S3: Ep 8: Jan Frolic: Co-Founder, Captains & Poets (Social and Emotional Learning Programs)

“Find out who you are at your core, keep returning to that, and then go out into the world and live that person.”

Jan’s career is nothing short of inspirational. She sussed out what she wanted to do and went after that with absolute determination. Her success included buying businesses and taking a role as head of Canada’s Women of Influence organization, helping women achieve and sustain success. And if that weren’t enough, Jan and her business partner, recognizing an important niche and need, started the organization Captains & Poets a school program all about SEL (Social Emotional Learning). Jan’s career shows what we can accomplish once we have our foundational understanding of ourselves in place.

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Thank you 
Jann Danyluk, Career Resilience.

Transcript

 | 00:12 | I'm so excited to welcome you to season three of career resilience. My name is Jan Danyluk I'm a senior human resources consultant at Ford keast, a progressive accounting firm in London, Ontario, Canada.
 
 | 00:26 | Each week I get to talk with people about their career path and their career journey and maybe we can all learn from each other how to be a little bit more resilient in the challenging world of work. Please check out my website career dash resilience dot com where you'll find season one and season two and now season three. Welcome. Love what you do and do what you love. The best career advice I've received follow the fun. 

 | 00:54 | Those opportunities will just organically present themselves. You know, establish those connections and maintain those connections. Acceptance just means accepting what is like. Don't think we should just put ourselves in a box. At the end of the day, it was always me that I said, I'm not doing good enough right now. I want it to always be you know movie night on Friday night. And. My guest today is Jan frolic, and Jan is a cofounder of captains and poets, which I'm really interested to hear about, and it's all to do with social emotional learning. 

 | 01:32 | So that's going to be interesting. Before that, Jan was with women influence organization, and that is also going to be interesting to delve into. So welcome to career resilience, Jan. Thank you so much for having me. Excited. Well, I'm excited to hear about your very varied career. So I have a lot of questions to ask you, but to get started, tell me an interesting fact about yourself and since everything is interesting, I'll be really interested to hear what you say about you as an interesting fact. 

 | 02:07 | So I'm not sure how interesting it is, but it is hilarious. Oh. I've had multiple transitions in my life. I guess you could say. And during one of them, when I was 38, I decided that I was going to make an album, a singing album. And during this time, I decided, you know what? I'm just going to go into some radio competition, just a crazy thing to do. 

 | 02:35 | I don't know why I did it. I was 38 years old, and sitting in a bar, I go up on stage, spend the whole night there, I sang my heart out, and I lost to a 11 year old yodeler. A yodeler? An 11 year old. So that's funny. You'd never find that anywhere. So, but it was one of the moments that I was like, what am I doing? What was your genre? I understand his was yodeling. What was yours? Honestly, I think I tried to do sort of a bluesy jazzy kind of thing. 

 | 03:08 | And I think it was a country competition. So I didn't fit into my web, but I just wanted to go and do it just to say I did it. I consider that incredibly brave. Yeah, well, I like to perform. Well, that is a good one. So your career, I feel like has been quite varied, and what I wanted to sort of start with is what started you off on your varied career?

 | 03:37 | I was extremely motivated just to get into the workforce at a very early age. In university, I just wanted to be done so I could go at work. I didn't really know what that meant. I didn't know what I was going to do with my life, but I knew that I just wanted to do something different and get out there and just move on. Get out of the school system and really just start having a life is what I wanted really badly. 

 | 04:05 | You felt you were in waiting mode at that point? With school? Yeah. Kind of. Yeah. I just knew that I wanted to go and do stuff. I wanted to I knew there was stuff that had to be done somewhere. I didn't really know what it was, but I knew I had a lot of drive. So I didn't do the traveling after school, like my Friends did. And yeah, in retrospect, I think, yeah, I probably wish I had had those memories with them.

 | 04:28 | But I'm glad I didn't because also in some respect in that I went full force into figuring out what I wanted to do with my rest of my life. So what is your university schooling? What is your degree? What did you go after? Yeah. So I went after, actually. I got into school. For music in the performance major. And I graduated with honors degree in sociology. 

 | 04:59 | Because in the end, studying people was far more interesting to me than theory. Music theory. Okay. But as you were growing up, and I always like to ask this, when people were saying to you, so Jan, what do you want to be when you grow up, would you say I want to be a musician? No. I don't remember ever answering that question to be totally honest. I didn't you know at the time I grew up in a somewhat small town. 

 | 05:28 | I didn't really know my options. My parents were both teachers. I knew you know I was in a GM town, so I knew that people worked at GM. I knew that they were educators. I knew there were nurses in the hospital. But I never really knew much outside of that. And but I did know that I could that there was going to be something else for me. So here you are, this driven person, school is ending, you've done it, and what do you leap into? 

 | 05:59 | I ended up getting a job before I graduated from university, moved to Toronto, and I ended up working for a clothing line in their head office as what they called a junior buyer. Oh. Yes. I ended up getting a lot of coffee and reading a lot of receipts from the clothing company. But it was a great great start, and I, you know, I lived in Kensington market and I got this new city feel and I got to explore. 

 | 06:29 | And yeah, it was an amazing time, actually. And when did you think to yourself, this isn't exactly what I had in mind? At what stage of your career? I think I ended up actually. I ended up moving what I realized what I was good at. I think that's in the end where I ended up figuring things out was I recognized I was offered a job at an organization called the Canadian food service association and I went there and I was really good at selling. 

 | 07:03 | I was really good at talking to people, having great conversations, and then ultimately making that transaction something that worked for the company I was working for. And I was excellent at it. And so I started to think, oh, gosh, maybe there's a maybe there's a career here. But then I got married, and I moved to the states. Oh. And that put everything on hold. I worked at a vineyard. I worked at a bar. I did a whole bunch of random things. 

 | 07:32 | And by the time I started really think about what I wanted to do, again, I was only 26 years old, I think at the time. I started to thinking, you know what? I want to be an advertising. That's when I started to get this vision in my head. I wanted to be an advertising. But I also wanted to do sales. And at that point, there was this thing called the Internet knew, and I could put in advertising and sales and all of a sudden this whole industry came up.

 | 08:02 | Advertising sales. And by the time I moved back to Canada, I had interviewed with an organization called magazine network. And I started working there. And it was advertising sales. So it was a massive network of magazines, publications, newspapers, across Canada. And I was hired on as a sales rep. That role really worked for you. It did, because I bought the company 16 months later or something. 

 | 08:30 | And yeah, I guess it was maybe it was close to two years later. And I did that for 15 years. Well, Jan, I have to say, it's really unusual for me to hear. And so I bought the company. Yeah. On earth, did that occur that you could buy the company or that you even had served by the company? Well, it's so funny. I had I only had nerve because I didn't have any money. I had less than any money.

 | 09:00 | So much less than any money. So I, but I had been given a job offer. With a sort of a competing company. So I went to the current owner, and I said, I'm going to go there, and I'm going to make a lot of money, or I'll buy your company. But I don't have any money. And he was amazing because he was looking to move on as well. And he said, okay, you can pay me out. 5% of your earnings for the next two years. And we'll call that even. 

 | 09:28 | So it was a $100,000. That I bought the company for over two years. And I loved that job. I loved it. Yeah. So how many employees would be in that company? Well, at the time, I started, there was probably 8 of us and by the time I guess there was a good three or four or 5 of us at one time, usually. But there was three key people. Okay. So you were small and nimble. 

 | 09:58 | Yeah, yeah, very. And then we were big. We were like the largest sales rep house for in our industry across Canada. So we had a big footprint. What made you leave that? Well, the Internet. So yeah. So a lot of my publications that I worked on were weekly. So I worked on all the Entertainment Weekly publications across Canada, which was incredible. 

 | 10:29 | But the weekly message soon became the daily message, the daily message student became the you know minute by minute message you know, print went out of style, video came in. All of a sudden they were apps, there was all kinds of different things. So there was definitely no need for my publications anymore and hence there was no need for me to service them. So the company ended probably like really ended doing what we were doing. 

 | 11:01 | In 2010, 2011? How was that? How was that for you? I know that you know since then, you've done great things. But at the time, how was that? It was awful. My identity was wrapped up in it, first of all. I had started it at a pretty young age. I had, at that point, I had three kids, one very, very little one, a baby. I had a brand new house. I had overextended everything in my life, basically. 

 | 11:33 | So it was very stressful. And yeah, it was an odd time, but it also gave me that opportunity to go, okay, what do you want to do right now? If you could do anything, what would you do? So I bought a flower shop in my neighborhood. Also, these are sort of random, and I am a bit of a quick start, and I also have a high risk taker. So I was like, okay, I'll do this flower shop because I thought everybody wants a flower shop, right? 

 | 12:02 | And it's true. You know, it's so romantic. It's such an amazing place to work, but the truth is like, I know nothing about flowers. I can't keep a plant alive. I knew nothing. I just knew that I wanted to do it. And also, it was a heck of a lot of work. So I will say this, the flower shop was great. I lost a ton of money. I gave away a lot of flowers. I absolutely loved my time doing it. 

 | 12:28 | But I'm glad I did it then because I would never want to be holding on to that dream now because it's way too much work to be like, I wouldn't want to retire and go, I'm going to spend my retirement money on a flower shop. That's a bad idea. Yeah. Yeah. I often think of the anecdote that I have where I was watching during the COVID-19 you know, the height of it, and people were leaving their jobs, the great resignation, and so on. 

 | 12:57 | And this one woman who had been a banker left to work in a flower shop. And you know it was so great to hear what she had to say about that. But I was also thinking, where's the person who's working in the flower shop who has switched to becoming a banker? Plus, every job has its extreme pros and extreme cons. So that was always interesting to me. How are you so brave about making these moves? 

 | 13:25 | And I'll tell you, we're so the opposite because I'm always, can I put food on the table today, tomorrow? And did I do a good job of putting food on the table yesterday? So how is how are you so flexible that way? I like it. I find it so fun and exciting. And very much it's about the experience for me. I love to live life. 

 | 13:53 | I want to, when I go, I want this, I want to have this collection of experiences that I don't regret, that I tried everything. I love business. I love meeting people, making those connections, building something, the build is everything for me. I find it so exhilarating. And I guess the worry, it's not that I don't have worry. I do worry, but I grew up being told you're always going to make money. You have the personality, you're never going to have to worry. 

 | 14:24 | And so I think it's in me because my parents told me that. Yeah. Maybe full security, but it seemed to work. And it continues to. Sounds like great parents. They are amazing, yes, without question. Oh, that's awesome. So I think that this is a nice moment to move into the women of influence organization that you joined and gave a lot of your time and resources to over the years. 

 | 14:55 | Did that come about because you used the Internet and said, oh, women have influence or what? No, that came about. So the magazine network was on the decline. I had done I was doing the flower shop. I was still meeting with some clients through magazine network, and we met up with one of them, and I said, you know what? I feel like this challenge is going to be coming up for me like having been an entrepreneur basically my entire career.

 | 15:29 | A lot of years, and I feel like I need to do something else. I need to go and work for somebody. Because I don't know what that's like. Not since my very first job. I just didn't know what that was like as an adult, to go and take instruction and direction, build somebody else's company. I was like, can I do that? Can I do that? Can I give up the freedoms that I've had as an entrepreneur and go into that world? 

 | 16:00 | So I was like, I'm going to try it. But I was only going to try it. With something that I knew that mattered to me. That I was passionate about. And I had this opportunity again to sort of look back and go, what fired me up when I was in my 20s. And I went back as far as the university, and I was thinking, okay, you know what? Gender studies. Majorly fired me up. Working as an alliance with LGBTQ, that fired me up. 

 | 16:29 | Those kinds of the advocacy side of things really was like really I was like, I got to get into something that's purpose driven. And the client I was meeting with at the time said, have you heard women of influence? They're 20 years old. And I was like, how is that possible? My company is 20 years old. I'm a leader in my field. How have I not found these people? And she said, oh, well, they had a job opening. You should apply. And I said, yeah, can you connect me? 

 | 16:58 | But by the time I was finished that meeting, I'd already connected. I found the job listing that had closed, and I was like, this is the place I want to be. I want to do this. But you just said the opportunity had closed. It had closed. So what I did was I put a presentation together. I called all of these, I had a pretty good network of amazing women. And I called all of them. And I said, I want a job at this place. 

 | 17:27 | I need you to call her, to call the owner at the time. And eventually, she called me and said, okay, all the right people called me. Come in. Come in for an interview. And I had built this huge presentation and I was going in. I was going to present to this women of influence. I mean, it sounded like women of influence. This is a big deal, right? And I took this PowerPoint in with all the quotes and all the things I had done in my life that got me to this point and why I thought I was the best person for this job that didn't even exist anymore. 

 | 17:59 | And it was just her and I little office. And I was like, oh, okay, well. And she's like, I can't find anybody to do this. And then I figured out why. There was very little money that was able to go along with it. You know, being in that space, it's hard work, right? It's every dollar you're trying to get from sponsors and in this case, with sponsorships. And I was like, and it was like my first test because I'd only ever worked for myself. 

 | 18:30 | It was either you make a lot of money or you make no money, right? There was no in between. And I was like, wow, I don't know how I'm going to do this. I have three kids. I'm a single mom at the time, right? And I'm like, I have three kids. I have my own tiny little house, and it's that I have to put food on the table now. I have to be the responsible adult. I got to do all those things. In a different way. But then I was like, I could see the opportunity. 

 | 19:01 | And I am good at that. I could see the opportunity and I could see why the organization or I could see where it could have needed help. So I said, yes. I said, yeah, I'm going to do it. So I took the job and I just, I thought, you know what? I'll turn this around in 18 months. And then I'll be on to the next thing and 9 years later. You were still there. What is the product? So we sold so our organization at the time was doing events all over Canada. 

 | 19:33 | And then we expanded to all over the world. We were in we have different segments. So it was basically bringing keynote speakers in to inspire women in the corporate space early on. When I started. So we would have big luncheons, we'd have evening series. It would be about mentorship. It would be about having people in a room and just connecting and hearing these amazing people like Margaret Atwood and Heather reisman and you name it. And then, of course, we had a website. We did some learning. We did some white papers. 

 | 20:05 | But morphed and evolved, thankfully, over the last number of years. And so I got to do even more interesting things. And what was the most interesting aspect of that role for you? Well, interesting. And it was we had the opportunity to sort of lead in the space on intersectionality when it came to we grew. 

 | 20:35 | We grew from you know a somewhat small organization to probably one of the world's largest. And we were able to inspire and bring content that was extremely diverse from all over the world, different stories, and really really bring that to the forefront. And making sure that these that people were represented represented well, that their voices were heard. And it was very much like if you can see it, you can be it, right? 

 | 21:07 | You hear that a lot, but we were able to do that for a very big group of women. We are always bringing new conversations to the table that hadn't been had yet. And that was exciting. So name a couple of new conversations you brought to the table that hadn't been had. Well, intersectionality was a conversation like ten years ago that we were having. 

 | 21:35 | You know, really identifying as a woman, but not just as a woman, a woman of color, a white woman in workplace, LGBTQ disabilities, like all of the things that define you as a woman, are going to be different than the person standing next to you. Yeah, right? And that opens up the whole conversation around belonging. And wellness in the workplace. And so it was really about bringing these conversations to light, maybe when they hadn't been. 

 | 22:05 | And we got to do it in a big way. So we moved from, when I started, we were sitting at about 25,000 social followers. And we're probably just under a million now. Wow. Congratulations. Yeah. It was a big growth. Yeah. And the company had been acquired by two incredible women that I had been working with. So we had this opportunity to grow the company and the direction that we were passionate about as a trifecta in leadership. Yeah. And that was that was a beautiful, beautiful partnership for a good number of years, 6, 7 years. 

 | 22:39 | And was this a Canadian start? It's a Canadian based organization, yes. Isn't that wonderful? Yeah. You know? For a Canadian organization to go global is always lovely? Yeah. We ran what was called the global leaders dinners. So we would provide these forums for women at particular senior levels in both corporate and entrepreneur entrepreneurial enterprises to get together in places like Hong Kong, London, New York, Chicago, Washington, Toronto Calgary. 

 | 23:15 | We did these beautiful, really bespoke and intimate dinners. And it was really all about sharing, right? It was about connection and sharing best practices and how are we going to make things better for the next generation? So I'm just wondering, Jan, for the women that are listening to this, are the men who know women who are listening to this. What should they or why should they take a look at the website about women of influence? Oh, it's so inspiring, first of all. 

 | 23:46 | It's amazing to see the work that's being done by so, so many incredible people. It'll just fill your heart. It will lift you up. It is impossible not to look at that website. Read those articles and not think, what am I doing with my life? I'm giving enough, right? There are so many remarkable people out there. And I guess that that's such a gift. 

 | 24:11 | To know, to see these other people, and in my case, get to know some of them and support them and push them forward, move them forward, give them resources to meet each other, yeah, and recognize them, amplify them. It's pretty incredible. It's impossible not to be moved. You will want to be involved in this organization when you get to know it. 

 | 24:37 | As you are an entrepreneur and an entrepreneur as well with that experience, when you look back at you as a young entrepreneur, what would you say to yourself from your vantage point now that you look back to you as that younger entrepreneur? Yeah, I think my biggest success has been finding places and landing places and creating places where I can be a 100% myself. 

 | 25:11 | Ah. So good on you for sticking to it. It's so easy to conform. It is so easy to go somewhere for the money. It is so easy. In some cases, because you have to. But I am so pleased that that young entrepreneur decided to just keep going, do it on her own terms, be be authentically her, and follow a passion. 

 | 25:39 | Yeah. That's lovely. Okay. So I think that it is a good moment to move on to captains and poets. Because that is your newest, although you've been at it for a while. There's some overlap there. Tell me about captains and poets. And let's start with the actual captains and poets. What does that mean to be a captain and a poet? Everybody has a captain and a poet within them. 

 | 26:06 | So the concept of the organization, well, there's so much to this. And I'm so full with it, right? In my heart and in my mind that I just, I'm not sure much of it comes out in order. But I will say that everyone has a captain and a poet within them. And when you recognize that, so your captain's a bit of your doer and your poets your feeler, right? These are archetypes. And they're somewhat, you know, worldwide. People grasp them. 

 | 26:35 | They cross cultures, not all cultures, obviously. But they're recognizable. So the captain is the go forward navigator and the poet is the feeler, the musician, the dreamer, the all of those things inside you all those things that stir within you. And when you have them work together, and you need it, and you can see this in leadership and politics, in corporate, in anywhere, that if you don't have them working together, you are you're only one sided.

 | 27:05 | So when you have them working together, you are your best, most authentic self, and when you are that, you can see that and celebrate it in other people. Okay. A couple of things. Captain poet does one ever dominate? I mean, just ongoing domination? No, not ongoing. It changes. It changes daily, right? Right. As an entrepreneur, I am you know, I have a lot of captain in me around the entrepreneur. 

 | 27:38 | In that I'm a doer, I'm very committed. I'm very forward. I'm put myself out there all the time, but the truth is, I'm driven my businesses are driven by my passion, my emotion, my deep desire to create change in the world. So they're working together. But yeah, sometimes one has to be more than the other. Sometimes my poet as a mother is like all over the place. Right? Emotion emotion emotion. 

 | 28:09 | And you know sometimes I'm a bit captain E you know, where I'm just like, no, no, that's not going to happen here. That kind of thing. So yeah. But when you work it together and you have them in balance? Have you ever said to someone be your authentic self? And I'll help you get there. Yeah, that's what we're doing with kids right now. Captains and poets program is very much around it's hard to be your authentic self unless you're self aware. And so we're teaching self awareness, right? 

 | 28:38 | Yeah. And that's the beginning of it. Whereas like you really set the stage for them learning about who they are really on the inside. Yeah. So you have to build it. You have to learn how to be authentic. First of all, you have to learn who you are. It's just a little bit of self exploration. Some thinking we do some fun games with them. Yeah, we have a full curriculum.

 | 29:08 | We have a full turnkey kindergarten to grade 12 curriculum around social emotional learning that bridges inclusion, so we're a little bit niche. Because we are moving into a new space that it's about inclusion. And that self awareness will is the path to inclusion. Learning about yourself. So then you can learn about others, right? We have full workshops. We're moving into the corporate space, doing oh, you are. Yeah. 

 | 29:35 | Just to share, we're starting to, because every adult that we talk to, they're like, where can I get this? It's all great that they're kids can get up. I'm like, where can I get it? Because we seem to have missed that in our education, right? So here we are, a bunch of adults who are responsible for bringing these kids up in the world of massive, massive transition and very, very complex issues that are happening. And we have no bases ourselves. So we're now going into the adult world. 

 | 30:05 | And we're doing teacher workshops. We're doing parent workshops. We're doing corporate workshops. Yeah. How did this start? You know, having a coffee together and you said, why don't we do this? Or why don't we do that? How did it what's the germination? Yeah. So actually, it started through women of influence. It was at one of those events. I was at, you know, and I was looking up on the stage. We had brought men to the podium. 

 | 30:36 | Because the idea at the time was if we engage men that they're kind of the key stakeholders in our journeys professionally and that if we can get them on board and understanding everything that will have a more successful path, and I was just like, nothing's working. I was like, nothing is working. What are we doing? For like a thousand more years. And nothing I will have done will have mattered. 

 | 31:04 | And I'm like, what is this? What's the what is the key to all of this? And all of a sudden I was like, I need to be in a room with kids. I need to brainwash kids. I need to like start rewiring their brains and like have these conversations really early about inclusion. So I decided that's what I was going to do. I just like right there. I decided it. 

 | 31:30 | And I put out a bit of a manifesto to all of my corporate leaders. And I was like, I want to do this. I really want to sort of break down this whole gender barrier that we have in corporate starting at an early age. I want to dismantle masculinity. I want to bring women into the girls into the conversation with boys. So we can like level this playing field and really disrupt the system early on. And recognize that we're all just people

 | 32:01 | We're all just trying to get through, right? We all have our own stories and we need to have compassion and gratitude and curiosity about each other. And we have to be vulnerable and open and all of this. And I sent it out and they all came back and they're like, yeah, good luck. That's great. So much work ahead of you. And I was like, I'm still going to do it. But one person came back and said, I would like to introduce you to somebody. She seems to be on the same path. 

 | 32:30 | And hooked me up with who is now my cofounder of captains and poets, Jennifer Johnson. And she's amazing. She's magical. It's like she was coming from the corporate space, but she'd been a former educator. She had been working, she had worked at a board, writing curriculum. And she's a total curriculum geek self program proclaimed, by the way. I can say that. Yes. And she is super talented.

 | 33:00 | So together, we had the concept and we wrote up this whole curriculum. She built it and this structure really sort of got a lot of consulting in. Brought in educators and we brought in people from the diversity equity inclusion space and we had we did a ton, a ton of work. And it was really around gender. And then we were invited to the United Nations. 

 | 33:27 | And we went down and we showcased our brand new content to UN women on the global team. And then a week later, so we were in New York and then a week later, COVID hit. But then but then something else happened, not just COVID hit and everything that came from that, but George Floyd happened. And then Breonna Taylor. And all these things are happening. 

 | 33:56 | And we realized, oh my gosh, this isn't about gender. This is about identity. We are at the intersection of well-being and identity. And that was we'd already written this curriculum. All we had to go back and do was, you know, tweak it. Because it was about the human experience, right? Who we are as humans and how that we are all the same because we are all different. And that's the beauty. 

 | 34:26 | In being human, is that we're different, right? And we get, we get derailed with differences. That is the most best part of being human is that none of us are the same. And we have to teach kids this. Because they have everything within them to be amazing, global citizens, but somehow we put them into little boxes and move them into all kinds of strange directions and we need to give really positive reinforcement that. 

 | 35:08 | There's so much we can do all together if we just look at each other and accept each other and you know what? Celebrate each other really yeah. I have looked at the website and I was fascinated by it and about all the you know initiatives and the enthusiasm you can feel coming out of the website. When did you do all this? 

 | 35:35 | Well, it's funny. We've spent four years in development, right? And you know it's not just us. We have a team of people. Amazing consultants from all kinds of different backgrounds, thankfully. I mean, you can't build an inclusive curriculum from a perspective of two middle aged white women, right? You have like, we have a lot of people that have come in and helped us. So, you know, we've been able to find those people that's been, you know, the people who have shown up, honestly, universe works in mysterious ways, right?

 | 36:07 | It is, but then but then when you see it all together, you're like, oh, it's not so mysterious. All of us were supposed to be together. And it's magical, right? It is a magic little team that we have with great power, great passion, a ton of enthusiasm and so much talent. So we were able to do it a lot faster than probably a lot of people. And yeah, we worked really, really hard. We worked hard. We published like 6 books. We did two iterations of the website. 

 | 36:36 | We have a ton of consults that we brought in. Like, yeah, we've spent a ton of money doing it. But it's worth it because the curriculum and the learnings are so beautiful. And so easy. You know, kids get this, they get it immediately. They know who their captain and poet are. And they will have it forever. It's like a back pocket tool. They have their captain and poet in their back pocket and they just have to check in every so often and make sure they're balanced and aligned. 

 | 37:07 | It's incredible. Do you teach the teacher or how does it work operationally, Jan? Yes. So the teachers we found were suffering just as much. Educators were so it's a bit of the oxygen mask theory, right? You have to take care of the teacher before the teacher can take care of anybody in that room, especially during COVID and continues post COVID you know. There's just so much burnout.

 | 37:35 | So we did a teacher's handbook, like a guide, but then we're also in the process of doing a reflection guide. And we also do a teach the teacher. So we go in, we have professional development. We run a shorter program through with the adults. So they really can internalize it, understand who their captain and poet are. Before they go in and deliver. But it's like, again, it can be 15 minutes. It's easy. This is not a difficult program. It is people get it. 

 | 38:04 | Once they're given the tools, in a, in an easy, friendly language, it's so simple. And they just run with it. I think most teachers and believe me, I think that that is one tough job to choose as being a teacher. Because of love of kids, no doubt. Or it's also because they came up through the school system, and that's what they've seen modeled through all those years. So you know you know, became a teacher. 

 | 38:32 | But it is a very tough job, but I think that most teachers I know would be so open to what you're talking about, because it's freeing for people, right, to know what their captain is, and to know what their poet is, and also to develop the self confidence that that can bring with you because naturally self confidence is all intertwined in what you're talking about. Yeah, absolutely. And it is easy. It is easier to have the conversations when you have a captain and a poet, which are non gendered, right? 

 | 39:04 | It's not masculine and feminine. That's how we've always looked approach these things, right? And then the boys are afraid to be feminine and emotional and the girls aren't, you know, secure and being like doers and like it's like, let's just stop that. Let's just stop that. Everybody has everything. And we're better people because of that. We're better parents. We're better Friends. We are better world leaders. Corporate leaders, like imagine, imagine if everyone had their captain and poet in check.

 | 39:32 | So let me get to my three questions that I always ask, what has been the best career advice you have received? Okay, so I've had a ton of career advice, as you can imagine, because I'm constantly in these rooms with incredible women who are telling their stories. But my biggest regret actually is that because I was so like I was working all the time, I didn't get to listen very well.

 | 40:02 | Because I was constantly like, is everybody happy? So, but I will say that one thing that really stuck with me from someone that I wouldn't imagine was going to be that super inspiring for me just because it's a fully different industry was Heather reisman from chapters indigo. And her advice was, and it was kind of funny because I was like, this is exactly exactly right. She was like, just stay at the table. Just show up, keep showing up and stay there. 

 | 40:31 | Eventually, you're going to be the oldest one at the table and know everything. And I was like, that's perfect, right? Just keep doing the stuff. Just keep doing your work, keep going, keep showing up. And so that was, that was the best. Yep. Keep showing up. I love it. Just keep showing up. Yeah. Okay. Second, is there a podcast or a book or something that you've simply streamed wherever you stream your stuff, a docuseries, or whatever, that influenced you and helped you move forward, or you just found really interesting? 

 | 41:06 | So I don't have time for that. I wish I wish I had time for those things. I look forward to that. In fact, it's one of my new year's resolutions is to learn, learn more by listening to podcasts and TEDx talks, which I crave that because I need to continue my learning too. But I will say, I would say the book that probably had the most influence on me goes back years and years and years. 

 | 41:34 | And it was like in my 20s. And it was called she laughed all the way to the bank. And that was because I early on had quite a bit of success as a business owner, and I had no role models. I had no one to talk to. I was extremely insecure about making money. And I didn't have anything to tell me it was okay that I could own this, that it was okay for me to have money. 

 | 42:03 | It was okay to be doing better than my male counterparts that it was like I had no idea. I had no idea. So that book was the only book that I could find and it was all about owning your owning your finances. So that was having the confidence to go, yeah, I did this. I made this life. So yeah, so that was a big one for me. She laughed all the way to the bank. What a great title. I know. 

 | 42:33 | That's so good. And finally, if it's possible to answer this, what are you most proud about related to your career? There's two things, actually. The first is the and this always makes me super emotional. The unbelievable relationships that I made. 

 | 42:55 | At women of influence, the network of women who shared their stories with me who were motivated daily to create a better world that were actively changing their corporate environments, their work environments or entrepreneurial missions to be more inclusive to engage younger women like. Those people are my friends now. And that to me, that is huge success. 

 | 43:24 | And I am so proud of that. I will say one person in particular who owns a business and she phoned me one day from the United Nations where she was having a seat at the table and she said, I just calling from the UN. Thank you. And that was, she goes, I wouldn't have been here without you. She definitely she definitely would have been. 

 | 43:51 | No question, but she felt that, you know, me giving her a seat at my table, actually, literally. You know, open doors for her that she wouldn't have otherwise had. And to me, that was the most incredible phone call ever. Yes. Right. So those that I'm very, very proud of that. The second thing is I designed a life that I could show up for my kids every single day. I was there for lunch. I was there after school. 

 | 44:22 | I have dinner with them every night. And I don't think that's normal for a lot of women with careers. That's very, very impossible in many cases. And I built it for better for worse. Maybe I could be tons more successful if I didn't. But I cherish that I had that and my kids are older now. And I will never regret that ever. So the entrepreneurial life gave me that. Yeah. 

 | 44:50 | No, I wouldn't regret that because that's you know of all our accomplishments. Surely that's the number one accomplishment in life when you choose to go in that direction, right? Choose to become a parent. Okay. Is there anything you'd like to add because we're going to wrap up now, but if there's something that you think of that you'd like to say, Jan, I'd love to hear it? No. I think. 

 | 45:19 | I guess if I had a chance to give advice, would be to find out who you are at your core? And keep returning to it. You know, create those boundaries emotionally, physically, that you need to do. And always come back to your core of who you are and go out in the world and live that person. Yeah. Yeah. Leave that person. Okay. Thank you so much for chatting with me today. Absolutely. 

 | 45:46 | That was fun. And thank you for having me. So to our viewers and listeners, thank you so much for joining Jan and Jan today. Quite a woman of influence and I can even feel sort of pumped up just having had this chat and all the things that it made me think about, including the importance of being ourselves and putting ourselves out into the world in a good way with our values taking the lead.

 | 46:13 | And I think that's what Jan does and really appreciate that opportunity to chat about those kinds of things. Take a look at the websites if you have a chance, women of influence and captains and poets, very interesting stuff. And who doesn't want to be uplifted? So if you like to view, take a look at us on YouTube, if you're a listener, wherever you get your podcasts, thanks for joining us and until we meet again.