Tech Empowerment

The conversation revolved around personal and professional growth, with a focus on resilience, relationships, and technology. Speakers shared their experiences and perspectives on building a supportive community, fostering authentic connections, and leveraging technology to transform lives. They emphasized the importance of self-awareness, passion, and partnerships in navigating the tech industry. Additionally, they discussed their love for country western line dancing and launched a program called 'Power Up 15' to connect and support community members.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 4:45 Rebranding negative experiences into positive opportunities
• 10:21 Finding passion and purpose through self-awareness and outsourcing draining tasks.
• 15:08 Transitioning into tech careers, focusing on assessing aptitudes and transferable skills.
• 21:10 Partnerships in tech, including outsourcing and technical solutions.
• 27:17 Tech industry challenges, including language barriers and time differences, and how a program called Tectonica helps marginalized individuals enter the field
• 31:54 Country music, fitness, and work culture.
• 38:39 Building relationships and exclusive community for entrepreneurs.
• 42:16 Empowering ambitious people to achieve greatness through community and support.

Transcript

0:00

Kandice, welcome to the bail yourself out Happy Hour Podcast, where each week we'll help you navigate the corporate jungle. Here's your host, Kandice Whitaker is happy hour. Welcome to bail yourself out Happy Hour pod, friends. Here we focus on personal growth, career growth and entrepreneurship. Our crew is dedicated to providing you with the tools and insights necessary to turn your dreams into reality and get your money up. In each episode, we'll explore strategies rooted in the bail method of resilience, guiding you to conquer challenges and thrive in everything you do. I'm your host, Kandice Whitaker, and at the age of 21 I was a determined young mother who wanted to ensure my best possible life and defy the odds. So I took steps towards achieving the life I desired. I got my master's degree. Then I was a sought after consultant, which led me to starting my own company. I have a passion for guiding people into the life they envision through resilience, using the bail yourself out approach. So I'm happy you're here. Kick off your shoes and relax your feet. Fill up your favorite treat, because the bail yourself out Happy Hour podcast is about to start now you're listening to Kandice with a, k, and together, we'll learn how to bail yourself out. B, believe that you can a accept change as a natural part of any process. I inventory your strengths and the strengths available to you and your network. L, learn from your experience and the experience of others. Hey, y'all. Hey, this is your girl, Kandice, with the K and the bail yourself out Happy Hour lounge. I'm so excited about today's guest co host in the lounge. My girl, liberty, Madison, hey, liberty, what do you want the world to know about you? That's such an interesting question. It's a complex and simple question. I want the world to know about me, that I am excited about innovation, technology and moving us forward. That's the main thing that I'm excited about. I would love the world to know that, who's the US? Is it society? Is it Americans? Is it black people? Is it anybody who uses technology, who's us, define us, define us, would be obviously starting at the top level, like you just said, America, moving us forward. Everybody comes along with that. I love technology, entrepreneurship and innovation, and I think if you already follow me as Liberty Madison, that tech girl, I think you know that based on the brand. So I would love for more people to know that, because I truly believe that technology, and specifically entrepreneurship, democratizes access to so many things that it's never been available to to anyone prior to this generation that we're in right now. It's never been available to us, and when you leverage technology in the right way, it can change your entire life and your family's life and the legacy that you leave on the world. It's an amazing time. So I definitely want people to know that I'm super, super excited about the opportunities that technology affords us. That is so dope. So let me just take a step back, because we just jumped in. Like, folks know who you are, and so in the lounge, some people might know who you are, especially the tech folks, because that's my background tech but there's a lot of people who are not tech people. So let me just dial it back for just a second, so her elevator pitch really quickly. Liberty Madison says, I build products for ambitious people in tech, property, tech and podcasting, right? And she's been called the Oprah of the Silicon Valley. So if you're an IT person, you understand what that means, even non it. People understand Silicon Valley, like, if you know, you know, type stuff before she was that, and she's dope and regular. We like regular people here, kick off your shoes and relax your feet situation. But before you were that, right before we got to Oprah, to Silicon Valley, that's a big damn deal. That is cool. We love that. Who were you? Like? How did you get there, right? Because what we want to know everybody who's listening, I don't know if they want to be open to Silicon Valley. They might just want to be in the C suite, you know? I mean, they might just want to have a successful product. Like, tell us a little bit about your journey. I love that question. Thank you for that introduction, because I am known as Liberty Madison, that tech girl as the Oprah of Silicon Valley. And I will say I did not name myself, that it was bestowed upon me. And you know what, Kandice, I think this is interesting to note, because I don't think I've ever shared the story of. I became that tech girl. And I'm gonna give you an exclusive as to how I became that tech girl. I was at a tech event, and it was WordPress development, and I was at a tech event, and I was talking to a couple of folks there, and I was introducing myself, because, again, we're all about making connections, introducing yourself, not being in a corner, letting people know who you are, what you're up to, and learning about what they're up to. And I was talking with one gentleman, and I had just come from Silicon Valley, I think was in Dallas at the time, and he walked away and was like, oh, okay, I don't know if the connection went very well. So I'm standing over in the corner, and I overheard him say to somebody else about me, oh no, don't go talk to her. And then this guy goes, who? And he goes, that girl, that tech girl. She's always talking about technology because I build products and I'm brand first, I was like, anyone else will be offended, not me? I was like, oh, shoot, that sounds amazing, that tech girl. And so I started running with building my brand as that tech girl. And I found out that a lot of my conversation is really geared towards technology, innovation, entrepreneurship, and a lot of people can't necessarily handle that much passion and enthusiasm about those three topics. He was one of those people. He really did not take kindly to that conversation, so I thought that was pretty funny and pretty interesting. So I started building my brand that way. But prior to that tech girl, my background is TV and film, so I really focus on hosting and building content, producing content for lifestyle content, and that is, I think it's great. No offense to that, but my core that I truly, truly love is I don't really care about, like basketball stats or what's happening over here, or entertainment reporting on whatever. I truly care about leveraging media and leveraging content and communication for mass appeal that's going to impact your life. So what a lot of people consider me as is my genre is more so called inspo tech, because I'm not focused on the hottest and latest gadgets. I'm focusing on showing the masses how you can leverage technology to change your life, whether that is have an idea, I love ideas. Ideas are the oil, as naval says, ideas are the new oil for America. And if you have an idea, I want you to go and figure out how to make that idea happen. That is a tech startup. If you want to improve your life in general, I want you to learn a technical skill. Maybe you're focusing on working at a tech company. Maybe you're focusing on the per number stack, so you can be a front end, back end, or a full stack engineer that's going to change your life. So for me, I really focus on inspo tech built my audience that way, and got my debut on Tech TV and work with companies on air and in live events like DocuSign, Cisco and ServiceNow, Salesforce. So that is me. As far as a quick overview, take a deep breath, that was a lot. So what we got here was you took something that was a negative, and you spun it and was like, Yo, that's dope. I'm going to use that. I'm going to rebrand it. But number two, I love people who are multi talented and multi dimensional, because I'm like that myself. You know, you mentioned you have a background in theater and and acting and so forth. That is not my thing. I've been exposed to it over my life. You know, I went to a performing arts school. And I think that when you are well rounded and capable of doing a lot of things right, Your gift will definitely make room for you. So here you use those gifts that maybe at the time felt like, where are these going to show up in my life? In it like who would have thought? I think that the main thing for me is I don't think of myself as doing a lot of things. I think of myself as showing up as a full human and showing up as a full person. I love that. Yes, when people say, Oh, you do a lot, I only do one thing. I focus on the fact that I really love technology. How that shows up, shows up in different ways, whether I'm talking about it on air, whether I am training people in person, whether I'm coaching tech founders, whether I'm advising founders, it really focuses on one thing. I'm extremely passionate about innovation. I love innovation. I love the fact that we have these tools that we've never had before, and I think that if you don't capitalize on it, it's just such a waste, because your ancestors prior to you didn't have the opportunity to change the world with a click. They didn't have that. So that's the only thing I really focus on, is, how can we move innovation forward? How can you. Be a part of the technological advances. How much can you grow to advance, to rise to where technology is going? Not looking like, oh, I have to catch up. That moment has passed. The information age is over right now. It is about. It really is about. How are you going to iterate, and how can you do it faster? So basically, it sounds like you're just showing up as you right? And that speaks to really getting to know who you are as a person and what motivates you. I think a lot of people have a hard time with doing a lot of things because they're doing a lot of things because they have to, not necessarily because they like them or they're passionate about them. You said a lot. You over here dropping bombs like there are so many people who walk around who don't have the ability to just be who they are and show up fully as themselves. So that's like amazing, you know. So part of really living fully is not so much where you work or how much money you make, but it's really being passionate about what you do. But you have to first know yourself and understand that you hit on something major, because, like you said, a lot of people are doing something that they aren't passionate about. I think sometimes people don't know where their passion is. That part that's true, that's true. That is absolutely true. I've spent so many hours in coaching sessions saying to people things like, Well, what do you like? And I get I don't know a lot. Like, what do you mean? You don't know what you like. But you know, if I'm really honest, I think there was a time in my life where I didn't know what I liked, either because, depending on how you were raised or the people you were raised around, you probably didn't spend a whole lot of time thinking about it. You couldn't I was just gonna say maybe they didn't spend enough time thinking about it or assessing it, or possibly not even thinking about it. I like to think of it as recognizing patterns. So if you are constantly showing up in a particular way. Don't push back against the way that you naturally show up. It's like the cliftonstreits. If you've ever taken the cliftonstreits, yes, I love the cliftonstreits, because it's really about, how do you naturally show up? Hire folks who do the stuff that you don't do. Well, stop trying to make yourself better in areas that you you don't have 10,000 hours to make yourself the accountant of your dreams. Maybe you should just find the accountant of your dreams and have them do that particular role. But I agree with you, a lot of people just really haven't had the opportunity to sit and think about what their passion or what their goal is. And I know, for me personally, when I talk about my passion, I don't really use the term passion. I use the word calling, because some people are in a career, and I feel like there are some careers, doctors, lawyers, that's career. You are doing that, and then you retire from a career. I know, for me, I'm never retiring from moving innovation forward. I know when a certain age or certain pace, I'll be funding younger tech founders and looking for ways to facilitate their growth and their path to exponential innovation. I love what you just said, and that's how you know it's a true passion where you're like, Yo, I'm never going to retire. One of the things that I've always said in myself that you know, probably many of the things that I do in my business, I won't retire from, either like I genuinely like helping people to live their life fully, right? How I explain to people how they can recognize the things that they like, or maybe the things that they're passionate about, is to pay attention to what gives you energy. That's the Cliff Notes version. If it gives you energy, that's something that you should really explore. This is something you like. If you're excited to do it, just thinking about it. But if even thinking about it, for me, it's my taxes, I swear I procrastinate, and it's really just putting the papers together. But just the idea of me pulling out my receipt stresses me out. That is a thing that I'm going to outsource, and this is not a thing that I should be doing, right? So if it gives you energy, is something you should be doing, but if it drains you outsource it. Love what you said, it gives opportunity for a Venn diagram, because you can look at what gives you energy, what also gives you revenue, and what is something that you can scale. So that could be an opportunity for you to look at what business I should be in because, but that's the way I look at it, is, what is giving you energy? I love that because let's not act like when you don't get that energy, your entire bu of that action changes, your entire the task changes. So let's look at that, and then in that diagram, what is increasing revenue for you? It can give you energy, but not increase revenue. You can like putting plants in the ground, but I don't know if, depending on what you're gonna do with that, there's some people making a ton of money hanging out plants. Have friends that watch those channels, so that. The thing too, but also just looking at that, I think that's a great way to outline what you should be doing and using your passions to guide you. So we know that your passion is it, and specifically innovation. But one of the things that you mentioned that you're really passionate for women and girls in technology now is that, because you're a woman, that's an interesting question. You're like, what is that? Where's that? But I think for me, it's interesting that question, and I'm glad you that you're asking me that question in specific, I didn't realize that I inspired women and girls to get into tech as that tech girl, right? That's so front facing. You would think that I realized that, like what because for me, it wasn't gender specific. However, over time, I've seen the impact of women and girls getting into technology, and that has inspired me to be a champion for women and girls choosing that path. And one of the things that I think about specifically is economic advancement and economic freedom. And specifically, when you teach it's that saying. I don't know who said it, because the internet will credit multiple people. But when you teach a woman to like fish or have a whatever, she feeds a village, and when you teach a man to fish, he like fixes a plate, or some, I don't know, yes, himself proverb. There we go. It's that proverb, and it's so true. And so that's the reason that I have, like you said, the soft spot and passion for women and girls into technology, because that's how you really move, as we talked about earlier, moving people forward in innovation, you have to do that as a whole, and in community, and women lead community, definitely, even though we don't get the credit that we deserve a lot of the times you know, any culture, you know, what is it from My Big Fat Greek Wedding? They said the man might be the head, but the woman's the neck. I've heard that one too. Yeah, that's the thing. We're gonna take a break right here. We'll be back. What do you want to talk about if you have a show idea? Drop Kandice alive at bail yourself out. Pod.com Do you want me to speak at your next event? Hit me up at bail yourself out. Pod.com now back to the show. You Hey, y'all Hey, welcome back to the bill yourself out Happy Hour lounge, and today's co host is my girl, Liberty Madison, and we're talking about all things tech and innovation. What's the difference between it and tech? For people who don't know the difference what would and your explanation we don't need, like Oxford Dictionaries. This is a very casual conversation, so don't feel like I'm giving a school definition. No, I appreciate the question, because I think if someone is interested, like you said, someone is interested in getting into tech, what should they do and what would be the best course of action for them. The first thing that I would suggest when I'm talking with people that are looking to transition from their current career into tech is one looking at the aptitude that you have. And I know a lot of people don't talk about that, but I like to talk about tech aptitude. A lot of people see software engineering as the way out of everything, because they see the checks that they make. It's the checks, it's the everything. It's the$100,000 $200,000 $300,000 and people see the dollar amount. They don't see the work that it takes to become a software engineer, or even if you have the aptitude to become a software engineer, whether you are looking at and when I say aptitude, let me talk about that. It is, what is your personality like? Do you want to sit at a computer for 14 hours a day? Is that something that you want to do? Are you an introvert or an extrovert? If you're an introvert, I would champion your transition into software engineering. However, if you're an extrovert, I would not support that at all. I'd say, Yeah, I don't think this is the route for you, but here are five other roles in tech that you can think about and pursue, one being customer success. Customer success managers are amazing, and they're at that six figure level. I would talk to you about program management, I would talk to you about project management, I would talk to you about tech sales. I would talk to you about all of these different roles that still can have you at that dollar amount. Because, let's not act like people aren't trying to get into tech because of a certain dollar amount. That's it. But I agree exactly. I think most people just think about engineering and go in that direction. And in my experience, working with a number of organizations, a lot of people drop off once they say, Hey, I want to get into tech. They go through a coding boot camp, and they may learn the Pern stack, the Mern stack. Now they're at. Here as software engineers and developers, they drop off because it really doesn't fit with their personality, it doesn't fit with their lifestyle, and then they're looking for other opportunities. So that's the first thing I would do, is take an assessment as to where you fit naturally, and we talked about this earlier, understanding yourself. From there, I would look at, what are the transferable skills that you have? Because I've personally worked with people coming from the real estate industry, because I focus on Prop tech, coming from the real estate industry, and also from traditional education. And maybe there are teachers or professors, doctors or lawyers that transition into tech. That is something that you can look at, oh, I'm starting new. I don't know. That's not true. You're not starting from scratch. You're not starting new. You have a lot of transferable skills, and especially if you are in real estate specifically, and if you have a real estate license, it's unbelievable how many prop tech companies will hire you just because you hold that license. So I would start there. What is my current profession? How can I leverage those transferable skills and do an assessment on exactly what role best fits me? That's great advice. I think just thinking about what you were saying related to many people going into engineering, I do think the dollar amount is probably what gets them in that direction. But the other thing of it is folks don't really have that much information, especially if they're not in that field, other than what you find on Google and then what people in your school are telling you who may have limited experience in that area. So that is super helpful. But I also know that we have a large contingent in our audience who are entrepreneurs, and one of the things that has become really important to me in my business, and things that I've worked with with other business owners, is partnerships, right? Because we can't do it alone, and one of the things that we want to do in this community, in our community, is to be able to have a safe place for people to develop those partnerships. Because I definitely believe that you will go further if you have multiple people within your community that you can leverage their skills, their talents and abilities. Because none of us know everything. And you know, I think that is huge in being a success in a business, or even, you know, professionally, if you have a desire to climb up to get to that C suite. So I know you're working on some stuff related to partnerships in tech. You want to talk about that? Yeah, absolutely. And I love the segue to entrepreneurs, because right now I am the Global Partnership manager at a software engineering firm that's called techtonica, which is amazing because it helps get women and non binary individuals into tech, as we were talking about earlier. So what that looks like is there's a six month coding boot camp that they attend, and then they get a placement. Right now, one of the things that I am managing is a Sony PlayStation account. So what that looks like in real time is someone going from I don't know how to code, to learning the Pern stack, to actually working on those particular stacks, getting trained Senior Software Engineers, and at the end of that, they are now placed as software engineers at sewing so when I'm working with them daily, and looking at people that are coming from education, couple of folks that I'm working with. They were teachers, and they wanted to figure out, how can I, one, get into tech, two, duplicate, double and expand my income. Because they're like, Oh, this is twice as much as I made as a teacher, and they really want to get into that. But those transferable skills, and that's why I was talking to touching on that earlier, really helps them in becoming this kind of standout star when it comes to software engineering. But partnerships as a whole, I think, is vital to every business. And one of the things, because I am the Global Partnership manager at tectonica, we now offer technical solutions. So a lot of folks that are entrepreneurs and solo founders, or even if they're full time employees, would have a passion for maybe launching their own thing on the side they don't know how to execute the technical side, that can be a challenge. I mean, we've all heard it, especially coming from Silicon Valley. We've all heard CTO dating. Are you familiar with the term, like dating for CTO? No, you got to tell us. What's CTO dating. So CTO dating, it looks like, let's just say you're a person. You're an entrepreneur with an idea, okay, like Kandice has an idea. I think this is going to be that next. This is going to take Uber down. This is going to just revolutionize the way we're doing something specific. However, I'm Kandice. I don't have technical skills that part, right? So let's just say you have this idea, and you're like, Oh my God, in order to raise this VC money, or in order to get this angel funding, i. Have to have an MVP in order to even move forward. And you're, I don't have this. So then you try to outsource overseas. Then you know that, wait a minute, MVP, that is the dope thing in your product. Go ahead. Yes, people who don't know, yes, that's your minimum viable product, and that's what you typically want to show, just to show that you're you have some momentum, and you're moving forward, and you're actually building something. It's not it doesn't have to be the full out product, but this is the minimum that you needed to do to either showcase it to someone or talk about it to an investor. But exactly what Kandice said. So if you are a person, and you're traditionally what I've seen from a lot of entrepreneurs outsourcing the technical solutions, and unfortunately, they run into a lot of issues, a lot of problems, from the time difference, language barriers and also lack of knowledge. When you don't understand and you don't speak technical languages, you aren't equipped to know how long a certain build out takes, what a wireframe is going to consist of, how long that's going to take to to ship a product to you, and so you're kind of at the mercy of developers that you don't have a relationship with. So as a global partnership manager, what I do at offering technical solutions you have trusted people that are participants who went through this entire program, and they're managed by senior software engineers. They're handling the technical side of your product. So if you are a person saying, Oh, I have this idea for app, or I've always wanted to do this or do that, I just need to get this portion built. I'm not really sure what to do. We can create a partnership with you. I have the technical team talk with you to figure out exactly what's that scope look like and how we can get you rolling. I'm super excited about it, because most of the time when you're building out technical solutions, it's not tax deductible, but in this case, it is so, and you're giving women an opportunity to leverage their skills and leverage everything that they've learned in order to have a real world portfolio, which is amazing. So it covers the full life cycle of a participant. And I'm super, super excited about that. So liberty. Let me jump in for a second, because I know we have a good amount of listeners in the audience who need what you do, but they didn't catch all of that because that wasn't Standard English. That was tech English, but I know tech English, so I'm going to translate that. This is why what Liberty said is important. Let's say y'all want to get an app built right, because a lot of people want to get apps built or something like that, right? And you outsource it overseas, which is, again, things that people do all the time, because it's cheaper when you get things outsourced overseas, sometimes when you get things built overseas, things get lost in translation. Why? Because there's a lot of reasons. There's language barriers, as Liberty said, there's also time differences, so when they're awake, we're asleep, vice versa, all of that stuff. And then sometimes, especially when you're giving requirements or what you need to be in the app, what you think is obvious is not so obvious. You have to spell out every single thing, right? And so the point of having somebody who's on shore in the US, who can speak your language and ask questions, but also can speak their language that'll help you get a product that's more like what you actually want, instead of what we call spaghetti code, which is not reusable. The reason it is important to get code that is understandable and reusable is because if another engineer can't pick up what somebody else did overseas or anywhere else, that's going to cost you more money, right? Because if they can't just pick up and say, Oh, this is the feature right here I need to fix they going to have to do the whole thing from the beginning and time is money the end. Go ahead, Liberty. Did I explain it? Right? You don't mean to insert a clap. I am giving you good clap right now. So I train people overseas. I know the foolishness. I love that Kandice, that was awesome, even one translating. That's my tagline, translating tech to talk and translating it, Kandice, you are that tech girl. You are a girl. I love that, because it's so true. One of the things that we talked on lost time, lost revenue, and that is, I mean, it's costly, it's costly, but not just that, but you hit on, if the code isn't clean, it's not usable, you're starting from scratch, and you're starting over. And if you are a person who has an idea to. Build something, you don't have that time to waste. You don't have that time to lose. Agree, you don't have that money to lose, because time equals money. Can we say that part again? Period, period. And I love that concept, and I love the idea of bringing marginalized people into tech, but there's definitely a real need there. Definitely it is absolutely, I love the fact that the participants, they get that real world experience. So it's not necessarily going to cost you what it would if you were just to go out and get a technical firm that was operating with a full, basically a full crew of senior engineers. These are participants that are managed by senior engineers, so they know what they're doing. I mean, they're good enough to work at Sony. I always say that big enough to work at PlayStation with me. So yeah, exactly when we get back, we're going to talk about what you are doing in the future. I know you have some plans for summer camp. We'll be back in our virtual happy hour. The party never stops. Join your bail yourself out virtual coworkers on Facebook, Instagram and Tiktok. Now back to the show. We are back in the happy hour lounge with my girl, Liberty Madison, we talked about a whole bunch of stuff. The difference between it and tech. We talked about this wonderful program that she's working for, tectonica that helps women and non binary folks get into what did I say? Something wrong? No, I just thought about something. Can we pause? Yeah, think we did. The difference between it and tech. I start talking about what you should if you want to get into tech in general, I need to say something to that one. When we talk about tech, there's various sectors and various silos in the tech industry. You can be in a technical role or a non technical role. So your non technical role could be a product manager, a program manager, a customer success manager, a senior sales director. If you're looking at a technical role, you could look at something like a front end, back end, or full stack engineer. One of the things that we also talked about was the difference between back and it. So when you go into it, we're talking about networking. We're talking about frameworks, and not networking, like handed out your business cards, but networking, as far as keeping your systems up, keeping them maintained, that goes into privacy and DevOps. So we're looking at what that looks like. And that's kind of more of the Cisco track, where people are going with that particular design. It's more of a service now, a Cisco kind of vibe, but if you're going over to the other side, those are skills that you can go to any company and work with, and you wouldn't be in the quote, unquote IT department. You would just be working in the tech organization as a whole. But if you're a network, you're going to have different certifications that you need in order to thrive in it, because those folks are so important. Just a quick tip, there's going to be a huge open gap for IT workers, because a lot of people focus on software engineering completely different than it. There's a huge gap. And as I'm working with ServiceNow and looking at their projections, they're they're looking to hire hundreds of 1000s people. So if I were you, I would focus on service now certifications, and they're the number one it company in the world. Free plug. All right, so we're going to take a little station break here. Liberty. What do you like to do for fun? Tell our folks. I know I've seen your dancing and singing on Jasmine Crocketts internet I have, oh my gosh, I love this question. What do you like to do for fun? Okay, well, you know, Kandice, I am a country music star. That's the way I introduce myself. I'm a country music star. For those that don't know, I have been in the country scene for over a decade, and I started out as the official country western line dance instructor for the city of Oakland. And I really, really love country music. I have a huge passion for it, and now working to become the official country western line dance ambassador for the state of Texas. And when I'm not doing that, or how I'm doing my country, I founded California tech girl, into country. Like, how did this happen? Girl, oh, so one of the things that I did on Tech TV, and typically whenever I'm on air, I always get really awesome people to line dance with me. So I like to, as you talked earlier, about showing up as your authentic self. I founded tech two step, which is a country western line dance team building experience that I've sold in to May. Your companies in the Valley. I've done Salesforce, DocuSign, GoDaddy, meta, Facebook and other companies, and what that looks like for me is I sell it in because it's an HR dream. It's team building, and no one touches. They love that. I have a whole show that I do, and it's engaging. It's so much fun. And from there, when I was doing tech two step, I People would call me to come out to do VC launches, VC parties. People raise millions and they want to do country. That's me. I love it. And from there, people would always say, oh my god, we did not come to sweat out our hair and makeup. What are you doing? We just came to look cute, and that's when I started. Because, again, one thing I will do is take some feedback and turn it into a positive I said, Oh, wow, these are complaints. You didn't want to work out so hard. Okay, so that's when I started Western workout. And Western workout is a Country Western Dance experience to help you get fit and really focus on working out and so partner with a number of clothing stores, and we do it at clothing stores and doing at gyms as well. So I'm super excited about that. And yeah, so outside of that, I have a one woman country show that I do. I do a Shania Twain set. It's really awesome. So yeah, there you go. I love that. I totally love that. So how did you get into country for real, though? Like, do they play that a lot in California? I've just assumed California is like New York, because I'm from New York, play country on radio that much if they do. I don't know any of the stations. Well, there's a there's so first of all, I'll say this country culture. It's a huge community. That's why the awards show, right? It's a huge thing. And everywhere you go, there's country culture, country clubs, country people, country everything. And how did I get started? Is, ironically, I got started to focus on fitness, and I wanted to, I started training for bikini body building compositions, and I needed to get fit in. I use country in order to do that. Oh, my God, I've always wanted to do that. We have to talk about that. I'm sorry, yes. And country changed my life, and it changed my body. And it just, it just changed everything about it, because I'm not a fan of Zumba. I don't like stuff like that personally, and people can like it. I just don't a country fits me, because it's something I can learn, it's something I can do, and it's something I do with other people. But also, while I'm getting fit, the same dances apply across America. You can go to any place 50 states that you're going to, and they do the same dances. So it's, it's kind of like getting fit, and also use the dances to work out at the club. But as far as California goes, there's country pockets everywhere. And me, I was the instructor the only country club in Oakland, in Jack London Square, and that blackest game city in California, you gonna find a country. I was on a Japanese reality show teaching country because they came through to Overland. So that was my country bar. And that was, yeah, that was my my jam, my thing. And it's so funny, because when Beyonce album came out a few months ago, my phone was blowing off the hook. People were like, oh my god, liberty, you're finally cool. You're finally in style, because you've been country western line dance forever, and so, yeah, it really picked up my bookings and my show, so I love it. Shout out to the beehive. I love that. But you know what you gotta be you. You know country loving Zumba ain't my thing either. I know how you feel about that. I don't understand how they have so many Zumba and instructors that can't dance on beat. That stresses me out in a way that I cannot describe. Oh, wait, they don't dance on beat. Ma'am, the whole hour we dancing off beat. I wanted to die like what I can't do, okay? Kandice, you are you have to come to my Western workout, and you will get fit and do country. Listen, as long as we're dancing on beat, I'm with it. We don't have no, no. We don't do Zumba at all. We do Western workout and we are on beat, okay? And sidebar, just so y'all know those of y'all who are throwing any little Zumba moves on the dance floor, we see you, because those are not regular, because those moves that I'll teach you, Kandice, you'll be transferable skills. Transferable skills, I kid you not. I was in San Francisco with a founder huge company, and I was like, Oh, I've got to run to the restroom. So I run to the restroom and okay, if you know me, I'm just going to start line dancing. So I'm line dancing in the restroom because that's normal, because that's what I do. And I'm line dancing a Copperhead rope. This girl comes out of the stall, and she. Nose, Copperhead, bro, um, you know what, Oklahoma, that's copperhead. You know what? I love my tribe, liberty, because I mean this with every ounce of respect I have. The best top tier weirdos. I love y'all. Everybody is just themselves. And you know what? Copperhead, whatever in the bathroom, it makes you work. Hey, be great. I love it for you. I love y'all. Y'all are great. I love it. I absolutely love that. So I know you have some stuff coming up. Let's talk about what you have brewing. Ooh, I feel so excited about this. This has been a long time coming, and this is the debut of it. Another exclusive for my girl, Kandice here, another exclusive for you. I'm super excited to introduce a community that is, it's so dear to my heart, because one of the things that I've looked at over the years is as Liberty Madison, I didn't have one core product that I could route people to that wanted to continue to work with me or continue to just be a part of my tribe. Because one thing that I focus on and emphasize is building relationships. And if you know me, you know that I do not like the term networking. I'm never networking because I feel like networking is somebody coming up to me like, here I do this, I do this, I do this, and here's my card. I don't do that, and I don't advocate for people to behave in that fashion. That is a no for me. And whenever I'm hosting live events, and whether it's at the Georgia World Congress Center or live events that I'm doing that are private most of the time. And it really started when I was hosting and speaking at an event the powerful women of Silicon Valley, and I had a long line of people coming up to me, and these were not average people. I know your audience is an average either these are people, these are ladies who raise millions, 10 million, 20 million, and also actual astronauts, like what people from Harvard, MIT, Stanford. And when I'm talking with them, and I'm hearing them say, Can you teach me how you do that? And I'm like, do what I just gave you the key to life. I just broke down some quantum theory. What is happening here? And they will constantly say, How do I speak like you? How do I present? How do I get the confidence to execute in a way that you do so effortlessly? I remind them that it's not effortless. It is practiced to the point where it feels natural for you, but at the time, I wasn't open to actually offering something in that world. And then recently, I've noticed, and it's an exercise that I've learned in the valley, and I want to invite your audience to learn this too, and they say, what is it that you do? You should just go through your emails and look at the top three things that people ask you for. What do people ask you for? And the top three things that people ask me for is, how do I get into tech? And that's like the one thing. And then it's, how do I speak like that? Or, how do you have the confidence that you have? And can you teach me how to do that? So I was looking at, I wanted to build a community, but I didn't want to have these different silos. I don't I already have a data science community, already have a Data Architect, data engineering community. I didn't want to have a particular silo where there's tech people over here, there's startup founders over here, there's engineers over here, there's entrepreneurs over here. What I wanted to do is look at what's the through line? Why do people connect with me, and what am I passionate about, that I bring value to them? And I looked at my through line, and it's ambitious people. I love ambitious people. And one of my best friends, he always says whenever I talk to him, and this is just on a call on a regular Tuesday at 8pm he's like, Okay, I'm doing this. I'm doing I'm like, why are you talking like that? He's like, Well, every time I talk to you, I feel like I have to have a report. It's like, what? There's no report. He's like, Well, I just feel like there's a lot going on, and you just inspire so much. If I don't have anything to talk about, why would I talk to you? And I thought about it, that is my community. It's ambitious people that want to go from good to great. So what I am launching is the power up 15 which gives you an opportunity to pop in for 15 minutes three times a week. 15 minutes three times a week, you have the opportunity not to come and listen to Liberty talk, but come and meet community members. A lot of key people work remotely, and it can become tiring, it can be isolating, and sometimes you're not fortunate enough to be surrounded by family members or friends who want to celebrate your wins. This. Is a place where you can come for those 15 minutes to celebrate your wins, connect with other winners, because, Hello, we're winners in this group. This is elite, and also build authentic relationships. I'm out here building relationships when I'm on air or when I'm on stage, they're coming to this community. They're interacting with my community. And that's exactly what it is. It's that accountability, and it's that group to say, let me share my wins. Let me see what else is going on. And it's not a come listen to liberty for 15 minutes. I'm turning the floor over and being a curator to the success that you're having in your life, a conversation that takes you from good to great. And you can learn self actualization, personal development, public speaking, anything you want in 15 minutes, because I feel that no meeting should take longer than 15 minutes. That's it, period. That's it. Can we put that on a shirt? It is on a shirt, and you can get one in the community. That's our tagline to the community. No look at and you look at Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk, they're making major decisions in under 15 minutes. And for the people in this community, empower at 15 the people in this community, they're leaders. They don't have an hour. They're executing on a high level. They're ambitious people moving forward. And in that 15 minutes. You can pop in one time a week if you want to, but it gives you three opportunities to pop in to listen to connect with other people and get back to your life. That part, that part. Oh, my goodness, Liberty. We have learned so much today. I'm so glad that you took a couple of minutes to slide on by to the happy hour lounge. Tell people how they can connect with you on socials. Yeah, they can connect with me. On LinkedIn, on Instagram. At Liberty, Madison, that's L, I, B, E, R t, y, M, A, D, i, s o, n, and it's Liberty madison.com if you want to go there, but on all socials. Thank you so much friend and to everybody in the lounge listening. I love you, and I mean it peace. Wasn't that a great interview? Hold up before you grab your hat and head out, make sure you make your way to facebook and join the bail yourself out pod Facebook group. That's where you'll find your virtual coworkers luxuriating and chatting. Thank you so much for listening. And if you enjoy the show, please leave a review. That's how we keep the lights on. If you're on social media, follow your girl, Kandice with the K Whitaker. And you know what I'd love to hear from you with that I love you, and I mean it, because there are people who hate in the world for no reason I choose to love for no reason. I believe if the great Martin Luther King Jr said, hate is too great a burden to bear, so I choose to love. Peace y'all. I.