme is if somebody says do something or asks me, I say, yes. How much? How high? Yes, I can do it. Um, and the same work ethic has applied as I started my job here 13 years ago. Um, of course, there’s a sort of a demand that you prove yourself in the beginning and that you demonstrate your productivity. Uh, and I took that to kind of an nth degree so early in the course of my training. And really, I would say up until just about a year ago, I had not learned effectively how to set boundaries for myself. And as a result, I started adding so many tasks to my plate that I became exhausted. Um, and just to share. So my husband is a pediatric surgeon, and about a year and a half ago, he came home one day and he said, you work so many hours and you’re up so many nights that you get less sleep than he does. And to put it in context, he has to do sometimes 12 hour surgeries, 20 hour surgeries.

Dr. Madhuri Vasudevan: And he said, really, there’s something wrong with this picture. You need a break. You need to realign and try to restrict yourself, get a little balance back. Um, as a as a physician and a mom and. Et cetera, et cetera. As the boss of the house. You know, it’s hard to listen when, um, when he’s giving me that good advice, but I did. As a result of this past year and my healing journey, I have learned the value and the importance of setting boundaries. And I’ve also come to the realization how that is tied into what many of us go through is imposter syndrome. Um, feeling that I’m not good enough and I have to keep proving myself. And, uh, just to kind of jump into that topic. I have come to the realization that, first of all, I am good enough. Took me a long time to just say those words and really believe them and that, um, that secondly, I don’t have to prove myself. You know, and I really never had to. But it is a lesson that I’ve learned, and I’m feel so joyful. The, the, the, you know, the moment that I came to that realization, I felt like this burden was lifted off my shoulders. And I felt a lightness and a freedom to just do the work I love without feeling like I’m judging myself against some standard that no one else imposed on me.

Dr. Madhuri Vasudevan: Um, so yeah, I think setting boundaries is something so essential to leading a balanced life. And I listened to an interesting, uh, podcast by a famous motivational speaker. Uh, his name is Simon Sinek, and it really struck me when I listened to him, he said that a strong woman knows how to establish and understand the difference between being kind and being nice and being kind. Is that you’re filled with compassion, that what you do, you serve or help because of a genuine interest. But being nice is something that we often do when we’re seeking validation from somebody else, or seeking a little bit of a justification for the hard work that we’re doing. And so I have really sort of toed that line of nice being nice for a long time. And now, I mean, I’m a nice person, but I’m learning how to establish those boundaries and and not let go of my authentic self. You know, I am a genuinely kind and compassionate person and I love to to share that. So. So I guess the story is, yes, establishing boundaries is critical. And it’s been a journey for me for sure.

Trisha Stetzel: Thank you for sharing all of that. I’m a big fan of Simon Sinek as well And I love this. It’s not something that I’ve heard before. The difference between being kind and nice and I completely resonates with me. Yeah. Yeah. Because as women, we’re not very good at saying no. And it takes practice and we put everyone else ahead of ourselves. And as a physician, you know, and especially someone who’s very keen into nutrition and feeding our bodies the right food and getting rest and all of the the holistic approach, you know, that if we’re not taking care of ourselves first, that we can’t take care of anyone else in the way that we want to. Right. Uh, thank you for sharing that. So it sounds like you have a really great support system at home because it was your husband that said, okay, enough. Something has to shift. How important is it to surround yourself with people who are going to help you with those boundaries and the balance that you’ve set out for?

Dr. Madhuri Vasudevan: That’s a great question. So, you know, finding people. And I think this is something that I learned. I’ve learned over the years. True genuine friendships. What it means those chosen sisters, as I, you know, like to refer to to you and all my new lovely friends. And then the real, deep, genuine relationships I’ve had over the years. Those are the people you can be yourself with. You can laugh. You can be vulnerable. And you know they’re not judging you, and they’re only there to support you in your, you know, as you grow as a person and and that, you know, you feel the same for them. Um, this, this experience of, of making that network or that sort of web of support. It starts, I think, for me, with my, my immediate family. So my husband, I actually have an older son and a younger daughter. And so my son, he’s 18 now has been kind of this similar to my husband, just this wealth of calm and and uh, reassurance at home. Um, they’ve sort of taken over it in the past year when I wasn’t able to do a lot of physical work at home. And, uh, and then I have, you know, kind of extending from that core. It’s my my parents, my in-laws, my siblings and their families, and those are my family.

Dr. Madhuri Vasudevan: You know, they are my family. And I love them all. Um, but it’s my friends, the ones that I have, uh, cultivated a lifetime of friendship and love with. And then new friends that I’ve met along the way that have really given me a newfound appreciation for what it means to have friendship, you know, and again, to, to sort of reference Simon Sinek, I don’t know, he’s inspired in me in many ways. He talked about this during a recent TEDx talk or a lecture that he gave that it’s one of the few things that we don’t have a metric for. But friendship is so crucial to living a fulfilled life. You know, we as humans. And this is just my feeling. We as humans are social animals and we cannot survive in a silo or in an independent space. We need that connection and establishing those good vibrations. So yeah, I absolutely have grown to appreciate friends over the years and especially in the past year. It’s truly the universe that has brought these dear friends into my life. I never thought I would be sitting here having this amazing conversation with you. Um, but it’s truly because of this network of good friends that I’ve met along the way.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. So I want to apologize to your son because I know he’s going to listen to this because earlier I said you had two daughters and you have a son. So to your son, my apologies. I’m just glad that I.

Dr. Madhuri Vasudevan: Know.

Trisha Stetzel: We’re about halfway through our conversation. I’d love for you to share your, um, contact information or a website where people can reach out if they’re already interested in learning more about you or even the work that you’re doing. Absolutely.

Dr. Madhuri Vasudevan: So I have a website. That website is called Madhuri dances.com. So that’s my first name, Madhuri. And then the word dance is dances.com. And there’s a contact, uh, link on the website. And you can just send me your name and, uh, and it will generate an email response to me and that will come to my personal email. And I think that’s the best way if anybody’s interested in reaching out or has questions. Um, I work at the VA. So, uh, from a professional standpoint, I see patients only through the VA system. I teach at Baylor College of Medicine and have, uh, the opportunity and privilege to teach the students there and residents and fellows and training. But the best way for anybody kind of outside of that sphere to reach me is probably through the website.

Trisha Stetzel: Beautiful. Thank you so much. So since you brought it up about dancing, you mentioned it a little bit earlier. And it’s also in, in the way that we should be contacting you. Sure. I understand that you’re, um, and we talked about this before we started recording that you’re really, um, tuned into the power of language and even the non-verbal communication or cues. Can you talk more about that? Absolutely.

Dr. Madhuri Vasudevan: Sure. I’d love to. So, um, from a very young age, about five or so, I was given the opportunity to learn Indian classical dance. And Indian classical dance is this beautiful art form, age old tradition of storytelling. But a lot of the storytelling is is not just, uh, acting out the words, but it’s expressing it through your face, through your hands. So I found myself as a little girl, just entranced by the storytelling aspects of Indian classical dance. As a young girl, I was, and I was really curious and fascinated by the story of Helen Keller and how she was able to communicate through sign language. Despite the fact that she was blind, dumb and and, you know, blind and couldn’t speak and couldn’t hear. So I was just really phenomenally amazed by her determination and communication skills. So I even learned a sign language in the college years and had the opportunity to work with children who are hearing impaired. And again, over the years, it’s just been something that I feel connected with, and that is how to communicate with somebody or or learn from them, some of their non-verbal cues. So for example, if I’m seeing a patient in clinic and they maybe feel a little bad about something in their life, I will I will look at their body body language and ask, you know, tell me what’s going on. Even if it has nothing to do with the reason that I’m seeing them, because I’m really invested in my patient as a whole, not just getting through the visit and let’s, you know, adjust the medications and see you in a couple of months. So it’s those nonverbal cues that I sort of want to pick up on on a daily basis.

Dr. Madhuri Vasudevan: And in addition to me looking and observing, I also want to make sure that I’m sensitive to how I am displaying my own physicality. Um, for example, if I’m seeing somebody and I have to give them guidance, I don’t want them to ever feel I’m judging them. So, you know, having a friendly face, a smile, uh, a reassuring presence. It makes a difference in how we as healthcare providers come off when we’re talking to our patients. Um, I know as a patient over the years and most recently in the past year, if I walk into the patient to the doctor’s office and I immediately feel that the the doctor may be busy or distracted or, you know, have already made a plan before listening. I already feel sort of defeated, and it’s not a criticism of any specific physician. It’s just the world of medicine and the challenges that we face as health care providers. So trying to be in tune to that is is something that I hold dear. But it all stems from my love of not only Indian classical dance, but I should say this Scottish Highland dancing. I’ve done competitive Scottish Highland dancing for the majority of my young years, for about from the age of 8 to 18, so ten years of my life, and had the good fortune to compete and place at the US Championships and at the World Championships. So, um, yet another part of my dancing journey and testament credit to my teachers for their, their love and and guidance for me.

Trisha Stetzel: Wow, that is beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. It is so important that, um, we show respect for the person that we’re sitting in front of. Whether and I like to even think about even on zoom, uh, there are ways that we can create nonverbal communication with each other. And it’s so important to create that space where we’re comfortable talking to each other and that, you know, that I’m not distracted doing something else. Right. Uh, and we see a lot of physicians who are still, since 2020, doing online communication with their patients. So, uh, takes practice and.

Dr. Madhuri Vasudevan: Takes.

Speaker4: A lot of practice. Absolutely.

Dr. Madhuri Vasudevan: One of the things I love now is that I get to enjoy this, the dancing experience, the love of dance with my daughter. So she and I are have the opportunity to dance together and, you know, kind of share in that journey.

Trisha Stetzel: Oh, I love that. Uh, so any particular type of dance that your daughter loves?

Dr. Madhuri Vasudevan: Yes. So, um, like me, She does also learn Indian classical dance. And it’s it’s sort of something we share as a family, as a culture. It’s part of our heritage. Um, it helps me, I think, during my times of stress, if I can just get on the dance floor and practice a little, I just immediately feel better. And I’m so happy that she loves that. The same way that I do. She goes to the same school that I went to, and so she’s also a Scottish Highland dancer. Um, so cool for her that she gets to have that same experience, but in her own special way. And what I’m also equally thrilled about is she also learns ballet, uh, something that I always, uh, love watching but never had the opportunity to learn. So she’s, um, blessed to have. And, you know, we’re very grateful that she has the opportunity to learn those three styles.

Trisha Stetzel: Oh, my gosh, that’s wonderful. What is your daughter’s name?

Dr. Madhuri Vasudevan: Mira.

Trisha Stetzel: Mira. That’s beautiful. Thank you for sharing all of these amazing things about you. And I want to bring up one more amazing thing about you. Uh, a published author for six figure chicks. Houston, volume one. How exciting is that? So exciting. I know. Me too. Um, here’s what I. Oh, and by the way, anybody who’s listening or watching this, you can go and get your copy. Uh, the E version is already out, and the hard copy or soft back copy will also be following that. You can find it on Amazon. So go to Amazon and look up six figure chicks Houston. And you can read 17 amazing stories. So how number one how did you meet Mel. And number two. Why did you decide to say yes to this opportunity?

Dr. Madhuri Vasudevan: Wonderful. This has been the most fun adventure I have been on in so long. Um, and so question one. How did I meet Mel? So in the early part of I’m sorry, in the fall of 2024, that is this this past fall, I had to take an extended leave of absence from work for a health crisis. I ended up having this debilitating inflammation, uh, inflammation that was causing some debilitating, um, physical limitations. So much so that I couldn’t walk. Couldn’t really move. Um, uh, and, uh, it took a couple of doctors and, and discussions to realize what was going on with my body. And again, my body was talking to me, sort of screaming at me, telling me to take a break. So around August is when I decided to take an extended leave of absence from work, not really knowing when I was going to go back to work. And by about December, I started to feel. Um. Thanks. You know. You know, with. For a variety of reasons and with God’s grace, I started to feel better. To the point that I could start walking again and moving again with with ease. Um, and I have been part of this beautiful group of women in Houston. It’s called a collective. And the collective is a, uh, one of the founders of the collective, and I, she and I have known each other through dance, interestingly, you know, um, enough.

Dr. Madhuri Vasudevan: And, uh, so she reached out to me and said, hey, come and join this group. And the first several sessions as I was joining it, truly, it was very difficult to get there to to sit and be a part of the sessions, but it gave me the opportunity to meet these beautiful women and to listen to their stories. It had nothing to do with me and everything to do with the group. Um, I think it helped me to sort of disconnect from my pain and difficulty and really, um, appreciate the the beauty of these wonderful women. It was through one of those women, Julie Flowers, who is also a published author in our book, uh, that she connected me to Mel. And so Mel then reached out to me and said, hey, would you be interested in writing a chapter for this book? Uh, in the beginning, I thought to myself, what would I write about? You know, I have lovely I have lovely experiences, uh, that I would love to share exciting experiences from work. But the thing that was 100% in my mind was my healing at the time.

Dr. Madhuri Vasudevan: And so I agreed to write it because I thought I would benefit from the process of writing down what was going on with me and how I’m processing it. How am I recovering? What is my vision of the future, of my complete recovery and total healing? And so I said, you know, I’m going to do this as an exercise and put it out there. Um, once I finished writing the article or the chapter, I really felt this new feeling that I wanted to share it with so many women that so many people are going through something. Maybe it’s not the same condition that I went through. It might be an emotional roller coaster or psychological or another physical ailment, or maybe just business related, work related, family related, any aspect of our lives that we’re challenged by. And I felt that the lessons I’ve learned were universal lessons that I thought would apply to all of my chosen sisters and women that I wanted to share. So it was it came from a place of healing. It, um, I felt very vulnerable in the beginning, exposing myself like that. But now I feel content knowing it’s out there as a as a tool for any woman who’s looking to recover.

Trisha Stetzel: That’s beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. And you’re not alone. I think all of us who have written a chapter for this book, and even ones that have come before it, have felt a bit vulnerable and uncomfortable that we were unveiling something. One thing that I will share here is one of my early readers sent me a text message the day that she was reading my chapter, and she said I had to Google this because I didn’t know what it meant. And she showed me the screenshot of the of what she googled, and she said, this totally applies to me. And I’m so glad that you wrote this, because I feel like it was just for me. And I’m going to start a book club so that I can have other women read all of the stories in this book. And that was the day that I knew there was a purpose behind writing this chapter and for all of us, all 17 of us for writing chapters in this book, because it even if it’s just one person that we can move or shift or change or even a new idea. Right? It’s so important.

Speaker4: It’s so.

Dr. Madhuri Vasudevan: Important. And it’s this ripple effect. You know, it’s this, this visual of like, electricity. You spark it here and it creates this ripple effect of a beautiful, powerful energy. Just goodness that’s coming out of it. So.

Trisha Stetzel: Absolutely. And I’m so blessed to have met you. I’m glad to call you one of my sisters. Yeah. Even even though it started with six figure chicks. Houston, it will go way beyond that. And I appreciate you so much being on the show today. Is there anything that you would like to leave the audience with today as we close up?

Speaker4: I would just first.

Dr. Madhuri Vasudevan: Of all, I loved I would love to share, thanks to you and for giving me this opportunity. It’s wonderful to share this platform with you and something that’s new for me. This is the first time I’m doing this kind of, uh, interview. Um, for my for your viewers, I would say believe in yourself, believe in the goodness that’s within. You know that it’s there no matter what you’re struggling with, no matter what’s going on. And believe in that innate strength that you have. And when times are tough. Yes. You know, there are so many adages and adages of of the going get tough or whatnot. But the truth is, in the quietness of your mind and the and the beauty of your heart, really believe in yourself first and then reach out for your chosen sisters, for your friends that support you and your family. And in the middle of all that, have some fun, play some music, jump off the band and that lightness, that light heartedness will carry you through some of the challenging times that we all inevitably will fit. Absolutely.

Trisha Stetzel: And wear some fun shoes. By the way, if you haven’t seen the pictures of us six figure chicks, Houston volume one, you’ll know exactly who has the most fun shoes.

Dr. Madhuri Vasudevan: I love it, I love it. The hot pink stilettos and black shoes, they’re my favorite.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that that’s so much fun. Thank you again so much for being my guest today.

Dr. Madhuri Vasudevan: Thank you and all the very best.

Trisha Stetzel: Thank you. That’s all the time we have for today. If you found value in this conversation that we had today, please share it with a fellow entrepreneur, a veteran or Houston leaders that are ready to grow and learn something new. Be sure to follow, rate, and review the show that helps us reach more bold business minds. Just like yours and your business, your leadership and your legacy are built one intentional step at a time. So stay inspired, stay focused, and keep building the business and the life you deserve.

BRX Pro Tip: How Well Are You Holding Yourself Accountable?

July 8, 2025 by angishields

BRX Pro Tips

BRX Pro Tip: How Well Are You Holding Yourself Accountable?

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BRX Pro Tip: How Well Are You Holding Yourself Accountable?

Stone Payton: And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tip. Stone Payton and Lee Kantor here with you this afternoon. Lee, today’s question, and it’s a question that we should be asking ourselves, how well are you holding yourself accountable?

Lee Kantor: Yeah. Everybody talks about accountability, but they don’t like to usually get that on them. So, it’s important to hold yourself just as accountable as you’re holding all the people on your team. You know, are you tracking what you did well during your last project? Did you track what you did poorly? Are you making the same mistakes over and over again? Do you need more help? Maybe a coach would be useful. Maybe a board of advisors could help you get to a new level. If you’re frustrated with your results, then try something different. Don’t keep doing the same thing that isn’t working over and over again.

Lee Kantor: Accountability is an important part of growth and you should try, at least hold yourself accountable for some of the work you’re doing each week. Go back at the end of the week. Look back and go, okay, did that work? Did this not work? And then, you’ll find a pattern. If you see yourself making the same mistakes over and over again, stop it. But becoming aware of it is the first step to kind of addressing it. So, hold yourself as accountable to yourself as you hold your team accountable to you.

Navigating Payroll Complexity: How GetPayroll Can Save Your Business Time and Money

July 7, 2025 by angishields

Veteran Business Radio

Navigating Payroll Complexity: How GetPayroll Can Save Your Business Time and Money

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In this episode of Veteran Business Radio, Lee Kantor talks with Charles Read, CEO of GetPayroll. Charles shares his journey from Marine Corps service to payroll expert, highlighting the challenges small businesses face with payroll management. He explains the benefits of outsourcing payroll, staying compliant with IRS regulations, and how GetPayroll supports clients through onboarding and collaboration with CPAs. Charles also discusses common pitfalls, IRS notices, and the differences between payroll providers and PEOs, offering practical advice for business owners seeking efficient payroll solutions.

Charles J Read is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), U.S Tax Court Practitioner ( USTCP), a former member of the Internal Revenue Service Advisory Council (IRSAC), a Vietnam Veteran, and the Founder of GetPayroll.

Mr. Read’s companies have provided full-service payroll, payroll tax, and other payroll-related services since 1991.

Connect with Charles on LinkedIn.

Episode Highlights

Overview of payroll services offered by GetPayroll for small and medium-sized businesses.
Discussion on the complexities and challenges of payroll management.
Importance of outsourcing payroll tasks to professional services.
Charles Read’s personal journey from military service to CPA and payroll business owner.
Common misconceptions among business owners regarding self-managing payroll.
The significance of staying updated with IRS regulations and tax requirements.
Guidance on how to respond to IRS notices and appeals.
Insights on Professional Employer Organizations (PEOs) and their cost-effectiveness compared to direct payroll services.
Onboarding process for new clients at GetPayroll.
Collaboration between GetPayroll and clients’ CPAs to streamline accounting processes.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Veterans Business Radio, brought to you by ATL vets, providing the tools and support that help veteran owned businesses thrive. For more information, go to at vets. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here another episode of Veterans Business Radio, and this episode is brought to you by ATL vets, inspiring veterans to build their foundation success and empowering them to become the backbone of society after the uniform. For more information, go to ATL vets.org. Today on the show we have Charles Read. He is the CEO of GetPayroll. Welcome.

Charles Read: Lee, it’s a pleasure to be with you. Thank you for having me.

Lee Kantor: Well I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about GetPayroll. How are you serving folks?

Charles Read: Well, we provide payroll services to small and medium sized businesses around the United States. We handle everything. You tell us what your employees, the number of hours they worked. We already know how much they get paid. We do all the calculations. We create the paychecks, direct deposits, get them paid. Then we file all the taxes, all the reports, and do all the interfacing with the IRS and the states and so on to make sure you don’t have to.

Lee Kantor: So what’s your backstory? How’d you get involved in this line of work?

Charles Read: Well, I left the Marine Corps, uh, after four years. Work realized that business did not value military experience then. Just like now. So I went to college, got my degrees, went to work in business, worked in corporate world for about 15 years, got fed up with that and decided to open my own firm, hung up my own shingle as is a CPA and had payroll as a sideline, and payroll has grown and grown and grown and sold off the CPA business. And now we’re a payroll company.

Lee Kantor: So what are some maybe things that business owners don’t appreciate of partnering with a payroll company like yourself, instead of just trying to kind of power through it on their own?

Charles Read: Well, my analogy is when I grew up, Pelé was the world’s best soccer player. A wonderful athlete recently passed. But if you take Pele and you’d put him in a New York Yankees uniform at second base, he would be absolutely lost. He wouldn’t know the game. The rules. Pick up the ball with your hands. He’d still be a great athlete, but he’d be totally lost. So you take a businessman who’s successful at what they do, and now you say deal with the IRS. They’re an engineer. They’re an accountant. They’re a marketer. They’re. They’re a mechanic. They’re a cook. Whatever. They don’t know the IRS. They’re at second base. They’re totally lost. That’s where we come in. We’re experts at this. We’ll backstop you. We’ll take care of all that. We’ll make sure that the IRS stays out of your kitchen and out of your pocket as much as possible, so you just don’t have to worry about it. The time and trouble and cost. You would have to spend to be able to do what we do. You wouldn’t be able to be in business because what we do for a living. So that’s where we come in. We allow you to outsource that to a professional at a pittance and just solve all those problems.

Lee Kantor: Now the companies that are trying to do it on their own, is it something that they start small and then it’s like maybe manageable for 1 or 2 people, and then all of a sudden they got a few people and now it’s getting complicated. And they put somebody that’s, like you said, not an expert. That just is kind of Volun told to do this work, and then they get in over their head.

Charles Read: Well, you’d think that. But in reality, most small businesses screw it up. They get sideways with the IRS. They get sideways with the state, with either the state Revenue department or state unemployment department, because they don’t know what they’re supposed to do. They don’t understand how to classify employees. They don’t understand what taxes have to be collected and paid, when they have to be paid, what forms they have to file. All those things, all those complexities of a business entirely outside of the business they’ve chosen to be in. So yeah, you’d think they could start out small and get away with it, but in fact, they don’t. They get into problems even if they’re just trying to pay themselves as a single employee corporation. That’s what happens. And when they get a little bigger, then those errors multiply and come to the attention. And now it’s way too late. So our suggestion is the moment you have payroll, get a payroll provider. It’s not worth doing yourself. It just isn’t. When I was in corporate world, never tried to do payroll in-house. Just wouldn’t do it. It wasn’t worth it, I knew better. Uh, being a CPA. So, uh, no, they get into problems from day one because they they don’t know what they don’t know.

Lee Kantor: And then this is a situation where the rules are always changing. There’s so much nuance to this that this isn’t something that, like you said, if I’m a mechanic, I can’t be mechanics. And then, you know, learn about the latest IRS kind of new regulation.

Charles Read: I gave up trying to work on my car years ago. I had an milligram and the clutch was going out at 60,000 miles, which they always do. And I had my Chilton book and I opened it up to index and change the clutch. And I went to that chapter and it said to change your clutch. Step one. Remove the engine. See chapter seven. I closed the book and never opened it again. Okay, it’s worse with the IRS because the rules do change. You don’t know what they are, and if you’re not keeping up on them, you will not be current. It’s just like cars change the electronics and cars today. I have absolutely no idea what they do. None. I haven’t worked on a car in 50 years and it changes and it gets more complicated. And mechanics will tell you this, but they know it because they do it every day and they keep up on it. It’s their business. So their current when you take your car in to what’s going on, they get trained in it. I get trained on what’s going on with the Internal Revenue Service. I wish I was on the IRS Advisory Council for three years. Went up to Washington, you know, six times a year to work with them. So yeah, we get the trade journals. I get emails almost daily from from the States and from the IRS about changes. We get the trades. We all. We keep up with that. I don’t keep up with cars. I don’t keep up with a lot of things. I outsource a lot of things because that’s smart business. Uh, and people outsource payroll to us because that’s smart business, because we keep up with it.

Lee Kantor: So let’s let’s try to help our listeners and maybe, uh, share some of your expertise. So hypothetically, I get a notice from the IRS, which probably never is good news. I don’t think they send out birthday cards, but I get a notice. What? What do I do?

Charles Read: Well, first of all, is it wrong? And millions of them are. The IRS makes millions of mistakes every year. They won’t tell you that, but they do. 100,000 civil servants with technology, some of which goes back to the 1960s. So if they say you owe tax and you don’t. Now, if you do, just pay it. But if you don’t write a letter back to them explaining what what your position is, now, they’re going to ignore that letter. I guarantee you the first letter you write back, they will ignore. They will send you back and form a letter saying no, pay up. Your second letter. You may get a response that’s not automated. Canned response. Respond to that anyway. Your third letter then should go to the appeals coordinator, because each letter will tell you what you need to do. The appeals coordinator will actually look at what you’re saying. In all probability, they will deny your your your request to have that penalty abated. And so you continue to appeal it. There’s a whole series of appeals going up through and including Tax court that are available to you, both administrative and legal. And so whenever you’re dealing with a penalty appeal, appeal, appeal, appeal, appeal, you’re looking for that one person that says, yeah, okay. And then just shut up and take that and go away. Uh it will, in all probability happen at the worst. You get to Tax court and you’ll probably get an offer in settlement at some point, uh, for less than that. But the IRS cannot penalize you for simple mistakes, only for gross negligence in in for all practical purposes. So if you’re right. Appeal. Appeal appeal appeal. Sooner or later you’ll probably find somebody that says yes. Now if it’s $10, just pay it. It’s not worth fighting.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there? Uh, there’s a lot of talk about POWs. You have any thoughts on them?

Charles Read: Yeah, uh, I have POWs are an outsource of staff leasing. Uh, after all the legal problems that staff leasing had, they changed the name of the industry to get away from all the fraud convictions and so on. But it’s still the same business. It’s a way to shift tax burdens. Uh, Pose will promise you all kinds of things and charge you a fortune for basically nothing. Uh, we’ve never found a situation where we can’t take a company out of a P.O. and save them at least $1,000 per employee per year. Nobody buys a CPO. They’re sold a P.O.. Uh, the only thing they might do for you is offer you a Cadillac insurance policy for your employees that you couldn’t otherwise get. But you’re buying a Cadillac when you really want afford. So you’re going to pay through the nose for it. That’s about the only thing they can do that you can’t do on your own, or with the help of your payroll provider. We work with our clients, and we have contacts with all kinds of benefit providers that will produce a package that will handle all of this for you. Now, the one thing the POA peaoe does is they say, well, we’ll handle the air for you. But when Sally has a problem with a boyfriend, she’s not going to go cry on the po shoulder. She’s going to come to the boss and cry on his shoulder. So you’re really not getting much benefit.

Lee Kantor: So if I partner with Get Payroll, walk me through. Say, like you said, no business is too small and they should start. So I’m a I’m an entrepreneur, maybe a solopreneur. And I say, okay, I want to hand this off to Charles and his team. So walk me through what that looks like. You know what? What questions are you going to ask me, and what am I going to get for the service?

Charles Read: Well, if you’re a new business, we’re just going to ask you a few questions, get a few signatures because we take a 2848 an IRS power of attorney, limited power of attorney on every client. So we can advocate with the IRS for our clients and actually represent them up through and including tax court. Uh, because I’m not only am I a CPA, I’m also a US Tax Court practitioner, which allows me to represent clients in Tax court. So you’re going to sign a few pieces of paper, provide us some information, you know, names, addresses, rates of pay and so on. Then once per pay period, you’ll go into your computer and say, you know, people work 40, 80 hours, whatever. Or just pay all the salaries and we handle everything else. Send you copies of everything, copies of the payroll reports, copies of the reports. We file notices on what we’ve deposited for you and so on. What happens is you’ll send in the information to for the hours they worked. We’ll calculate that. Draft your bank account, pay out the employees, pay out the IRS, pay out the states, pay out the local taxing authorities, whatever, and file everything for you. So literally, you’re just going to have to keep track of. Sally worked 80 hours this pay period. You’re done.

Lee Kantor: And then. So And when I’m when I’m being onboarded. If I’m new to business, you, I have somebody on your team that’s going to kind of help me with any questions I have. Or is this something I have to.

Charles Read: Absolutely. We this this is this is what we do. We’re going to walk you through everything. Make sure everything is set up properly. Make sure that you get us set up with the states and or the local authorities and the IRS. Get all your numbers get because we can’t we can’t file the reports unless we have the identifying numbers. So we have a an organization that will do all that for you and file all that and make sure everything is, is copacetic. So you just don’t have those problems. So the only thing that’s going to happen. Is if there’s the IRS screws up, they’re going to send you a notice and we’ll fix it.

Lee Kantor: And so all all that’s happening is I have money in my bank account. And then you’re kind of allocating it to the proper places.

Charles Read: Absolutely. We’ll, we’ll we’ll draft your account and make all those payments for you. We do that. Uh, you know, I’m a CPA. I’m a licensed certified public accountant. Um, we do this for clients around the country. We have been in business for a third of a century. So, yeah, we’ll take care of it.

Lee Kantor: And then where does kind of the the, um, scope of work end? So you’re not my CPA. You’re just doing this one specific service around payroll.

Charles Read: Right. We handle the payroll and all the payroll reporting and all the aspects of payroll. Uh, and we handle ancillary payroll services. We can help you with benefits and and HR and employee handbooks and other associated things, uh, that involve payroll as far as your income taxes and your financial statements. That’s not something we do anymore.

Lee Kantor: And so. But you work with, like, my CPA. You’re. You’re.

Charles Read: Absolutely. We can electronically send your CPA the payroll reports in a, in a form that he can take in and put into his system. So it saves you and him time and money. He won’t have to charge you as much because he’s not going to be manually entering payroll reports. He’s going to be getting electronically.

Lee Kantor: So who is the ideal, uh, prospect for you in terms of get payroll? Is it, uh, or is it? I’m sure you mentioned that it’s all over the country, but is it industry agnostic or do you have some niches within certain industries?

Charles Read: We do. We do. You can’t you can’t imagine the kinds of businesses we do. I have restaurants, I have mechanics, I had a prophet who ran a profit professorial center, uh, in, in Lewisville. Uh, we have churches, we have gambling facilities. We have probably the only thing we don’t do is marijuana farmers because the banks don’t like them.

Lee Kantor: But if they’re a legitimate business in America, you have a solution for them.

Charles Read: Absolutely. If they, you know, everybody’s payroll is unique and we do understand that. But we do payroll and we do payroll for all kinds of businesses. So we haven’t. We do we do certified payroll for contractors that are doing federal contracts. If you’re a US payroll, we can take care of you.

Lee Kantor: And and like you said, if it’s a one person shop or, you know, 10,000 employees, you you can handle it.

Charles Read: Yeah. No, I’ll be honest. Normally companies, when they get to somewhere around 3 to 500 people take it in internally. Uh, and, and we understand that, but we have clients in the middle hundred of employees, and we have lots of social entrepreneurs that, uh, have incorporated and therefore they’re an employee and they need to pay W2 compensation and get it all reported. So yeah, we handle one season. We handle 300.

Lee Kantor: Good stuff. Well congratulations on all the success. If somebody wants to learn more what’s the website? What’s the best way to connect with you or somebody on the team.

Charles Read: Well we’re at on the net WW payroll.com. We’re all over the net. Um you can email me at J.R at get payroll.com. And frankly if you got a quick question (972) 353-0000.

Lee Kantor: Well Charles thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you leave.

Charles Read: My pleasure. Thank you.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Veterans Business Radio.

Men in Nursing: A Growing Force for Change in Healthcare

July 7, 2025 by angishields

Association Leadership Radio

Men in Nursing: A Growing Force for Change in Healthcare

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In this episode of Association Leadership Radio, Lee Kantor interviews Jason Mott, President of the American Association for Men in Nursing (AAMN). They discuss AAMN’s mission to support men in nursing, efforts to promote men’s health, and initiatives to encourage more men to pursue nursing careers. Mott highlights the challenges men face in the profession, the importance of community outreach, and the evolving perception of nursing. The episode emphasizes the need for diversity in healthcare and showcases AAMN’s programs, including mentorship, education, and advocacy for a more inclusive nursing workforce.

Dr. Jason Mott is the President of the American Association for Men in Nursing as well as a Professor of Nursing at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh.

He has published and presented nationally and internationally on topics such as incivility in nursing, men in nursing, men in the caregiving role and marginalization in nursing.

Follow AAMN on Facebook.

Episode Highlights

Overview of the American Association for Men in Nursing (AAMN) and its mission.
Historical context and evolution of the AAMN since its establishment in 1973.
Initiatives aimed at improving men’s health and addressing health disparities.
Challenges faced by men in the nursing profession and the importance of increasing awareness.
Trends in nursing demographics, including the percentage of men in nursing.
Biases and perceptions surrounding male nurses in the healthcare field.
Services and benefits offered to AAMN members, including education and mentorship.
Discussion on the impending nursing shortage and the need for a diverse workforce.
The role of telehealth in expanding healthcare access, particularly in rural areas.
Community engagement efforts and the importance of local chapters in promoting nursing.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Association Leadership Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here another episode of Association Leadership Radio. And this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have Jason Mott, who is the president of the American Association for Men in Nursing. Welcome.

Jason Mott: Thanks for having me. I’m glad to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, I’m excited to learn about your association. Tell us a little bit about it. How are you serving folks?

Jason Mott: Yeah. So as an organization, we’ve been around for little over 50 years. Started in 1973. Really kind of started as an organization to support men in nursing, since at the time when we started, there really wasn’t a whole lot of men in nursing. And so throughout our history we’ve grown. So we’re one of our big focuses still is to support men in nursing. But we’ve also grown to expand where we’re trying to do much more in the research arm related to men’s health and Men in nursing. And then our latest initiative within the last year or so has really been to try to focus on improving the health of men throughout the country, where we’re actually creating a men’s health alliance, where we’re going to be able to focus. And actually, there will be the first and only area in healthcare that’s focusing primarily on men’s health. So really trying to increase the health of men throughout the community and looking at a whole lot of different aspects of health care.

Lee Kantor: And when you’re talking about health, are you talking about kind of medical health or mental health? Physical health.

Jason Mott: So pretty much all of it. One of the things that we know through research is that men struggle a lot with increased suicide rates. We also know that men tend to die younger than women. So really looking at their physical health, one of the big things that is an issue with a lot of men is, and I’m sure you probably know this too, is that a lot of times men don’t really seek health care until something’s wrong, like, hey, I’m feeling great, so I don’t need to go to the doctor. And then by the time they actually go in, it’s kind of they’re getting towards later in a disease process where if they had gone earlier, we could have maybe done things to improve their health. So it’s looking at getting men in faster, having them seek health care, feeling comfortable seeking health care, looking at physical health, looking at mental health issues. Because again, a lot of times guys don’t like to talk about things and so they keep it bottled in. So really looking at their mental health and being able to explore a lot of those things.

Lee Kantor: Now, what was kind of the impetus to expand the shift of the organization beyond nursing?

Jason Mott: So I think one of the big things is that so when you look at health care, people like to see people who look like them. So if we’re talking about an African-American client, they like to have nurses or doctors who are who look like them. Same thing with men. A lot of times I’d like to have a male provider. And so I think for our organization, really focusing on men in nursing and having a large percentage of men in nursing as our members, I think we have the perfect opportunity to go dive into that realm. Like we can understand what men are seeking in the health care setting, um, as well as why men don’t seek health care. And so really bringing that unique understanding that we have as an organization. Um, so one of the things I think when you look at nursing in general, and this is no disrespect or anything to our physician counterparts, but nursing tends to have look at more of the holistic picture. So not only just looking at the health care, but looking at social aspects and things like that, that’s really ingrained in nursing education compared to a lot of medical education. So I think our organization, especially having a lot of men being part of it, has that unique opportunity to look at that whole social dynamic, the health seeking behaviors. All of those things, along with having especially when you get into nurse practitioners and things, having that ability to diagnose and treat and things that I think really kind of sets us apart from everywhere else.

Lee Kantor: Now, um, are the numbers trending to see more, uh, men in nursing, or is it kind of what it’s always been?

Jason Mott: It’s slowly progressed. I mean, back in the like 70s, we were probably 4%. Now we’re probably about the last decade or so, we’ve been hanging around the 10 to 15% of nurses being men. Now we’re seeing more. If you’re looking at a numbers perspective, we’re definitely seeing more men. Um, but the percentage is kind of been hanging out the same because you’re also increasing the number of nurses. So percentage wise it’s kind of been in that roughly 5% range. So from the 10 to 15%, but definitely seeing a lot more. So I mean there’s about 3.5 million nurses. So we’re getting roughly 3 to 400,000, um, men who are in the nursing profession now.

Lee Kantor: Now is there um, are the numbers of like doctors going down or is that a growing field or like, where are we at kind of in as a profession because you hear so much about like now the advent of telemedicine. And after the pandemic, so many more people were embracing that type of, uh, communication with medical professionals virtually. Is that opening up more opportunities for men as nurses or physicians, assistants or other pathways other than being an MD?

Jason Mott: Oh, definitely. I think so. One of the things that’s interesting, if you look at medicine is that they are roughly 5050, in terms of male versus female, where nursing, we’re still trying to get up to that equality or that equity. So we’re can be close to 5050. Now, one of the things I think with nursing that’s different with medicine and why I think it’s been a struggle, is that nursing for a long time was basically the time of Florence Nightingale back in the 1850s. So actually I’m going to kind of take a step back. So it’s interesting. So when we talk about nursing profession, most people in nursing think that nursing started in the 1850s with Florence Nightingale. Um, when we have National Nurses Week and Nurses Month, that’s all focused around her birthday. But in fact, most nursing before that point was done by men. So either in clergy roles or, as part of their military, they would serve as nurses. And so when Nightingale came around, she basically felt that men and minorities didn’t belong in nursing. And so made it where it was a profession that’s heavily dominated by white females. And so because of that, nursing since that time has not really been seen by a lot of people as a profession for men.

Jason Mott: So I can tell you personally, like when I was in middle school, in high school I would I was doing career traces. I always came out as being something related to the health care professions. But I was always directed towards either physical therapy, a physician assistant, or being an MD. Nursing was never brought up, which seems to be still occurring. Um. So where? High school guidance counselors aren’t really seeing nursing as a profession for men. And so I think because of that, most men don’t really go into nursing right out of high school. In fact, most nursing programs or most men who are in nursing actually come in as second degree nurses where they got a degree somewhere else, did it for a while, didn’t really like it, and said, you know, I’ve always wanted to be a nurse, so now I’m coming back to being nursing. So I think we see that. But, well, I’m one of the big things we’re going to have to do, which we’ve been working on, is trying to increase awareness about nursing as a great profession for men to the public, as well as high school and middle school guidance counselors.

Lee Kantor: Now, in practice, does the patient is there a bias against men, like when they’re needing care. Do they have a problem with men as nurses, or is this kind of just a mindset shift?

Jason Mott: I think more a mind shift, such shift, um, for the most part. Well, actually, a lot of the male patients prefer to have a male nurse. Um, sometimes with especially elderly female patients, it gets a little bit tricky. Um, depending on what you have to do, if you have to do more like intimate cares, like inserting catheters or things like that. Sometimes they’re a little bit more uncomfortable having a man. Um, there’s still within the public, unfortunately, a bias that a lot of men go into nursing because of, like seeking sexual gratification, which is definitely not the case. But What? Sometimes your elderly patients still have that kind of mindset, so you can get a little bit of bias there. I guess the other big type of bias is that a lot of times, and I can’t tell you how many times personally, like walk into a room and the patient thinks that you’re the physician and they’re like, oh, you’re my doctor today. Well, no, I’m your nurse. So it’s just getting that mindset shift from the public that, hey, men are actually in nursing. And actually, I had so many patients say, like, you know, you’re the best nurse I ever had. And I would love to have another guy as a nurse. So I think once we get more men and they’re able to really see what men bring to the field, I think that’s going to really help with that whole mindset that the public has now.

Lee Kantor: Is it awkward in the sense in the example you just brought, like, say, there’s a male nurse and a female nurse in a room and the patient looks to the male, as, are you my doctor? Are they? Does that how does that make the woman nurse feel like? Do they feel like they’re, you know, kind of. It’s an uphill battle for them when it comes to kind of credibility and, you know, listening to their opinions and thoughts.

Jason Mott: I think sometimes that can definitely play a role. I think one of the things that can be a little bit harder for female nurses, too, is just with interacting with physicians. So I know, like I had a much different relationship with a lot of the physicians I worked with than my female colleagues. So, I mean, it can be bad, like you have doctors who will, like, yell at nurses and things like that where They were more apt to do that to a female colleague rather than myself or the male nurses. Um, so and I think I also seem to gain their trust and respect a lot quicker. Even though I was just as competent as my female colleagues. So that gets a little bit tricky, where I think some of the females can be feeling like along the lines of, um, like, how come I have to work harder or things like that sometimes just to gain the respect or trust.

Lee Kantor: So now, in your work with the association, what are some of the services and benefits that the nurses get when they’re part of this group?

Jason Mott: Yeah. So we do a lot. So most nurses need continuing education credits each year kind of varies by state. So we do a lot of continuing education um for nurses offering that. We also have a program called the Future Campaign. And so with that, what we do is our members go out to the high schools and middle schools and talk about nursing as a profession. And so trying to bolster it up, we also offer scholarships for students every year. And now we’re in the process this year of rolling out a leadership, um, fellowship, where participants will be able to go through a year long leadership program so that they can develop their leadership skills and things like that. We’re also going to be starting a mentorship program, so partnering newer nurses with more experienced nurses. So that way they can grow and learn. So like these are some of the situations I’m running into. How do we handle that and things like that, to really hoping to grow and make new nurses feel more comfortable within the profession.

Lee Kantor: Now, how does the aging population play into this? Is there kind of shortage of nurses and like home health care professionals or those not nurses? Like, I would think that there was going to be just a great, great demand of people in health care at this level in order to help just the just vast number of people that are going to need their services.

Jason Mott: Oh, definitely. Yeah. So we talk about, um, the nursing shortage where they’re predicting it’s going to be several hundred thousand nurses. I think it’s like 250 to 300,000 nurses. They’ll be needed within the next ten years. And so I think so if we continue doing what we’re doing, we’re going to run into issues within the health care system. So I think that’s why it’s so important to look for more diverse people. So looking at the males and things who maybe are out in the working in a factory job or things like that, where one of the things I think that’s kind of maybe hurting us a little bit now is because the industry is paying so well after for people right out of high school, they go in and feel like, okay, I can make a lot of money now. And without thinking down the long run, where maybe in when I’m 55 years old, am I going to be wanting to do this? And then we also have issues with technology and AI and robotics and things taking over where it’s replacing a lot of people, whereas nursing, you’re always going to need to have nurses at the bedside taking care of patients.

Jason Mott: So a lot of times the people who especially guys who get into nursing as second degree, have come from factories and things where they’re feeling like there’s not a lot of job security. So they come into nursing knowing it’s a well-paying job and knowing that they’re going to have job security to take care of their families for years and years and years. Plus, I think the other thing with nursing that is a really good option is that you can change. So what I mean by that, so let’s say medicine, you go and train as an orthopedic surgeon, you can only do orthopedic surgeon unless you go back and get extra training and things like that. Whereas nursing I could start off on a medical unit, then I want to go work in surgery and I can do that and just go through an additional six month orientation period. Or I could go work in the ICU or the emergency room. Or I could go back to school and be a nurse practitioner or nurse educator. And so there is a whole variety of things you can do with your degree.

Lee Kantor: And I would imagine there’s opportunity in kind of areas around the country that are more rural that have hospitals in kind of these rural places that that might be difficult for them to staff.

Jason Mott: Oh, exactly. Yeah. Um, I know even with nursing in general, especially if you’re looking at like nurse practitioners and things, telehealth is really taking off, especially in the rural settings where again, you might your closest hospital might be half an hour away, or you have a critical access hospital that can just kind of treat people but then have to send them off. So rural health and taking care of patients in a rural setting is definitely a huge area where nursing can make an impact and things like that.

Lee Kantor: So while the association, obviously it’s historically has been focused on on men and nursing and now your expansion into men in general, how does kind of a membership for just a male in general kind of work, or is it they have to be a nurse in order to participate?

Jason Mott: Nope. So we have actually of our members, one of the interesting things is about 40% of our um, membership is female. So they are those are women who are interested in supporting their male colleagues as well as who are interested in men’s health. And so we’ve got membership for students. We’ve actually got membership rates for um, high school students, uh, Then with nursing we have corporate membership. So one of the things we do is like a community based partnership. So maybe a health care setting and a maybe you have two hospitals in a town and a nursing college. They can all come together and do a joint membership and have a community based chapter. And so we really have opportunities at a whole lot of different levels. We are actually exploring, expanding. So like could we have like EMTs or paramedics as members or physician assistants or even physicians. So really kind of looking at a whole lot of different areas with that.

Lee Kantor: And then, um, so it’s not just a national organization, it has chapters around the country.

Jason Mott: Yep. So we we actually have chapters. Yeah, throughout the country. We also have a chapter in the Philippines and 1 or 2 chapters in Canada. So we actually have a couple international chapters as well.

Lee Kantor: So what happens at the chapter level?

Jason Mott: So the chapter level is kind of where most of the work gets done. So that’s where people are going out into their communities doing education. Um, we have a lot of career fairs and health fairs. So, you know, we have like students going into like boys and girls clubs and teaching about nursing. We have them going to senior centers and offering like blood pressure screenings and things like that. So like the national level, we provide a lot of the resources for chapters and then the chapters who know their communities best will go out into their communities and do things that are really impacting the needs and the health of their are individual communities.

Lee Kantor: And is that something that’s like they partner? I would imagine, with kind of local universities that have nursing degrees, things like that. Is that like the the makeup of a chapter or, or the kind of universities and then the, um, people going through those, um, programs.

Jason Mott: Exactly. So, yeah, so a lot of our chapters are university based. We also have a lot of chapters based out of health care systems. And so like for instance, where I work, um, we have a university chapter. And so any student who is within the university can join our chapter as a student organization. And so then we’ll do things around our community. So like for instance, we are hosting an educational table at the Alzheimer’s Association event, the Walk to End Alzheimer’s in our community and providing Education, um, for like caregivers of patients with Alzheimer’s. And so, yeah, again, a lot of them are university based. And then the students who are part of that university then take part in the chapter.

Lee Kantor: Now, do you find as just, um, having been involved in this organization for a while, is there do you find just people have more empathy nowadays and want to get involved in this type of caregiving profession, or is there is that trending in the right direction? I would hope I hope it is.

Jason Mott: I do, I really think so. I think that people are again viewing nursing as a great career option. Um, I think some of the stigma related to nursing or being a man in nursing is coming down so that people are seeing it more as a good career choice. And I mean, I do think like even though it was bad, I think for a while Covid really helped. You know, with seeing nursing and all the things that nurses did, because I don’t think a lot of times the general population really understands all that nursing does. And so getting more exposure is a great thing because again, most of I think most people’s exposure to nurses, if they haven’t had a themselves or a loved one who’s been sick, is watching TV shows, and those medical shows are not very accurate for what nurses actually do. And so I think having a good exposure really can change people’s mindset.

Lee Kantor: So what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Jason Mott: I think for us we just need more exposure, which I’m super excited to be talking to everybody here. And you know, just being able to grow and get that exposure out there and really talk about nursing and especially for the men to know, like, okay, this is a really a great field. And, you know, like you can do so much with it and you really can have a really great career from it.

Lee Kantor: And a rewarding career as well.

Jason Mott: Oh, definitely. Yeah. Because I think I hear a lot of times, you know, like with guys or people in general, it’s like, I want to do something that makes a difference or can help people. And this you’re doing that. You’re making a difference in people’s lives every single day that you’re at work.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. And people are hungry for that type of, um, kind of meaning in their life. And this is a way to really do that.

Jason Mott: Exactly.

Lee Kantor: So, Jason, if somebody wants to learn more and connect with you or somebody on your team, is there a website for the association?

Jason Mott: Yes. So it is eight men and we have all kinds of resources on there. We have a bunch of information and then definitely ways to get hold of us.

Lee Kantor: And then they can kind of drill down and find a chapter near them.

Jason Mott: Yes. There is a chapter directory, um, that’s listed out by every state. And so yeah, definitely, I would suggest go to the website and reach out to us because we love to talk to people and respond to people really quickly.

Lee Kantor: Well, Jason, thank you so much for sharing your story, doing important work and we appreciate you.

Jason Mott: Well, thanks again for having me. I really appreciate it.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Association Leadership Radio.

No Wi-Fi, No Warning, No Excuses: How WBEs Survive Digital Disasters

July 7, 2025 by angishields

Women in Motion

No Wi-Fi, No Warning, No Excuses: How WBEs Survive Digital Disasters

00:00 /

In this episode, Lee Kantor and Renita Manley explore digital survival strategies for businesses facing cyber attacks and internet outages. Cybersecurity experts Paige Goss and Alaine Fulton discuss the unique vulnerabilities of small to mid-sized businesses, the evolving threat landscape, and the importance of proactive measures like employee training, regular security assessments, and robust backup solutions. Real-world examples highlight the costly consequences of neglecting cybersecurity. The episode emphasizes that no business is too small to be targeted and underscores the need for a strong culture of cybersecurity awareness and preparedness.

Paige Goss is a fixer of fixers, orchestrating a collection of highly adept tech and engineering all-stars.

She founded Point Solutions Group to address the dire need for diversity in information technology, engineering, and professional services in government and commercial organizations. And the looks she gets when she walks into some meetings exemplifies that.

She not only talks the talk, but her extensive background in the information security, healthcare IT, and Department of Defense industries gives her the cred to strut the strut. As well as to pirouette between highly classified government projects and the demands of an ever-changing commercial landscape.

Connect with Paige on LinkedIn.

Alaine Fulton founded Safe Haven Solutions in 2005 that continues to bring her clients the best of breed technology solutions to Provide Integrity in Cloud/Network/Security.

Safe Haven Solutions is an IT consulting company specializing in cloud computing, cybersecurity, and network solutions for mid-market and enterprise clients.

Our core focus is delivering effective business solutions to our clients that reduce costs, streamline operations, and increase profitability.

Connect with Alaine on LinkedIn.

Episode Highlights

Digital survival strategies for businesses facing cyber attacks and internet outages.
Vulnerabilities of small to mid-sized businesses in the digital landscape.
Misconceptions about the risk of cyber threats for smaller organizations.
The evolving nature of cyber threats and the organized nature of cybercrime.
Importance of identifying and protecting critical data and applications.
Proactive measures for enhancing cybersecurity, including employee training and regular assessments.
The significance of incident response planning and preparation for cyber incidents.
The role of human error in cyber incidents and the need for a culture of cybersecurity awareness.
Differences between cyber attacks and internet outages, including response strategies.
Real-world examples illustrating the consequences of inadequate cybersecurity measures.

Music Provided by M PATH MUSIC

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios, it’s time for Women in Motion. Brought to you by WBEC-West. Join forces. Succeed together. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here with Renita Manley, another episode of Women in Motion and this is a very important one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, WBEC-West. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories.

Lee Kantor: Today’s episode is titled No Wi-Fi, No warning, No Excuses: How WBEs Survive Digital Disasters. This is an important topic and we have two great guests coming on board to discuss it. We have Paige Goss with Point Solutions Security and Alaine Fulton with Safe Haven Solutions. Renita, great job putting this together. This is such an important topic of interest for our WBEs.

Renita Manley: Thanks, Lee. It really is. I’ve been actually thinking about it so much lately, but we’re going to dig into it. So in today’s episode, it’s all about digital survival, what to do before, during, and after a cyber attack or internet outage. So, I guess I’m going to break down how to prepare ahead of time, how to respond in the moment without panicking, and how to bounce back fast. Lee?

Lee Kantor: All right. So, before we get too far into things, Paige and Alaine, do you mind sharing a little bit about your background? Why don’t we start with Paige, talk about Point Solutions Security a little bit and your work.

Paige Goss: Yeah, absolutely. And, Lee, Renita, thank you so much for having us on today. Excited for the conversation. I think I agree it’s an important one. So, Point Solutions Security, we are a cybersecurity professional services firm headquartered out of Denver, Colorado. I started the firm really to support the SMB, mid-market on offensive cyber efforts, so those are things like ethical hacking, red team, pen testing. We’ve got a governance risk and compliance division that supports companies that are looking to get audit ready. A lot of times now, companies are forcing down security requirements to smaller businesses, something I’m sure we’ll talk about today.

Paige Goss: And then, recently, we launched Cyber as a Service, which is a VC, so an opportunity for companies that want to basically outsource all of your sort of security strategy. And it’s been a lot of fun, so thanks again for having me.

Lee Kantor: And, Alaine?

Alaine Fulton: Yes. I’m Alaine Fulton, Founder and CEO of Safe Haven Solutions. We just hit a 20 year mark, which is amazing. We are an IT consultancy and managed service provider. We focus predominantly on cloud services, network architecture, and cyber security, more virtual CISO. So, our focus is really kind of securing from a network side your architecture, making recommendations of how to secure your applications in the cloud, and then also working with companies to really help define policies and procedures around what happens during an attack, what you do, what you do post, and how to really get ahead of that. So, happy to be here and looking forward to the discussion.

Lee Kantor: All right. So, let’s, I guess, start at at the top. In the case of the WBEs out there, anybody that has a business, how vulnerable are most organizations when it comes to having their entire system going down? I would imagine most businesses can’t survive very long if that happened. But is that kind of where you begin when you’re kind of assessing the dangers if you’re a business owner in today’s world? Do you want to start that, Paige?

Paige Goss: Yeah, I’m happy to. From our perspective, actually, we sort of look at things a little bit different, not a total outage. That’s rather rare today, unless there’s something extreme that happens. You know, internet outages happen. Lots of companies now have backup systems or redundant circuits that they’ve deployed that help with that type of company wide outage.

Paige Goss: But I would say from our perspective, we really look first at critical data within your environment. And so, what makes you unique as a company? What is critical to your organization sustaining long term success? And really, you know, your clients, a lot of them are pushing these requirements down because the data that you hold in your environment is connected to them. And so, for us, it’s really a matter of what could, one, be a reputational damage; two, could prevent you from making money; and three, I think long term prevent you from doing what you want to do for your client base.

Paige Goss: So, not a total outage on our side, Lee, is not how we start. We most of the time want companies to understand that everybody’s vulnerable. We say often it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when, and how can you recover and how can you protect your most sensitive data.

Alaine Fulton: And I would jump in. I mean, I think from the WBE community, a lot of people think I’m too small, it’s never going to happen to me. And I think that’s kind of the number one myth. Bad actors, they don’t discriminate. If anything, I think women owners are, you know, having multiple roles, managing tighter budgets and resources, and so, it’s really, really important to kind of make sure that you understand what your critical applications are. What does downtime mean to you? How much damage could that do? How long can you be down? Just really kind of understand from a business perspective, you know, what are those critical applications. So, I think any company of any size should absolutely have awareness around it.

Lee Kantor: Now, can you talk a little bit about maybe the myth of these bad actors? One time, maybe the bad actor was in your head, you would picture some teenager in their basement, you know, drinking Red Bull and eating Cheetos. But now it’s way more organized, right? Aren’t there state actors now? This is like a big business where professionals are going into conference rooms with whiteboards and really strategizing to finding vulnerabilities.

Alaine Fulton: Yeah. I mean, from our perspective, I think the scariest thing out there is the AI component. I mean, if you think about your social media algorithms, like TikTok, if you say one thing, all of a sudden it pops up on your feed. They’re using those types of tools to kind of understand and target specifically certain demographics, and who’s going to click on what. And so, these emails are starting to look more real. They’re starting to be more personalized. And all of that can be bots and AI generated. So, the quantity and the smartness around these attacks is way more and it’s just going to continue to grow versus the guy in the basement going after one or two companies. I mean, it is mass, mass targeting, so it’s scary out there.

Paige Goss: Yeah, Lee, I agree. But there are still companies that have, you know, floors and floors of humans external to the United States that are pounding away.

Paige Goss: And I was going to reiterate that AI is changing everything, both from a defensive standpoint and an offensive standpoint. And I think too often companies – I think we mentioned it earlier – think that they’re too small. When reality, your companies might be significantly – your customers – excuse me – might be significantly larger than you. And so, these actors, these bad actors lead to your question, they’re using small businesses to get to bigger companies. So, you’re a risk not only for yourself, but also for your larger customers.

Paige Goss: And we have a bit of work in the Department of Defense, and I think that’s what we’re seeing there, as well as in all other areas, is that these smaller companies that think that their software, their app, their network, their machine shop, whatever it might be, was protected because they were kind of walled off from what the actual customer did. That’s just not true anymore. They’re using small business to get to big business. And I agree, AI makes that a whole lot easier to do and a whole lot harder to protect.

Renita Manley: Paige, do you have maybe like a quick story that you can share about a small business being attacked and how you all were able to help them?

Paige Goss: Yeah, we’ve had several situations. One, I’ll give you just an interesting example. We were working actively or trying to work actively with this company to kind of get them ready for a potential M&A transaction, and so we were trying to convince them to let us do an assessment on where are they, where are they weak, what external network vulnerabilities do they have, et cetera. And they kept pushing it off, saying nobody wants to work with us, we’re a small manufacturing shop and we manufacture – in this case, I’m not going to tell you what they actually manufacture, but let’s say they manufacture pins.

Paige Goss: And it was really interesting, they pushed me off for a-year-and-a half. And then, what ultimately happened is they called me in a sheer panic that they had a $5 million ransom on their head, and it was about to impact everything from their business. They ultimately did business both commercially and with the Department of Defense. It was going to impact their transaction potential. They had all of their sort of critical data and all of their documentation was in a black box.

Paige Goss: And so, I think the interesting part to that is, again, you’re not ever too small, what you do is not insignificant. And that manufacturing pins, in this case, you wouldn’t think that that would be a huge target. But they were going up scale, they were going Defense and they were certainly going to the M&A target.

Paige Goss: So, what we ended up doing, one, we’re not a forensics company, so we sort of wrote on the side with the forensics company trying to help them really, one, recover the data, and then, two, put way better business practices. And I know Alaine mentioned earlier policies, procedures, really just kind of back to the basics on how do you baseline protect making updates to your firewall, running patches. I mean, these are basic things that a lot of companies, I think, they get busy being busy and they sort of go over the top of it. And it’s a critical piece because that’s most of the time how things ultimately get escalated.

Paige Goss: So, yeah, we rebuilt their entire environment for them, putting in controls, putting in a bunch of the cyber practices that we deploy for clients. And about six months ago, they finally completed the transaction. So, it ended up being a success, but it was a lot of work and a whole lot of money. I think they ended up spending 6X on the repair and rebuild versus what they would have spent with us from the very beginning. So, it was a very expensive lesson for you’re not too small and you’re not too insignificant from what you do to, I guess, be vulnerable and be taken advantage of.

Lee Kantor: Now, you mentioned a couple of them, but are there any kind of low hanging fruit, proactive steps that every business can take to kind of prevent some of these things from happening?

Alaine Fulton: Yeah. I mean, from our standpoint, as she said – Paige said, for us, we think of it in three layers. The first layer is people. So, you want to train your people to recognize any type of phishing emails, you know, what to click, what not to click. We have tools where we can push those out to an organization and almost kind of test them, and that way, they can see exactly what they’re looking for.

Paige Goss: The second layer is going to be processes. You know, if you put together just a very simple checklist, is it my CRM? Is it our POS? Is it our email? What are those systems in place that are really going to be affected that we need to prioritize?

Alaine Fulton: And then third is technology. So, you can install an antivirus, but the antivirus is only going to really protect off those big viruses that are well-known. They’re not kind of like that shield, if you will. So, putting strong password policies in for all of your employees, putting in MFA, multi-factor authentication. That’s a free thing. That’s very easy. It can catch a lot of viruses and threat actors. So, yeah, there’s a couple basic tools that we recommend that are just basic security hygiene, I think, is a good step.

Paige Goss: Yeah. Alaine, I agree. I would also say that from a training perspective, train specific to the job because now a lot of these threat actors are getting – Alaine mentioned earlier – AI. I mean, salespeople are a great target. We want revenue. We want to click on everything. I’m a salesperson by background, so the second I see somebody reaching out for a quote, I’m excited. I would say help desk is a super vulnerable area now because most of the time it’s people that are earlier on in their career, they’ve not seen as many things. Same thing I would say with sort of frontline staff if you’re in a manufacturing or food service type.

Paige Goss: So, I think now it’s more important not to just train, but to train job specific on what’s coming up. ACH, that’s been sort of a topic that’s been flowing around for a while now. And I think a lot of this needs to be job specific versus just sort of an overall check the box we do cyber training. It’s really not helpful just as an overall. It becomes a lot more important job specific.

Renita Manley: So, if I’m a WBE listening to this today, what would you tell me – okay. I’m done listening to the podcast. What’s the very first thing that I need to go do right now to make sure, at the very minimum, my website is okay?

Alaine Fulton: So, for your website, I mean, you need to make sure that it has an SSL. So, if you go to any website, you’ll see it kind of looks like a lock box in the corner. That means that it is secure – I think it’s like a padlock. It means that it’s a secure site, so you’re making sure that your patching, your passwords are secure, you know, all of your plugins, your CMS platforms are all kind of up to date. But I would think the number one thing is just to make sure that it’s SSL secure.

Paige Goss: Yeah. I would say, too, if we’re not talking specific website, take away administrative access from as many people as you possibly can. Access control is a really interesting topic in the cyber world right now. I agree on making sure your website is secure and also your run patches. So, if it’s Microsoft upgrades or if you’re on a Mac, if it’s any upgrades or patches that can be run on any of your systems or inside of email, or anything like that, like keep that up to date. That’s the baseline for protection. And without that, it becomes really easy for people to get in.

Lee Kantor: Now, what should I do? Like you mentioned earlier, that client of yours had that ransomware attack, what do I do? What’s my first move if that comes across my screen?

Paige Goss: Do you want me to answer that, Alaine? So, one, I would always argue don’t pay it first. There’s a lot of other options outside of paying. I think depending on the company, depending on the situation, you’re going to kind of have a three-pronged response. One, if you’re sort of a more formal, sort of better cyber hygiene company, you’re likely to have an incident response plan. If you have an incident response plan, you want to launch that immediately. And most people within the org should.

Paige Goss: That’s one of the funny lessons learned, is like make sure anybody listed in your IR plan, knows they’re listed in your IR plan. Too often we go run exercises, and people are like I had no idea I was responsible for this. So, have an IR plan, so first would be to execute that.

Paige Goss: Second, I would shut down any external access. So, make sure that anything from the external facing internet is shut off until you can kind of get a handle on where things have gone awry. And then, I would say the next would be to start a conversation with your insurance broker if you have a cyber insurance policy.

Paige Goss: Now, you could throw companies like Alaine’s and I in there. Yeah, you’re probably going to need us relatively quickly. But I think those three steps of sort of launching your IR plan effectively, shutting any external access off immediately, and then reaching out to your cyber broker.

Alaine Fulton: Yeah, I agree. Got to contain it right away. And also just make sure you’re preserving any type of evidence. You know, you don’t want to lose any type of data, especially if you have a cyber insurance policy, what have you. You want to make sure that you’re not deleting any backlogs or anything like that. But, yeah, contain it. Turn everything off. Get rid of the Wi-Fi. Close down access to any remote. Just shut the house down, basically.

Renita Manley: You mentioned IR plan, for anybody who heard that, what exactly is an IR plan?

Paige Goss: Incident response.

Alaine Fulton: Yeah. Incident response, right. So, it’s kind of what happens during a breach. Who do I call? Who do I communicate with? What are the steps that we need to to take? Who do we need to contact in what fashion? So, it can be a very simple checklist depending on the size of your organization, or it can get very, very in depth in regards to, okay, these are the systems, who’s responsible? Who’s responsible for communicating to our customers that something happened? So, it can get very detailed depending on the complexity of your environment or it could be just as simple as a checklist. So, yeah, incident response.

Paige Goss: The first one – sorry.

Renita Manley: You want to make sure you have a hard copy of that.

Alaine Fulton: Yeah.

Paige Goss: Yeah, absolutely. And I was going to say, too, the shut your house down is critical. So, shut your house down and kick your kids out, so that you can really look and see was it inside or was it outside. You got to sort of shut it all down and have as few people involved as possible from my experience.

Lee Kantor: Now, on these types of incidents or attacks, are they happening kind of in that AI automated way that people are just, you know, kind of poking around and they find a vulnerability and then they get access? Or is it kind of a human error thing that somebody on the team clicked on something inadvertently in order to let this thing in? Because to me, the training on that second one, you really have to be relentless with the humans in your organization, not just shore up the computers in your organization.

Alaine Fulton: Yeah. I mean, I think people is probably 99 percent of how these actually happen. If you’re clicking on a malicious email, that opens the door to get into your organization. But, for example, the MGM in Vegas, that was caused because somebody didn’t patch one of their infrastructures correctly, and so that was a hole that somebody was able to get into.

Alaine Fulton: So, to Paige’s point, you know, making sure that you’re constantly updating your software, your hardware, your patching, all of that, everything is encrypted. So, again, that was kind of human error based.

Alaine Fulton: And there’s a lot of tools out there, and sometimes companies don’t really know how to use the tools or they’re duplicate. So, I mean, there’s a lot of noise in this space. So, again, trying to really simplify and keep it as basic as possible, I think, is key in educating your people.

Lee Kantor: Now, how often should you kind of be testing your team to ensure that they’re not going to inadvertently click on something? Is that something that you recommend happening once a year, every three months? Like, is there a rhythm that you recommend? Because, to me, that’s the weakest link here. You guys want to fight for this?

Paige Goss: Yeah. No. So, every company is different. I think once a year is way too infrequent. Things are just changing in technology so quickly. So, we recommend, we do it monthly with our clients in some form or fashion, so if it’s the accounting department, or if it’s an all hands, or if it’s sales, et cetera. So, we try at least one touchpoint at least a month or recommend that, some being automated, some being more kind of in your face. So, once a month on our side.

Paige Goss: And then, sort of testing it is an interesting one, Lee. And I would say you want to test your humans, but you also want to test your systems. And so, Alaine and I both, I think, would agree that having at least an annual penetration assessment, at least an annual sort of web and mobile, or whatever your business is creating, I think having at least annually, if not twice a year. It’s critical because then you get to really see sort of your current state and you can make updates, you can see where you haven’t patched, you get access to sort of where your infrastructure might be weakest, and then you can call Alaine to have them help you get it all squared away.

Paige Goss: But I think doing the offensive work or having a third party do the offensive work to really give you a baseline is a critical piece to this testing, both humans and systems.

Renita Manley: So, I hear what you said about penetration session and I kind of gathered what that means, but can you explain what that might mean for a small business owner?

Paige Goss: Yeah. So, there’s several ways to do it. A lot of companies sell penetration testing, which really is more what we call vulnerability scanning. So, they’ll take your external facing assets or your external IPs, and they’ll run them through a system to see if there’s any known vulnerabilities out there, so missing patches, attacks on a specific piece of hardware, et cetera.

Paige Goss: What we do is we take that information. We also go to the dark web. We also gather what we call OSINT, which is intelligence data around just the entirety of your system and your infrastructure, your web, et cetera. And then, we actually do hands on keys and we try to attack. So, we’re attacking from the outside, from the web, trying to see how far we can get.

Paige Goss: And the benefit, in our opinion, to doing it manually is it’s a unique environment or a unique set of credentials for all companies. And so, we’re piecing things together and we’re really taking it from a state actor perspective. So, you just get a lot more information and you get a little bit more on how to protect yourself if you do that type of penetration testing. Now, you should absolutely do the vulnerability scanning. That’s a quick and easy win. But doing a deeper dive, I think, once a year at least is really important.

Lee Kantor: Now, do you do drills or do you recommend doing drills as if you were attacked so that people can kind of take the steps that they would take if they were attacked? Like, you do a fire drill. You know, a lot of buildings do fire drills every year. Should you be doing one of these kind of incident response drills?

Alaine Fulton: Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, that’s critical, having everybody understand, kind of go through the process. And that way it takes out kind of the panic when things happen. They know the plan. They know how to execute it. And we have customers call us and we kind of know the playbook, so we understand that.

Renita Manley: And we’ve also done physical downtime. So, what happens if this server is unplugged? Where are the backups? And actually get those backups up and running. So, really physically testing your environment as well is critical because things – like Paige said – are constantly changing. So, absolutely, you want to run through that plan at least once a year.

Alaine Fulton: And I would even say on the physical side, testing your connections, testing your network and all of that even probably twice a year. But, yeah, that way everybody knows what they should be doing, it’s well practiced, and I think that’s super important.

Lee Kantor: And you want to be doing it when there’s no stakes now. Like everybody’s calm, this isn’t a crisis, so that when the crisis comes in, you already have some repetitions. You have some, you know, experience of having done it. You don’t want the first time to do it when it matters.

Alaine Fulton: Yes, absolutely. And I think having cloud backup or having backups kind of gives people peace of mind as well. You can take the state that you’re in today and you can have backups on a per minute basis, on a 24-hour, on a weekly basis, just really kind of depends on what that downtime looks to you. But then, you can just go ahead and circle back to that old data, so you’ve preserved that. So, having those type of backups.

Alaine Fulton: We don’t recommend on site. There’s best practices around that. But that’s also kind of being proactive. If something happens, you don’t have to pay the ransom. You have all of your data. It’s all solid. And that’s another definitely highly recommended.

Paige Goss: I’m so glad you mentioned this, because this is something we see over and over and over where companies don’t have backups on email, on files, on basic things that help operate your business successfully. And so, as a WBE, as a small business, it’s the first thing I would say to do outside of checking your updates and kind of everything we talked about, is, figure out a backup solution, because then it’s business continuity, it’s disaster recovery, it’s incident response, lack of follow up that you have to do.

Paige Goss: I mean, there’s just so many advantages if you have a good backup solution. And I completely agree, it’s a relatively inexpensive technology to deploy most of the time, which can be just a massive risk aversion technology. But also just sort of this relief of like, okay, it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when, and I’m good.

Renita Manley: You mentioned recovery, so I was wondering, what’s the first step to even figuring that out? Like, as a small business owner, I just heard you talk about disaster recovery, so now I’m like, “Oh, my gosh. I don’t even have a disaster recovery plan.” What should be my first step to make that happen? Let me see. Alaine, you go.

Alaine Fulton: I think, first of all, looking at your network infrastructure. What are your connections? Where are your remote workers? On the physical side, do they have firewalls on their remote laptops? Do they have antivirus? So, really kind of looking at the network as a whole, but then also looking at, again, those critical applications.

Alaine Fulton: Are a lot of your businesses based on a POS? Do you store credit card information? Do you store any type of personal identifiable information? There’s going to be compliance rules around that. If you don’t store that, do you store that with Microsoft or Google? Because even though they’re Microsoft or Google, they’re protected on theirs. That doesn’t mean that you are protected per se. So, what is that information that needs to be protected?

Alaine Fulton: I know companies use Dropbox and all that. Those are great, but you’re still kind of reliant on – I mean, they’re good for SMB. But I would, again, just kind of look at your critical applications, what data. What do you need to function? You know, if you cut your leg off, what would you need? You need a crutch, right? So, really kind of understanding what drives your business and starting to kind of hone down on that. And that will help with your disaster recovery plan is kind of going down the line as priorities in regards to how you can kind of continue your business.

Lee Kantor: So, how do you manage kind of from a human standpoint, the person who clicked on the thing, they’re the ones who set this whole thing in motion. Is there some best practices you’ve learned on how to manage kind of how they’re feeling and their responsible, and how everybody as an organization, the culture of it, how it handles that type of kind of inadvertent mistake that’s really messed things up?

Paige Goss: Yeah. I mean, I think we’ve all clicked on something, right? I own and run a cybersecurity firm and I’ve clicked on things. So, I think it’s just human nature. We’re all moving fast. We get hundreds of emails. So, I think having a culture of we all support each other and this is a enterprise or company wide initiative, not just an IT issue or initiative, not just a risk management issue.

Paige Goss: I would probably argue now it’s becoming a huge sales initiative of where, you know, sales and cybersecurity are becoming revenue adjacent. Where without some of these cyber policies and practices and some of the standards that companies need to now adhere to, you’re not even getting to go to that from a sales perspective.

Paige Goss: And so, I think, Lee, having a culture of this is just who we are, we’re a cyber aware firm and things are going to happen, but our job is to not let it impact us from your reputation standpoint, not let it impact us from a financial standpoint. And I think the more you get people bought into that, the better it is because somebody already clicked on something. It’s just is a matter of if it went anywhere or not, and some did and some didn’t. And so, I think just having an open conversation about the importance of this tied to the long term success of the company is important.

Alaine Fulton: Yeah. The mistakes are going to happen, right? I mean, we’re all human. So, I think when you have a mistake, it’s a learning exercise for everybody. I mean, the biggest thing is don’t hide it. Tell somebody. The quicker you know about it, the quicker we can respond. And that does come down to culture, so I agree, Paige.

Lee Kantor: Now, you mentioned that no company is too small to kind of be vulnerable. Is there a size of an organization or an amount of revenue that they have to be at in order to put in place some of these protections? Because you’re mentioning a lot of things. You mentioned secure backups. You mentioned cyber insurance. You mentioned partners like both of your firms. Like all this sounds very expensive, so what size do they implement some of these more expensive solutions? And then, is there solutions for people who aren’t at that size yet? Paige, do you want to take a swing at this?

Paige Goss: Sure. Yeah. So, I mean, again, every business is different because you can be a ten person company but have extremely critical data. You can have credit card data. You could have CUI, which is for the Department of Defense, et cetera. So, I think everybody’s business, Lee, is a little bit different.

Paige Goss: But I would say just as a baseline, it doesn’t have to be over architected. It doesn’t have to be overengineered. You can do a lot of what we’re talking about with better Microsoft licensing, which doesn’t break the bank. We’re not a Google shop, but there’s a lot of things that are built into Google now that you can deploy.

Paige Goss: And I would say, you know, just have a conversation with other companies in your industry and that are similar size and ask what they’re doing. There’s a lot of best practices out there for businesses of all levels. But start with, again, the basics. Alaine mentioned, there’s some MFA that’s free. There’s some Microsoft licensing that you can get upgrades to. And you can deploy some of these sort of baseline cyber tool sets for relatively inexpensive – excuse me – that are relatively inexpensive.

Paige Goss: And then, I think as you grow, it’s, again, what’s the value for you. So, if it’s important, then the dollars aren’t as hard. If this is something that will either put you out of business or will be a critical piece that you can’t continue to operate like you were. So, I think most of our clients, yes, are a little bit larger, but not large. Like we have lots of companies that are in the 10 percent plus range that we do basic cyber hygiene for. And so, it doesn’t have to be a big company, I think, to have an impact.

Renita Manley: Alaine, I want to ask you this question, what’s like the basic difference? I mean, as we’re all talking, I’m just thinking like what’s the basic difference between a cyber attack and internet outage? And as a small business, do I need to prepare for each of those threats differently or about the same? And I’m talking about a prolonged internet outage, maybe like two days or something.

Alaine Fulton: Right. So, for us, I think the key difference is intent versus impact. So, an internet outage is like a storm, right? You can kind of wait it out. It’s not that critical. You can use like a mobile hotspot or you can use a backup internet connection. There’s ways kind of around that.

Alaine Fulton: With cybersecurity attack, it’s kind of like a break in, somebody’s breaking into your house. So, you have to be a lot more diligent with that. You have to act fast. You have to contain the damage. You have to recover some of your work. So, an internet outage may put you out, but you can go to the Starbucks and connect to any type of Wi-Fi.

Alaine Fulton: So, obviously, large companies that are running infrastructure and data centers, let’s say, they need that 100 percent uptime. So, making sure that you guys have UPSs, that you have some sort of backup, even if it’s like a 4G mobile hotspot, like I said.

Alaine Fulton: So, you know, there’s a lot of easy ways to kind of have some internet backup, but I would say the attack is really going to kind of put businesses to their needs, and that’s where you want to prioritize that.

Lee Kantor: Now, before we wrap, is there a story you can share – we’ll start with each of you – maybe where you helped a client, where they were going through something, and then you were able to help them get back on track, and then maybe protected them for the future. I know that you mentioned that one thing that was the startup that was able to get acquired eventually. But is there another story,maybe, Alaine, you can share that you were able to help a firm get through a rough time?

Paige Goss: We are predominantly more on the forefront, so we do have kind of SMBs all the way up to enterprise. So, we try to get ahead of a lot of this, so our focus is really documenting all of the policies, the procedures, kind of anticipate what can happen. We do have resources, and Paige’s company as well, where we can help after the attack.

Alaine Fulton: But we are really integrated in to, you know, when something has happened, we help them, we walk them through it. We call the providers, we work with that. So, we help kind of quarterback that, I would say, a little bit more than actually doing the remediation. We also rely on penetration testing, and that way we can kind of foresee where those holes are, where those gaps are.

Alaine Fulton: So, I would say we’re more on the the defense – or the offense side, I should say, to protecting environments and it’s been really helpful for organizations. Again, that does come with a cost. But again, it really depends on, you know, the size of the organization and how you’re running your business and what kind of data that you guys keep.

Lee Kantor: So, what is the pain they’re having right before they call you? Did they just have something or they got a scare? Like what occurred that spurred them to contact you?

Alaine Fulton: It was a third party company. So, we also do that as well. So, any organizations that are working with a third party company, we actually do assessments on that. Because, you know, company A, our client, they’re responsible to the end customer. Well, if they’re using Google Cloud or they’re using Dropbox, or what have you, they’re liable for those third party companies. So, it was a third party company that was breached. We had the assessment completed where that third party company said we checked all the boxes, we were compliant. Turns out that they weren’t.

Alaine Fulton: So, I protected my client because we did our due diligence to make sure that they said that they were compliant, when actually they weren’t, and that protected them from a lawsuit or having to pay out any of their customers. That third party is responsible for that. So, we saved them a lot of money in that sense.

Paige Goss: Alaine, that’s such an interesting example. We tend to go the other direction where our clients are getting security questionnaires from their clients. So, we have a lot of examples where they reach out to us, what has just happened is that their sales team gets a five-tab Excel spreadsheet on all of their security for the organization. And they basically say, crap, I have no idea how to fill this out. I have no idea if we have all of this or not. Or their clients are saying, you have X amount of time to go get a third party certification, ISO 27001, SOC 2, CMMC, et cetera.

Alaine Fulton: So, a lot of our business is driven from our customers, their customers pushing down hard core cyber requirements, and we get brought in to help them sustain that revenue and to help them grow, again, like I mentioned earlier, sort of turning cybersecurity into a revenue adjacent initiative, and it’s been extremely powerful. So, we also are on the front side. We don’t do the incident response as much, but more from a client requirement versus a third party risk, which is great that between the two orgs, we sort of covered the entire supply chain from what it sounds like.

Alaine Fulton: Yes, absolutely.

Lee Kantor: So, you’re kind of insurance for them before they need it.

Paige Goss: Yeah, that’s the goal, and really insurance plus. We hope that what they get out of working with us is that they become a lot more competitive in the market, they have these cyber requirements. So, Alaine and her company, as a third party reviewer, our clients don’t have to worry about that. They’re like, yes, we’re good, and here’s our third party attestation, or here’s our third party certificate. So, it becomes a competitive advantage.

Paige Goss: And a lot of our clients, including ourselves, we went in, leaned in even as a small firm, and that’s been extremely helpful. We’ve landed a ton of business because we had these cyber controls already in play and we didn’t have to spend the next 18 months trying to get there.

Lee Kantor: Well, Paige, if somebody wants to learn more about Point Solutions Security, what’s the best way to connect?

Paige Goss: Yeah. So, you can find me on LinkedIn, so Paige, and then it’s P-A-I-G-E, and last name Goss, G-O-S-S. The company website is pointsolutions-security.com. We also have a LinkedIn page that you can visit. And I think my WBE profile is somewhere where you can find me from our recent certification ourselves.

Lee Kantor: And, Alaine?

Alaine Fulton: Yes. I’m also on LinkedIn. It’s Alaine with an A, Fulton, F-U-L-T-O-N. The company is safehavensolutions – with an S -.com. And we are also in the WBE directory, I’m sure, somewhere.

Lee Kantor: Well, thank you both for participating in this. You shared really important information. Renita, anything else?

Renita Manley: Nothing. Just want to remind everybody listening to make sure you come to our Unconventional Women’s Conference on July 23rd. And we also have our WBEC-West conference that’s coming up in October. It’s going to be in Phoenix, Arizona. So, if you’re interested in that, make sure you go to our website, wbec-west.com, go to our events tab and learn more about it.

Lee Kantor: Well, Alaine and Paige, thank you so much for sharing your stories today. You’re both doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Alaine Fulton: Thanks for having us.

Paige Goss: Thank you so much.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor for Renita Manley, we will see you all next time on Women in Motion.

BRX Pro Tip: Asking the Money Question

July 7, 2025 by angishields

BRX Pro Tips

BRX Pro Tip: Asking the Money Question

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BRX Pro Tip: Asking the Money Question

Stone Payton: Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, let’s chat a little bit about asking the money question.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. And I know this is something that is important to you and it is something that you are doing a great job with and that I’ve learned from over the years of working with you. But there is a secret, life hack tip, about how to ask that super difficult, uncomfortable question when it comes to sales. When you ask your prospect if they really do have the money to do the deal and it’s something that you do in a great way, in an elegant way, every single time, you just straight up ask them.

Lee Kantor: I mean, it doesn’t have to be a big deal. It doesn’t require a big lead-up and some, you know, dramatic music playing. Just do it matter of factly. Simply ask them the money question. It’s not that difficult. Your service costs, what it costs. You shouldn’t be hiding from that fact. It shouldn’t be something that you sneak in. It is what it is.

Lee Kantor: And if you feel weird about the price, that’s your own mental constraint. That’s you self-sabotaging yourself. I mean, if it requires you to sit in front of a mirror to practice quoting price until you can do it without stuttering or hedging, then do that. But your price is your price. This isn’t something that you should be quick to negotiate down on. This should be something that you should be proud of and feel confident that you’re providing such value that they’re getting a deal no matter what the price is.

Lee Kantor: So, don’t make the money question into a big hairy deal. It is what it is. Just like your price is what it is. You shouldn’t have to be ducking this or hedging on this. It should just be spoken as a matter of factly as any other piece of information you have about your service or their business.

Stone Payton: Well – and the other piece of this is communicating the answer to the money question either before or after and it can work both ways. But if you just communicate very clearly, very confidently, what the fee structure is, what the price is, and then you ask them if, you know, in their opinion, do they feel that that investment is something that they have, or how do you feel about that, or do you feel like you can afford it? Do you feel like you’ll get your return on that financial investment? If your every bit is candid with what the price is, then it makes perfect sense for you to be very candid and straightforward in asking the question.

Stone Payton: The two go together and you should have a good, clear answer. You shouldn’t be making up the answer every time you’re talking. You should know what the answer is and you ought to be able to communicate it. There’s some science that says talk about a range. There are others that say, you know, tell them $2,348.17. And most cases I do the latter. And then, I’m pretty quick to follow that up, “You know, how do you feel about that? In your opinion, do you feel like that’s a good investment for what we’re describing?” Get that answer. Don’t leave that out there hanging because that energy does not serve in the conversation or the process at all.

BRX Pro Tip: B2B Podcast Guest – How to Get Invited Back

July 4, 2025 by angishields

BRX Pro Tips

BRX Pro Tip: B2B Podcast Guest - How to Get Invited Back

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BRX Pro Tip: B2B Podcast Guest – How to Get Invited Back

Stone Payton : Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips, Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, let’s talk about being on the other side of the mic, because being a guest on B2B podcast can be an incredibly fruitful strategy. There’s getting invited, but maybe more importantly, getting invited back.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, I’ll tell you a couple of reasons why I invite someone back. And then I think that that might help the listener who’s thinking about becoming a B2B podcast guest, if they intend or would like to be invited back in the future to any of the given show that they’re trying to get on. And if you’re putting a large effort into getting on shows, you should be putting on an even larger effort on delivering value back to the show and the host in order to get invited back. So here’s a couple of things they can try.

Lee Kantor: Number one, deliver some of the post-show assets and promotion that you create from being on the show, and share them on your social media channels. Tag the guest and the show. But you have to go beyond just sharing the episode. Take the content and create new content from it.

Lee Kantor: Create audiograms, create a quote graphic. Do a LinkedIn post about your experience and promote the episode multiple times. Don’t just promote you were on the show and then you’re like, “Hey, I was on the show and here’s the link.” That’s table stakes. That’s the beginning.

Lee Kantor: You should be using that content throughout the year. And every time you use the content or a chunk of the content, tag the host, tag the show. Make sure that the host and the show know that you’re sharing the content so they can reshare your content. It’s only in your best interest, and plus it reminds them of, wow, this guest is really getting a lot of leverage out of their show, and it’s helping my show reach a new audience, and then it’s helping them show how unique and special they are.

Lee Kantor: So if you look at your guest experience as, hey, I’m partnering now with this show, I’m going to do these things to help them, help more people become aware of their show, and also my interview. So, more is better in this regard.

Lee Kantor: Then another thing you could be doing to help the show is be a connector and an advocate for the show. After your appearance, introduce the host to other guests that might be good fits for the show, other sponsors who might be good for the show, other collaborators who might be good for the show.

Lee Kantor: Don’t use these interactions as one-way streets. You can be serving the host of that show they got you on. They let you talk about what you do, do things to reciprocate back to them. You know the hosts are going to remember and reward the guests who help them grow their show or their business, and not just perform well on the air. That’s table stakes.

Lee Kantor: You have to do more than just showing up and being smart on the air if you want to be invited back.