Episode 02: Alicia Hanf - Dear Mamma VC
“Dear Mamma,
I wholeheartedly believe it’s my mission and my purpose in life to create an ecosystem where all people can show up vulnerable enough to dream, and have the resources to do it.” - Alicia Hanf
00:00- Hi it's Genevieve Leigh Marshall and welcome to this episode of The Adventurous podcast today I am so excited to dig in with Alicia Hanf she's a tedx speaker a former Army Special Operations turned VC current Global head of Partnerships at LG and the founder and managing director of Dear Mama VC she has an incredibly impressive rap sheet and it's just no surprise that she has been advising and working with startups for quite a while she's got so much to share with us from her Incredible Journey so happy to have you
00:37- Here Alicia it's so wonderful to be here thank you so much absolutely we've got so much to share with you guys today and I'm thrilled to Dive Right In I cannot wait to talk with you guys about Alicia on her journey she's just got this track record that is just incredible and impressive and very unique and not only is Alicia a complete badass in the business world but she's also full of wisdom femininity and light and this girl is just the real freaking deal but before we dive in let's just
01:10- Talk a little bit about brex how appropriate I would say because we've got two VC gals and Rex is Adventure bank I can speak myself from experience being with the right Bank as a startup is key I personally was absolutely saved by my banker back in the day I had a startup and things were not going well I'm sure you all will hear that story one day this Banker her name was Sherry she was amazing she's back in Oregon now brex didn't exist at the time but I will never forget her and she really helped
01:43- Me during a time when the last thing you wanted to do was be talking to a bank so yeah so brex wasn't a thing back then but entrepreneurs can scale the business faster with brex open an account online and only 10 minutes deposit cash send payments track spend and get a credit card with 10 to 20 x higher limits no personal guarantee no fees and rewards like 7x back on Rideshare and 2x back on recurring software visit adventurous podcasts for a special offer so that being said Alicia you know I've got we've got
02:22- You here I'd love for you to just you know share a little bit about yourself a little bit about your journey and let's Dive Right into what it is that makes that's major Journey what it is today yeah I love this question so much and I think you know listening to you talk and just having a moment of just like being here and being president because I see your sign in the background that says welcome to the good life yes and I feel like this is the good life you know but things haven't always been the good life
02:56- For me even though looking back at it now I know everything was happening for me exactly how it was supposed to but it's been quite a journey with a lot of twists and turns for me to get here and so as you mentioned by the way can you please always introduce me anywhere I go or like send me that because that was so I'm so humble by the way you inspired me or the way you introduced me but I'll just walk around with like feathers and Frozen grapes feeding you and I'll be like the queen is here
03:25- With two queens yeah so my journey has had a lot of twists and turns you know as you mentioned I started off my career very different than a lot of people likely in BC I was in the Army for six years part of a specialized specialize the branch of the chemical core known as technical escort and I was the only woman on a 14-man team so we didn't even say 14-person team we said 14-man team and so this was really interesting for me it's really my first job first career was being in this position and my job on
03:58- The team was Operations Logistics but I really became the glue of everybody and I remember it I'd always tell you know my fellow teammates you know they would pick people to go out on missions and I'd say well do you want one of the guys to go with you and they would always pick me every single time they would always say you're the only woman on our team you have unique combat multipliers that none of us have you have unique strengths as a woman. as a woman so we need you to go on every single Mission
04:22- And so combat multipliers the first time I was like what's the combat one time yeah no you are a combat multiplier and from our costs, I know you definitely have them too but that was really my first awareness that being a woman was my first unique superpower just showing up as myself and then from the military I went to Afghanistan and that's where I discovered my love for building ecosystems which sounds bizarre to develop a love for ecosystems in a war zone but I was you know worked in intelligence worked with a lot of local
04:55- National linguists in Afghanistan, and realized that we were getting information based with fear-based tactics or based with you know threats and we were giving bad information we were getting bad information and so I said why don't we use empathy to build trust and actually build a community with the people that were working alongside with and so people thought I was crazy but it ended up being really successful and I built ecosystems and networks that were in place you'd still totally pulled out about a year ago and
05:22- So from there went on to Department of Defense and realized that I needed to get out of the government space and I wanted to work with professional athletes so I've always felt the need probably similar to yourself to pave the way for other Fierce women where women aren't ordinarily represented and so I thought I wanted to be a sports agent and it was there working for an agency with the Baltimore Ravens where I hit a first major point on my journey and I lost my mother very tragically to domestic
05:50- Violence and so I'm a mother I'm a single mother and my youngest daughter was about one at the time and I learned that my mother had been shot and killed at trying to leave an abusive partner and when this happened I left my whole life behind I moved back to LA and I told my little brothers when I got home I said this changes us for the rest of our lives but we get to choose if this changes us for better or worse and so we made a pact to change the world a little to a lot each day and so being I feel
06:17- Like a glutton for punishment I launched a text chills right now I'm not kidding oh yeah anyway and so I I launched a tech company so I'm a recovering Ed Tech founder and I realized that as a woman of color a woman in Tech a military veteran a single mother I had every obstacle to overcome instead of every opportunity to be successful and I remember at one point feeling so lost and I I literally like put my head in my hands and I just said how the heck did I get here and I heard of my drill
06:49- Sergeant's voice from basic training. he said do you know what it means to find your last known point, and the last known point is a principle that I've used to navigate my entire life but essentially it's military uh terminology so when you get lost then we will Don't Panic don't look around just go back to your last known point and report your course and try again and so I realized for me my last known point was the military and that sense of community and so that's what I've just been determined
07:16- To build every single step of the way in my career that's amazing I got chills like at least twice so I was watching your Ted talk you know a while back and you said something about that point in time when you lost your mother and you said I did never get a chance to prove to her that I was good enough and that got me really thinking I was thinking a lot well I think I was cooking or something like that and you're talking about your significance in the Army and how you had felt that place of belonging and you
07:47- Know that last known point and that like that what you did mattered and there's a loss of identity that you experienced after the military and I think a lot of people experience out of the military but a lot of entrepreneurs feel that as well and you know chasing this belonging and translating you know what could be Darkness into the light and I think so many entrepreneurs now feel so lonely and lost and they feel like they spiral and I know I've had this experience in a startup and you know I'm curious
08:19- You know what needing to prove to someone that you're good enough is like a Darkness but you've translated that into good into light you know and you know what would you say to someone who would who was coming up to you and sharing with you being in that experience today yeah that's an interesting question and I feel like nobody ever brings that up you know I'm actually caught off guard right now about reading to prove myself to my mother because I actually I didn't realize this but one
08:56- Of the things that I tell myself every day I write my journal first thing in the morning and I say I am enough and I'll always have more than I need and I've had to teach myself that I am enough because I feel like especially for women you know they're especially for women raising Capital so oftentimes we get compared to other people well so and so is doing this well if you know if only you were married or if you had accomplished this or if you've only done that and so we get a lot of like not
09:22- Enoughness that's put on us as women and so oftentimes we just need to sit back and you talked about like in our femininity earlier but just like sit back and just realize like I just need to show up as my true authentic self that I am enough you know and I've chased this wanting to prove myself to my mom a lot over my entire life and never feeling like I was good enough and I don't necessarily know what that comes from but if somebody were to come to me and say I'm starting this journey what
09:48- Is your advice for me I would say for one you are enough for two you're exactly who and where you're supposed to be and I would really challenge them to do the last downpoint exercise but really which is anchored around finding your values and your why you know when I I didn't mention this in my introduction but what prompted me to launch my friend Dear Mama Ventures last year I went to my mother's grave for the first time since losing her about six years ago and I just never had the courage to go to her grave before and
I10:17- Went for the first time last year and I wrote a letter and I said your mama I wholeheartedly believe it's my mission and my purpose in life to create an ecosystem where all people can feel vulnerable enough to dream and have the resources to do it and ever since I've been anchored in my purpose and my why it's been hard for me to actually feel not enough because I know at the end of the day no matter what comes over me that I have a specific purpose and as long as that's minority a star than I am
10:44- Enough and I have what it takes and I'm always exactly where I need to be you know I think that you hit on a piece of gold right there and you kind of just like went right through it which is as long as I'm anchored into my purpose then my why I will always feel like enough and you know I know for me I you know I share you know with my readers as well as you know here on here on the podcast about you know I've got that sense of Darkness too for me it's not necessarily my mother but you know it's you know my
11:14- Grandfather and my dad into just constantly chasing this approval from somebody who's dead you know I was raised I'm the daughter of a fighter pilot you know and it was you know I was never act like in the military myself but I was raised around that and there was very high standards and you know kind of I don't think that my family meant to convey to me that I wasn't enough but I received that message very young that I needed to be more, therefore, I am not enough and so so you know when I found my ground and my
11:48- Center and that space within myself that I could go to you know where which is what you found when you visited your mother's grave there was a sense of grounded confidence that I found there that I was able to actually say I don't really care what you think of me and I don't care what they think of me or you know yeah and so you know we've I've got I talked to a lot of people who are like out there chasing alignment they're like you know where how that's the holy grail and
12:20- How do you get it and you just basically told the secret to where you find it right which is yes it's being just very grounded to your purpose and connecting to it each and every morning you know one of the theme the themes you know that I wanted to go into a little bit with you here that you've talked about is about grief and I think it's interesting because you know you've obviously been through a lot of that and I think all of us who have had significant losses in our life
12:53S- Whether those losses are a loved one or even whether those losses are sometimes the loss of business or something that's a piece of ourselves you know grief never goes away it just changes and it morphs and we just learn to live with it and I recently had my birthday and I was reflecting on my life and the past decade of you know my entire 30s that I've been through and I was like gosh I've been through so much grief is a trend it's a theme you know but it's also been one of the greatest
13:27- Teachers for me yes I'm curious what you feel you know as you went through that and continue to cope with that what do you think about the role that grief might be playing in terms of loss and recovery and coming back and staying grounded to that purpose of yourself yes I just I you know I love this so much grief is a great teacher grief is also a gift you know I remember when I lost my mother one of her friends she came up to me and she said she wrote me a card and in the card she just said life is really rewarding it can be
14:09- Really unfortunate and really mean at times but if you allow it to it'll be the greatest gift and I looked at that and I had to read it over and over again because I'm like life is really rewarding and life can be really unfortunate and can be really mean at times you know I remember when I lost my mom I was like the first thing I said was why is this happening to me not why is this happening for me and looking back at it now it was one of the most pivotal moments in my life the way I love my daughters the way I see life now
14:38- You know although I would do anything for my mom to be here it was one of the greatest gifts because I I wasn't living my life I was operating in fear I was running away from home really for years of my life and it wasn't until losing my mother that I without even hesitating I came back home and I found myself and who I am as a mother a friend a leader has changed exponentially you know in the better because of that experience I also think that grieving and really mental health, in general, I always describe it as like cleaning
15:09- Your house while you're having a house party you know it's just kind of like you think you pick up one section and then of Cups and you turn around and somebody spilled something over there so we're kind of always working on it you know always finding something else but if we can just allow you know ourselves to be present to feel to see the good when things are are bad we can really enjoy it at the same time yeah I think one of the things too is allowing it you know yeah in business especially you
15:40- Know we're out there and you know people put these facades on themselves where they have like this business Persona and that business personas oftentimes lifeless you know and you know I was actually as you were talking about you said something that reminded me a quote of a quote that I love from stock Guru it says if you look at life on the surface it is brutal if you look at it with some sensitivity it is beautiful but if you look at it with great depth everything here is magical oh my God and you know I was thinking
16:12- About how the business world can seem so dry I'm like you know in fact I never even wanted to be in business growing up because I just saw it as people wearing pantyhose and sitting in cubicles and I was like you know but I've discovered you know like well you know welcome to the good life like you can live it every day this is my mantras my reminder and you know we you can sit and have conversations with a banker maybe it's brex you know but about and you can share a piece of yourself or
16:47- A piece of the world that is real and you will feel the entire room change and you will feel the entire interaction shift because all of a sudden it's like it it's it becomes like oh this isn't business this is like the real deal and people will come out I guess they'll emerge and it's just it's amazing to see and it can happen each and every single day which one that's one of the things I think it's amazing but it's like you kind of have to go through it first absolutely and that what you said
17:23- Allowing that's just such a powerful word in general and even I feel like oftentimes we have to give ourselves permission to be or just to allow and Renee Brown talks about this all the time and it's a practice she's implemented in her own business but just giving the permission to be vulnerable giving the permission to show up as ourselves I often joke with you know some of my closest friends and teammates but I was like I need a I need a podcast of Just The Real Slim Shady like the real me because oftentimes people see me
17:51- And they think I'm so serious which I am a serious person but there's this just very you know funny comedic side of me very playful side of me and I feel like few people get to see that and I I often have to remind myself to give myself permission to just show up and be my true authentic self yeah you know I I think it's uncomfortable at first it's almost kind of like okay I'm gonna like take my clothes off and walk outside yeah what are people going to think of me and you will have people come to you
18:23- Like I do all the time, especially with the stuff I sometimes write and sometimes post I'll have you know well-meaning people in my life come to me and be like you share too much like only put the good stuff out there and I'm like no no you know it's not you know I mean if of course I'm I'm Discerning but you know I'm like if we can't be real then what are we yeah you know I might as well put pantyhose on instead of cubicle that's right I've refused I refuse to do that
18:54- Yeah so you know I'm curious you know this was such a pivotal period of your life you know that the story you tell and you know you guys can all go to the show notes and see Alicia's Ted Talk and you can look at some other information from this story it's just very inspiring but and I'd love to hear from you you know obviously you learned a lot about yourself from this period of your life what do you think you learned about others about humans yeah that's because we're all just
19:27- Humans doing business we're human beings you know so we're curious what did you learn about humans I think that's the biggest lesson is that we are all humans you know I think something one of the biggest lessons of the last year has been just really seeing people live The Human Experience and so I mentioned early on creating networks that still existed in Afghanistan until we pulled out about a year ago and when we pulled out of Afghanistan I had about 2 000 people contact me from Afghanistan asking for
20:05- Help that were you know contacted me from some sort of knowing me they found me and I was involved with a few different groups I got people out and what I saw in that moment was people being disappointed with the way I'm like how do I say this nicely disappointed with the way that the government was handling the evacuation from Afghanistan but saying I'm not going to complain about it I'm going to use my time money energy resources to figure out a way to help these humans it wasn't help
20:32- These Afghani people it would help these you know former soldiers it was like I'm a person they're a person I need to help them and I feel like I really got to experience Humanity's finest through that moment of just people caring about other people I think one of the other biggest lessons is learning that I am love and surrounding myself with people who are full of love and light and just constantly being around those people and my daughter taught me this lesson she taught me how to love
20:59- But that people communicate want the needs and love in different ways and that's not something that I took into my business self before I felt like I was operating very much from like a traditional business sense or really taking love and empathy and kindness into the way that I operate in business has really just transformed everything in my life yeah you know I I think it transforms business relationships too because I don't see things as having to be as certain way like let's say negotiating a deal we're both VCS right
21:29- Sometimes people do things that you look at this you're like what you know and everyone else in the room immediately goes to this conclusion this person that and I never do I immediately kind of try to think why are they doing this is very un out of character and they're not stupid you know and they're not this they're not that usually there's a reason and the reason it's not always a good one but if you can understand why they might be acting this way or why
22:00- They might be doing something and a lot of times that comes from having to have that empathy of saying like we've all been through things and this person's been through something too and something that happens that either I did or is going on has triggered them in their defensive or you know whatever that might be but when you can come at it from this place all of a sudden you become just non-reactive because you're like there's no need to react we just need to I just need to understand yes absolutely it doesn't mean they're going
22:3- To get what they want you know just because I seek to understand doesn't mean I'm going to give you you know I'm gonna I'm not a doormat right and you know but I think that that you know Learning To Be Love is learning to be acceptance which says I accept you in your tantrum [Laughter] and I would seek to understand why you're tantruming but it doesn't mean I'm gonna give you what you want yeah exactly you know so you know so here are today you're the managing partner of Dear Mama VC and
23:05- Your queen bee of the hive over there at LG you know and a lot of people see they a lot of people see Venture Capital as like this Holy Grail you know and I'm curious how do you think that your experiences you know in the military and with your mother and every everything uniquely prepared you you specifically for such a time as this to be the executive you are to be the leader you are and to be a great investor oh my goodness I love that so much I think for me so something I've realized and I'm always surprised by it but
23:47- Leadership I think people are born leaders you know a lot of us are born leaders and I think a step from there there are people who are wired to serve and what I think the military taught me was that I'm wired to both serve and lead and a lot of people don't come from a place of servant leadership and I think especially in Venture Capital you know oftentimes people think how can we make as much money it's like very expensive understanding it's very extractive so I think for when you know one of our calls to action of the fund
24:17- Is it time to reimagine everything we're in such a period of time where we really just need to think differently and do differently because the systems and everything that's been in place are no longer serving a majority of the world so like one how do we do things differently being in the military has I feel like given me such an edge and you know this being you know growing up in a military family but no other organization is investing millions and millions of dollars of training leaders my tolerance for stress so my
24:45- Tolerance for chaos you know coming from a war zone and other things like I know what it's like to be in a truly High stressful environment but I also know you know have the ability to make to Pivot and to make decisions that are big decisions which can seem like very fast but in slowing down time to be able to come up with this those decisions so one of the things we say in the military is slow is smooth and smooth as fast and oftentimes I think just my ability to slow down take a breath like observe the
25:14- Situation and then make a call with confidence whether it's right or wrong has really served me really well in the space and then just knowing at the end of the day that there are humans on the other side of every interaction you know and so building relationships and the my ability to have to build relationships and to build trust insanely fast in Afghanistan because my life and others lives were at risk now has translated into the Super ability to build trustful relationships with people that are helpful not only to
25:44- Me in business but to the communities I serve portfolio companies and just the way that I'm assessing business skills and opportunities you know I think about so that slow is smooth and smooth as fast and the ability to detach your emotions from an immediate reaction even if you've got mortar shovels flying around yeah and to say what's going on at a 30 000 foot level I I think a lot about that kind of that kind of headspace required in investment in investing and being able to just keep a very cool head
26:24- And being able to think about things from all sides and being able to kind of look at it from a bigger picture view not let other people's crazy spinning up you know get to you you know and you know what it takes to be a great investor is in a way you know what it takes to be great [Music] in the military yeah would you agree I do and I love to hear you say that and I need to talk about that more often I know when I was at a pitch competition with my tech startup several years ago I was in the middle of the competition and
27:03-The gentleman stopped me he was like hold on a second I need to stop you he was like stop the clock and here I was like great I suck like no one's going to invest in me and he was like aren't you a veteran and I said yes and he's like why is that nowhere in your pitch deck you need to talk about being a veteran this is such a competitive Advantage you know it was a combat multiplier in business that I was a veteran but up until that point in my life I wasn't identifying as a veteran and I think one of the biggest
27:30- Pieces of my life work has been rewriting The Narrative of what it means to be a Veteran so oh oftentimes when people think veteran they often think of you know the Rambo type or potentially somebody with PTSD or like a GI Jane and more often than not people look at me and they say you don't look like you were in the Army well what does that mean you know because what does that mean you don't look like a VC right you don't look like a VP yeah what does that mean and so I think our work is rewriting The Narrative so when people
28:00- See someone like us walk into the room they think of course this woman is a badass BC you know she's crushing it or when they think of a veteran they think of somebody who is highly qualified to take on any mission who is going to be an incredible empathetic leader who is wired to serve and Lead who is great under high stress environments and who has a way of assessing situations in a way that are beneficial for every person involved that's fabulous you know I think I've met so many investors who
28:31- Don't have any emotional intelligence and I truly do think that it's so much a competitive advantage and I know you've experienced this at Dear Mama I've seen the same thing you know on my end and at Suncoast is when you can connect for real with people and do business from this space you get immediate translation into preferential terms access into deals that no one else gets you you get a lot of these things and I I don't know if you have this experience but I often get it where
29:06- People my you know like investors and people will come to me and be like how did you do this and they want to know the steps like oh for Sue X and then you why and it's like there is no step it's more just like your manner with people and yeah you're like I am the secret sauce yeah yeah it's like they're gonna give it to me but they're not going to give it to you so you can't steal our com you can't steal my competitive Advantage unless you go through what I've been through and it's
29:34- The same thing with you you know it's like they can't steal your competitive advantage or rip it off because it's it comes from being forged the way that you were [Music] forged I love forged in fire I think that's one of the things I talk about the Phoenix I've got my Phoenix necklace which is yeah my thing yeah so I guess do you have any final words of wisdom that you would like to share imagine that you're sitting in front of an entrepreneur or maybe a non-entre but it's you know an
30:11Save Noteentrepreneur or business person and they're in the depths of the darkness and you know I've been there you've been there yeah what would you say to them knowing what you know now yeah I would say a few things for one and this sounds like very woo-woo but it's something that's changed my life and we talked about this I rewired my brain for gratitude in my most depressed moments at my lowest of low you know I was I couldn't meditate because there was so much on my mind you couldn't sleep hated
30:41- Waking up I would wake up in the morning and like oh I'm awake great and I was able to Simply see the sun coming through my window and say that's beautiful and feel gratitude in my heart for that and so I think just like stop drop and find that one thing or a few things or a few people that you can be grateful for and keep growing on that because there is so much and sometimes when we're in the trenches we're so heads down it's hard for us to see that there is light at the end of
31:06- The Tylenol but if you just keep going just like my mom's friend said the journey can be unfortunate and really mean but I promise it's worth it the second thing I would say especially to women is lean in when we're feeling uncomfortable and so this has been a great lesson learned for me of being feeling insecure with women in my life so I even remember the first time I heard you speak on the VC uh the BC lab why do I want to call it a podcast it's not a podcast it's Zoom because it should have been in
31:38- Real life but I heard you speak and I reached out to you immediately because your words stuck with me and I had the Split Second like less than a split second more I could have been intimidated by you because of your experience and all that you accomplished or I could lean in and say we're on this journey together like how do we go do this you know and really be impactful and Link arms and be friends you know and be partners on this journey and so I think oftentimes we come up with the we face those moments as women where
32:06- We can choose to be insecure and threatened or we can lean in and say let's do this together and so my advice is just lean in just like yeah would say yeah you know ABS I would absolutely second that because I know there's been plenty of times I've walked into a room and I have said I do not belong here because I looked around the room and I didn't see anyone like me and I just didn't feel like I belonged and I had to do self-talk you belong here and then what I discovered is a lot
32:40- You know most these rooms were men and you know like twice my age and very intimidating and what I did learn is most of those men really wanted to accept me and they open arms and they would open doors and they would help and they really wanted to but I had to make that first step I had to walk into that room and walk up and introduce myself and have and say or say I belong here and you know have there been people who didn't accept me yeah you know for sure and were you know did the things that I fear happen sometimes yes but
33:15- Like a majority of the time no you know I was accepted and they wanted to accept me and it just so happens that you know maybe we don't feel like we belong but I think we can rewire our brains to determines ourselves that we do you know you you talked a little bit about your practices and your rituals you know one waking up each morning you know and having a moment of gratitude you know what other practices and rituals do you have on a regular basis that really fuel you keep you focused and aligned to that
33:50- True Mission and north star that you have that takes you forward yeah that's such a that's a fun question so I've there's an author and I cannot remember her name but she wrote the book the artist's way and yeah and so I went on this I remember Amy there like two years ago during covet sabbatical and I wanted to write a book and just like a book on navigating trauma and you know I was like I've never written a book before but I love to write and so one of my friends gave me that book and there's a practice
34:24- Called morning Pages where you get up every day you just write a few pages and that has been something that it really anchored me sometimes I just need that jolt of creativity I find myself oftentimes writing Love Letters to the sun really because I get up I watch the sunrise and I write in my journal and it's just things in my heart that only I see but that are important for me to share and things that I write down that are important for me you know where do I see myself in the next few years I know for certain in my heart
34:54- That I have this home in Positano because I've seen it so many times and I often Journal this experience of being Positano but that's something that has really helped me just feel human and it's something that no matter where I am in the world I always have my journal I can pull it out anytime and just simply write to myself off and it connects me immediately to who I am here's mine yay yes I love that yeah absolutely I would agree I think it's so easy especially you know we're exhausted and we're running around we
35:26- Have a million things going on and you know gotta do gotta do gotta accomplish but just to take even five minutes you know you take five minutes to scroll through your phone and don't even notice that yeah so it'll take five minutes to write down a couple Pages even if you're writing about the Sun yeah or you know whatever you know I I do the same I try to you know some mornings you know I will admit I get in my journal and it ends up being a to-do list for the day because that's what's coming out and I'm like
35:55- Okay fine you know but I try to make sure I take a little bit of time every single day just for me and just to connect to that space and you know observe it so I'd love to connect you where can people connect with you yes so you can find me on LinkedIn I don't know if you're gonna have this in the notes but Alicia Hanf if I'm LinkedIn you can go to my Instagram it's Alicia the key are we also have Dear Mama VC on Instagram and you can Google Dear Mama BC is our website dot com.com
36:31- All right folks
Episode Transcript:
3:30 - Alicia discusses her story starting with her unique Army experience as the only woman on a 14 “man” team in the Chemical Corps, and how she used the unique combat multipliers of femininity to make missions more successful and used empathy instead of fear tactics to build sustainable communities and ecosystems in Afghanistan.
6:50 - The last known point in the military, translating into navigating through trials and difficulties in the world. Using last known point as to re-plot your course and try again.
8:55 - Feeling the need to prove yourself to others, the inner knowing that we are enough, the difficulties we face in being compared to others.
10:50 - As long as you’re anchored into your purpose and your why, you can always feel like you are enough. The pressures of growing up with high and sometimes impossible standards of performance and being able to find that refuge within yourself.
12:50 - The impact and lessons of grief in life, business. Grief is a great teacher which can transform us as leaders.
16:39 - How to create moment of deep, authentic connections throughout your workday. Genevieve shares how and the spoiler alert: You have to go first.
19:50 - We are not business people. We are human beings who are doing business. The lessons from Afghanistan, and learning how to truly see people as humanity, souls, and people being with and caring for others.
23:39 - Leveraging lessons and difficulties to become a better leader. Some are born, and some are made. Few people come from a place of true servant leadership in the venture capital industry, the systems and ways we operate no longer serve the world, serve companies or serve each other. How veterans have been trained to be ideal leaders, and discerning investors.
30:36 - Rewiring your brain through gratitude.
If you look at life on the surface, it is brutal. If you look at it with some sensitivity, it is beautiful. But if you look at it with great depth, everything here is magical. - Sadhguru
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