The Art & Science of Change Management: Insights from Nikoleta Vlamis, Founder of Nikoleta & Associates

This episode explores the intricacies of change management and entrepreneurship through the lens of Nikoleta Vlamis, a seasoned change management consultant.

1. Entrepreneurship Requires Self-Awareness: Nikoleta emphasizes the importance of self-awareness and mentorship in making the leap from corporate roles to entrepreneurship.
2. Human Dynamics in Business: Understanding and integrating human dynamics is crucial for effective change management and leadership.
3. The Role of Learning and Adaptability: Continuous learning and adaptability are essential for personal and professional growth, especially in dynamic business environments.
4. Balancing Stability and Growth: Nikoleta discusses the challenges of balancing stability and growth in business, advocating for a pragmatic approach to change management.
5. Creating a Supportive Environment: The significance of creating a supportive and understanding work environment that fosters individual and collective growth.

1: Introduction

Host Thomas Igeme introduces Nikoleta Vlamis and sets the stage for a discussion on change management and entrepreneurship. Thomas Igeme: "Welcome to Venture Visionaries, where we extract actionable insights from trailblazing entrepreneurs."

2: The Genesis of Nikoleta & Associates

Nikoleta shares the origin story of her consultancy, emphasizing the lack of a formal plan and the organic development of her business. Nikoleta Vlamis: "It was more about what I was doing, but just doing it on my own."

3: Mentorship and Decision-Making

Discussion on how mentorship influenced her business decisions and her approach to handling freedom and responsibility in entrepreneurship. Nikoleta Vlamis: "Entrepreneurship is not for everybody, but it was the right path for me."

4: Managing Change in Business

Nikoleta explores strategies for managing change within organizations, stressing the importance of embracing human elements and reframing challenges as opportunities. Nikoleta Vlamis: "Embrace the messy because that's where growth happens."

5: Reflections and Future Directions

Insights into how past experiences and continuous learning have shaped Nikoleta’s leadership style and her company's evolution. Nikoleta Vlamis: "Learning from every experience is key to adaptation and growth."

1. Embrace Continuous Learning: Stay open to new experiences and knowledge, especially from unexpected sources.
2. Cultivate Self-Awareness: Regularly reflect on your personal strengths and weaknesses and how they impact your professional life.
3. Integrate Personal and Professional Growth: Look for ways to align personal values and goals with professional objectives.
4. Foster a Supportive Environment: Create a workplace culture that encourages feedback and growth among all team members.
5. Manage Change Pragmatically: Balance the need for stability with the necessity for innovation and adapt your strategies accordingly.

We welcome Nikoleta Vlamis, the trailblazing founder of Nikoleta & Associates, a boutique change management consultancy renowned for its innovative approach to professional services. In this episode, explore the captivating journey of Nikoleta Vlamis, from her foundational experiences in consulting houses to launching and growing her own firm. Discover how her early roles, educational insights at Columbia, and pivotal mentorship moments shaped her approach to entrepreneurship and leadership. Listeners will gain invaluable lessons on mastering the art of change management, the significance of self-awareness in leadership, and the strategies for balancing personal growth with professional demands. Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, a business leader, or simply keen on personal development, this episode offers profound insights and practical advice to help you navigate your own path with confidence and clarity.

People

Nikoleta Vlamis, Thomas Igeme

Companies

Nikoleta & Associates

Books

None

Guest Name(s):

None

Content Warnings:

None

Nicoletta Vlamis
Nikolai associates is an expression of my whole life. Just because you learn from someone, don't put them on a pedestal. Entrepreneurship is not for everybody.

Thomas Igemi
Welcome to venture visionaries, where we dive deep into the journeys of trailblazing entrepreneurs and extract the actionable insights that help fuel our own entrepreneurial spirits. I'm your host, Thomas Igemi, and today I'm thrilled to introduce a guest who embodies the spirit of thoughtful leadership and innovative management. Nicoletta Vlamis. Nicoletta is the founder of Nicoletta and Associates, a boutique change management consultancy where she's made waves in the professional service industry by marrying a keen business acumen with a profound understanding of human dynamics. But what really sets Nicoletta apart isn't just her expertise.

It's her unique ability to bring clarity and calm in times of uncertainty. Now the story of Nicoletta and associates began long before its first state of incorporation. Here she was, newly out of business school, sitting across from a senior mentor at a bustling New York cafe. Outside, the city was buzzing, and inside, what would become a pivotal conversation was unfolding somewhat randomly. Her mentor leaned forward, the steam from their coffee mingling with his words.

You have a rare gift, Nicoletta, the ability to see through chaos and not just envision change, but enact it. This wasn't just a compliment. It was his nurture towards destiny. You need to be out and doing this on your own now. Nicoletta didn't make that move immediately.

But fast forward a few years, and Nicoletta was at a crossroads faced by many. Continue climbing the corporate ladder or leap into the unknown of entrepreneurship. What pushed her off that precipice was not reckless abandon, but a reminder of that conversation from years before. And her deep conviction that her vision of creating a firm where leadership meant more than just grinding wouldn't just be transformational for her clients, it would be transformational for her. Today, Nicoletta doesn't just lead her team.

She shapes the very fabric of how change is managed and mastered. From Toronto to San Francisco and everywhere in between, she takes the building blocks of all the things that she's learned from her time at Columbia to working with mentors and her time in corporate into building a unique approach to organizational change. So whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, a seasoned leader, or someone just passionate about the dynamics of business and personal growth, Nicoletta's insights are bound to enrich your understanding and inspire your own path. Join us as we unpack how Nicoletta navigated the complexities of entrepreneurship, the influence of mentors, and her approach to integrating work with professional life, all while growing a rapidly evolving business in a constantly changing landscape. Prepare to be enlightened, inspired, and maybe even find your own inspiration to transform.

Let's get started.

I'd love it if you could share. A little bit of the genesis of the origin story of Nicoletta and Associates. Kind of what drove you not just to go into management consulting, but to choose to run your own venture. There definitely wasn't a plan. I think that was a conversation that I had recently, somewhere I realized later I was always in internal.

Nicoletta Vlamis
I was trained by all the consulting houses. That took me a while to understand that actually, so could be internal organization development manager. Training manager, what? Internal consultant. But I was trained by a lot of the consulting houses.

And so when I say organic, it's because when I did leave there that time, I think. I think I was getting my coaching certification at Columbia at that time. One of my mentors was like, well, why don't you just give it a roll, try something on your own? And that was kind of it. Of course, there are convergence of effects that happen at that same time, but the nature of why consultancy was kind of because that's what I'd been doing internally, supported by lots of big consulting houses that were training me at that time.

So whether that be PwC, Accenture, CGI, IBM, I'd spent at least I would say five years, maybe longer, six, seven years from project to project, where they were the third party. So organically they say, well, then how would you build it? Why not try? That's how it started. The piece on the coaching certification was that at that time, I think I had just left a full time role and I was starting, I was in school, and then I started to do contract work, sales training firm, and that plus school, because in school I met all these entrepreneur types at Columbia.

There were all these types of individuals that were doing their own thing or working at companies, but many of them that were doing their own thing. And so that was a recent exposure and then a mentor saying, why don't you give it a run? Then that convergence that happened is in those contracting assignments. I was. I then found a University of Toronto.

It was like a first contract, so be like a good academic entry. Then there was like a side way of getting into Microsoft because they needed something that the firm I was working with didn't provide. So those became the convergence. The actual thinking to me was more organic. It was more that what you were doing, but just doing it on your own.

Thomas Igemi
What is it you think that your mentor saw either in you or in the market. That led them to kind of suggest this. On one hand, a lot more freedom, but like, on the other hand, like, a lot more precarious and a lot more responsibility to doing what you're doing. As a fellow kind of entrepreneur myself, I can attest to that. What are the things you think your mentor saw in you?

Nicoletta Vlamis
I can't speak for that. What I can say is it probably was more based on me than what was in the market. Belief in person, more so than analysis of market, and therefore try a niche, you know, because. Or try a plan. I'm still back on your other question, which is entrepreneurship is not for everybody.

I feel like there's a lot of heat for me on there just because there's a difference between being an organization person and being an entrepreneur. In the case of my mentor, that it was just like, you can do it. That was like the, you have the experience, you have this, give it a run. So I know that there was some feedback in my career that if I had a company, you would be one of the three people I would take. I don't know what they saw.

They saw me in the context of an organization. They didn't see me in the context of an incubator. Maybe you could make deductions on other things, but I don't know. But the piece about the organization and the entrepreneur thing, it's been a recent reflection for me, because wherever the company is today, I sometimes think my organization skills actually help me more at this generation of the firm. It's a little bit more mature.

Prior years, like you said, what the stomach to whatever that means to be an entrepreneur, that kind of, you know, stomach wind of, like, full on, full on, full on and full on for five to eight years, and it's not in the three years, get your benefit, you know what I'm saying? Like that. And also, I think the other part, which is just do everything, that kind of all in spirit versus, you know, kind of thing, which is inherently entrepreneurship aside from many other things. And I don't know that I was even aware, Thomas, to know that there was a difference. I wanted to give it a role.

I believe in that. I think, okay, let's try it out then. I had a couple of things that could keep you busy. Recently, my legal counsel, we were at a breakfast. He's been supporting nicolette associates now probably six years.

And we were around a breakfast table, and he was like, what happened here? And that, again, perspective, like, you don't have a fish and water and I said, what do you mean? He said, I don't know if it's COVID or, like, it was you, and then it was you, maybe in one. And then all of a sudden, like, who is everyone here? And it feels established.

Like, it feels like it's got some, you know, it's not like, hey, all new people, you know, it's like, oh, hey, nice to meet you. Okay. You know what I'm saying? It wasn't that feel kind of thing. So that gave me perspective of just.

That's why I say that some of my organization skills, I am in acting now, which is, it's a little bit more established. And I'm asking myself the difference between the entrepreneur and I can feel the struggles of what an entrepreneur who didn't have an organization background would feel now. Like, I can see that. Like, you know, one gentleman told me this. He's like, oh, you know, I've heard every.

Because I was talking about getting out of something, and he said, nicoletta, I've worked with 25 founders, and they all said that, and they never got out of it. I said, because they never wanted to or else they would do it. And so that was why one, one person told me very early, not a mentor, but more of, like a sponsor type, he said, you'll need to make a decision and say it now. You will want to make a decision. Do you want to do the work of consulting, or do you want to grow a business?

You cannot have both. And I told them, I do want to grow a business, and I have continued to revisit that over the time. And it's not been really hard for me to make that, because it's not so black and white. Of course, in consulting, you do the work of the work. Now, the question is, how do you scale that?

Thomas Igemi
We go back to your childhood. If you think about some of your earlier childhood experiences or people who were involved and you think about the leader you are today, how do you think those early childhood experiences or people may have influenced the shape of your leadership now? I would definitely. I mean, if you look at a pragmatic level from a childhood level, I had influences of business and education, and so that. My goodness.

Nicoletta Vlamis
Like, if you think of consulting, I had organization influence. Like, people that were in organizations, I definitely didn't have entrepreneurial, not ones that impacted me. Of course, I can think of people who had businesses, but what we call entrepreneurs of today, who are either serial entrepreneurs or, like you said, the difference between choosing that path or organization, I don't think I had a lot of that. So this was relatively new for me to embark on that. The work of consulting, no, but the actual building of the business that we're talking about, whatever that encasement is around that.

So definitely that piece moved me in that direction. The innumerable influences in my life, my goodness, Thomas, I couldn't even list them. I know that at some level I have an orientation, learning and learning self and learning how you talk about it at the beginning. So therefore I do see things. Just like I said, you give people with your attitude of excitement.

I tend to orient. As a learner, I like to believe that. And so therefore, the innumerable things. I think one of the lessons I had to learn early, this is more earlier in my career, was just because you learn from someone, don't put them on a pedestal, because then that can become a different journey. But that's just a side road.

Thomas Igemi
When you think about your work at NKA and making sure you integrate the human dynamics, how do you guys think about not kind of getting lost in the unwieldiness and in all of that chaos and yet still kind of recognizing it and helping organizations navigate their way. Through the mindset that we have around humans and now, before we get into business, is that it's chaotic, it's negative, it's heavy, it's unwieldy. These human things, that very worldview is what's not, what needs to be reframed. That's literally the worldview. That's how we feel about the parts of ourselves that we can't manage or control.

Nicoletta Vlamis
So words like embracement, understanding, acceptance in that level of saying, I understand when that's all that's needed in that messy. The minute it's messy, it's what because messy for you? Because what? It's emotional or messy because it's unclear. And messy is usually not a positive word.

It's generally not a positive word in general. I'm sure we could find instances where it's fine. That very. That's kind of my second thought when we're sharing, is that the worldview, that's the part that needs to be framed, is our view about ourselves is that we're a problem to be solved. We're not a problem.

We're just a human that wants to be embraced, understood, and in business, collaborated with, shared with, I think getting comfortable, you know, comments like getting comfortable with the uncomfortable. They're awesome. I might even say them a lot. Do you know what it really feels like to be uncomfortable in a performance environment? That can fire you when your mortgage is based on it.

Those are dynamics that we don't accept, that these are always there. I was in a team meeting today, and I said, for right now, this is where we all kind of get our bills paid. It doesn't mean I put it down, but I never lose that context. But that doesn't mean I'm downplaying it. I wouldn't have met you if it wasn't for that context.

So it's like, it's not like, so we meet how we meet, then where we go with it, it doesn't. So I think those are the things in business we lose. So when we talk about a safe environment. But if the person doesn't know how to embrace themselves and be explore their own understanding of self, they can never make it safe for somebody else. When you encounter that kind of resistance, are there certain tools or kind of strategies that over the years, NKA has kind of perfected or pushed through that either help you help people kind of accelerate on that journey to self acceptance, or allow you to work with people who are not yet there, but get the organization where it needs to be?

So one of my recent reflections is that it's self awareness plus application. You know, we all know that there's things we're aware of that we shouldn't do, and we keep doing them. So then application is gentle, vigilant application, which is, you know, this is where your environment supports you. So I had a personal, as a colleague in business, and I had said to her, she's got some stuff from her doctor that was not good for her, just, you know, general health status, and she needed to stop doing, doing certain things. And I said to her, you know, I'm not having any business conversation with you for six months.

We're only going to have a conversation with her. But what I recently, when I talked to her, she's doing, made some big steps. But what has helped that is her environment is supporting her. Her home life is supporting her. So why am I giving that example?

If I think about, so it's self, you just take self awareness plus application. That means that somebody I just talked about that you can't impose your way on people. So I can say those two plus things there to you, but I have to be super sensitive and aware where it's not. Well, and then what does that mean? But you're there to do that.

It doesn't work like that. You know, the. Oh, that. You know what, Nicoletta? You'd be really good for them.

No, are they interested in that? Well, then I probably. I'd be their worst nightmare, actually. I'd be the last person they want to talk to. That awareness may be part of what works, Thomas, because.

Because doesn't mean I won't come back another day. It doesn't mean I won't have a conversation. But I do discern, I try to discern those that are sincerely interested in whatever next level means for them. They're really interested in that. And just pour into that.

Now, for the ones that are not, no right or wrong, there'll be some sort of job requirement. We're going to help them to consult on roles all the time. So just to just do a good day job, there's always something to do. And to me, no one is better. No one is a better one.

They're just different solutions. They're different reservoirs. Now, there's, that sounds like, okay, you step away from things, but if I'm around, what I also notice is that by sharing as you share, hey, you know what? I can relate to that. You know, this is that.

Or, you know, just that very. We're sitting on the same bench. We may be in different parts of companies or founder or that. It doesn't matter. You know, when you're talking about how we're going to move this change forward is something.

So with this, and that doesn't matter. Maybe the experience a little bit, but you just, like, sit and talk about that. Two people on the bench. What do you think? I don't know.

What do you think? This is what I'm thinking about. That's why I really try and get away from. Although I really love Clifton strengths, strengths and weaknesses to just mastery and learning. And this weaknesses stuff is just.

It doesn't work for me. It doesn't bode for humans. There are things that you write to. One of our clients and a big enterprise client, her vp. She's the interim leader.

She's super excited about this. We're helping her do that, and she needs to do X and X in order to do this job well. And I said, you know, that it's only to be an organization leader. You wouldn't have to do x and X if you were someone else. Just to be clear, there's no sort of development path like you're a less human being.

Get you on a development path. No. If you want to be an organization leader, these are the requirements to do that. That's what's required. And she's advising you on that.

It's good advice, but if you were to go do something else, another gaming thing or some five person. You don't need those skills. They're not needed. Some of these may be transferable, but you know what I mean. This idea that you have a weakness, it's your development plan.

It's against a role that you need to get a job done. We make big words around that, like leadership. It's just to get a job done. And then that job has different requirements. And yes, as the more senior you grow in big companies, yes, the remit is different at that level.

In an entrepreneurial company like we, like you started, those skills are very different. Yeah. And if you want to do that, you got to learn a little bit how to do that. So those are all the role based things that we spend a lot of time in. But I always say that there's a role and then there's a human doing that role.

Thomas Igemi
I want to shift gears again and think a little bit about the pace of change happening in the industry as a whole, be it technology, government, some of the places that you play in, and also the rate of change happening at NKA. There's a number of new product offerings that you guys have innovated in over the last couple of years, new markets you're going into. I'm mostly curious about how you think about managing the pace of change and complexity in a small business. Depends what you're trying to do. So we use okrs at a company level.

Nicoletta Vlamis
I have a sense of when you need to stabilize. There's a need to stabilize a company if you're growing at a high rate. There is a time you need to stabilize for humans, not for financials. I knew in the end of 2022 that we needed to expand and stabilize the company at the same time, but they would be spurts of each. I tend to think about.

Paradox helps me. Two things can exist at the same time. You can build your port and grow your company. How you pragmatically structure that, that, of course, is different. You have to think about that.

How do you decide that much more dynamically than people think? I mean, even some of our large enterprise clients don't have strategies beyond 18 months. I'm not talking about so literally big companies. What do you mean? Oh, because that's where they can gauge stuff.

Those are big companies. So if I think back to Nicolette and associates, when I say it depends if you're getting your now talking financial talk, is that if you're counting on your core revenue coming from, if you're counting on certain revenue to keep your life on from your core business. Nothing can steer away from how you step you. That has to maintain. So if I personalize that one of our client experience conversations, like, oh, you guys always over the years, like, but always like xxx about what you do, you know, it's kind of like, what's our experience?

And then it's like, oh, yeah, always on quality or always I had a laugh because it was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, always high, high quality work. As if that was just a, you know, you know, and you can imagine from a scaling side, it's like, that is not a guarantee in her experience that, which was awesome to hear that. If you just take that as a core business, your core business, if you plan to, at least for me, have our core business, the main revenue come from your core business while you're growing it, then the core business is taken care of in the way that, you know, is delivering the way you want it to deliver. And in consulting, that's people and processes and all of the stuff that goes around that, nothing else, including your time as a founder, if it has to go there to make sure that's there, then you give your growth business some sort of structure that somebody else can at least get it started for you. Because even though it's the sexy work you would love to do, what's required to grow the firm in a healthy way is that you pay attention to maybe what you might consider to be less exciting, assuming that you're capable to contribute both.

Now that being said, if you plan to sunset your poor, but I can't speak at that level because I can speak to what I have experience in, is that that is the first thing to attend to. And then in consulting, that's just what you're known for. And then as you go into a new area like you alluded that we are, as we go into that new area, I have to feel like that's like thumbs up, like that's going well. And so then for me, what that is meant is to put in really good coaching processes in the company. Really good coaching processes.

And that is not a one for one coaching, but processes, mindset, heart, set everything around. Look at your tapes, learn, pick it up, do it the next time. Whatever that coaching process is allows the company to start to take care of itself. I'm curious if you think about how you have grown and evolved as a leader at NKA and think back to kind of those first two to three years with the lens and the experience you have today. If you are coaching yourself, then what pieces of advice would you want to give?

Thomas Igemi
Or is there anything very specifically that, you know, you do differently and why? I know it sounds, maybe sounds even funny to say it, but my 1st, 1st thought that came to my mind was really learn, learn faster. I don't think I whether it was arrogance, unawareness, not knowing. I can think of a couple examples. But we just take our organization, an entrepreneurial frame.

Nicoletta Vlamis
You cannot go from an organization to an entrepreneur and think, you know, because you had an MBA. So I. The thing is, I have said that is that I got my MBA at Nicoletta Associates. That's true from every to the point that even about a year ago, not that long ago, last year, I realized that all of a sudden I was applying some finance class training. And literally I'm making reference to a model of years ago now.

And then I'm literally referencing an internship for my MBA after years and organization. So it's like, how did that come up now? Because it got enacted now. It got, the environment was asking me for it. So I feel that I was not a learner.

I was not. Yeah. Oh my goodness. I'm sure somebody met me at that time and said, what are you talking about? You did what?

I mean, about what I know, know. If I think of two or three examples, it was maybe it's, you know, like you said, thomas, it's the literally running for the dollar, running for the deal, you know what I'm saying? Trying to, whatever's going on on that, not knowing what you don't know and then not stopping enough to learn, you know where I'm going with that. Like, I don't know which part of it. So I'll just default to the arrogance because that's probably a high probability.

And when I mean arrogant, it's because you think you know and you don't. And again, that's speculation. It's just if I were to default to a zone that I think is highly probable, I would just sit on that one. But it could be a myriad of other things that were around that as well. And so I do think learning not.

So the twist on that is that you don't want to go out and get too many voices in your life. That's the other twist on that. So then you go out and ask everybody, I'm being extreme now, but tell me, you know, Thomas, about when you did it. But it's like that can be also extremely cause other things going on. And so I didn't necessarily do that.

I don't think I did that. That's the other option that can happen, which is, you know, I do have people asking me now about what do you think? And I tend to always direct them back, what can we talk about where you're at right now, not some general things about what you would do? Like, is there anything I can assist you with to explore right now? That is a question that you have for yourself in your context right now.

And if there's something I can offer there about that question versus tell me what you did when you built your, not us in this context. But I'm saying in general, I notice people ask that, and then I'm like, it really depends. When I come back to. And that's one of, like, in case things, context defines meaning it. So you ask about the business, do you want to go here?

That it depends. Do you just want to have a lifestyle? Business is, do you want to grow to sell? Are you okay to grow to sell, but you're not driven by it. But you might take some of the learnings that would come if you were getting ready to sell that might help you run a more effective business.

Those are the questions that people say, we have to know your end game. Sometimes you don't. You know, you mentioned that arrogance, and it's such a powerful word to own. And it's not the kind of arrogance of thinking, I know everything. But it is really difficult, this paradox of starting a company where in order to do it, you have to have this, like, audacious belief in yourself and your vision and the world.

Thomas Igemi
Because if you don't have that, there's no reason to start on this crazy adventure. And then at the same time, though, you don't know anything. I'm curious how your identity as a, how much of an identity being a woman leader in, quote unquote, is to you. And if at all, that plays into how you thinking about leading NKA. Well, this probably won't surprise you.

Nicoletta Vlamis
I do understand socially, of course, that I am a female. So there's some clarity. That's clear. I'm not surprising you. Just.

That's like that. Okay, good, Jack. Okay. But I won't surprise you that I identify first with being a human being. Socially.

I do not deny I'm a female. And I say socially because. So I would say that. So socially, I understand that. But I first and foremost look to identify as a human being.

That helps Thomas in a lot of ways. Now, that does not deny my femaleness nor my greek background, nor. Okay. And there, you know, any sort of you know this deeper than I. The point that you start rejecting this stuff is not a good situation, especially now.

It's when you identify so much with that that I find, which is a whole other conversation that a whole bunch of stuff comes with that. I haven't thought much about it. I am aware of it. I'm definitely aware of it. It's not been and maybe that's my self authority, I don't know.

It's. They do look to identify that way. But I am not ignorant nor unaware of the social dynamics of my being a female and my being a petite female. What does that bring in a dynamic which goes back to what you're showing. I'm not unaware of those things.

I haven't even considered ever limit that. That could be my selfish self authority. It's like I'm Nicolada. If it works for you, it doesn't work for you, it's fine. The question that we ever do business and if it works for you, then we can do business.

But I'm not unaware of those dynamics because I think that's where you can either kind of get on a high horse about them. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah. And then it can really like you're really trying to carve something out about I'm really this. It's like, no, I have something to offer.

It may not work for you, that's cool, but I'm always happy to share. And I think that is probably that going back to the mentor question, which is give it a role. And now you hear things about failure and this and that and it's like, you know, entrepreneurs and all that kind of stuff. It's like, I don't know, this gets into deeper worldviews which is give it your all, don't give it your part, give it your all. Everywhere you are, be aware, have the ground, know that where the ground is to know if something's going to work.

Thomas Igemi
One of the things that has been thematic in this is your resistance, rejection of kind of this balance concept. You mentioned it. Giving it your all. Don't do it in part. But I'm curious then how you think about the identities that exist outside of you being a business owner and leader of Endgame.

If you don't think about the language of balance, what has it looked for you to cultivate being a whole human on this arduous journey? Well, I think one frame that works is that we have one life. Nicola Associates is an expression of my whole life. That does not mean that Nicolette associates is my life. So that's a distinction.

Nicoletta Vlamis
I remember somebody telling me that, like, it'll be different when you have your own company. You know, it's like, you know, work so hard at a company, it's different if it's your own. I said, ah, be careful. It's like, you know, be careful. Like the more I can integrate my life without everything becoming about commercial deals.

Yeah, whatever that means. You know what I'm saying? Without. There is a way to integrate your. You live one life.

You live one life. So that does not mean that you're working till eleven every night for six months. Of course there are cycles. But it's one premise is that I know I have one life. It's an integrated life.

The more I can integrate the. What does that mean? Then? You'd have to get example by example. So you don't have this, these artificial lines.

But there's some sort of. Lately I've been thinking about this a lot. Like, there's only so much time, Thomas, and so saying that you have an environment where I can meet people like you, that we met in a business context, if I can contribute in some way that enhances their life, even if it's in business, just get busy doing it. Give it your all. So that is.

And then I find that more and more of the time I'm learning, the way I'm learning to live is to spend more time, more time in what you're bringing others. But you first have to heal yourself or else you're going to be a very resentful human being. But the more you focus on others, again, this is a big like, that's out. It could be taken out of context, even in business. Let's just take the business context.

My role in Nicolette associates is to enable the success of each human being, whatever that means to them. That will keep you super busy. That's going to keep you super busy by the time you client this and that. And so that. So that is what I mean by we have one life, the more you can integrate it.

Respect people's privacy where you don't get involved in that. You know, kind of like our companies, our family. I'm like, be careful with that. That doesn't, that model doesn't work for everybody. Be very, you can be warm and engaging and contributing and enjoying and having a few select relationships that are awesome.

Be very mindful. That model doesn't work for everybody. Don't, just don't do that stuff. Okay? It's just, it may be your own lack of family, yourself that you're imposing on someone else, whatever that means to you, you know, whatever, whatever that means.

So I think hopefully I'm not resisting dichotomy, hopefully what I'm seeing, including the dichotomy and saying there could be a way that you can have two areas to do, but they don't have to be in conflict. They can just be two areas to do. And I think that's the part that business problem solution, black white Excel spreadsheet that boxes things that's not we all live, we don't live in those places. We live all around them.

Thomas Igemi
Now it's time for spoken stories where we go beyond the leaders of organizations to speak to some of the people who make them happen. This week I got to chat with three members of Nicoletta and associates. I heard from Sophia Esmail, Albizzini, Van Waik, their go to market lead, and Wen Chi Wu, their operations lead. Here's what each of them had to say about what they love about NKA.

Sophia Esmail
It can be hard to come by place that actually practices what they preach, but that is inherently true. At Nicoletta and associates, I have an appreciation for what it means to create that environment, and I feel it is transformative. And that's not only as it relates to our consulting approach, our relationships with our clients and with each other, but also from a journey of self awareness and leadership. Having the opportunity to focus on continuous learning and authenticity, the day to day. Business context Nicolae creates for us as leaders and team members can be described as a leadership incubator, a culture focused on day to day learning and reflection, and a reminder on focusing on the human and individual, beyond the role in our work.

Unknown
For me personally, this approach brings freshness and vitality that remains inspiring. I really appreciate to see how relationships can transform beyond the day to day delivery. In Nikolaita and associates. Some of our previous clients is part of our team member right now. Some of our colleagues may not be active in our circle, but may come back to ask, is there anything I can help?

Wen Chi Wu
I just found that's really amazing and beautiful to experience.

Thomas Igemi
Now, I've known Nicoletta for over seven years now, and in that time I've seen her and NKA transform, grow and evolve. Her management consulting company is orders of magnitude bigger and with further reach than it was when we first started. And I'm always so excited because I know this is just the beginning. But one thing that has remained constant is there's a deep groundedness, a soberness and a grace with which Nicoletta navigates the world. That doesn't just slow her down, but.

Slows the people around her. Not slow in their speed of movement and their productivity in the way things get things done. On that, Nicoletta and associates is always moving at 150 miles an hour, but slow in the sense of intentionality. This kind of slowness that allows you to really listen, really ponder and choose your next move rather than have life choose it for you. And that is my wish for all of you.

I hope that this week you would have the opportunity to truly get slow, not by getting less done, but by getting done the things that you choose to do. Have a wonderful week, as always. I'm Thomas.