180. A Journey of Perseverance and Achievement with Vera Quinn

💭 Have you ever wondered how one simple choice can change the trajectory of your entire life?

In this episode of The Leadership Project, we welcome Vera Quinn, CEO and President of Cydcor, to delve into her inspiring career journey. Vera shares her life story, starting from her immigrant parents' humble beginnings in Toronto, through various challenges including the early loss of her mother, to her rise from door-to-door sales to leading a $330 million organization.

Key leadership lessons from her father's entrepreneurial spirit, the importance of resilience and responsibility, and the value of mentorship and continuous learning are discussed. Vera also highlights the significance of paying it forward through community involvement and philanthropy, particularly her work with Liberty Children's Home in Belize.

This episode is rich with insights on leadership, personal growth, and the power of human potential.

🌐 Connect with Vera:
• Website:  https://www.cydcor.com/
• Cydcor Website: https://veraquinn.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/veraquinn/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/veraquinn/
• Cydcor Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cydcor/

C-Suite Strategies
Welcome to C-Suite Strategies, the podcast where we discuss the art of scaling businesses.

Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Chapters

• 0:02 Entrepreneurial Journey and Family Sacrifices
• 8:30 Lessons in Entrepreneurship and Responsibility
• 15:42 [Ad] C-Suite Strategies
• 16:30 (Cont.) Lessons in Entrepreneurship and Responsibility
• 17:50 Lessons in Resilience and Choices
• 23:28 Sales Experience and Personal Growth
• 37:50 Leadership Lessons and Apprenticeships
• 47:05 Stoicism and the Power of Giving

Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:00

You can't always control what happens around you, but you can control how you respond. Today, on The Leadership Project, we share the inspirational life story of Vera. Quinn. Vera is the very embodiment of having a creator mindset instead of a victim mindset. Her story is one of personal accountability and making the most of every situation she is gone from literally knocking on doors to being the CEO of a successful organization. There are lessons in here about having a growth mindset and constantly learning from people and events around you. There is something in this for all of us. Enjoy the show. to be part of our story today. Today's story is going to be about her life story and about her career journey. She's one of these people that has literally gone from knocking on doors to being the CEO of the organization. And there's a story behind all of that journey, about how she knocked down barriers, how she broke the glass ceiling and was able to be the successful person that I see in front of me today. So I'm really interested. We don't often do this, just the deep delve into someone's story, but this one is a story worth sharing, so I'm really interested to hear more. So without any further ado Vera, I would love it if you would say hello to the audience. I'd love to you to give a flavor of that very rich background of you. You know where you started and how all of this developed for you, until the point that you're sitting in front of us today.

Vera Quinn: 1:42

No, that is a story, Mick. I appreciate you having me on the podcast. This is going to be fun. So, I like to start at the beginning. I think it's an important piece of my story. I think in a lot of ways, the way I grew up dictates who I am today. I grew up in Toronto to immigrant parents, and my parents came to the country, I think, three months before I was born, my father met my mother in former Yugoslavia, where she was just visiting on holiday. Somehow, don't know how she was there for a, you know, period of time they get married there, she gets pregnant there, and they now are moving to Canada. I don't think my father saw that in his cards. My mom was born in Yugoslavia, but had come to Canada when she was younger, and so here they find themselves with her family just about to have a baby. My dad's trade was fixing cars. That's what he knew how to do. And when he came over to the country, obviously, is going to go find a job trying to do that thing that he can use his skill for. He did not speak English at all, which is interesting. And you know, he worked for a man, a German man, for a long time. And you know, the lottery, I think, is really big with immigrants. I don't know how, how they did it. He played the lottery. One day, won$10,000 and opened up his own car mechanic shop, and he opened it in a spot where a lot of Yugoslavian people lived in Toronto, so he could interact with the community. He could get new customers, and that's how you know. My earliest memories are of this man running this business at the Danforth in Toronto. And I just watched him be an incredible entrepreneur. I watched him build a business from nothing. I watched him take care of customers. I watched him be really good to his community. My parents had another little girl. My sister and my mom passed away. I was four. My younger sister was three, and I think it's really hard for anybody to lose. You know, their wife at 25 years old. She was 25 she was very young, and it's a wild story. He said, Okay, I need to get married again. I need to find a wife. I have these two little girls. I have to work. He obviously had no family. There no help. And he met my stepmother, who also had a daughter. She was also a widow, and so a little bit of the Brady Bunch happened. My stepmother, my father, get married, and now there's three little girls, all a year apart. They got married a year after my mom passed, and for the first little while, again, also strange, me and my sister were with my dad. They didn't know each other. This was an arrangement, I'll work, I'll have the business, I'll take care of the family, and you take care of the girls. That was their arrangement for a long time, you know, fast forward, they ended up having a marriage, a real marriage. And, you know, they had my little brother, and we were a family. And there was a family wrought with, you know, being immigrants, and I think that has its own interesting story. And then it was a family where both people. Somebody obviously that they deeply loved. So that was an interesting piece of just my story and background. I think I was raised, and it was just a constant message over and over, we came here, you have to have a better life. And so I bought into that. I bought into, how do I make myself successful? What are the skills and experiences that I need to build a great life? Who do I need to become? And I think just that origin story. When I think about why I am who I am, that is a big reason why I am who I am. So I'm not sure if that's what you were looking for, that kind of start.

Mick Spiers: 5:38

Yeah. It's a perfect start, Vera. Let me unpack some of the things I'm hearing. First of all, sorry to hear of your loss. I know it's a long time ago, but that's a very tough start in life to lose your mother at four. So, I'm sorry to hear that there's three things that I'm hearing there that I'd like to unpack a little bit before we get into your career story. The first one is the lessons that you might have taken from your father as an entrepreneur. The second one is a little bit about human beings and that we are better together. So the story of your father, let's say, looking for a wife, looking for that partnership, that partnership, it blossoms into a beautiful marriage. But initially, that's a partnership where I'm going to look after this bit and you're going to look after that bit. This is my strength. That's your strength. We're stronger together, and we can co create something together. And then the third part of that, which is a common story Vera, is this desire for parents that they always make sacrifices. I'm going to say, because what they're trying to create is a better life for their children compared to what they had. So let's unpack that one at a time. Let's talk about this. I'm going to say leadership and entrepreneurial lessons that you gained from watching your father turn what was a fortuitous opportunity into a business?

Vera Quinn: 6:53

Yeah, I think the first lesson, I think I learned is, you know, when you're an entrepreneur, you own it all. You are responsible for everything the buck stops with you. And my father took that very seriously as his business grew. I think at one point in time, he had five mechanics working for him. He partnered with Shell, you know, shell the big gas company. So they moved, he moved his shop, and then he had a partnership with Shell Canada. And then he had other employees, you know, just manning that gas pump and just everything. They would call him. I don't care if it was Sunday, I don't care if it was Saturday night that shop, as it was open, he was the one that was responsible for all of it. And I think one of my biggest values, or drivers, is a sense of responsibility. And I think that came from what I saw there. The other big thing in a service industry, you have to take care of your customers. So there would be times a car's broken down at somebody's house. They're a long time customer of my father's, and he's going to their house, taking his tools rolling under their car in their driveway so he could fix their car. And I remember saying, Why dad, just get the car on the tow truck and get him to bring it in. And he's like, it costs a lot of money to get a car on a tow truck. This customer has been my customer for 10, 15 years. It's just as easy for me to go see what I can do to help fix the car. 15 years is a long time to have a customer relationship. So I was like, Huh, you take care of the people that are loyal to you. So that was another big lesson, and just being an entrepreneur and running a business, the other one was, you got to lead by example. He was the first one in. He was the last one to leave. And so when I think about how I lead, I try and lead by example. I try and hey, if I want people to be hard workers, I got to be a hard worker. If I want people to have a high level of integrity and character, I better display that high level of integrity and character. And then the other thing is, and I think you know, this is also interesting, if the buck stops with you and you own the outcome of your business, then you have to do whatever your business needs at that time, not whatever you feel like doing at that time. And that was another big lesson for me. Hey, if, if he was down a mechanic, and he's got three people coming in, he's got to work overtime, huh? Now he'd been in that business for a really long time, as he was getting older, that might have been tougher for him. He may not have wanted to do that. He's like, we make a commitment, we deliver on our commitments. And and if somebody doesn't show up while I don't own that, while that's not my fault, I still have customers coming in. They're expecting this and this from me. I have to come through for them this way.

Mick Spiers: 9:30

Thanks, Vera. There's three big takeaways I'm taking from that. The first one is around that customer service and the customer service almost to the point of dedication, of obsession, driving loyalty, which you know you've even said that customer has been a customer of my intention of 15 years. Well, guess what? That customer also talks to other people, and that's what really builds that loyal customer base that drives the business and makes sure it stays in business for a very long time. The other part was the role modeling of behaviors. What behavior? Is, do I want to see in others, and am I role modeling those behaviors? But the big one was the accountability, the accountability to not just make sure that everything was getting done, but to take personal accountability for that, including doing what needs to be done, not necessarily just what I want to do. And I do see that a lot in businesses, people very easily get into comfort zone of doing the things that they want to do, maybe even it's the things that they're good at. And therefore it kind of gets this comfort zone of, oh, yeah, I can do this, and they're shying away from the stuff that needs to be done.

Vera Quinn: 10:34

Yeah. His philosophy was, I am here. If this is my business, I'm an entrepreneur. I have made commitments to these people that work for me, right? I've made commitments to my customers. I make commitments to my family. I have to do what the business needs. I have to do what my family needs. I have to do what this relationship needs. And I may not want to do that. I may not feel like doing that. To your point, it may not be. I woke up thinking that today was the day I had to do this, but if the onus is on me, then then that's how I have to think about life. And he used to say to us, I remember saying, sometimes I don't feel like going to school. I don't care. I don't care what you feel like today. Your life needs you to go to school. That is your responsibility, and go and do it 100% we worked when we were really young. My dad was really old school, so it was either we weren't allowed to do anything. He was really old school, and he had three girls, I mean, so it was like, Okay, I'm gonna work as soon as I can, because I can't hang out with my friends in the way that was traditional in that country, right? We just didn't grow up that way. So you know, hey, you're going to work. You are representing yourself. What do you want to accomplish today? It doesn't matter if it's your job or what you feel like. Today's the day you show up in your life and you do what needs to get done and I think that's a really valuable lesson.

Mick Spiers: 11:54

Yeah. And I think part of it is that when you do those things that need to be done, it unlocks the things that you want to do, right? So sometimes you gotta put in the work, and it actually enables you to get the reward that you're after of the things that you do want to do. How does that sit with you?

Vera Quinn: 12:09

No, 100%. 100%, because if I do what needs to get done today, right? If I look at my life, my business, my relationships, and I'm focused on what is the next thing that gets me to the next level. I end up 5, 10, 15, 30 years from now, building a life that I want, building a career I want, building the kind of business I want, if I focus only on the things I want to do or I feel like doing, not 100% sure what my life looks like in 5, 10, 15, 30 years, right? We are kind of creatures of comfort.

Mick Spiers: 12:43

Exactly, and great things happen just the other side of our comfort zone. And what I'm I love that you use the word build because it's like you're architecting something. You're putting in the architecture. You're putting in that base foundation by doing the things that need to be done, you're putting in those base foundations of the house so that you can build the house, not just have fun every day. That's really good, nice life lesson for all of us there. Vera, want to come to the second one that I was touching on. I'd love to hear what you learned about relationships, about partnerships, etc, with what and I want to hear your reflections, not just mine, about that reflection about your father and your stepmother and how they made it work, the resilience of coming together and being better together, and how they co created something together.

Vera Quinn: 13:29

Yeah. You know, it's interesting. It's interesting. First off, I don't know how I'd feel if I just lost my wife, right? So I have a trim and at that time, I couldn't even understand I was so young, but I look now at 50 years old when my father went through and I just, you know, it's so hard for me to even imagine, here's this person. You're starting your life with them, you have two little kids, and then it's gone. And what happens to somebody? What psychologically happens? I don't know, but I think that is interesting. Not only did he get through it, not only are we, I think we're great kids, he had the wherewithal, or the thought process to say, I'm going to marry somebody and I'm going to bring them into this family, and we're going to create whatever this new family looks like. So I look at my father, and I'm like, I don't know if I would have been that strong. I've never had to go through anything like that, so we'll never know. And then I look at my stepmother, and I think, you know, she loved us like we were her kids. She didn't treat my older sister differently than she treated me and my younger sister. She just, hey, if one had something, we all had something. You know, if one was being not good, you know, we all got the same treatment. It wasn't. There was none of well, this is my daughter, and these are my stepkids. She didn't raise us that way. And I think what I pulled from that is people have an incredible capacity to love. There's an incredible capacity to love. And so I think that led me to some of my philanthropy. And. Louise, just, how can you show kids love? And so we can get into that at some other time. Now, the way that they work together, I think culturally. Mick, they got married and they stay married. There was no option. So even right, once you made that commitment, culturally, that was it. There wasn't oh, we're not getting along today. There wasn't, Oh, the kids are going through a hard time. There wasn't, Oh, my God, they're all on your teenage years. This is too hard, and we made a commitment. We're married. We got to make this work. It's also a great lesson, right? It's it's a great lesson for marriage, it's a great lesson for business. It's a great lesson for relationships. For Life, the quality of my life is dependent on how much energy, effort and time I put into it.

Mick Spiers: 16:21

There's two really big threads that I'm taking away from that Vera apart from the co creation thing that we started with. So the first one is the resilience that you make a commitment, you make it work. That sounds like a good life lesson and business lesson. You don't give up at the first hurdle. The second one is those forks in the road that happened in our life, you always have choices. Sometimes the choice is Yes or No, but you always have some level of choice. And there's things that happen in our life that are outside our control that we can't do anything about. We can't change the past. It's already happened. There are some things that happen in our life that we can't change, no matter how much we wish it to be different. But what are we going to do about it? Are we going to let that external event, and in this case, it's loss of a loved one? Are we going to let that label us control us, you know, be who we become, or are we going to make choices and do something? Now, his path was remarriage. That's a logical path. There could have been other paths, but what he didn't do was dwell on it. He didn't spiral. He went, well, these are the cards I'm dealt. What am I going to do with these cards?

Vera Quinn: 17:27

Right. And then again, I didn't have the perspective. Then I was so young, obviously I couldn't. As I look back at the choices they made, how they lived, look some I agreed with 100% some, I was like, Ooh, I am not doing this. This will not be a piece of my life. But they did, like I said, they raised great kids, and they have a great extended family, you know, there's five grandkids. So I just look at their life, and I thought, you know, to your point, they could have went in very different directions, very different directions. I wouldn't have got my older sister. They wouldn't have had my brother, right? So I do think to your point, you gotta make the best with what you have, the best of what you're dealt that is the only way you have some input into the outcome. And one of my biggest beliefs is you have the ability to choose right stimulus, choice response.

Mick Spiers: 18:22

Exactly. You can't always control the external outfits, but you can control how you respond to that Absolutely. All right. Now I'm really glad that we went through this, because for me, a lot of that background makes up the fabric of who you are today, Vera, but then you converted that into a very successful career. So I mentioned this in the intro. You've literally gone from knocking on doors to being the CEO. Tell us about your career journey from that moment.

Vera Quinn: 18:48

So, I answered an ad in a newspaper. I was at the University of Toronto, studying poly sci and history. Not 100% sure why, but I answered an ad in a newspaper, have fun, make money. And my friends at the time felt like, Hey, you're not doing anything. It's the summer. You need to go get a job. And I was, you know, a little I'm having fun. We were living on campus during the summer. It was great. But I did. I went in for this interview, and I just see a group of people in this business, and they're all well dressed. They're all excited about something. I don't really know what I'm interviewing for. Have fun, make money, right? Like, what? And I go in for this interview, and they explain to me that, hey, we do this promotional work. We talk to customers and neighborhoods, about local businesses, about local golf courses, about local, you know, sporting events, etc. And at that time we were selling, really, it was like a certificate. So imagine you have a golf course in your neighborhood, and there was a certificate for $20 would give you two for one green fees, or two for one putting hours, or, you know, a drink and an appetizer at the golf course. And I remember going out with somebody, and they're showing me, I'm doing a job shadow, and they're talking to people at their homes. People are, for the most part, really nice. I was like, Okay, well, how much money do you make? Well, you sell one, you make $7 okay, so if I sell like, 20 of these a day, that's a lot of money at that time. And all I'm doing is talking to people. Yeah, that's the job. Okay, well, how do I sell it? Right? So they teach me the pitch and I thought this would be a really good gig for the summer. First of all, never done sales, never had any sales experience. I wonder if I could do it. I wonder, can I take the rejection for as many people as you see, like triple the amount of people say no to you, can I take the rejection? Am I willing to take the risk? It was commission only. Am I willing to take the risk? Because if you don't sell anything, you're not going to make anything. And I thought, Okay, I am going to dedicate a month to this, and I'm going to get good at it. And only after a month and getting pretty good at it, am I allowed to say I don't want to do this anymore. Mick, not surprising, a month later, I was really good at it. I had a lot of fun doing it. A lot of fun doing it. I'm just talking to people I learned so much about the kind of grown up I wanted to be. You'd have somebody knock on your door, you'd answer the door, and some people were just so angry. I was like, That is not the kind of grown up I want to be. Some people were so kind and welcoming, and I thought that is the kind of grown up I want to be. There were, you know, during the day, there were a lot of women that answered the door, right? And it's a $20 decision. And, you know, I can't make this decision without my husband. And I thought that is not the kind of grown up I want to be. I want to be the kind of grown up where I can make this decision on my own. I don't have to talk to my husband about a $20 decision. So I there were a lot of really great life lessons I learned from talking to and when I say, by the end, 10s of 1000s of customers, they also had a path in the business where you could train other people. So I'm young. I'm 20 something years old, and I now have the ability Mick to train you, bring you in, show you the pitch, show you how to talk to customers, walk you through our system. And I loved it. I love the entrepreneurial spirit. I love that nobody was on top of me asking at two o'clock, where are you? What are you doing? I love the fact that I can make as much or as little money as I wanted, and it all really depended on how many people I talked to, because there was no way you couldn't sell 10 of these things. There's no way it's in your neighborhood. It's a really good deal. There was no way. So EV, the onus was all on me, and that is really how I started my career. You control your inputs, you control your outcomes, you control your attitude, you control your work ethic. There's a group of people that are willing to train you and give you the time, effort and energy if you should ever struggle, and your ability to get ahead in this business is only done if you can train and help other people be successful. So again, it kind of goes back to my little origin story. If that isn't the American dream, I don't know what it's.

Mick Spiers: 23:01

I love it. Let me share with you what I'm taking away so far, and then we'll continue to build the story. So there's three big takeaways, but as it starts with an underpinning of essentially stoicism, which is, you know, you're controlling what is in your control, and you're taking full accountability for what's in your control, which I think is beautiful. The first one I took away, I really like that time commitment that you made. And whether it's one month or sometimes it needs to be longer, depending on the complexity of the journey that you're about to go on. Have a time commitment that you go right? I'm going to try this. It could be anything. It could be. I'm going to go and learn tennis. I'm going to, I don't know. I'm going to learn the piano, whatever it is, that first day is not going to govern whether you like it. Don't like it, blah, blah, blah in either way, like, if your first day is beautiful, it doesn't mean that every day is going to be beautiful. If your first day is horrible, it doesn't mean that every day is going to be horrible. So I love that you put a time commitment of one month go, I'm going to do this for a month, and then I'm going to decide whether I like this and whether it's part of my journey or not. So I think there's a strong lesson there. The second one that I love is the start of what I'd call your growth mindset at this point, that you're always learning from everyone around you. And you may not know this Vera but in my works, one of the things I invented was a thing called the amalgam leader, and this is where you build your own model of leadership by observing the behavior of other leaders, not to mimic them, but to pick and choose. And go, oh, oh, I really liked that about this leader, but I didn't like that bit. And I liked this bit, but I didn't like that bit. And you're collecting all of these good and bad attributes, and you're going, I want to model that behavior, but I'll never do that behavior to another human being ever, right? So building up what you call your amalgam leader, and you were doing that as you were knocking on these doors, you're observing people's life right in front of your eyes and going, oh, I want to be like that when I'm a grown up, but I don't want to be like that. So I absolutely love that. And then the third one is the multiplication effect. Is then, once you got into it and you were mastering it, the idea that you can then teach others to do what you were doing, that becomes the ability to multiply and scale, not just you, sorry, Vera, I hate to tell you this. You're a human being. You only have 24 hours in the day, just like the rest of us, but when you can inspire and influence others, all of a sudden there's seven of you, or there's 14 of you, or there's 21 of you, and now we start having a real impact. How do those three things sit with you?

Vera Quinn: 25:32

No, I love it. Yeah. And that is our business. I think it really is our business. I say to people, nothing. Thing teaches you, as well as sales nothing, because you're selling your whole life, whether we know it or not, I'm selling my idea. I'm selling my date night. I'm selling my what we're eating for dinner. I'm selling Hey, what kind of gift do I want for Christmas? I want my son to do something I'm selling him. So that skill for me, it was just, how do I interact with people communicate something in a way that opens a door for me, whether they say yes or no. And actually, I think I learned a lot more from the rejection than I did the yeses. I learned a lot more about what I was saying. How did I say it? Is there another way to say it? I learned a lot about my attitude and work ethic. How many times you know, like, am I going to take this personally? And you hear no, 50, 60 times in a day. You just learn not to take nothing is personal. They don't have something against you. They just don't need it now. No, doesn't mean forever. So that whole part of the business, really, I think, was foundational for where I am today. Then the whole building teams, part of the business. It was a merit based, if you do well, you can teach other people how to do this. So merit based at 20 something years old, that's a really interesting place to be, right? And for me, I rose to that occasion. And then this whole notion of, I don't care how great you're at sales, if you can't teach other people how to do this, you're not going to be successful here. So again, it just had the bones of I just think good business, really good business. And that's how I try and run soccor. We're a corporation today, right? It's, you know, it's a big business, but it's all about hey, hey, this is a merit based business. You know, how well can you control and have a great attitude? What's your work ethic look like. And I try not put people in boxes in my business. Hey, if you're a HR person and you really want to learn technology, we'll invest in you. If that's your dream, we'll invest in you. Now, you have to do the work. You have to figure out how to make that jump. But I'm more into believing in people. I think people can do incredible things.

Mick Spiers: 27:39

Really love it. And once again, this this scaling thing. Of you were saying, Before I sell 20 of these things every day, bit of I can inspire 100 people to do the same. Well, all of a sudden, we're at 2000 aren't we? And blah, blah, blah, right. So, and then it goes from there. Also love your mindset around you know, career paths don't have to be linear either. So giving people opportunities if they do want to try things, but they have to put in the work. They don't, you don't spoon feed them, you enable them, but they have to put in the work. That's a really powerful message as well.

Vera Quinn: 28:13

Yeah. So that was, like the big piece right that field, piece, the knocking on doors. Then I moved it to recruiting. And I recruited for a few years for our business, which was great again, selling, hey, I'm selling this job. I'm trying to get you interested to come in for this interview. I ran my own small business bookkeeping for these independently owned offices. And then there was an opportunity to work at sitcorp. It was based in Toronto, and the founder, at the time, he had a project, and, you know, I helped him with that project, and from there, he just tried to recruit, recruit. And I said, No, I don't know anything about formal business, right? I know a lot about sales. I know a lot about team building, the formal business, PolSci history, you know, and I didn't have a lot of business people in my life, right? Just my background, my family life. So cidcorps was moving to the United States. New CEO came on, and I thought, I'm going to do this for three years again, that timeline, three years of my life. I'll get a visa, moving from Toronto to California. I'm going to learn from a man who built a business, sold the business. Our CFO was brilliant. Well, he still is brilliant. He's just not our CFO anymore. He's retired. And I thought, I'm going to learn something amazing from these business people. I'm going to learn what it means to run a business, what it means to be responsible for clients. What does it mean to be responsible for? You know, two, 3000 people's opportunity. And so when I moved here, I thought, I'll be here for three years. Great experience. Learn whatever you need to learn. I went to classes, Pepperdine, UCLA, Sc, whether it was management, leadership classes, finance and accounting classes, process classes, just learn. Learn as much as I could about how to run a big business, and my visa is expiring, and I was talking to Gary, and he said, Hey, have you ever thought that one day you could run this place? I said, No, I thought actually never crossed my mind, not once. But a little seed was planted. And I thought, what would I need to learn to become a CEO of now$330 million business, and I spent the next 15 years learning what I needed to learn putting myself in those situations, whether it was negotiation with clients, whether it was how do you run operations? How do you make sure you have the right financial structure? How do you build relationships with the sales, sales leadership? At that high level. And so it was a really interesting path. And now here I am.

Mick Spiers: 30:44

Brilliant, Vera. I want to reflect on three major chapters in what you just said. First of all, opportunity knocked and you answered the door and you committed. Three years you went, Okay, same thing, time commitment. I'm going to give this a go. Love that the second one, second and third one are connected in some way. The second one is then, once again, about the learning and the growth mindset, and this is about the mentorship. So have a think about this. If you're listening in the audience today, this idea of seeing someone that you think that you can learn a lot from, and almost getting yourself joined at their hip and becoming a mentee for a period of time. So Vera has seen, in fact, I'm going to say two at this point. They're the CEO and the CFO. And went, Oh, they're interesting people. If I get close in their network, I'm going to become a richer person, because I'm going to learn from their experiences, etc, etc. So sometimes this learn this growth mindset might take you on a menteeship approach, where you surround yourself with people that you think that you will learn and grow from. And then the third one here, and this is an interesting one, I'm going to share an opinion about this as well. There is a fork in the road in a lot of people's career to decide whether I'm going to be a specialist or a generalist, and I am going to share an opinion that some people may not agree with. There is nothing wrong with being a specialist and going very deep in your craft. This is how we end up with Nobel Prize winners, with people that invent new technologies, etc, they've usually become a deep expert in one field. Nothing wrong with that at all. But I do feel that executive management the C suite, maybe CTO is a different character, but generally, the C suite are going to be better if they've actually worked in multiple departments of a business as they've gone through. They might have been in sales, like you said, recruitment, HR, finance, they've gone around and they've done different parts of the job before they end up in the big chair, and once they're in that big chair, it's not that they know everyone else's job better than they that's not what it's about. They have the empathy for understanding all of the lever of the business and what it means for different departments. And you're able to have that network and system of systems view of the business, because you've been there, you've been there, and you've been in these different departments, and you understand the business. So how does that sit with you around you know, I want to ask you both parts this mentorship element of coupling up with people that you believe that you'll learn and grow from. And secondly, this pivot between specialist vs generalist.

Vera Quinn: 33:27

Well, I love what you pick up on. I love it. I love where you're going deeper. So there were apprenticeships for a reason, right? And that I just thought, okay, he's a great businessman, so I can be the apprentice. Why wouldn't I be why wouldn't I do that? If I want to be a great parent, I want to go watch great parents be great parents. If I want to have an incredible marriage, and I haven't seen that example, I better go hang out with people who have incredible marriages. How will I learn? So I'm very into finding the example and learning from that example. And I call that the apprenticeship, right? If I want to be a better public speaker, who do I need to become an apprentice to and let me go be with them and let me watch them. How do you prepare? How do you think about this? What do you do every day? Is there a practice or a best practice that you have, that maybe I can pick up from, and I don't have to be the person who knows the answer. I just need to be able to absorb what I see or what I hear or what I'm learning. So I love the idea, and I call it the apprenticeship, right? If you want to be the CFO at Sid core, and you're not spending time with our new CFO, then that's not a good game plan for you, right? If in 10 years, you want to be the CFO. I would get time with the CFO and say, Hey, can you teach me this? Or what about this concept? Or what are your three biggest headaches? Or, how do you think about, you know, people in your department, I'm constantly asking questions, constantly, constantly asking questions I couldn't even imagine, Not.

Mick Spiers: 34:56

Yeah. Love it, Vera. One of the things there, I think, a negative mindset that people might have it of this when they look at it from the outside. I'm saying this for a reason to try and correct it. People may see that as being sycophantic. Oh, there's Vera. She's sucking up to the boss again, etc, etc, but you're not you're there to learn and grow. And maybe there are some people in the world that do it for the wrong reasons. They are just doing it to suck up and be in good favor. But that's not what I'm hearing from you at all. It's you're there to learn and grow when you see someone that you admire and you want to learn from them.

Vera Quinn: 35:30

Yeah, there's two things, right? I think people feel that way about non performers. But whatever role I was in, I performed, I performed. Work. So I remember, when we first came here, I was the operations manager. Mick, I didn't even know what that meant. Like, what is an operations manager? What do they do? Oh, I'm working in the billing and payments for our clients. What's that? Okay, well, let me go be the best person that I could possibly be in that role, because then what'll happen is, you'll give me time. You'll want to spend time with me that you'll you'll see, hey, this is a really high performer. She's asking me questions from a work ethic perspective. Another way to circumvent that thought process of people thinking you're sucking up is I just work harder than everybody. I'm the first one in, like, I remember first one in, last one a leaf. So I'm not using my work time to have these conversations. I'm using my extra time, my investment in Vera time, to go hang out with the CFO or go hang out with the CEO, if they'll give me time. So to me, it's about performance, right? Because who's going to give you time unless you're a top performer, right? Because my time as a CEO, I'm going to spend time with my best people, because I have a finite amount of it. If I had an infinite amount of it, maybe I'd spend time with everybody. But I find my coaching conversations where I dig deeper. They're either with my best performers. But I'll give you that time, because you're doing amazing at this role, whatever role you're in at that moment. And if you want to learn the bigger picture of the business, or where we're going strategy wise, or you want to sit in the client meeting for sure. I'll give you that time. And I was really lucky that Gary and Ron were both that way.

Mick Spiers: 37:09

Yeah, brilliant. All right, Vera, I want to maybe bring us towards a close with two last topics that the first one, congratulations on your success. It's amazing if you are able. And this is going to be a challenging question, if you are able to pinpoint some very specific leadership lessons that you would share with our audience today about the things that you've learned from those mentors, from your own journey, from your father, what would be the key leadership lessons that you've taken along the way?

Vera Quinn: 37:38

I think for me again, that whole stimulus, choose response, things happen. I choose, which means I have the power. No one else has that power. I have the responsibility to choose, and then the outcome is the outcome. So to me, I feel like I believe, and I know you're in Australia, so I don't mean I believe we're in the best country in the world. I really do. There's a ton of opportunity in this country. You weren't born in Belize, right? I wasn't born in Belize, where there isn't a lot of opportunity. It doesn't matter how hard you work, right? So to me, it's like something, things are always going to happen. The quality of your life is in that choice, the choice before you respond, that is the quality of your life. So that is a big one for me. The second one for me, I do not make decisions when I'm down. Let's say I'm failing. Let's say my husband and I were going through a rough patch, and I see people, well, we're going through a rough patch, and what does that mean? It's not going to work. No, no, no, no, no. Do the work to turn it around and then make the decision. And what inevitably happens is that rough patch you forget, whether it's your career, whether it's your marriage, whether it's you know, your kid going through teenage years, right? Do the work. You take on the ownership and do the work to turn it around, make it a positive, and I guarantee you you'll make a different decision. You don't give up on your marriage when things are going well, easy to give up on your marriage when things aren't going well. And I find that in business all the time, and I found that in my career, there have been times and I'm like, can I even do this? Can I really I'm just sucking at this role. I'm terrible in front of a client. I'm terrible in front of the bankers. Okay, we'll do the work to get good at it, and then make the decision. And then I've just found I'm like, Well, I am good at it now. So, I'll move to the next thing.

Mick Spiers: 39:30

Yeah. Brilliant, Vera. So huge takeaways there. The first of all, I'm not going to fall into a battle with you to tell you that Australia is the best country in the world. Because, honest view, there is no such thing as the best country in the world. There are. Every country has got their admirable traits. And then things that you'd like this, Oh, am I going to get deported saying this? There's things about Australia I don't like. There's things about Australia I love. It's the same with every country, right? So there's no no such thing as the best country in the world. But make the most of what you have right which comes to your stimulus, choice, response. That's a really big one. So that's the heart of stoicism. By the way, stoicism is often misunderstood, but it's the fact that we can't control other people. We can't control other human beings. We can't control their behavior. What we can choose is how we respond to that behavior, and I could replace human behavior with any other stimulus. What you can control is how you respond to it. You can't always control what happens around you. It. Can control how you respond. It's a wonderful takeaway for today's discussion. And then the other one, and this is I'm going to borrow one of my favorite quotes here via. Which is from TD Jakes, never make a permanent decision based on a temporary emotion. And what I'm hearing from you there is, when you get into those hard times, don't make a permanent decision at that time. Do the work. Do the work first. Doesn't mean you'll never make the decision, but you're going to do the work to right the ship first, and then decide, okay, we're going to go left, or are we going to go right? I think that's a powerful takeaway as well, Vera.

Vera Quinn: 41:06

Yeah, I really believe that. I've seen a lot of people blow up things in their life, and I just think, man, if you'd just taken the responsibility to fix it, and then you're right. Because sometimes the right decision is to let go of something.

Mick Spiers: 41:20

Yeah.

Vera Quinn: 41:20

That's fine, but my head is clear. I'm in the right spot to do it.

Mick Spiers: 41:25

Yeah, really good. Right, so the second part that I wanted to close with is then you've been very successful, and now you have a mindset of pay it forward. So you do have a lot of philanthropic endeavors that you follow. Tell us more about how your career has gotten to the point where you want to now pay it forward.

Vera Quinn: 41:45

Yeah. So I look at, I look at paying it forward in a lot of ways. I look at it in my business, we have a lot of great people in our business, and I'm the CEO. I'm responsible to help these people get the lives that they want, whatever their goals and dreams are. So that, to me, is a big pay it forward. Somebody did that for me. I have to do that for my people. So that's the first then I look at my community. How do I pay it forward here? What are the things that I can get involved in? There are a lot of young women and, you know, I just, I get excited about that, young women who are in business school, and I go and speak at schools. I try and help mentor young women in just in the community. And I just think I wish I'd had that when I was younger, that didn't exist. It exists more today, which is great. How can I pay it forward in my community? And then I have a really soft spot for children a really soft spot. Kids don't ask to be born. They don't have any say in what family they're born into. And I went to go volunteer in Belize at Liberty children's home, and I met at that time, 30 kids that were incredible, these incredible, loving, beautiful souls that came from tragedy, just absolute tragedy, and it's a third world country, and while the government helps a little bit, it's not enough. And so I've become the director of liberty children's home. I fundraise for Liberty children's home, and really, between myself and a lot of people at sigco, we've kept Liberty open for the last, I think, now, nine years.

Mick Spiers: 43:25

That's really beautiful, Vera. And thank you for all that you do for that organization. What I want to reflect on, though, is that's not where you started. I love that you started with. It can be very local. So if you listen to this and you've always wanted to pay it forward like Vera does, and you're thinking, oh, yeah, but I can't create a foundation. I can't do it. Doesn't have to start like that. It could be starting with helping the cafe owner on the corner. Or it can be like in your community. It could be in your business, what are you doing to pay it forward and enable other people that may not have the same equitable access to opportunity that you have. What can you do to help them Springboard leap forward, whatever the case may be. So I love that you started local, and then it got bigger for you.

Vera Quinn: 44:14

And Mick, just a quick story that I think is funny. So, you know, during covid, a lot of restaurants they shut down for a little while, right? But as they opened back up, it was hard to staff them. Okay, so there's a place that we love to go, still love to go. It's called Q sushi, and I remember one night we get there, they're short staffed. Now, my husband and I go there maybe once every two weeks. We love it. We love the food. We love the people. They're short staffed, and people are running around. They're like, you know, they're stressed. You could tell they're stressed. And I said to she's she was the manager at the time. I said, Do you need some help? What do you need help with? She said, Are you kidding? So no, we're here. We're able bodied. We eat here all the time. We can help. Now I remember, I'm in the back, washing pots and pans, my husband's folding napkins. I said, we're if you can pay it forward, there's always a place anywhere you look. I don't care where you are, you can be helpful. And people appreciate it.

Mick Spiers: 45:09

That's absolutely wonderful, Vera. Thank you for sharing that story. Is exactly the kind of behavior that I was I had in my head when I said, start with the local cafe owner, or whatever it is, there's always something you can do. So thank you so much, Vera. This has been a wonderful conversation. I'd now like to take us to our Rapid Round. So these are the same four questions we ask all of our guests. So what's the one thing you know now? Vera Quinn, that you wish you knew when you were 20?

Vera Quinn: 45:35

It was all gonna work out. I had a lot of self doubt, a lot. Self doubt, like am I good enough? Will I figure this out? Can I become and instead of that just taking up so much space in my brain because it did what I tell people, if you do the work, it will work out. So don't worry. Don't spend a lot of time in worry and agony.

Mick Spiers: 45:57

I want to build on something there. I don't normally interrupt in the middle of these four questions, but I love that, that the answer is, do the work, right? So you started off with it will all work out, which is a good mindset, for sure, but it's not sit there and hope it'll work out. You did the work to make it work out. Yeah.

Vera Quinn: 46:17

Yeah. There are a lot of people who are doing that work Mick, right. They're doing it. They're pushing and and the doubt makes them step back. Yeah, yeah, right. They it's almost like this their own brain kind of, or the thoughts in their head get in the way.

Mick Spiers: 46:30

Good, one, okay, all right. Been dying to ask this question, because I know that you've been reading the same book every January for 20 something years. What's your favorite book?

Vera Quinn: 46:41

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Cubby.

Mick Spiers: 46:45

Ah, well done. Okay, what's your favorite of the seven habits that's putting you on the spot?

Vera Quinn: 46:50

I think it's begin with the end in mind.

Mick Spiers: 46:53

Okay, which makes sense with everything that you've shared today, by the way.

Vera Quinn: 46:57

Yeah, begin with the end in mind.

Mick Spiers: 46:59

Very good minds seek, first to understand, then to be understood, but also have another gems, right? All right, very good. What's your favorite quote?

Vera Quinn: 47:08

Yeah, you're gonna laugh. You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will have strength, Marcus Aurelius.

Mick Spiers: 47:18

That sums up everything you've shared today. It's absolutely beautiful. Okay, all right, wonderful. And finally, how do people find you? Vera, people are going to be enthralled by this story. If they'd like to know more, get to know you more. How do they find you?

Vera Quinn: 47:32

Yeah, so Instagram at Vera Quinn, we're pretty active there @sidcore, you will find us on those two handles. Of course, our website can reach out in any of those ways.

Mick Spiers: 47:45

Well, thank you so much, Vera I've thoroughly enjoyed today's conversation. I feel richer for having chatted with you today, and I know that our audience is going to get great value out of this as well. Thank you so much for your time and sharing your story with us today.

Vera Quinn: 47:58

Well, thank you. You're a great host. I loved how you picked out all of the key points. Thank you. Thanks for building I really appreciate your time.

Mick Spiers: 48:06

You've been listening to The Leadership Project in the next episode, we'll be joined by master certified coach Tony Latimer. Don't forget to follow The Leadership Project podcast so you can be notified of all of our future episodes. If you are getting great value from these discussions, it would be wonderful if you would leave us a rating and a review. You can also subscribe to The Leadership Project YouTube channel, where we bring you weekly livestream shows, short, informative videos and full video podcasts, music. Thank you for listening to The Leadership Project mickspiers.com a huge call out to Faris Sedek for his video editing of all of our video content and to all of the team at TLP. Joan Gozon, Gerald Calibo And my amazing wife Sei Spiers, I could not do this show without you. Don't forget to subscribe to The Leadership Project YouTube channel, where we bring you interesting videos each and every week, and you can follow us on social, particularly on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. Now, in the meantime, please do take care, look out for each other and join us on this journey as we learn together and lead together.