Erin Geiger: 0:10

Hey everybody and welcome to the newest episode of clover. I am here with Carrie Guerrero. I am so excited to have you here, Carrie, thank you for joining us. I know you're super busy with all the things, so thank you for coming.

Unknown: 0:24

Well, I am so grateful and honored to be here. Erin, so thank you.

Erin Geiger: 0:29

It was so funny. I have to tell the listeners, like I Carrie and I just got to talking before recording the podcast, and she's so great to talk to you that I was like, Oh, I guess we should start the recording an actual podcast. But you're gonna, you're gonna love the time ahead of you, because Carrie is just like an incredible person to to speak with. So I just wanted to start there. But Carrie, as I usually do with these episodes, would you mind indulging me and kind of telling us your origin story? I love to call it kind of like your journey and your career and how you got from point A to where you are today.

Unknown: 1:08

Yeah, that's a long story, as I'm sitting in, you know, three decades in the business at this stage, but will tell you probably a little bit different and maybe similar to some listeners out there, but my mother was in the mortgage business, and I watched her as a child. In fact, my first paying job in the mortgage business was her paying me to deliver first time home buyer flyers, door to door. I was 11 years old. I was wrapping them on townhome development doors and sticking them under apartment building doors. I don't think we send our 11 year olds in to do that kind of anymore today, but then I kind of held every administrative type position throughout junior high and high school, helped in the office and that kind of stuff, and really got into the business at 20 full time and started as a as a marketing, business development person, and again, just how do I help in all the different ways? Actually, there was a refinance boom going on in the mortgage industry at that point, and it was here's a list of our closed loan clients that we need you to call, and so I started calling them. I loved it from day one, truly, I think I loved it before I got into it, right? But have been originating a year later, became a branch manager. From then, grew to recruiting and hiring other originators, to growing an area to then, you know, there's a few stops along the way. I've been at, technically, three different mortgage companies in my in my 30 years in the business, each one of them massive growth and change and evolution of who I was and what it what it was that I was doing, but in coming to fairway, there was actually a pause in between. And I think that a lot of people can resonate with those times in your life or your career where you try something brand new, and it doesn't go so well. And so I had decided, nearing the 20 year mark in the business that I wanted to go full on into coaching and consulting. And I had run a consulting company with partners for a number of years, and I was like, Okay, I need, I need to go all in to this coaching thing. Let's go and quickly in the first year of that, ran through a whole bunch of our savings and learned that going from running a region and having a lot of people who were in my space and also needing and supporting on both sides on a daily basis, to all of a sudden, being a solopreneur, really. I mean, I had partners on opposite coasts, but remote work wasn't really a normal thing back then. I mean, this was 2014 and I said, Hey, okay, this is really hard. This is really hard to be alone in my office and be with my own thoughts and be the, you know, the E Myth revisited is a great it's a great book, the E Myth in general, he talks about entrepreneurial seizures, and I definitely had one. If I was just like, Oh, hey, I can go do all this. And a year later, I was like, maybe not so much. My husband became a pastor in that same year. And I don't know if you know this, but they don't pay. Pastors, like, you know, starting pastors, you're not just making a whole bunch of money. That's not what they're in it for. So I said, Hey, maybe I need to go back and do a few loans. I'm just gonna go and I'm gonna just, don't want to be leading a big area, don't want to have a whole bunch of employees. Don't need all of that. I really want to hang on to my coaching and consulting over here, but I'm going to go do a few loans so that I can support my family. And I really came to fairway the place that I currently am with kind of my tail between my legs, feeling like I'd failed, like I succeed in the way I had envisioned in my mind, and I had to go back to this place it was. I had to thing in my mind. Instead of I get to I'm a woman of faith. So then it's my belief system. Within short order of me coming to fairway, you know, I was going to do a few loans. And of course, five loans became 10 loans. You know, when you serve people well and you do the right thing, I earnestly believe that no matter what business you're in, when you are doing the right thing and you're there to serve people well, it multiplies, and so it did. But also a coaching company was being formed within fairway, and I got the opportunity to participate in that was asked to be a part, and it was one of those moments where it was like, No, this was just the direction I was supposed to go. You don't see it in in the middle of it, but when you get there, you look back and go, Oh, I see what the plan was all along. So that was, that was 10 years ago. We're about to celebrate our 10th Anniversary of founding fairway Ignite, and now we, we serve over 600 coaching clients on a monthly basis, all inside fairway. I have about 80 coaches, and we get the honor and pleasure of serving fairway every day in that way. And I can't, it's kind of pinched me, because here we are so here we are. So that's, that's it.

Erin Geiger: 7:25

No, it's, it's, it's interesting, because it reminds me of my mom always says, which is, like the universe, or, you know, whoever you know that you look to, there's nudges right of like, where you're supposed to be in life. And it starts out small, you know, and then they, if you don't listen, they get bigger and bigger and bigger. And so right when you said, Oh, I went over to fairway, and then there was coaching, I was like, of course, there was, you know,

Unknown: 7:53

exactly where you were supposed to go. You're supposed to land there. That certainly wasn't how I felt in the middle of it, I felt like, Oh, I am having to do this so that I can support my family. And now I was, I was getting to do that. That's definitely a mindset shift that is not lost in my day to day. Now, yeah,

Erin Geiger: 8:21

and I want to talk more about the coaching aspect, but before I move over to that, I was curious. So, you know, you're, you're very modest when you know, you're like, oh, you know, do a few loans and then those loans compounded. I mean, what you've done over, what, a billion dollars. Let's get that out there.

Unknown: 8:39

Yeah, you know, for a long time, for a long time that mattered, and at some point I think in your career, you know, the reality is, every loan has a name. Every name has act. I mean, it is very real. And home ownership is a really big deal, right? I mean, it creates stronger families, stronger communities, better grades. There's a there's a whole wide number of reasons why that is super important. But at some point, all of the awards and trophies and all of that stuff were, were super important, and they're just not as important anymore as the stories are. And so, yes, I mean, there's, there's been a great amount of success in that arena, and I'm grateful for that. My greatest, greatest joy now is watching other people to get to those levels of success, and helping them with how to get there and how to how to do it in a way that, again, is about it's about giving back and about building something that is legacy. Driven, versus just honking. Loans,

Erin Geiger: 10:04

yeah, and, and I love how you've kind of transformed it to an act of service really, you know. And in your mind, right? Rather than, like, going for the dollar, it's more of like, okay, what's behind that? And honestly, I will say that that's, I know, that's contributed to your success fully, you know, kind of like that mindset shift, and you mentioned, you know, kind of building a legacy. So talk about your your daughter, right? Your daughter is now, is involved your former team. So can you talk a little bit about how that transpired and how you really have built a legacy at this point,

Unknown: 10:44

you know? And like, yeah, we're talking three generations, right? My daughter actually had been in the operation side of the business for years and years and years, and just last year, decided to start originating loans, which is the sales side versus the operation side? You know, very different. But I was at a place in my career where I in my days where I couldn't manage all of those hats anymore, right? And our CEO, bless him, he he knew and could see that, and said, Carrie, it's time. I think sometimes we really need those people that are outside of our day to day looking in to say, it's time. And I remember when he picked up the phone, I will always remember when he picked up the phone and called me, and we had that because I honestly, Aaron, I wasn't ready to let go. And I think a lot of times we're not ready to let go, because those things bring us comfort, and those things feel like certainty and security when really they're holding us back. And and this team had been groomed for years and years, and there was no reason that they couldn't take over and do what they needed to do. So yes, my daughter then took over a portion of my business and our long time production partner Andrea, who had been working with us for more than a decade, said she was getting into her origination, and she took over another portion of the business and built her own. And between the two of them, they they can serve that client base and and partner base, very, very well, and they're doing a great job. So it's, it's great to see them succeed?

Erin Geiger: 12:43

Yeah? No, I bet. I mean, it's another special part of your heart, right, where you're able to, kind of, like, you know, work with your daughter in, kind of continuing this legacy, bringing it forward. It's such a beautiful thing. Yeah, and so you're leading on the coaching side. So you're leading the coaching and development platform for fairway. What you know for our listeners, like, what does that look like? And it's a very high performing organization. So what is that effective coaching for you, coaching your coaches you know, and coaching others that you know you're you're looking to kind of help along the way.

Unknown: 13:27

So I'm sorry, but like the question, I'm not sure what the question was in there.

Erin Geiger: 13:32

So what is effective coaching look like in such a high performing organization?

Unknown: 13:36

Got it? Um, I would tell you that it's not one size fits all. Active coaching for us is very different than it might be. I mean, when we started fairway Ignite, it was really like, okay, many of us certainly not me, right? Independently, all of us together, had experienced different coaching walks with different companies, a variety of them, and it was, wow. What if we took all of that cumulative knowledge and investment of time and real dollars and said, Okay, what? What are the best practices of all of those things that we can bring in internally to fairway, and then layer on top of that, fairways, ways of doing things and the knowledge of how fairway works. So we can help people scale way faster internally than if they're operating with somebody externally. And in doing so, we crafted a bunch of different paths. Of course, there are some core tenets in terms of accountability and the use of an app that we have that tracks activities and progress and real metrics and those kinds of things that are the same for all salespeople. But we earnestly believe that coaching is a one on one on a one on one basis. Is a one on one relationship that we need to make sure as a match. It's just not like, Oh, hey, oh, Aaron, you want to get into coaching? Okay? We're just going to put you with XYZ person. We don't know anything about you, we really dig in and figure out where does this person want to go? And I think that the effectiveness of coaching, if you will, is really largely dependent on that pairing being a match and not putting people with people that are too far ahead of them or the wrong personality profiles or that type of thing. So we measure, of course, numbers. I mean, everybody in a in a good business setting, they should be measuring numbers. And those that are inside our coaching versus those outside are performing at two to one. So we know that it works. But also I think that if we were to be looking at measuring it, one of those is, how active is the community, and how are people feeling about being a part of that community? And there's constant sharing and abundant sharing going on inside this community of 600 people that all day long, every day, seven days a week, there's an email chain that's going where people are talking to each other. Now, not everybody's working seven days a week, but you know what loan originators are, and if there's a challenge, a problem or whatever, they'll toss something out there. And on a Sunday, somebody, somebody's out there working too that's replying to them to help them out. And so I think we measure success that way too. Yeah.

Erin Geiger: 16:49

And as a leader, how do you support your coaches as they're kind of growing in their roles too

Unknown: 16:55

well a number of ways, we certainly offer monthly calls for them, where they can come and plug in and learn and grow. And we bring different speakers from the outside in, because, you know, you can't do anything in a silo, in your own bubble. You got to bring people in and get other voices. Or we go out and learn and bring back stuff that we've learned in monthly calls. But we also require that all of our coaches are being coached by leader coaches. So again, that same kind of premise that you know, if you're going to put a salesperson or an executive teammate or a corporate teammate with a coach, we want to make sure they're a couple steps ahead. Same thing from a coaching perspective, we have grown coaches over the years by putting them with people that have more experience helping them through that they can bounce those ideas off of them. We have a system for reporting and challenges and things like that that that only come to those of us that are on the executive team to help them navigate challenging situations. I think it's a again, it's an all day, every day, just kind of practice to be present and providing opportunities to learn and grow.

Erin Geiger: 18:14

That's great to hear. You know that you're not like, hey, good luck.

Unknown: 18:21

I won't, I will tell you I nah, not something that we ever would have subscribed to. Hey, good luck. But I think that also, one of the things that's important about, you know, fairway in general, is we do we do things with speed. And so sometimes changes get made, or things happen, and it's like, let's go, let's go. And you're attaching cars to the train while it's running down the tracks, right? So I won't say that we've, we've been perfect in that over our 10 year in building Ignite. But certainly at this stage, those systems are there. Yeah, well, it's valuable

Erin Geiger: 18:58

to hear, especially for listeners who are kind of building their own processes. For sure. Can we talk about wise discovering wise women in Search of Excellence? Yeah, love to hear more about that, about that, that launch, yeah, tell us. Tell us more about that. Because I'm fascinated.

Unknown: 19:14

You know, I look over at my, my dry erase board over there, because I've got, I've got the book cover pinned to the board over there, and we are 19 days right now prior to launch of pre sale of the book that has been a 10 year long project. Aaron not it at the end of at the end of it, when I was entirely finished, called, we just had our videographer down here, and we were talking about things, and I said, you know, the reality is, there are some things that you just are nudged, that you know you need to finish, but they're uncomfortable or imposter. Syndrome. I mean, anybody who is working on accomplishing anything is going to deal with imposter syndrome from time to time, right? That voice inside your head that's like, why are you doing this? Who are you that you should write a book? What is that about? What you know, whatever? And those voices needed to be quieted. And I'm grateful that I had people around me that continued to nudge me over the last 10 years. But discovering wise is discovering Women In Search of Excellence, and it's a 52 week guided journey to discovering what excellence means to you, and as a coach, as a leader, as a mother, my my heart is in that, and specifically with women, I think that we get really wrapped up in what the world want, the box the world wants to put us in. And this is what success looks like, and this is what excellence looks like, and this is what you should look like. And we need more and more women out there who are championing other women to say, You know what? No, what does success look like for you? What does excellence look like for you? And so that's what, that's what this book was all about. It's honestly a compilation of a lot of women's stories. It is certainly not just my own, although mine are woven in throughout, because how could they not be? But I did a podcast for a couple of years, discovering wise podcast, and I took 19 of those interviews and those stories, and wove them into the into the journey as well. So, you know, my, my greatest hope inside that is that women would read that book and walk in that journey. Because I don't, it's not a power read Aaron like, nobody's gonna be like, let me just read this all. And, oh, okay, there are reflection questions for every segment, and it's meant to be walked with over a period of time. And and my greatest hope would be that somebody out there reads it and says, I get like I am enough. I can this. I can step beyond this. I don't need to be stuck in this way. Or, you know, like we talked about with regard to the journey from mortgage into coaching and back again. You know, wherever they are in this season is okay, and you can be excellent in it, and it's going to change. So keep growing. Yeah, now that's

Erin Geiger: 22:47

beautiful. I think so many of us, you know, especially as women, need to hear that, and almost, you know, be given that permission to, you know, and I love that you have reflection questions throughout, because that kind of forces you, the reader, to take stock, like, Wait a second. I'm not just gonna, like, blow through this book and like, oh, have these thoughts, and then they are out of my head as soon as they enter that, you know? So I love that respect of it being more intentional,

Unknown: 23:17

right? Yeah, well, I'm also a margin writer, I don't know. So I think that I get a book, and I have a number of them behind me here. You know, if you were to open a book that I've read, you will find that there are notes in the margin about things, or I highlight or circle things or whatever. Nobody wants to borrow a book from me after I've read it. So in authoring a book, I'm like, Okay, we better leave space for this. There better be room for people to write in this book, because that's what it's meant for,

Erin Geiger: 23:47

is live with it, yeah, and it makes it more personal. So as as the reader is going through it, you know, she can form these kind of these thoughts and just be set with intention of like, Okay, what does this, you know, passage mean to me? What does this lesson or guidance within this segment of the book? How can I, you know, translate that to my life and where I've been and where I've where I'm headed? So I think that's really important. So yeah, when is it on pre order? Or tell us the information about that, about the

Unknown: 24:23

book? So, Aaron, it is my 50th birthday on September 30, and we, the publisher and I agreed that would be a great day to launch pre sale for this book. So we are counting down the days. And September 30, it'll be, it'll be available for pre order, and then it should be within 30 days. I mean, we're, we're pretty wrapped up in the project, but it's exciting to do that on the

Erin Geiger: 24:55

50th. Very exciting. Okay, well, we will include all that information in the. The show notes for sure. Let's jump gears a little bit. So I do want to talk about like you're an army mom. You're an advocate for veterans, first responders, as am I just incredible, incredible people. How? You know, this podcast is all about kind of, like, leadership, and, you know, leaning into your own flavor of leadership. And as you mentioned, sort of like, what does success look like to that person, individually. So how did that kind of role, you know, Army mom as advocate, kind of influence your leadership and perspective, and maybe vice versa. You know, maybe your leadership also impacted that role. So talk a little bit about that.

Unknown: 25:44

Oh, wow. Well, I mean, number one, I would tell you that I was, I have been divorced. I was army wife prior to being an army mom, and my ex husband was deployed for almost three full years out of the first five years of our son's life, and so that, I think very much influenced my view of the military, right and being a military spouse, I also have four brothers who served in the military, and uncles. And back to my grandmother was one of the first female Marines. So, you know, there's a long family history of service, and in terms of, you know, how it's influenced me, or where that I mean, I think naturally it was in me, but I don't think until my brother, I know exactly where I was. I was in I was in my sophomore year in high school, and we were sitting in history class, and they rolled in a cart with the TV on it, because that's what they had to do back then. And they were showing vivid imagery of Desert Storm, and my brother was serving there as a Marine, and I remember that moment being one that shifted my perspective, because, of course, I loved my brother, and I was worried about my brother, and back in those days, they didn't have WhatsApp and all these other ways to communicate with us while they were on deployments, you literally would sit by the phone and wait, you know, the phone would ring at midnight and you're picking up the phone. And so I think that you know being a mother is a leadership role too. I'm just gonna shout that out. There are moms out there being a mom of leadership role, people are watching you little. People are watching you every day. And I think navigating deployments in that way certainly taught me how to lead differently. And then my son becoming the military that was he was 17, he always wanted to be like his dad, right? I mean, forever, since he was tiny, tiny, and we have a picture of him at Halloween, I think he was four, and I had sewn on his name onto a little army uniform and put the patch on the sleeve. And, you know, he's, I'm joining the army forever. My brother just said, tried to convince him to join a different branch, but at 17, he was like, I want to go. I want to join the army. And I said, Great, let's, you'll be 18 next September. Let's Yeah, no. And so we had to sign on the dotted line for him to join. And this is a kid who, Aaron, he had a full ride scholarship to college football academics, the whole, you know, like he was going to college. And I was like, Well, what about school, right? Like, what are we doing here? That's a big number, and I can still go to school. I'm gonna do the college first thing, whatever. Well, of course, like, a year later, his unit was being deployed, and he opted to deploy with them because he had a choice. He didn't have to go. Was like, This is what I need to do now. This was a decade ago, the same time fairway, possibly a little little longer ago than that fairway started a nonprofit arm called the American warrior initiative, and the purpose was to bridge the military and civilian divide and make sure that civilians understood what life in the military was like, so that they could better serve those who served. And that has evolved certainly over the last 11 years. That being said when I remember distinctly one of the. Leaders of the American warrior initiative at the time had come to me and said, But Aren't you proud, Carrie? And I was like, Yeah, I'm proud, but I'm also scared out of my mind. Yeah? So like, you can be both at the same time. It's not this whole you know, you can't be angry and grateful at the same time saying no, no, friends, you can hold two opposing emotions about something, and they can both be true. I could be tremendously proud of him for living out his calling, which I believe it is, and also afraid of him going off and being deployed. I mean, he was 18 years old baby. So any of us would look at 18 year olds today, and now he might be a little bit more advanced, but you know, it's in terms of leadership and how that tied together. I mean, if you think about that, one of that that is those two opposing truths. You can feel two different things or two different things can be true at the same time. And I think that's an important leadership thing to remember. People can feel two totally different things and they can both be true also. We have seven kids, and him being him making that decision to to go be deployed versus staying in school. You know, not every path looks the same for everybody from a leadership perspective, kind of back to that same conversation we were having about the core ideology that not every single person needs the same type of coach or the same type of leadership. They need different things. And it taught me that it's also taught me patience, both both operating and as a as a mother with a ex who was deployed a whole lot, and as a mother going through deployments with their child, I think that it teaches you patience. It teaches that nothing like being involved with the military to also teach you that everything's unpredictable. I mean, it's stuck thrown at you, and you're like, whatever. Roll with it. We'll just have Thanksgiving on another day. You know?

Erin Geiger: 32:30

Yeah, it's like, fine, yeah, I know that's a good point, though, you've kind of, like, learned, like, how to deal with ambiguity and release control, because you don't have control over all these things. And when you mentioned, you know, feeling to kind of like, you know, emotions that are at odds with each other at the same time, that reminded me of, on a smaller scale, like I was mentioning to you before we started recording, that my oldest went off to university this fall, you know, as a freshman, and so and I had that same thing on a, you know, smaller scale than my child going off to the military, but, you know, just so happy and excited and proud of him for taking this step and moving forward. And he was so excited he was ready, but at the same time feeling grief, almost, of like, oh, that part of my life is now ended, you know, of our, you know, day to day with him, and feeling kind of sad and, you know, that sort of a thing. And so it's, it's so I totally understand when you say that. What you mean for sure, you know, female leadership is so, I mean, look, I can't, I don't know what it's like to be a male leader, because I'm not one, so I can't do that. I mean, that's why I wrote a book for women, because, like, while I certainly coach men and women alike, I can speak to being a woman and leading as a woman and the emotions, etc.

Unknown: 33:55

But at the end of the day, I think that oftentimes we are taught and or we are led to believe that we shouldn't feel all of those things. And it's like not, it's totally okay feel all those things, and they're all very real, and you're not going to stay stuck in them. And I just might speak into you Aaron, and say, like, so been there too with five of five kids leaving the nest and going off and doing their own things, and they all come with different emotions, and they'll the relationships change, but they also grow in so many other beautiful ways that there are other mothers out there that are feeling some of that In this season, you know, it, there's, there's a lot of hope for the future. There's beautiful to come.

Erin Geiger: 34:46

Yeah, that's very true. And looking at it as more of like an evolution, you know, rather than an ending, it's, you know, it's constantly evolving, and kind of like new norms, you know, which is a it's a great way to. To think about it

Unknown: 35:02

business too. I mean, really the same thing and I are. The dedication of my book is to my children, because I think they taught me more than anything else has ever taught me. But in terms of leadership, it's that same thing in business, right? Stuff doesn't stay the same. Things change right now. We're in a world of AI and you know, the world is changing again, and we're needing to figure out how to grow with it. So what are you doing differently? We should be constantly challenging ourselves in that way, like, how am I thinking about this? And do I have, you know, stuck solid mindset type thinking. Or do I have a growth mindset about this and what I get to do and how I can explore possibilities that a lot of us get stuck in just that concrete way I've always done it, or things need to be this way, and breaking free of that is a beautiful, beautiful thing, right?

Erin Geiger: 36:04

And the whole mentality of like, well, I should be doing this, or I should be this far ahead by now, or I should all those shoulds. It's like, according to what, do

Unknown: 36:17

not stop it. Wait.

Erin Geiger: 36:22

So if you So, there's a lot of like I was telling you earlier, before the recording. You know, the listeners run the gamut, right? There's some, you know, predominantly women, let's you know if this is what it is. But like so, some are like, starting out their careers. Some are more seasoned. You know, everyone's in different stages. But for women that are building their careers in male dominated industries, do you have like a piece of advice or some insight to sort of to share with with them? For those that are dealing with that,

Unknown: 37:00

when I think about operating in a male dominated field, that certainly is. Was the case for me when I started. It still is the case today. I'm so grateful to work at a place that empowers women the way that fairway empowers women, I have to tell you, I mean our our numbers associated with that are like over half of our executive team is female, half of our management. You know, when you look at leadership across fairway, I am grateful that that I get to serve in a very mixed culture that way, and one that supports women. Our industry is still very largely male dominated from a leadership perspective, and it's been that way since I started. And I can remember my first board position within the our local MBA, and walking in the room and being the only woman around the table. And then I remember there being another woman added, and it was just the two of us and and I can, I can remember multiple of those situations in my in my 30 years, what I would say is now reflecting back right, be you, and I know that sounds really super simple, and it's it's Not you'll be challenged to try and be something that you're not. Don't go beat the guy in the room, right? Like, don't go take down your softer side if you have one or your ideas that may be entirely different, because that's where your value actually is, is in being you and in bringing your ideas and your perspective to the table, because we think differently. Men and women just think differently. We process things differently. I mean, it's been proven over and over and over again, so if you try to tone that down because you want to fit in with a within the male dominated world, then you probably aren't going to succeed at the level that you could, because you're dimming your natural light. And anytime we do that, it creates more friction than it does flow, right? That's my gut reaction to that.

Erin Geiger: 39:20

Yeah, I agree. And it's like your level of being genuine is out the window. And it's like, if you're not genuine and you don't have that level of integrity, it's kind of everything kind of falls to the wayside.

Unknown: 39:35

Look, I've been accused a time or two of being very direct, very forward, you know, what have you I am. That's just how I was wired. And I know in a lot of those circles, you know, it gets said that, hey, you know you're going to get called names as a woman if that's how you behave, right? And on the other side, it's like, oh yeah, you're assertive. Well. All you know. So I'm just saying, if you're a direct communicator, be a direct communicator, right? I mean, don't, don't go, oh, I can't be that way, because we're never going to break down barriers if we just put up walls and pretend for people, right?

Erin Geiger: 40:17

In fact, we'll probably regret, you know? So that's very, very valid point when you think about how you thrive outside of work. Right, your life outside of that? Do you have any like, non negotiables that you have, like, outside of work, I am this, or I do this, or I don't do this, you know, like, what are there things that kind of you you live by bear at, kind of like boundaries that you set, or things that kind of help you shape your mindset and kind of keep you grounded.

Unknown: 40:47

Well, I already mentioned to you that I am a woman of faith, so that is a very important part of my life that is a non negotiable for me personally. Again, I am, I, I am open arms about everybody with different beliefs and what have you, but that is something that every day keeps me grounded in who I am and whose I am and where it is that I'm going and what I'm doing on a daily basis. Period The second would be my husband. We're about to celebrate 22 years of here on Saturday, and he's my number one here, like I there will be time for him every single day period, end of story. That is a non negotiable. And and we make decisions together, we are unified and lockstep in those decisions. And I think, well, I know, I know it darn well that he's my biggest fan, but also I'm his, so that being unified with him is super important. And then, you know, making space and time for yourself, whatever that looks like, and it looks different for me on the daily. I mean, there are some things. There are morning practices that I practice every single morning. I believe that a morning practice that includes some sort of gratitude, some sort of sweat and some sort of thinking, meditative behavior, is vital to my success in my day. But everybody could look different, right? Whatever is most important to you. Some days I find that walking. Some days I find that in the sauna, some days I find that in the bathtub, like really depends on the day, but those are probably the top, top ones.

Erin Geiger: 42:37

Okay, no, I love that little bit of sweat, bit of meditation. I getting all

Unknown: 42:45

those good chemicals going in your brain right before you even

Erin Geiger: 42:49

start your day. So, yeah, yeah, I totally agree. And you know, as far as, like, the working out aspect, there's days I don't feel like doing it, but I do it, and I always feel great afterward, you know, just moving your body and sweating it all out for sure. What, where can people find you? If they like to connect with you? What's the best way to do that?

Unknown: 43:11

I am on every social platform as Carrie Guerrero so they can find me there, and that's the best way to find me, whether it be on Facebook, Insta, LinkedIn, Tiktok, X, whatever, I'm out there.

Erin Geiger: 43:27

Okay, great. We'll put those links in the show notes as well. And then here's a final, just fun question I like to ask everybody I asked it in my previous podcast series as well. But we're such music heads over here, if they're if you could only listen to one music artist for the rest of your life,

Unknown: 43:50

that's really hard. I love a lot of them. Oh, goodness, I would tell you that right now I am like consistently playing Brandon lake on loop, so that's really my and that goes right along with that whole gratitude thing. That's probably my favorite song by him, so we're gonna go with Brandon Lake.

Erin Geiger: 44:14

Okay, awesome. Hello. I love it. Also, check him out. So Carrie, so thank you so much for joining. This has been such an illuminating discussion, and I know that you've inspired and helped so many that will be tuning in. So just thank you again for your time. You're juggling so many, so many of the things. So I really do appreciate I am grateful for you. So I appreciate it well, likewise,

Unknown: 44:36

grateful for you, and again, honored to be here with you.