The Unstoppable Leader: Victoria Pelletier's Journey Through Corporate Transformation

Victoria Pelletier never planned to become a C-suite executive. With childhood dreams of practicing law, her path took an unexpected turn when a temporary banking job led to rapid promotions and a cross-country relocation. That detour became a 30-year journey through corporate leadership, culminating in her current role at the intersection of business transformation and technology at Kindrel.

What makes Victoria's story particularly compelling is her philosophy on resilience. Signing her social media posts with #unstoppable and #noexcuses, she views resilience as both innate determination and a muscle that can be developed through conscious choices. This mindset has carried her through over 40 corporate mergers and acquisitions, teaching her that while we can't control challenges, we can control our responses.

Everything you've ever wanted lives on the other side of fear. Victoria's parting advice reminds us that growth happens in discomfort zones. Whether pursuing leadership opportunities or embracing technological change, our greatest professional achievements often begin with one brave step beyond our familiar boundaries. What opportunity might be waiting for you just beyond your comfort zone?

📢 Call To Action: Victoria is an in-demand public speaker on a variety of business, culture, and motivational topics. Please head over to her website to read her articles, order a copy of her books, or book her for speaking engagements.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Victoria Pelletier
• 1:51 From Law School Dreams to Corporate Leadership
• 5:36 Building Resilience: Unstoppable and No Excuses
• 8:16 Career Advancement Strategies and Personal Branding
• 17:02 AI's Impact on Corporate Workforce
• 25:22 Learning Paths vs. Job Profiles
• 29:47 AI in Learning and Development
• 34:33 Final Advice: Embracing Discomfort for Growth

Transcript

Jackie Pelegrin: 0:01

Hello and welcome to the Designing with Love podcast. I am your host, Jackie Pelegrin, where my goal is to bring you information, tips, and tricks as an instructional designer. Hello instructional designers and educators, welcome to Episode 80 of the Designing with Love podcast. I'm thrilled to have Victoria Pelletier, a C-suite executive board director, number one bestselling author, and professional speaker, with me today. Welcome, Victoria. Hi there. Happy to be here. Yes, thank you. I'm so glad we got connected on Podmatch. I always like to give a shout-out to Podmatch because it's a great platform. I love it. So wonderful, yes, great, I love it. So I want to make this, of course, conversational, but we'll get into some questions, and then we'll see where it goes, and I think we'll have a wonderful conversation that'll really benefit the listeners that I have on the show. So wonderful, yeah. So, to start, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and share what inspired you to focus on becoming a C-suite executive, mentor, and leader so that you could build the impressive career that you have today?

Victoria Pelletier: 1:10

Well, it wasn't the career path, Jackie, that I had planned as a child, so my goal was to be a lawyer. From the time I was maybe like 10, 11 years old, that's what I thought I was going to do. Although jokingly, I think it's because my mom made me watch too much LA Law with her. I'm older than you, I suspect, so you might not even know what that series was. I remember it.

Jackie Pelegrin: 1:36

I actually watched it as well, and I wanted to become a lawyer when I was a kid too. So that's funny.

Victoria Pelletier: 1:41

Yeah, so it's funny. So that was, that was the path for me, I thought. And so I started working, by the way, at age 11. I'm sure child labor laws would prevent that. Now, right, my first leadership role came at 14.

Victoria Pelletier: 1:53

I was the assistant manager of the shoe store I worked at while I was in high school and then, when I went off to university to do you have to get an undergrad before going to law school I worked in a bank, in their contact center, flexible, to work around my school schedule. I was also doing some acting on the side, so it was great, the flexibility that came with it. But I got promoted very quickly in that environment as well, and so, by the time I was nearing the end of my undergrad, I got an opportunity to go cross country for a month assignment during the summer, and then that ended up leading to a job offer for a more senior role, and so what I thought was going to be one year off from law school. That's what I decided. I grew up in Canada, in Western Canada. I got relocated to the big city of Toronto, and so I thought, ok, well, I'll take a year off before I go to law school, and if I like Toronto, I'll switch schools. And what I will tell you is I did none of what was planned.

Victoria Pelletier: 2:52

After that I ended up loving the corporate world. I was again in a leadership position. That's one thing. That's, you know, I've just always really enjoyed is coaching and leading people. Just always really enjoyed is coaching and leading people.

Victoria Pelletier: 3:08

And so 30 years later, I've stayed in the corporate world. I got recruited at a banking, after you know being in it for a number of years, to my first executive role at age 24. I was like so young I became the chief operating officer and general manager for an outsourced contact center organization and then that began my foray into the world of professional services, which added just this other level of complexity in the corporate world that I loved. So that's where I've now subsequently stayed the last 25 years, where I now currently work at a technology company called Kindrel that spun out from IBM a few years ago, and I like to describe myself as sitting at the intersection between the business and technology transformation, with things like leadership, culture, ways of working. In fact, I lead almost all the non-technical parts of our business around. How do you realize the value from these kinds of transformation, everything from project management to culture and change management, to the workforce transformation and the reskilling of the workforce, as well as some of the business process side of things. So that's where I sit today.

Jackie Pelegrin: 4:10

Wow, that's great. Sounds like you and I have a lot in common, because I've been in the corporate world myself for a long time and even though I'm in higher education now, I still see that there's still that piece of the corporate that's in education, right, because at the end of the day, an institution has to run a business. Even though they're a school and they're an institution, they still have to have a budget, they have to have a board of directors, right. So there's elements of that of the corporate world in education. So it's very interesting how I seem to be doing both, because I work for an education services company and that's a corporation, and then I provide the curriculum services. So it's interesting how I'm kind of in that way too, you know, at the intersection of that and the technology that we're incorporating into the classes. It's amazing. So that's great.

Jackie Pelegrin: 5:00

I love that. It's amazing how you can kind of see those intersections right occurring and sometimes we don't realize it until we talk about it and go, oh yeah, I see that that's really neat. Wow, that's great. And so it sounds like you've been able to learn a lot of that along along the way and what you thought you were, what direction you were going to go and you're like, nope, I ended up pivoting, going somewhere else. So that's great. Sometimes we just have to be open to that right and know that we have to be willing to pivot and change when things come along our way and just take up the offer right and learn it as we go. So that's great. Yeah, so, as you mentioned, throughout your career, you've undoubtedly faced challenges, as we all have. Can you share how you overcome obstacles to reach the success that you do enjoy today?

Victoria Pelletier: 5:48

in your role. I think there's two ways to do it. I do believe there's a level of it that is innate, and so I sign a majority of my social media posts with two hashtags One is unstoppable. With two hashtags One is unstoppable and the other is no excuses and they're connected.

Victoria Pelletier: 6:14

But for me I come from, sadly, I experienced some pretty significant trauma and adversity in my youth, and I think the DNA part of it fight or flight.

Victoria Pelletier: 6:20

I am a fighter, and so I never wanted either my biology or the circumstance to prevent me from achieving the goals that I set for myself, and so that's that's the mindset part of it. However, I also believe that the ability to be resilient can be taught, or you think of think about it like building a muscle as well, and so the no excuses part of those two hashtags is more around the fact that we have choice. So I am unstoppable in achieving a goal or objective that I've set for myself, can't control all the challenge that comes my way, but I have a choice in how I respond to it, and so for me, that's the muscle that I've learned to develop the choices that I make, and developing a healthy level of resilience, which is around, working through being very self-reflective. When things happen Again, how am I reacting? How am I responding? What choices am I going to make to move myself forward towards that goal, even if I've experienced a setback?

Jackie Pelegrin: 7:25

Wow, that's great. So all those different life lessons that you've learned along the way have helped to to shape that and, like you said, build that muscle that you need to be able to respond in a way that you know is healthy and and is going to lead you down that that path. Where you're not going to, you know go oh, I, oh, I can't do this. Instead, you can say, yes, I'm unstoppable, I can do this. So I love those hashtags. That's great because it's a constant reminder of that resilience that you have and what you've built along the way. That's great. I love that. So, based on everything you've learned and applied in your work, what strategies or approaches do you think have been most effective and how might our listeners apply them in their own projects that they're working on?

Victoria Pelletier: 8:12

That's a broad one. I guess it depends on what context, what, context.

Jackie Pelegrin: 8:16

Yeah. So maybe like in a corporate setting, if they're maybe facing something where they're, maybe if they're moving up the career ladder, like you have, or maybe they're just struggling to get some footing in that. So is there anything you would kind of recommend if they're interested in going down a leadership or executive path and they're just not sure how to get there, or they're just stuck trying to get up that ladder?

Victoria Pelletier: 9:19

I reflect, jackie, back upon what I would attribute a lot of my own career success to. One is what we just talked about around this level of resilience. I've now been a part of over 40 merger, acquisition, divestiture type transactions. All come with significant amount of change and transformation, reorganization, so you need to be resilient to sort of work through those kinds of environments. So definitely, resilience is one. Two is around performance, but I don't just mean like okay, do your job perform? No, but what I mean is understand how success is measured in the company context, within not just your leadership, but beyond. And so understanding that dynamic, because it's very different, right? So sometimes you know and incentives can drive behavior across organizations that's well known. So, but understanding that, how success is measured to ensure that you're performing in a way which allows you to move forward in the organization. But it also means looking ahead towards how do I stay relevant, as there is change and transformation. So you think about right now, in the era of all of this, technology and AI in particular, work is being transformed in very different ways, so the way we work with one another changes, the processes are changing as things are automated. So making sure that you are staying relevant for the future. Don't put that solely in the hands of your leadership team. Do not trust that they will do that for you. Sometimes they don't know. It's not because they don't want to do that, and so when I talk about performance, it's being clear on how success is measured and making sure that you maintain skills to continue to be able to perform in the future.

Victoria Pelletier: 11:08

Then I'd say another one is around personal brand. Having built a very strong personal brand in a time, by the way, 25 years ago when I probably started on this journey I don't even know if I knew that I didn't have the vernacular back then, but I knew people do business with people they like and trust, and so building a strong personal brand around yes, strong performance, but who am I as a human Like? Why would you want to work with me? Has been another key point. And the last one I'd say is surrounding yourself with people that will help support you.

Victoria Pelletier: 11:31

So that's a combination of having coaches. They're the ones who actually should be helping coach you on the performance piece tours and so those that can help navigate you to that desired next step, whether it's a hierarchical, more into a leadership type role, or maybe you want to, you want to change job functions and so finding the people that can help you with that. And the last one are sponsors. Now, you don't pick your sponsor, they pick you. But if you focus on those other parts, those are the ones that were then going to advocate for you when you're not. So that's what I guess I would say for your listeners that you know want to, you know pivot advance and, certainly in the corporate context, some of the things that have helped me.

Jackie Pelegrin: 12:11

All right, I love that. That's great Because there's a. It's funny because I've been in my role for almost 12 years now in this curriculum role as an instructional designer in higher education and I didn't think I wanted to be in a management role because I don't want to manage people, that's just not my thing. But then along the way I thought you know, it'd be nice because we have the way our structure is in our department is we have our direct. We used to have a senior vice president and he oversaw all of curriculum and content services. So that included my department, curriculum design and development, the publishing department and then the web services department, which is our media team, which makes sense because that's all centered around curriculum. Right, Publishing department they procure the books and they work with publishers and stuff and then the media department they work on all the videos, things that go into the classes and stuff. And then we have so he left, he actually retired, so they're not going to replace him but we have a director in our department and then they have directors in the others and then they have the managers that oversee these teams and then leads that are part of the curriculum developers aspect of it and they help manage that. So it's kind of interesting. And then they have like a lead editor, because we have editors, so we have more curriculum developers than we have editors and instructional designers.

Jackie Pelegrin: 13:33

But over like several years ago, I was like why don't we have a lead instructional designer that can help oversee these projects right, and make sure that the workload is balanced? And you know, not one person has 15 projects to work on while someone else has three. That's just that's not sustainable. Right, Victoria, over time, right, we noticed that in corporate. So it was funny and I was like, why do we? And then all of a sudden this position came along, that for a lead instructional designer, and I'm like, oh, my goodness, I've been doing this for the past six years as a leader. I just didn't have the formal title. So it's kind of interesting how those positions just kind of, you know they don't, you don't plan it.

Jackie Pelegrin: 14:12

But yeah, I was like, Okay, I applied that day. I was like, Yep, I'm doing it. So, yeah, I went for it. And so I have the interview coming up next week. So I'm like, okay, I just kind of, you know, ask my manager. I'm like, what are some things that I should prepare for?

Jackie Pelegrin: 14:27

Because sometimes I think people, if they go to into an interview for a leadership role or managerial executive whatever role that is they sometimes I think we are a little scared to ask our manager, like what should I know, what should I prepare for? But I think that's what they're there for is to, like you said, provide that mentorship and that, that coaching and that support, Because, even though I've been in my position in almost 12 years, there's still times where I just need a little bit of that support, so being able to know that, no matter what level we're at, we can still, you know, ask for that help and that support. So, yeah, and it's reciprocal, right? So it's you're you're asking for help and then, when someone else needs help, you're there to provide that help and that that support to them as well. So, yeah, that's really neat. Yeah, I love that and I love the personal brand part, because I think sometimes we we get into the groove of what we're doing with our role and our job and we don't think about down the road, right.

Jackie Pelegrin: 15:24

The future of oh, I need to have that brand. So if things do shift and change, like you said, we have to be able to adapt and be able to have that capability to be able to move wherever we need to move, whether, like you said, it's a different role altogether or it's moving up in that department that you work in, or something like that. So that's great. Yeah, having that, that flexibility and adaptability is so important as well. Yeah, and you mentioned AI too, so that's that's interesting. How do you kind of see AI shaping the corporate world? Have you seen shifts and changes in it? You mentioned that a little bit. So what are some of the things that you've seen? Ai, because we know, because there was that fear that I don't know if people still feel that way that AI is going to replace their job and all that stuff but how do you kind of see AI shifting and changing things now?

Victoria Pelletier: 16:17

Well, it's funny, sometimes I have to remind people that you know it's been around for years, right? Yet I mean the crescendo that is arisen, you know, in the last year, in particular because of agentic AI and chat, gpt etc. Like, so it's just like everyone's talking about it now, but yes, it's been around for years. So I do think what I'm seeing it. It it is creating more fear. I do think that, um, you know, many people are worried about losing their jobs, but then again, there's some real like data points. You know, many companies were hearing about just saying I'm cutting X percent of my workforce as a result of that, and so it's, it's real, so it's real. However, there's a significant amount of work to be able to, just to be able to reduce the workforce. The reality is it needs, it's about augmentation. It is not AI replacing us, it is AI in humans. And so, starting to look at this combined workforce of digital agents and human agents or workers together and everyone, everyone's job will change. Or, I should say there are very few roles that are not. You think about, I don't know, those that pick up our garbage, right Like. There's roles that won't, but even doctors and nurses, the tools they have to help them will change, and so it's more around.

Victoria Pelletier: 17:50

And I think, from a leadership perspective, we need to again shift a mindset to the work that doesn't get automated. The work that gets left behind is different and in many ways that relies much more on the human, the power skills If you think about I'll go back to contact center, where some of my, you know, career started. That's it. That was right for automation back in the day, even just around. It wasn't AI but like the IVRs, right and doing more on the phone or starting to do chat agents and whatnot. The work that doesn't get automated, you know, is much more complex. It's the exception when you know they have to zero out of the phone or a chat bot to talk to a human.

Victoria Pelletier: 18:32

At that point it requires a very different, you know, higher level skills. So it's around just appreciating that it's going to change for almost all of us. So we need to have that growth mindset. And then, for business and HR leaders, I even think for you, from an instructional design perspective we need to stop thinking about job profiles. We need to think about discrete skills and grouping of skills that are required to do the jobs of the future and so, therefore, and then building learning paths specifically for those skills, and so it just is changing. So I'm spending a ton ton of time. I told you I'm at the intersection of the technology and AI and transformation with people and leadership. So I get to have this conversation. You can tell I'm passionate about it. I get to have this conversation a lot around how do we need to think about building the workforce of the future, but also doing it with still a lens around leadership culture, and how do we, how do we bridge all of this change and transformation ahead of us?

Jackie Pelegrin: 19:42

kind of conversations, victoria, because it really you're looking at not only what's going on now, but we're. We have to still have that future, focus right and think ahead. Because if we don't think ahead, that was something even with higher education and K through 12, when AI was, you know, becoming at the forefront it's. I've gone to so many webinars and and ones about corporate too, and they said for those corporations and those institutions that don't incorporate AI somehow and figure out how it can come alongside what we do, they're going to be left behind. And I was like, yep, that's right, they're going to be left behind in a bad way and then it's going to be harder to incorporate it when other corporations and other institutions are already incorporating it. So the institution that I work for, they don't want to police students when it comes to AI because, like you said, we have to make sure that the workforce is prepared for that. So in what I do in higher education, I even have my students doing an assignment. You would love this assignment. This is actually where they work on situational leadership and they look at the situational leadership model as instructional designers. So it's really cool because it bridges business and education together. But they have this assignment. I actually graded a couple of them, so it was really fascinating. You would love this. And so they actually use an AI tool like ChatGPT and we give them in the assignment prompts for different, four different readiness styles. So they have the R1 through the R4 and then they take that prompt and they put it into ChatGPT. Chatgpt is supposed to act like an employee and then the student is supposed to be the leader not necessarily always the instructional designer, but just the leader that's working with them. And they have that dialogue with the AI as if they're the leader, and it's really neat. And then they give screenshots of their conversations with each leadership style and then they write a reflection about what went well, what didn't go well, what they would do differently next time, which one was easiest and hardest to work with. So it was very interesting because the leadership styles were were. You know, the readiness styles were all different. Some were needed more handholding, some, you know, just needed more support. So it was very interesting.

Jackie Pelegrin: 21:51

It's a cool type of assignment. I'm really like loving it. So I'm like, yeah, so we're really preparing them for the future. And then another assignment they have is where they have to take this fake technology company and they're having to build a policies and procedures e-learning module and then they have to take the chat, gpt or whatever model they're using and work some of that through. And of course it's not the final product, but they work some of that through and kind of have that dialogue with the AI and then it helps them kind of build that e-learning. So I'm like, wow, that's pretty cool too. So, yeah, it's pretty amazing how I'm seeing the intersection of business and education really come to the forefront and preparing my students for the future, because I'm like it's it's not going anywhere, it's here to stay For sure. So it's really great.

Jackie Pelegrin: 22:40

Some of them are still nervous, though. They'm like it's not going anywhere, it's here to stay for sure, so it's really great. Some of them are still nervous, though. They're like how much can I use it? And I'm like we just have to make sure it's ethical, whatever we're doing is ethical and that we cite it properly and all of that.

Jackie Pelegrin: 22:54

So it's nice, because the institution is not about policing it. It's more about if we find something, that, because AI detectors, as we know, are just not good, they don't do a good job of really detecting and that's not our job to detect that stuff, but if I see a concern in something, I can talk to the student and say, hey, can you show me your work a little bit, or how did you get to that? And then it's more of a conversation and it's not accusatory but it's more inquiry, like right, finding out, and so I think even in business, that's something, too, that we can look to, because we have subject matter experts that we work with, and in business we do this too. Right, we work with subject matter experts like we can help formulate what we're what we're looking to do. So we always have to remind them this is not the. What I'm giving you with AI is not. This is a draft and we're supposed to. We need your help to formulate it. That's why we have you as a subject matter expert.

Jackie Pelegrin: 23:49

So it's very interesting to kind of see the dynamic, like you said, and looking at AI as a, as a assistant, digital assistant or a collaborative partner, right, and that. That process, yeah, it's great. I love that. Yeah, and I'd like to what you mentioned, victoria, about the not looking at different profiles, but really those learning paths, and that's part of my job is being able to do those learning paths and looking at how technology shapes that and giving them different ways to get to those learning paths right. So giving them different ways to get to those learning paths right. So giving them autonomy and how they choose to learn and grow professionally and personally. So I think it's really great when an organization recognizes that need, because I think L&D has always been something that has been an afterthought in the past, but I think now it's becoming more in the forefront, right? Are you seeing that too, like with learning and development, that it's especially now with all the shifts and have in others in the last number of years?

Victoria Pelletier: 25:03

is around one change management.

Victoria Pelletier: 25:05

Change management is a combination of the experience and communication around the experience of the change and the enablement, which is learning and development, and I also lead a team that does workforce transformation and re-skilling of the workforce, and so that is probably those two are the parts of the portfolio that I lead that are almost the busiest, because there's a need everywhere. Everyone knew that they had bad role profiles. I need this many people of this title and that's how they looked at it to do the work. But the work, as we said, is fundamentally shifting and so we need to do the shelf life, particularly of technology skills. The shelf life is shortening, reducing less than two years, and you think about AI, like we're talking months consistently with all the different models coming, so you know, to ensure that they can deliver against that, we're constantly reskilling.

Victoria Pelletier: 26:05

So L&D sitting at the front of that, along with other parts of the HR leadership portfolio, so around looking at job architecture, the skills, and then that team working together with the L&D team to build the learning path and learning it. Team working together with the L&D team to build the learning path and learning it, having them build that in the way that makes sense. We want the Netflix style of learning right that serves up large corporations as well. There's defined learning paths, but, as we talked about people who want to go up across whatever there's. How can we help serve up learning that may help them on a very different career path than this just one hierarchical that we think they might want to be in?

Jackie Pelegrin: 26:45

Wow, that's great. I love that. You know, it's interesting too. When we were just talking about this, I thought of one of my students who works for. She works for a segment of the organization we both work for the same organization but she works for another aspect of it which does they work for? They partner with nursing institutions, and so she works with the faculty to do nursing education.

Jackie Pelegrin: 27:09

And she was telling me in the interview I did with her on here. She said that she utilizes AI technology and what she does because she has to develop those learning paths for the faculty so that they can be prepared to teach the nurse educators. And so she told me that she uses 11 labs and it's really cool because she can actually take five minutes of a video of that faculty subject matter expert and then she can have it, clone her voice and then she can use it across multiple modules. She's like I can use it in eight, nine modules. So instead of her having to record, I have to get her in the studio, get her to record.

Jackie Pelegrin: 27:44

And then she said when it changes because nursing changes fast too and, just like technology, it's always constantly evolving and changing. So she said I don't have to get her back in the studio, get her to rerecord and update it. It's just so much faster to just redo it and swap out the content and I'm like like, wow, that's great. So I'm wondering if, uh, that's something too that a lot of organizations are doing, uh, in corporations when it comes to lnd, if they're looking at those ways that they can work smarter, not harder, and be able to not have to do all of that work right in the studio of recording, you know, videos and things like that, where they can utilize the ai to do that heavy lifting.

Victoria Pelletier: 28:24

yeah even at kinderall, like. So we actually have a um. So we are a combination of, like managed services, doing infrastructure running, like technology systems, as well as consulting and uh, and so we actually have this great. We sort of launched this consult academy and taking, like, our early professional hires all the way up through some other levels in the organization through. What does it mean to be a good consultant? To help do exactly what you were talking about? You were doing with your students around the conversing around, like and it's, but we actually built an avatar where they could talk and this is a safe place where you can try out different like questioning line of questioning with you know, with maybe a, a buyer that they wouldn't deal with.

Victoria Pelletier: 29:21

So, again, technology, we're often dealing with chief information or chief technology officers, but it's the business that determines the strategy and the technology to enable it. So we're asking people to have conversations they might not have talked to before. Maybe it's the chief operating officer or someone that runs a line of business, and so we're using AI to allow them to do that in a real life simulation. Now, now, I personally hate role play. I hate it more when it's live. I recognize the value to people. That's just me, but now you have the opportunity to do it in an even more safe space by using the AI in the environment, which so we're using it and I'm seeing many, many other companies doing it as well. I mean, I truly hope, like people are embracing. I know there's some fear around it but like, just like the great things we, you know, can use it, you know, for in all aspects of how we work.

Jackie Pelegrin: 30:12

I love that. Yeah, that's great. I love that opportunity to use the avatars and and really have that back and forth with that. So that's great because we just started doing that. They call them virtual interactive personas in our media department and they're doing that. It's amazing because usually nursing or technology gets the first dibs on it for that new technology, but counseling actually got the first one because we had a media piece that was 14 years old it was before I came and they needed to update the media so that it met their core standards. But they also wanted to incorporate these AI personas which are their virtual interactive personas. So it's really neat because I got to test it out and it was really fun to kind of see how students would interact with it.

Jackie Pelegrin: 30:55

And some of the some of the quote unquote clients were kind of they were a little too mean. I think they were just like, yeah, so what am I doing here today? And they, you know, and then he's just kind of sitting back in the in his chair and I'm like wow, okay, and I'm like so, and I'm like conversing with the, the avatar client, and I'm just like, wow, I can't get anything out of this guy. And so I told some of the designers. I was like you might want to ease up a little bit on his you know his coarseness, so that way the students don't be like at least they can get something out of it. And I'm like, yeah, you want to have a little bit of that reality, but not so much that it's like he's completely closed off and you can't get anything from him.

Jackie Pelegrin: 31:37

So they adjusted a little bit and toned it down. I was like, yeah, you might want to tone it down a little bit. So it's cool because you but you got you kind of get to see, you know what works and what needs to be adjusted, and that's a great thing. Those frontline employees will be able to tell you right, yeah, this is, this is working. Great, I love this or no, this needs to be adjusted. And that's where you kind of pivot and adjust. So it's great, I love this. This has been wonderful. So, as we wrap up, what are your top tips or advice for listeners who are looking to move into leadership roles or are just starting in their careers? Is there anything else you wanted to share on that?

Victoria Pelletier: 32:14

Well, I'll share my favorite quote, but I think it's applicable for life, not just not work, but so it's by Georgia Dare and it says everything you've ever wanted lives on the other side of fear, uh, and I think that, um, opportunity and growth comes when you're in a zone of discomfort, so the things that scare you, and so whether that is taking that first step to potentially being a leader, if you want to, you know, lead people, or just that new opportunity, or applying for the next job, but but also in life, you know. So the, you know asking someone out, like I've told my kids, you don't ask, you don't get. Well, I tell everyone that my kids have it down pat, but that's what I would leave Like. I think that there's so much like opportunity that can come our way if we get comfortable in the discomfort.

Jackie Pelegrin: 33:09

I love that. So it's not about sitting on the sidelines, it's about being active, right and what we're doing and taking that chance, because you just never know where to lead. I love that. Yeah, that's great. So, since you've done TED Talks and all those wonderful things you know being a professional speaker, is there anything you wanted to share with my listeners as far as where to find you or anything to those so they can stay connected with you? I'll put all your links in the show notes too, but is there anything specific you wanted to kind of point people to with my listeners?

Victoria Pelletier: 33:40

One stop shop would be my website, which is Victoria dash Peltier, but from there they can choose to follow me on the other social media platforms of their choice.

Jackie Pelegrin: 33:55

Great, I love that. That's wonderful. That's an area I would actually like to get into in the future, because I did an interview on the flip side where I was a guest and she asked me are you doing any conferences or anything like that? I'm like no, but I probably should. So that's an area where I'm like I need to step up my game in that area. So I'm trying to figure out how it's.

Jackie Pelegrin: 34:10

The hardest part probably is just to start it, and then, once you start right, it gets a little bit easier as you become a speaker and start going to conferences and TEDx and things like that. But the great thing is is and start going to conferences and TEDx and things like that. But the great thing is is that the institution I work for has a TEDx conference there for students, though. But you know, yeah, so at least they're there. But but yeah, so you know we'll see where it leads.

Jackie Pelegrin: 34:31

But there's, I'm just looking for those opportunities when they come along and just grabbing it. So that's the best way to do it. Great, well, thank you so much, victoria, for sharing your insights today. I know your experiences, tips and your expertise are sure to inspire my listeners, so I appreciate it, and I look forward to maybe having you back on the show once I do one it's. We think of other things to kind of talk about, so if there's anything you want to dig deeper into, uh, just let me know and I'd be happy to have you back awesome thanks for having for having me.

Jackie Pelegrin: 35:00

Thank you so much, Victoria, Appreciate it. Thank you for taking some time to listen to this podcast episode today. Your support means the world to me. If you'd like to help keep the podcast going, you can share it with a friend or colleague, leave a heartfelt review or offer a monetary contribution. Every act of support, big or small, makes a difference and I'm truly thankful for you.