Eric Mulvin: 00:00
Welcome to the Unfinished Business Podcast. I’m your host, Eric Mulvin, and this is a show where we sit down with CEOs, leaders, visionaries, and creatives who are out there changing the world through their business, through their organization, through their leadership, or through their creativity. Because it doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve accomplished. Even someone like Teresa Corbett still has something that they wanted to accomplish in their career. And so we explore those stories here on Unfinished Business with Eric Mulvin.

Theme Song: 00:28
Unfinished business.

Eric Mulvin: 00:52
This episode is brought to you by Pac Biz Outsourcing. At Pac Biz, we help software, e-commerce, taxi, and NEMT companies outsource their customer support and back office work with a dedicated team in the Philippines. These are full-time remote staff who work as part of your team, handling calls, emails, chat support, and admin tasks so you can improve support, scale faster, and keep costs under control. For example, one client cut out over 60 support roles to Pac Biz dispatch teams. So if you’re trying to lower cost or scale support, visit pac-biz.com to learn more or give us a call Monday through Friday during business hours at 480-771-3009. All right. Today I’m excited to introduce you guys to our next guest. She is Las Vegas-based executive coach and Vistage chair who helps CEOs and senior leaders build themselves, their companies, and their communities by design rather than default. She’s been coaching people in one capacity or another for more than 20 years. And as a Vistage best practice chair, she leads peer advisory groups of CEOs and key executives through the highest stake decisions of growing an enterprise and living a life worth leading. Her work rests on one conviction that the best leaders are champions of their people and of what’s possible. Before coaching became her full-time calling, she cut her teeth in the world of business through the management training program, McMaster Carr, and then spent several years as an operator running day-to-day operations for two Las Vegas construction companies. So she coaches leaders off the field and onto the sideline from a chair that she actually sat in. And in 2027, she will publish her first book, A Project Nearly a Decade in the Making, its roots reaching back to her late mother. Please help me welcome Tonya Twitchell. Hey Tonya. Welcome to the

Tonya Twitchell: 02:54
Hi, Eric. Thank you. Glad to be here.

Eric Mulvin: 02:56
All right. Awesome to have you here. And so a little background. I got to meet Tonya a couple months back in Las Vegas, and she came out and was a guest for a nonprofit that we support here at my company, City Impact Center. And so it’s great to get to see you again, this time virtually.

Tonya Twitchell: 03:15
Indeed, yes. And what a great organization, City Impact Center. They’re just they’ve got such an amazing story and the level of contribution that they do without a lot of fanfare. I mean, they just show up and and do good in our community. It was pretty awesome. So thank you for including me in that event.

Eric Mulvin: 03:33
Yeah, no, that’s a absolutely. And you know, like that’s part of why I do this show to bring more attention to stuff like that that’s going on that a lot of people might not even be aware of that’s in their own backyard. So I’m glad you were able to come out. So so yeah, you know, we’ve had other people connected with Vistage. We’ve had a lot of speakers on the show. I’ve had my own personal Vistage coach chair here as well. And so I’m excited to have you on because I I love talking about Vistage with a lot of people. In fact, my last guest yesterday, I was like, Do you know about Vistage? And he was like, Yes, I’m trying to get in to via speaker. So, but talk to me a little bit. I guess I mean I I had in the intro what you do there, but explain if people may be listening to the show for the first time or hearing you for the first time, what is a Vistage share and what do you do?

Tonya Twitchell: 04:24
Vistage is it’s the greatest thing that I’ve ever had a chance to be a part of. I mean, you’re a member, so you you know personally the value of Vistage. For those that aren’t aware, Vistage is the largest CEO coaching organization in the world. We have the privilege of championing 45,000 members around the globe. And we work not only with CEOs and business owners, but with members of their teams at all levels in their organization through a variety of different programs. The heart of the work that we do in Vistage is bringing high-integrity leaders who are at a peer-to-peer leader, so business owners in a room with other business owners or senior executives in a room with other senior executives to roll up their sleeves and to leave their armor at the door and to ask questions and be open and vulnerable and to dive into topics on the professional side as well as the personal side in service to one another and to helping themselves be better leaders and better lead and better contributors to their companies and to our communities.

Eric Mulvin: 05:22
Yeah, that’s a great, nice little summary. I’d probably drag it out a little bit longer. Yeah, and so there’s chapters all over the country and all over the world. I know there’s there’s other countries that they’re also in too. So wherever you’re at, you probably could find one somewhere close by that you can get connected with. But specifically, you’re out in Vegas, and if I remember correctly, you you’re kind of unique. You have a lot of groups, if I remember right.

Tonya Twitchell: 05:49
I do. I really jumped in and didn’t look back. So I have the privilege of leading two groups for CEOs and business owners, I lead a group for senior level executives, I lead another group for folks who were earlier in their career or uh kind of those rising stars who are newer to this idea of supervising and management. And because I’m not busy enough, I’m adding two more groups in January. And I also have the privilege of championing chairs as the chair of chairs, so to speak, in uh Las Vegas as well as in the Montana and Utah markets.

Eric Mulvin: 06:26
Right. Awesome. People who probably aren’t familiar with Vistage probably don’t even realize how big of a deal that is, you know, that you’re helping support other chairs as well. But as far as I know, you don’t just jump into you can’t graduate from college and then start becoming a vista chair. So you have to have some experience in the world to have some knowledge to talk about what business leaders have to go through. So I guess we could start there and a little bit on your background. What led you, like what was your business background? What got you into being a chair?

Tonya Twitchell: 06:57
I would say my pathway to Vistage chairing was really kind of accidental, which ironically, I think a lot of other vista chairs would say. Right out of college, I didn’t fully know what I wanted to do with my life. So I said yes to a management training program with a fantastic company outside of Chicago, McMaster Car Supply Company. And I didn’t realize the value of the program and the value of the investment they made in me until probably 15 years ago, right? To think about how I had a front row seat to really learning marketing, operations, sales. They really moved us throughout the organization and gave us a broad understanding of what are all of the ingredients that are required for a successful organization and for a successful team. For a variety of reasons, that wasn’t meant to be my forever home. And I ultimately decided to leave there and lean into what became an even greater passion than business, at least in that season, which was coaching and training, although I did it through the landscape of teaching reading enrichment programs. I found a company also when I was based in Chicago that taught reading classes for four-year-olds all the way up through adults. And so as certainly as you got into middle school, high school, it was more study skills and reading comprehension, not the fundamentals of reading. The adult level, it was speed reading and strategies for effectiveness and efficiency. And the more that I swam in those waters and started to see the gains that people could make, it just started to click. I really loved being in a room of learners, being helping to move people forward. And so I would say that that’s probably where my path toward Vistage began. From there, I moved to Las Vegas, started my own consulting and training program company, did some hodgepodge of different things in my early 20s, eventually found my way as a student to a program called PSI Seminars. They offer professional and personal leadership development courses, got really interested in this whole person approach, this idea that how we show up on one side of our lives absolutely impacts how we show up on the other. And the stories that we tell and that we buy into about what’s possible for us either move us forward powerfully or they become the ceilings and the limitations that that without conscious work and effort, we just don’t ever realize that we can break through. Fortunately, I had an opportunity shortly thereafter to actually go to work for that organization. And pre-kids, I spent about two and a half years leading a 90-day coaching program. So it was every 90 days, sometimes multiple sequences on top of each other. And I got to work with people who were eager and excited to create real change in their lives. I was a coach for a lot of those individuals. I was also became over time the coach of coaches. So I started coaching other people on this art form of coaching, got myself certified through a variety of different coaching modalities, kind of all in the same season. And my mentor, Teresa Corbett, who I who you very kindly mentioned at the opening of the show, was had still to this day had the has the biggest impact on who I have become, my philosophy toward uh what’s possible, the way that I orient toward my coaching. And uh it just has been such a gift.

Eric Mulvin: 10:27
Awesome. That’s uh an incredible journey that you’ve gone through there. And a lot of education, a lot of getting in front of people who are also hungry to learn. I think about Vistage, like you know, it’s a choice for people to be there. No one, as far as I know, no one’s forcing them to be there. Maybe there’s some other the board is like, you need to be part of this group. But for the most part, like they’re there willingly and and being vulnerable, sharing everything on their own, which I think is you know, it’s pretty unique in that you know, sometimes people are in those positions and they’re they’re kind of forced to be there or like they’re they’re stuck. We’re here, it’s like I don’t know, you you got people that are super engaged, super willing to take that information. So let’s see, with with all that training though, or all that coaching that you got to do, especially those 90-day courses, I’m guessing that was amazing networking at a very young age, getting you in front of a lot of people that are trying to be high performing. So I’m guessing that had to have been influential for your career to be in front of all those different people.

Tonya Twitchell: 11:30
Absolutely. It and again, it’s one of those things that at the time I I didn’t realize the value of the waters that I was swimming and learning inside of. Looking back, I got exposed to a variety of industries, a variety of backgrounds. It’s similar to what I navigate in the world of vestige today, where no two members have exactly the same company or even the same industry within a group, right? And no, no two people have the same story or trajectory of how they got to where they are and or vision of where they want to get to. And it really required me at a very early phase in my coaching, ex coaching journey, to become Gumby-like. Did you ever watch that show with Gumbi, right? The right to figure out how do I become flexible, how do I become adaptable? And I was was already primed because of the work that I had done in my own personal leadership development journey to recognize that I was in the driver’s seat, that it wasn’t fair and it wasn’t effective for me to sit and hope that the people that came to me for those programs or that came to me for coaching were going to magically be the right fit for me. That the the best way for me to move myself forward and also to be of service in the larger world was to figure out how do I become adaptable and effective with as many different types of people and backgrounds and approaches and perspectives and cultures and it as I possibly can. And so that that really to this day, that continues to be something that I’m mindful of and require myself to be continually learning and leaning into new things and trying to figure out what’s my next learning edge so that I’m modeling what I’m asking the people I’m championing to do on their side.

Eric Mulvin: 13:16
That’s really fascinating because I feel like I hear so much in business that you know you got to find your ideal client. You have to find the person that matches you, and you’re here talking about you’re trying to adapt to everybody. And you’re so you could be in any situation, work with anybody. And uh, that’s it’s really refreshing to hear because I, you know, there’s a lot of rejection, and we can’t work with this kind of company because of this and that. I just think that’s a that’s a cool perspective to have.

Tonya Twitchell: 13:43
I mean, it goes back to what I said earlier about the stories we tell really create the future and the possibilities for us. The moment I walk in and say, there is no way that I’m the right fit for that client, it is guaranteed that that is exactly the outcome that’s going to occur. Now, on the flip side, I might walk in and say, I am the right fit, and it still might not work out. But at least right walking in with, I try to walk in in a a curious, a place of curious neutrality, walking in and to say, I have no idea if I’m the right fit or not. However, I’m curious and I’m open and I’m eager to figure out what are the needs and the interests of the person on the other side, and how does that align with what I am ready and able and willing to give and contribute from a place of true contribution, not from a place of requirement or strings or X has to happen and then Y and then Z.

Eric Mulvin: 14:36
Yeah, that that is a great framework to go into those meetings. And uh, this is a concept I think that I really did learn and Vistage. We had a speaker, Verid Cogan was her name, and I’ve followed her podcast for a little while, should reach back out to her. Uh, but she had this whole thing about belief system, and that you know, we we’ve created these beliefs, some of them dating back to our childhood, and that they get pretty rigid, and we start telling ourselves these stories that can be completely far from reality, but you look for things around you that validate this belief system, and then you know, these as a business owner, you end up in this you stuck in this corner and you feel like there’s no way out, which is one thing I really love about Vistage because people can challenge those beliefs and be like, no, what what are you saying? Like you could do this and you’re more than capable. In fact, you’re probably the best qualified, yet you can’t see it yourself. So, yeah, I I love that concept because it’s it’s something I really try to teach people. I definitely I’m sure you see this. A lot of people don’t realize that they’re telling themselves these stories all day long. That like, where is this coming from? And how is that serving you? And many times it’s probably harming you more than helping you.

Tonya Twitchell: 15:55
Yeah, I love that. And that’s it, the the language that you just used is language that I use often in my conversations, right? What is the story that you’re telling and is it serving you in this moment? I I use an analogy often in my conversations with clients and members around suitcases. I I think we all are dragging these suitcases behind us, whether we recognize it or not. And to Vared’s point, 80 over 80, 80% of the beliefs, the core beliefs that dictate and and and at an unconscious level point us in the direction that we take and the actions that we do and the reactions and the way that we orient came from ages zero to eight. I mean, so it’s like think about if I think about the suitcase that I’m dragging that’s informing my life, it was packed at best by an eight-year-old and probably by a three, four, five-year-old. Now, I have raised humans who have been those ages. I know that they’re not the best people to be deciding what to go in a suitcase. And so the the challenge, the opportunity for all of us is, and this is is where the Vista Room is so powerful because it’s a monthly opportunity to do this, is to put that suitcase on the table and open it up and peer in and go, how did that pair of socks get tucked in the corner? Those don’t fit anymore, and to toss them back out and to be more mindful of what we’re putting in by design, what we’re putting in that is that speaks to and invites who we want to become, rather than locking us into who we may have been five years ago or even five minutes ago, if we don’t want to be that way going forward.

Eric Mulvin: 17:33
Yeah, I definitely like I think that’s one of the things that I got most out of Vistage over the last, I don’t know, I’ve been in there seven years now almost. And like it’s it seems like some kind of crazy concept, you know, or like for someone on the outside, when you’re first learning about it, you’re like, what? Like, because you I don’t know, it’s like something you might have seen on a TikTok video, like that like that doesn’t make sense. But over session after session, we had speakers that are like experts on the brain and talk to you about how the brain functions and why, you know, like these stories we tell ourselves you’re feeding the subconscious. And over time, it’s like, wow, like and so now I find myself trying to tell this stuff to people, and I feel like it sounds crazy almost. I don’t know. Do you ever have any challenges trying to get these concepts into people’s heads? Or people are like, do they ever reject it? Like, no way, this can’t be true.

Tonya Twitchell: 18:27
Oh, absolutely. And and if I’m honest, I think I rejected it when I first heard some of these concepts, right? It’s it it it’s almost the stuff of fantasy until you start to look, look back and start to connect the dots and and sort of slow ourselves down and look at, okay, well, where did that come from? Where did and we start and listen to the words that come out of our mouths in moments when we’re not kind of on, right? When when we’re just casually talking or those those kind of throwaway cons comments sometimes, those that’s actually where the gold mine is, because that’s usually some old belief that’s creeping in and going, yep, that’s just the way the world works. And if we catch it and and pay attention to it and look at it, it allows us to go, okay, well, is it may maybe, but what if it’s not? Or what is what is a corollary for that? Or if I if I just wanted to tell another story, I don’t even have to believe it, but if I just wanted to come up with another possibility, what’s one? And then the moment we start identifying one other possibility, we discover two and then three and then four. And before you know it, we start to go, well, how does mine stack up against these? I like I want that one better. All right, if I’m shopping for a story, I’m gonna take that one, please. And now we have a chance to move to a different, a different relationship with it.

Eric Mulvin: 19:48
Yeah, I think that’s also such a powerful concept, too, that and realization that they’re not like we’re not stuck with these stories. You could change them out. And I mean, probably a good example would be like if you just up and move somewhere and went to a whole other city that no one ever knew you, you could easily make these up and no one would know any different. But you could start doing that today with the people around you to start saying, Hey, I am a hard worker now. I used to be lazy, but now I’m not. Or I know one of the ones that I I catch myself saying all the time, and I’ve gotten a lot better at, but I used to always say, I’m bad at answering emails, I’ll let them sit for a little while before I get back to people. And I’m like, it’s one of those like beliefs where I’m like, Am I like why do I keep saying this to myself? So yeah, but there’s so many little examples that I I I bet most people don’t even realize they’re saying. I think it just takes people around us to call us out. But but yeah, it’s uh but uh what talk to me a little bit about then because I mean as a coach, you’re you’re in in your the people in your vista group, you’re trying to move them out of these stories they’re telling themselves and uh to create those new stories. So what’s uh what’s a w something that you could that you do to help get them out of being stuck?

Tonya Twitchell: 21:04
Oh gosh. I mean, think about what which which piece do I want to talk about here? The you know, a big part of it is uh a big part of the magic. I would say step one is uh protecting the time, protecting the space, right? Building before we really can get into the stories, step one is am I able to get them to step, to start to step toward the edge of the field? Right. So an analogy that I use often is, and I and I’ve lived this and struggled with this myself when I ran a couple of construction companies, right? This tension that we all find ourselves in when we’re actively in the in the doors of the business is feeling like I need to be right on the field. I need to be as close to the football as possible, or at least close enough that I can see, and the guy who’s who’s holding the football can hear me if I see something that I think he’s gonna miss. And we want to be really close to the action. But it the closer we are to the action, the smaller. our perspective is, and the more likely an incomplete story is guiding the decisions and the way that we’re showing up because we just don’t have the perspective. We don’t have the the we haven’t we’re we’re we’re generally in this like go go go go go sort of state. And so this the challenge first before I would say long before I talk about the stories is how do we get you to start stepping back and trusting and and settling into a different possibility which is on the sidelines where yes you can step onto the field if there’s something that truly warrants. But on the sidelines, they can still hear you enough, right? If it’s critical, you can see more of what’s going on and they’re actually going to play and perform better because you’re not there breathing on them. And you’re you’re letting them settle into what’s possible and and and have more belief of what they’re capable of because you’re not there literally trying to move their arm or power or hand them the ball or tell them what to do. So I would say that’s really step one of where I start. And sometimes we’re there for a long time wrestling with this tension, particularly when a company is experiencing fast growth or in a landscape where things are changing or when tariffs were really sort of kicking up in in unexpected ways not that long ago. And you know so it just there’s a lot of reasons why we can justify running onto the field. My focus is to go time out time out hold on pause pause pause let’s start with just that story. What’s the story about why you and only you have to be on the field let’s start there.

Eric Mulvin: 23:38
Yeah that is a definitely uh a common problem I I’ve been very guilty of too is just do it trying to do it all and being the bottleneck and you know as much as I hear the message you I it’s a constant process I guess let’s just say that like you delegate stuff out you put new stuff on your plate and you know a year or two goes by and you don’t really realize that you’ve now become the bottleneck again and it’s like a constant it’s a constant re-evaluating it’s not like oh I’ve got this I I’m back on the sideline I’m set you get kind of sucked in as a business owner a lot of times to the playing field and and you’ve got to constantly reevaluate to say wait a second how did I get here let me back up so I could see the full picture again.

Tonya Twitchell: 24:26
Yeah and I would say that probably the the most important story for any of us to wrestle with whether we’re in we’re in business or we’re just a human in in the the landscape of life is this story that somebody sold us that we really want to buy and trust me I really would like it to be true but it’s just not true which is that there’s this thing called stability that there’s this moment in time that someday is going to magically exist where I can say everything is checked off on my list. I’ve done it nothing on that list is going to change or need to be reevaluated or need me to come back to it like done very rarely does that happen with the things that are that are most worthy of us purposing our time and our lives tour.

Eric Mulvin: 25:12
Yep. And being in the position you’re in you get a chance to help business leaders throughout their journey and then ultimately you know for some people their goal is to exit sell the company retire on a beach somewhere you know maybe whatever the next thing is but do you have any interesting stories about people who made it to there and it they got their goal they got what they wanted but maybe they weren’t really still fully satisfied I wonder how much that happens.

Tonya Twitchell: 25:45
Several I mean I would say that it happens unless we’re designing for it to specifically not happen. As a as an act that we’re doing as intentionally as all of the actions that we’re doing to get the company ready for sale, then the odds are high you’re going to get to that day you’re going to get the check you’re going to turn in your keys you’re going to step away you’re going to go to this thing that you’ve been visualizing sort of and go, I don’t I don’t I don’t know if this is actually where I want to be because it’s you go for and especially in the the final stages of selling a business or transferring a business or whatever that secession plan is where you’re stepping out it is typically a go go go go go period where there’s a lot happening. There’s a lot moving a lot of moving parts it’s a lot of activity and intensity it’s hard to go from that to effectively a full stop unless you’ve really prepared yourself for that’s what I want and I’m I’m gearing up for it and I’m mentally and and emotionally preparing for that is the right answer for me, at least initially on the other side of this exit. Yeah we spent a lot of time in in my across my my one-to-ones with my clients as well as at the group level talking about what is it that you’re wanting on the other side? What do you think you want it to look like? And we’ve had some great great great members of the years who’ve come back and said I did parts of it well here’s what I would offer and then I didn’t even think about this piece or that piece or this part was incomplete in my planning. And so that really has been a gift to service as well.

Eric Mulvin: 27:22
That’s some interesting insight there because I think a lot of people you know in business I mean not it again not everybody they’re set to sell their company I know I’ve had some recent guests that are like convinced it’s not a good thing to do. You should just keep your business going although you know sometimes it’s time to retire but I think a lot of people they look at you know business and like yeah your goal like it’s a football like the football or sports analogy like you get to the end of the game the time runs out you know you’re done you go retire but it’s a lot more complicated than that and I think it’s just so interesting that you I mean you see it in sports sometimes I I can’t remember the specific athlete but I remember hearing a speech and they were talking about they won like all the all the championships or whatever. I think it was in golf he’s won a lot of a lot of titles and and he’s like yeah you know what it’s it’s not it’s so it’s okay like he just didn’t seem like fully satisfied and for people who are like I want to be in that position like they don’t understand it but it’s interesting for you to see that and not just one person but lots of people that have gone through this gone through the journey and it I don’t know it’s a cliche right it’s not about the destination it’s about the journey but you know how much time are we spending building up our businesses living this out every day and then you get to the end and it’s like oh now what?

Tonya Twitchell: 28:52
So yeah and I think part of it too is our businesses in a lot of ways become our identities in a lot of ways it they are a core part of our social community and our connectedness certainly for the the vestige community I think a lot of the members across our vestige community are very they’re they’re in it to make a difference. They’re in it to right they’re they’re excited about it. It brings them joy there’s an there there are a lot of intangible rewards and payback that come with being in the top seat or being a part of a team that’s that’s doing interesting work. And when all of a sudden that gets handed to somebody else there’s absolutely a void and and I would say multiple voids that get filled and you have to think about now I’ve got not only do I have that but if I’m married if I have a spouse at home I’ve got to navigate this dynamic of I used to be out of the house for this many hours a day. Now I’m back like how are we going to navigate this new sort of coming together? What’s our vision? There’s there’s there’s all sorts of dynamics that can very easily go unnoticed if we’re just focusing on that let me get my business sold and handed off check that’s done well there’s there’s the the epilogue or the next chapter that comes behind that we have to keep reading into.

Eric Mulvin: 30:12
Yep and then you end up becoming a vista chair no that’s what some of them end up doing.

Tonya Twitchell: 30:17
Yeah absolutely so I mean again if if they’re looking to give back and and continue being in a place that’s energizing and learning and and of contribution vista sharing is a great place to do it. Yeah.

Eric Mulvin: 30:28
Well being that you know you do get to have like tons of conversations all day every day of the year and you get to really see these journeys up close what are some things that separate the like the top leaders the ones that are really high performed that are able to because you know a lot of people want to grow their company like oh I want to 10x my company a lot of people say that in reality I’ve met very few people that actually get to do that even being part of Vista for a long time you’re like businesses are growing but to get to that level that scale you know some people end up becoming a household name with their their companies what is it that those people are doing that the other ones might not be doing I would say there are a few ingredients.

Tonya Twitchell: 31:16
One is this unrelenting curiosity curiosity for what’s possible curiosity for what am I not seeing like this it’s it’s it’s this almost requirement to look in the places that other people aren’t willing to look and to sit with things that aren’t comfortable and to ask questions through a different lens and to to not be afraid of whatever data point or whatever situation comes their way to really view it with curiosity and to say there’s some reason why this is here in this moment. What can I learn from it? What can I contribute to it? How can I what can I do versus a lot of businesses that don’t get to those marks there’s a lot of starting and stopping there’s a lot of sort of attempting to outmaneuver or avoid some of those things that if we just take a breath and and go head on into them and view them as a gift, odds are high we’re gonna come out in a much better position on the other side.

Eric Mulvin: 32:19
That’s really fascinating. Because yeah you’re you want to I mean we’re human nature we want to avoid conflict we want to you know there’s an issue in the way like all right how do we go around this so we don’t have to deal with this but that’s also it sounds like where some of the opportunities lie and I’m guessing it’s probably you know if everyone is skipping over that part and you’re like wait a second there’s a there’s an opportunity here this could be a Yeah and it and it’s about being willing to lean into things that others in the marketplace are maybe reluctant or or having the I don’t know if that’s a good idea.

Tonya Twitchell: 32:54
It’s like you know AI I love that that a big part of your work is focused on AI. I am like kicking all of my members in the butts monthly. What are we doing? How are we leaning in? How are we leading the charge? And you know for myself when AI first sort of started debuting I was not initially immediately excited to lean in I mean my own I had my own reaction of oh do I really have the time or the energy to learn this and it’s changing so fast and can’t I just wait and what about this? And and I had to get over my own stories and say well the reality is I have two choices. Unless I think that AI is not going to be here in 10 years, which to anyone who’s listening AI is going to be here in 10 years right that that’s that that’s a falsehood if we think it’s gonna go away. So if it’s not going away and it’s here and it’s moving fast already, it’s like a boulder going down the hill. It’s only going to get faster and it’s only going to get harder and the cost of entry to get in and to get up to speed and be do being able to do something that is powerful and fundamentally advantageous in a way that others are not going to be able to benefit from it’s a small window. So we have to lean in we don’t have to be perfect. We just have to get in and start doing something with it so that we aren’t left behind.

Eric Mulvin: 34:10
Yeah that is a great analogy because I do feel like it it is snowballing you know and what was chat GPT today is now AI in all of our software is like I heard someone talking about this recently where like even if you want to ignore it and put your head in the sand like there is you are we’re it we’re all being trained to become comfortable with AI whether we like it or not. If you go on social media and you scroll through there you’re seeing posts generated by AI. AI is curating what you’re even seeing the ads you’re looking at you know and I mean that’s just a small example and you can go on and on and on and on. But yeah the it it does go back to again those beliefs too that you’re right like if you’re saying like there’s no way we could be good at AI this is too complicated well you pretty much written your own story and it was part of why like for me and my company when it I it was I was one of our clients that was really pushing me to get into chat GPT when it first came out and just like you’re hammering your guests like he was I think we were on like weekly calls he’s like are you using it yet Eric come on are you using it and so it I started creating the story for our company saying well there was a phrase I used to say all the time that I’ve been bringing back more and more lately that I want to do things in five years using technology that doesn’t exist today. And I started saying that back in like 2015 2016 well before AI and now like that’s that’s so true. Like everything you’re dealing with AI like who knows what this is going to look like in five years let alone next year or the year after so it’s just gonna get harder and harder to jump in though for sure if you’re not doing it now. So with all the people you’re coaching in the group you’re trying to push them along like is what’s uh what’s something that’s helped get them into AI or what’s something that that has got the leaders bought in to say oh yeah this is this is changing my business because I know there’s got to be a lot of examples of people that have found success with it.

Tonya Twitchell: 36:17
Yeah I I would say that the so first we’ve certainly leaned into the Vistage speaker community and we’ve had some tremendously powerful AI speakers come and work with us which has opened our eyes to what’s possible today and what could be possible going forward. So that was a big step one was just getting people into the conversation and to start to see and go, I had no idea that that could even be a possibility let alone that I might be able to figure it out for myself or my team so that was step one. Step two is I’m really encouraging my members just to get in to not require themselves to necessarily know long what the long-term play is for AI for their company but to step one get in and just date it a little bit right get in and play with it get in and do some fun projects get in and get proof of concept of something and figure out how to how to create one workflow inside of it even if it’s just the uh some sort of ridiculous thing that inadvertently turns out to be helpful. I’ll give you an example of one I I did for myself my family and I recently went on a a true a two week trip to Peru where we were staying in tree houses for the first half of the trip and then going and exploring Machu Picchu and all the Inc and ruins for the back half. And as we were thinking about what do we pack and itineraries and all this stuff I could feel myself getting stressed and overwhelmed with all of the logistics. I said okay this is a perfect project for AI. So I used the microphone feature I said let me tell you everything I think I know about the trip, everything I’m worried about, everything I feel like we need to figure out ask me a bunch of questions. What can you do for me? And it started to say well do you know your can you upload your any itineraries or your flight documents or tickets or like sure so I uploaded that said great made me a master itinerary it told me stuff I didn’t even think I needed to know that turned out to be helpful right then I started making I said well okay I need to figure out a packing list and I’m pretty sure I don’t have anything that I need what do I need for me and then I went and and manually started ordering things online and realized well this is going to take a while I’ve got two other kids in my household I need to shop for. So I followed my kids around for a day, got measurements of every part of their body that I thought might be relevant said to the the AI that I was using, here are the measurements for my kids. These are the types of things that you’ve said that we need to pack and I need to source you know our plans you know the weather you know all the things that are are important to me about how much space we have in the bags help. And it said do you like to shop on Amazon? Where do you like to shop? And I said Amazon’s great it went onto Amazon and it gave me shopping list with links for everything I needed to order. And at the time I wasn’t comfortable just linking it directly to my Amazon you know I don’t give up my credit cards yet to shop but it in the space of a few minutes blah blah blah blah blah I moved things over to my shopping cart. Things started arriving the next day it was the easiest shopping I might shop that way for the rest of my life like it was the best experience all from a moment of I’m not sure what you can do. So let me you tell me AI what do you what can you do? What can you do with this thing that I’m trying to solve for let’s just play.

Eric Mulvin: 39:37
Yeah that is an awesome example I love using it for travel. I had another guest on Lindsay Mateus and she was a speaker on stage and I was like I gotta talk to her because we did the exact same thing. We did a trip to Sweden and Norway to see the Northern Lights last like March April and both of us used Chat GPT to build out the itinerary I took it a step further and I just sent it off to my assistant. I’m like here book all the stuff for me I’m too busy running my company so just you know pick the best one pick just go with the recommendation. So I will say the one thing I would have done differently was look at the itinerary because it had me like bounce back and forth unnecessarily between like two places. I was like we could have streamlined that a little bit but for me the funnest thing was getting there and like because I’m like the the kind of guy that hates watching movie previews because I’m like oh it gives it away and so the entire trip was just a delightful surprise every step of the way because I’m like oh my gosh this is what this city looks like I had no idea oh this is you know it this looks like a Christmas globe that we’re flying into like I had no idea that this little town would be so amazing so I had a lot of fun with it that way but that’s an interesting way I saw someone else doing that where they they put all their outfits in the chat GPT and then had it pick like which outfit should they wear today or something. But there’s some so I I now for like the last probably two years the I do that for every big trip because like we go to Asia I have like maybe 14 different modes of transportation flights boats and stuff we got to take different like so many different cities so I put all the itinerary in all the hotels all the you know some of the interests we have and then every time I have a question because people are asking me all the time when does this flight leave when does that go like just ask my AI and it gives me the results but that’s a fun one and it makes I did that is interesting is it’s making travel a little more fun taking away the the painful parts which is a great analogy for business because it’s the same thing. There’s what are the painful parts of your business that before you had to manually do it now you could just delegate that off to AI. So that’s a good example.

Tonya Twitchell: 41:53
It’s like how many businesses have known for forever we should document our our standard operating procedures we should have a a list of this or a checklist for that it is so easy to do that now. And the the the price of entry so to speak to have AI help you get rough drafts that you can then go and refine and sign off on and in return literally make your company more valuable it’s like okay come on why why are we not leaning in this is a gift let’s let’s leverage it as such and then the more that we play with it the more that we’re going to open up different possibilities for what we we might want to do.

Eric Mulvin: 42:31
Yeah. I’ve I’ve had some ideas even around coaching have you have you come up with any interesting ideas or have you been able to leverage it all for because I feel like anybody can elevate their whatever they’re doing. I don’t know if you’ve thought of anything there.

Tonya Twitchell: 42:47
Yeah I love you know I am really as you know as a vestige member right confidentiality is the law of my land. So I’m very careful about what I put in and about the guardrails that I have around what can be exposed or moved out of a particular sandbox. Right. What I I like to move really fast and I do not like to be trapped behind a desk. So for me the best way get my best thinking is when I’m moving. And so I have started a variety of different projects and I will talk into my AI and have it capture my thoughts rather than me sitting down and trying to write it all out. And then I come back to it I’ve got an initial draft of the the process or the idea or the the exercise or the the email that I want to send out or whatever it is. Right. And it makes it easier it makes it more fun I have trained it at this point on everything related to who I am and well not everything but I’m I’m working on right getting it up to speed on who I am and how I think and how I orient and and so it’s in the background handling things like speaker bookings and coordinating logistics and everything that does That isn’t my highest value and my highest contribution and requiring that human ingredient. I’m outsourcing to my AI. And you know, over time, I’m I’ve got multiple kind of AI assistants in different phases of learning, and I’m just continuing to add them as I go.

Eric Mulvin: 44:19
Cool. Thanks for sharing that. Because yeah, I’m I I think I love the ideas that uh we have all the guests share on the different ways people could apply. And we’ve had some really great stuff. So that’s uh another really great tip for people listening because I know there’s a lot of people that maybe you’re using it a little bit, but I I think that that well, one thing for sure, another phrase I like to say is you gotta get comfortable doing things that are uncomfortable using AI because like you maybe you need to tackle that tough conversation, or maybe it’s even with a client. You can start role-playing that. One of my staff members built something like that just for helping us in sales. I was like, whoa, I didn’t even know you could do that. Like, because it’s it’s constantly evolving and changing, and it’s it’s getting more advanced. So cool. Well, I I wanted to shift gears a little bit, I guess maybe opposite of AI, sort of. I mean, it touches this too, but your background, you spent some time in construction, and that I I wanted to talk to you a bit about that because not too many women business leaders in construction. That’s a pretty male-dominated field, I would imagine. Talk to me about how that helped shape your your your coaching and your career.

Tonya Twitchell: 45:36
Yeah, great question. So I, you know, I’m a person who likes to say yes to things, and I’m and I have a really hard time saying no when the person asking me is someone I’m deeply invested in. And so I I very accidentally found myself in the world of construction. It started with one of my former coaching clients who reached out to me and said, I’m really want to expand my operation to another state. He felt very strongly that for it to be successful, he needed to move and be boots on the ground in the other state. And he’s he said to me, that leaves a gaping hole in our Las Vegas operations. I need someone to step in and keep the ship running. And oh, by the way, we have a lot of work that we could do to improve, and you’re better at that than I am. Will you say yes? And, you know, my kids were young. My husband and I really literally flipped our worlds upside down to make sure that we could still have one of us home with the kids and and and for me to say yes to this opportunity. I went in really not knowing what I said yes to, which probably was a good thing, and then discovered how much there was to learn. And you know, for me, I would say one of my superpowers is I’m very good at getting up to speed on things quickly. So it was a challenge, but it also was really enjoyable because I really like to do that. However, to your point, it it’s an interesting dynamic to be a woman in construction, particularly, and I’m gonna say more so when I moved to the second company, which was on the commercial side, that was a little bit more unusual than company number one, which was in the residential space. In the residential space, there were certainly kind of more women in the mix. In when I moved to the construction company that was on the commercial side, uh there was me and one other woman on the team. And that was pretty consistent for most of my. Well, we added a couple of women, but overall, you know, a hundred employees and maybe four women at most on the team. It was a pretty unusual space to be in, and certainly unusual to be in a top seat in the organization and have a team really trying to lean in. And so it was it was a learning curve for me to figure out, going back to my comment about Gumby, right? How do I step in? How do I be as elegant as possible, right? Yes, I’m gonna be changing some things, and just me being here is disruptive. However, at the front end in particular, how do I step in and keep myself grounded in a place of curiosity and in a place of openness and in a place to honor first and understand first what is this landscape, what is the dynamic, where might I fit in? And then if there’s something that needs to be shifted, we can look at it together. We make the turn together versus had I, and and I think this is would have been true even if I was a man coming in, right? We I think leaders make the mistake sometimes of coming in and thinking we have the answers, or or it’s my timeline, not your timeline. But it it really is there’s an elegance of the dance that is not to be underestimated when you’re looking to get to people to buy in and to follow your lead.

Eric Mulvin: 48:48
Yep, and I guess no matter who you are in business, I mean, we’ve got to do that dance, and I think the better we could be at that and being sensitive to the people because is again, I that’s probably what you have to coach a lot of people through, like the CEO saying, Hey, it’s it’s my way or the highway, and this is what needs to get done, but then you’re gonna end up with a team not bought in, or as my my coach you says, you get the corporate nod and you get them to agree, but then they leave the room and they’re like talking stuff behind your back. They’re like, No way is this gonna work.

Tonya Twitchell: 49:21
Yeah, and it and going back to our conversation earlier about stories, so much of the stories that we make up are based on the tone of voice that someone uses, or that person looked at me or they didn’t. So much of what we interpret and take out of a moment in time and decide is quote the truth, most of it is based on the nonverbals and and not on actually what was said in terms of the words that were spoken. This is something that as leaders, we have to be mindful of. We have to be mindful that just by virtue of being in the top seats of the organization, we’re bringing in status, we’re bringing in things that are going to already prompt people to write certain types of stories about what that must mean about who we are. And so if we’re not mindful of showing more sides of us, of showing that, yeah, I can be strong, I can absolutely hold the line and I’m not gonna waver from the line, but I also can be the most compassionate person that you’ve ever seen, right? We have to have the ant. And that was, and I would say that that with the teams that I had the privilege of leading in the construction space, when they figured out that yes, I was absolutely gonna be gonna hold the line. And if there was something that particularly safety related, if there was a safety thing that I saw, I was gonna show up in a way that made absolutely clear to everybody this ends now and the whole job site comes to an end. Like, could I bring that? Yes. Did I bring that on occasion? Yes. But was that all I brought? No. I also brought in Eric, how are your kids? Or Eric, I saw what you did over there. That was excellent work. That was that was really great quality, right? I I I showed that I had different speeds. I showed that I had different things that mattered, not just this do as I say as fast as I say to do it energy, which I think made a difference.

Eric Mulvin: 51:18
Yeah, that’s that’s great advice there too, because I think too many times we feel like we gotta show one side of ourself some of the like the best reception I’ve gotten to like when I try to connect with my team, especially for me, my team’s like 7700 miles away, so we don’t get to see each other too often. But opening up and being vulnerable to them in front of them sometimes does just to show a different side, because it’s it’s hard to do that through Zoom when we’re on these like meetings. So being out there and like, oh, you know what, I really messed that one up, guys, and you know, I take accountability for this, and this is how we could move it going forward. But yeah, that’s a good point, is just showing different sides of yourself, which I feel like lately I’ve been on this one particular track. I need to show the other side sometimes, but yeah, that’s that’s uh fascinating. So now with all the work that you’ve been doing, I know in the intro we talked about that there’s a book that you’re working on, and I’m excited to hear more about that because I don’t know, I think it’d be cool to compile all these stories into a book so you’re actually doing it. So tell me more. Like, what’s uh what are you working on? What do you hope to get? What story are you trying to get out there about yourself?

Tonya Twitchell: 52:37
Yeah, thank you for that question. The this book has really been a decade in the making, longer, I think, if I’m but but really a decade that I’ve actively been thinking about how do I write this, how do I tell the story? Am I ready to tell the story? You know, my I’ve had some interesting personal things that have happened kind of right alongside and and in the midst of the the most tremendous professional success also was right alongside some of the deepest loss on my personal side. You know, I I over the last 13 years, I lost my dad, my brother, my grandmother, my mom, and my stepdad, and all within a pretty short period of time, which gave me a lot of sobering moments to take a look in the mirror and and ask the question about how am I showing up? And is the way that I’m showing up, is it enough? Is it is it worthy enough? Right. For when my brother passed away and I got the news that he had died, it was a very sobering moment for me to look in the mirror and say, you know what? I am not proud of the way that I showed up with him in the last stretch of his life. And it felt, it felt to use a word from your from your language, your stream, right? It was very unfinished. It was very unsatisfying. There was a lot of regret. There was a lot of, like, well, what what do you mean I don’t get a chance to go and do do this over or make amends? And it it prompted me to take a deep hard look and say, I have two choices. I can accept that this is the end, or I can use this as a springboard and as a new, a new line in the sand to say, I am going to engage differently. I am going to design my relationships with more intention. I am going to pour into the people around me and into the quality of our final moments now by design. I’m gonna, I’m gonna do everything I can so that the next time I get one of these phone calls, yes, I’m gonna be sad. However, I’m also gonna have a knowingness that I played that relationship well. And I am very proud to say that when I got the call four years later that my mom had passed away, that it was exactly that. It was this I am sadder than I have ever been. I don’t know how I’m gonna move into the next day or year or decade or whatever without her here. And I am so proud of the way that I showed up with her, that she showed up with me, our relationship was clean, we were champions of each other. We like I can hold my head high. There’s no regret. And so the book is really about my own journey. And and selfishly I’m writing the book because I want my kids to know and to be able to see my own journey and hopefully have that as a touch point to number one, know me in a different way, but also to hopefully help them understand and and make decisions to guide their own lives going forward. And so I’m I’m I’m in the very much in the beginning stages of getting it off the ground. But it next year will be the 10-year anniversary of when my mom passed away. And I just had this knowingness over the last couple of months that this is this is the time. This is this is the right season to write it and to put it out into the world. And if it helps even one other person in some capacity, then it will have been a venture well that was well well worth it.

Eric Mulvin: 56:12
And you definitely hit on something personal for me. You know, I I know I sent in the email when we were commute like since we met in April, my dad had passed away. And you know, he’s probably the close like I haven’t had any close family members like that that have passed yet, fortunately. But it does, you know, have me thinking a bit about you know, like right now, I I just came back from this trip from Asia where I was gone for a month. We’re trying to transform this company. I’m trying to be one of those companies that 10x is the business, like I was saying earlier. So I’m asking for advice for myself, including for the the listeners. But but yeah, I mean, that if I were to be honest about how I show up for some people right now, it’s not things that I’d be proud of. Some I’ve definitely got to work on. So I think that’s definitely a worthwhile book, especially with business leaders. You know, you and you probably see it. I’m sure that’s probably some of the motivation, is you see people like me going through these struggles, and and we could do better. And and it’s the best time to know about it is now instead of when it’s too late, because there’s no I I’ve had a lot of those moments these last couple weeks where I was like, dang, like just some silly thing. Like I got this 3D printer set up, and my dad was like a machinist person that that job industry was gone a long time ago, but I was like, man, that’d have been cool to show him this stuff because he would always talk about like measuring tiny things to the thousandths of an inch and making like fabricating tubes for like things like satellites, and now I could like it’s just crazy this stuff that you could do again with 3D printing technology, some of it, there’s some AI stuff, but I was able to show him some of the AI stuff, which is cool, and blew his mind, but yeah, that would have really blown his mind to show him that. So let’s I don’t have any regrets with him. I feel like I was able to do that, but other family members, yeah, it’s uh something to work on. So thanks for your your work on that book, and I know that’ll definitely help especially your members. Like, here, read this. I give it to them to to get that information. So now, speaking of like all those conversations again, you have with your chairs, I I did ask Fred, my vista coach, you know, what’s a question I could ask you? So he had here’s a question from him Have you ever had an executive that didn’t play in the game? And who’s the toughest CEO you’ve ever worked with?

Tonya Twitchell: 58:39
Okay, so executive that didn’t play in the game, meaning the game of Vistage?

Eric Mulvin: 58:44
What what game probably vestige, I think vestige, like you know, it as we talked about earlier, it’s a choice, you know, you’re there, but then some people I don’t know, like they they’re there, but they’re like, what the heck? You it’s the same issue. I and I’m sure you experience this. You know, we’re talking about the same thing again for like month six. Like, come on, are you gonna apply any of this stuff? So maybe, yeah, I guess who’s not playing in the game in Vistage, and then it probably could be the same thing, who’s the toughest CEO, but yeah, I I for me, I would say the toughest people to work with or are folks who are sort of one step in, one step out.

Tonya Twitchell: 59:19
I I I say that I want change, I say that I want to be all in, but I’m there’s something that’s holding me back. And it’s not that I’m I I’m very good at moving people through that. However, there has to be a willingness, right? The moment that I want it more than the other person, now the there’s an imbalance that starts to come into the mix. I’m not honoring them because we’re starting to possibly shift into a parent-child dynamic or something that doesn’t keep that that individual at their highest best self, right? Does does that make sense? And so it’s like this. I try, I try to honor the folks that are considering joining one of my groups by being very transparent on the front end and sharing and giving I was a Vistage member for several years when I actually ran one of those vestige member companies. And I processed personal issues, I processed professional issues. And so it’s not uncommon for me in my conversations with folks before they join a group to say, look, I’m never going to disclose what somebody else is sharing. However, I absolutely can talk about my lived experience as a member. Here are some examples of the type of issues and topics that I brought in, right? Like I brought in, and I’ll talk about some that are deeply personal on purpose to see how does that person lean in? How do they hold space? Is there curiosity? What I try to really invite people to lean into ahead of when they’re live in the room with the group is am I willing to hold space not only for others, but more importantly, am I willing to hold space for myself? Am I willing to be curious and to look? It doesn’t mean that I have to take action right away, right? I I’m a realist. Sometimes, sometimes we have to look at things for a while. Sometimes for myself included, I I before any significant breakthrough, two things happen. There is a breakdown period that is usually of some sort of massive scale that I look back and go, why did I make it such a big thing or whatever? And there’s also somewhere in there this like getting ready to get ready, where I’m kind of, can I like trying to figure out can I believe that that new next thing is possible? Can I see myself in that that future? Can I trust that if I take a step away from whatever I’m standing on right now, that everything below me isn’t going to crumble or the world around me isn’t going to implode? And so I don’t know if I’m I’m effectively answering Fred’s answer, but his question, but it I if people aren’t ready, I’m not the right one to work with them. And I guess where I’ve settled into, there’s a season for everything, and sometimes the season isn’t now. I’ve actually had a number of members who, when I first reached out to them five, six, seven years ago, the time wasn’t right. And then the time became right, and they’re in the groups today. So yeah, I don’t know. Fred, I love you. That was a challenging question.

Eric Mulvin: 01:02:19
You threw it out real quick. You probably didn’t put too much thought into it. But no, it’s but no, that’s that’s thanks for sharing. Because yeah, the the timing part is interesting, and yeah, it could be that maybe it’s not the right time for whatever reason, maybe something going on like gotta work through those personal beliefs first before I mean it’s not an overnight fix, even if people identify it and call you out on it. It’s like something that takes time to work through and to get to the realization, hey, you gotta experience some pain first. Some people are like that. And unfortunately, you know, even though you’re like, this is what’s gonna happen, they gotta experience it. I think I’m one of those people gotta experience the pain before you realize, okay, I really gotta change. So and then they come come around. But yeah.

Tonya Twitchell: 01:03:02
Yeah, it I you know, I think we the older I get, the more I realize this this game of life, it’s a long game. And I’ve you know, for me, I think I’ve settled into as long as I still wake up and my feet touch the ground, then it’s evidence that I haven’t learned everything I’m supposed to learn. And so of course there’s gonna be more struggle, of course, there’s gonna be more stuff I have to reconsider, of course there’s gonna be more moments where I go, really, really? Now I have to learn that, or I have to overcome that, or I have to, you know, whatever. Okay. It’s it’s a long game. When I think about some of the things that I so didn’t want to have to learn or figure out five years ago, ten years ago, 15 years ago, I look back now and I am so thankful that those happened. Because had those things not occurred, I can say with certainty, I would not be the person that I am today. Right. As much as I I hate the way that my relationship with my brother ended, I can say with certainty I am a better person now because of that, because that was such a jarring moment of awareness for me. It was uh it it that would I trade that to have him back? Absolutely. But in the I don’t have the ability to make that happen yet, at least that I figured out. So, okay, I’m just gonna say thank you for the gift and do my best to pay the learnings and the lessons forward for as long as I’m still here.

Eric Mulvin: 01:04:24
Yep, which is an incredible way to turn it around, you know, and and to turn that into a positive to help inspire other people working through the same thing. So that’s which is powerful. Cool. Well, I guess we’re kind of at the end of the show here. So I have my questions that I always ask every guest at the end. And, you know, you’re you’re you have a you don’t have the gray hair that some of the vestige coaches have. So you’re you have a lot more journey ahead of you, I’m guessing. But for you, what’s something that is unfinished business for you? What’s something that like maybe a big goal you’d like to achieve or something you want to do in your career?

Tonya Twitchell: 01:05:02
Yeah, I mean, I would say the biggest one that I’m well, I don’t know if it’s unfinished anymore because I’m in action, right? Would be the book for sure. But really, it’s you know, my kids are teenagers now. My oldest is a year away from heading off to college. And so this next piece that feels very unfinished and unclear today is how do I do my part to orchestrate and contribute in creating a meaningful adult relationship with my kids, right? That that feels like the next chapter, the next frontier that we’re on the cusp of leaning into. And I, you know, it’s a different version of someone selling their business and transitioning on to what’s next, right? It’s uh we’re gonna go from life as we once knew it is gonna come to a hard stop. So I’m I’m doing my best to proactively think about it and require myself to become a student of it before I’m staring it in the face of the the moment of. Yeah.

Eric Mulvin: 01:06:00
Cool. That’s that’s thank you for sharing that. I know for me, you know, I got young kids a bit younger, still a few years away from the position you’re in where they’re getting ready to go move out to college. But I know in my group that comes up as issues, you know, oh, the kids are moving out, and uh what are we gonna do? I’m always watching those conversations very closely because I’m like, oh, that’s gonna be me in like five, ten years. And so I’m I’m curious how they’re navigating that. And it it is something that’s that I think sometimes we just don’t think about, but but you I like the approach you have where you you start thinking about what that looks like, just like selling a business, you know. Like if you don’t think about it and then you’re there and it’s like, oh, this isn’t what I thought, you know. So you you have an opportunity to prepare and plan for that, and and you’re you’re thinking about it now, which I think is uh awesome. So love the mindset. All right. Well, thank you so much for being on today and sharing some of your journey and your your perspective on things here. And I know you said you’re getting ready to start up some more groups in Vegas, so I’m guessing if people are a business owner in Vegas and they qualify, you maybe maybe have the opportunity to be in one of those groups. But if someone wanted to connect with you or to follow some of your journey, what’s the best place to do that?

Tonya Twitchell: 01:07:24
You can find me on LinkedIn. You can certainly reach out to me at tonya.twitchell@vistagechair.com, or feel free to, if you do show notes, feel free to put my cell phone in there, 702-860-9133. I love helping people find the right group, whether it’s a Las Vegas group or really anywhere in the world, I can help connect and to people who are great humans to know and can help them put a good team around him. Awesome.

Eric Mulvin: 01:07:51
Well, thank you again so much. We’ll get uh some of those links in the show notes here. And for those of you guys watching, if you like Karen’s stories like what Tonya shared today and more interviews like that with amazing business leaders, please make sure that you follow us. Uh Unfinished Business with Eric Mulvin on Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts, and at BizwithEric on social media. And until next time, we’ll catch you guys on the next episode. See you guys later.

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