First, Bubble Wrap Your Weakness. Then, Build Systems for Success

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Aydin Mirzaee 2:25  

Amber, welcome to the show.

Amber Hurdle  2:27  

Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Aydin Mirzaee 2:29  

Yeah, this is a I think this is gonna be fun. There’s a lot for us to talk about. But you’re located in Tennessee, right?

Amber Hurdle  2:36  

I am. I’m just outside of Nashville. Nashville Vegas, tourists like to call it and it is a fun, inclusive, very helpful community. Love it here.

Aydin Mirzaee  2:46  

That’s awesome. So born and raised?

Amber Hurdle  2:48  

No, that’s kind of a funnier story. So I was actually born in Las Vegas, but I only lived there for less than a year. And then I grew up until high school in Orange County, California. So I say I’m Southern, Southern California, or the Southern United States. Either way, I’m Southern. I’m a valley Belle.

Aydin Mirzaee 3:08

 Cool. And that makes sense. So I wanted to kick things off with just a fun question. So one of the terms that you like to use often is velvet machete leadership. What is that? It sounds fascinating.

Amber Hurdle  3:21  

So the Velvet Machete concept came to me when I was a personal trainer in my 20s. And I had a particular over 65 client, male who set certain goals, and then he would come in work out, do the work. And then I’d look at his nutrition journal. And I was like, Alright, here’s the deal. You can’t eat a ribeye every night and have three Bourbons, and think that you’re going to be able to play with your grandkids on the floor and get back up and live a long healthy life. Like this is not gonna happen. And so I said that out of love out of an interest of his goals. But it was to the point, right, I was like, ain’t gonna happen, dude. And so he called me He’s like, you know, you just come at me with a velvet machete is so harsh, and I love it. And so I got that nickname. As a personal trainer. It stuck with me. And that’s, that’s the communication style that I teach. That’s the branding style that I teach. That’s a leadership style that I teach. The machete cuts to the chase, it captures people’s very limited attention these days. And the machete wraps the message in a way that’s appealing to that unique audience. So the way I might communicate with you is going to be very different than how I might communicate with say my best friend Mark. So with him, I cut to the chase like you can’t do this. But I wrapped the message in his own communication, his own language of what his goals were. So that worked for him. And that’s how I want all leaders to approach things.

Aydin Mirzaee  4:51  

Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. And you also obviously come across as like you’re doing this because you care.

Amber Hurdle  4:56  

Right. And it has to come from that place to me. Leadership is, is a, it’s a calling. It’s not, it’s not something you do otherwise, you know, we talk about managers versus leaders or all that kind of stuff. When you’re leading somebody, you’re influencing somebody, that’s the end game is you’re influencing some kind of an outcome, some kind of a process or a person. And in order to do that, that has to come from a place of service, because you’re compelled to do whatever you need to do to help support that person, whether it’s giving them tools and resources, or encouragement, or education or recognition, or whatever that looks like, You’re not coming at it. Unless you’re a jerk, in which case, I wouldn’t consider you a great leader. You need to come to talk to one of us, right?

Aydin Mirzaee  5:41  

Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. And so you know, you talked about being a coach, and obviously, you’ve run your own consulting company for a while. I think it’s close to a decade or is it more now? 

Amber Hurdle  5:52  

Yeah, now we’re creeping up on that, were just past eight years of being, you know, the first dollar earned. 

Aydin Mirzaee  6:01  

That’s awesome. And so you know, you have worked with brands like AT&T, FedEx, Lowe’s, and so much more. You’ve also been a journalist, you’ve led marketing teams, working with leaders from all walks of life. So lots of different things, but I’m just gonna rewind and, and maybe ask you, who isn’t most memorable, favorable, or maybe an unfavorable boss that you had that you learned from either from good things they did or bad things in it?

Amber Hurdle  6:28  

Yeah. This one, let me just first say to all of my bosses, you’re all amazing. I love them. In fact, one summer, I went on a former boss tour, like I literally went to where they were located in the country, and sought their feedback on some transitions I was making. But I would say that the most impactful boss I’ve ever had actually wrote the foreword to my book, the bombshell businesswoman. And his name is Pete Weien. He was the GM of the year nation nationally for the hospitality Association. And the thing that I appreciate about him is that he saw me, he saw me, he saw what I was capable of, and he saw where I was hard on myself. And he pushed me past what I thought was reasonable. So because he saw what I was capable of, he would he and he knew I’m like a driver personality. So he just drove me in, in like, a joke that he would drive me off the cliff, but then he would like put his hand down and like pull me back up and be like, silly girl. Why did you go off that cliff? It’s like, cuz you drove me there. But it was like, it’s what we did. And I loved it and the things that we accomplished in Gaylord hotels, Gaylord Opryland after a historic 100-year flood that took out all of Nashville, in terms of employee engagement, and really setting an internal public relations campaign and we knocked it out of the park. I mean, we hit record guest satisfaction numbers, we lead the brand and guest satisfaction, we lead the brand and revenue, we lead the brand in employee satisfaction, all after just getting our lunch handed to us from a flood. So it was just a magical experience. It wasn’t just about me is that he led everybody, well, and everybody stepped up. So you’re running amongst stallions. And if you fell behind, you felt it. So you had to perform at your best. And now I’m pretty fearless. Because I’m like, not worse. Not really. Like I did that. You know? I

Aydin Mirzaee  8:31  

t sounds like he, you said that he really saw you and understood you. What did he do to get to that level of understanding that maybe some other people don’t do?

Amber Hurdle  8:42  

I think you know what I teach and until like this very moment, I never made that connection with Pete. But I teach that you first have to become self-aware. That’s why my machete leadership, five-step system begins with personal branding because you have to be able to clearly define and position your value. Pete knew what he brought to the table. He had an accounting background, he was great with the, with the numbers, he understood how things worked, he understood that people drove the results. And so if you wanted this result that he had to invest in his people like that was clear. And because he understood how he uniquely was able to lead that and who he needed to put around him. He was able to then see in the harvest of greatness and others, because if you can’t recognize things in yourself, how are you going to see it and other people, and I know that, that driver personality, he saw me. I mean, he saw him and me. And he saw that I was going to work 70 hours a week, if that’s what it took, I was going to go to the mat, because that’s how he was. And that’s not to say he couldn’t lead other people who weren’t like him, but it was easy to leave me because we did have so many similarities.

Aydin Mirzaee  9:51  

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So you talk about the driver personality? What is that?

Amber Hurdle  9:56  

I could give so many different examples. I’m Predictive Index Certified. So this is a behavioral assessment, I would have used that term driver before and I believe in even Strength Finders, I think driver is one of the strengths that you could score on. But in in the predictive index, that would be either a high A, which means you’re just super independent, you’re going to get things done. Or if you’re looking at the graph, there’s four, there are four different letters ABCD, it’s nothing like the disc profile. So if you go to my website, and you choose to take this particular assessment, then this will help you with some background, when you are a oversee. That means that you are a very proactive person, you’re going to drive results, it’s just how you’re wired. It’s how you show up. And that’s how we are, we see something, and it’s like, okay, that’s the outcome that I want. And so I’m going to be comfortable with risk. I’m going to drive these results, I’m going to do what it takes. I’m going to do it now. No excuses, no crybabies. I’ve got two rules every day. Well, I guess maybe three? How can it be done? Be kind to me, that’s probably the hardest one for me. And then no pity parties. That’s how I live every day. As a driver.

Aydin Mirzaee  11:11  

I love that. So I mean, you just talked about predictive index and a few other personality, I guess, assessment types. Tell us more about just personality assessments as well. I mean, you mentioned you have a bunch of them on your website, I think you’ve been developed your own? Yeah. Could you tell us about the different types that you use? And, you know, I’ve heard of me, we were chatting about this just earlier, which was, we were talking about enneagram. There are so many for people who’ve never taken one or thinking about like, how can I actually use a personality assessment to you know, help me at work or help me hire? Where should they start?

Amber Hurdle  11:51  

Well, that’s a really great question. I love personality assessments, because it does fast track you to that self-discovery, that self awareness. And a self-aware leader is a very powerful leader again because only when you can recognize characteristics in yourself, can you start to differentiate and see other people’s strengths and what I call what they might need to bubble wrap because I hate talking about weaknesses, I’m not weak, you’re not weak, nobody listening to this podcast right now is weak, we just have less helpful areas of our personality that just don’t help outcomes that we’re looking for. So like fine china, we have to bubble wrap those just put some processes or some people around it in order to make sure that that’s protected. But we have to understand ourselves first. So the first thing you have to understand is what is the outcome that I want? What is it that I’m trying to learn about myself? So let me I’ll get to us. But you mentioned enneagram. The enneagram is used by a lot of psychologists and a lot of life coaches and the reason why is the enneagram blows up the areas where we really have vulnerabilities. And so typically, if we’re going to therapy, if we’re seeing a life coach, it’s because something stuck. And so if we want the enneagram, for example, I’m an eight, I’m a tied to seven, eight, so I’m like, woo, where’s the party and I’m also like, I will cut you if you mess with me. So those are my personalities. But the eight comes from a place of in childhood or growing up or and past relationships or whatever, it’s different for everyone. I was controlled. And so what that means to me today from that aspect is I just don’t want to be controlled. Like that’s my greatest fear. So Enneagrams are about understanding and relating to your fears, your greatest fear. I don’t use that because that’s not what I do. I’m not a life coach. I’m not a psychologist, although I do plan to go back to school to get my organizational psychology Master’s. So the first thing that I use is how to fascinate. So where like Myers Briggs, which I’m also obsessed with, like those type of personality assessments, that’s how you psychologically see the world that helps you understand like how you process things. But with fascinate, it’s about how the world sees you at your best. So when we’re talking about personal branding, we want to understand, how do I show up in the world? And how are people receiving me? So as an example, I’m a catalyst, which means I scored highest and passion, I create warm emotional connections. And I actually tied or scored second with an innovation. So I changed the game with creativity. So when I go into an organization, I’m going to make friends with everybody, I’m going to buy everybody and they’re going to have that trust with me and I’m going to be like, okay, here’s the change, we have to execute against it. Normally, people are like, wow, change. I don’t want to do that, but they trust me. And so they’re willing to do that change. Knowing that about myself helps me be able to sell it helps me be able to understand what a good client is for me versus if there’s a client who just wants somebody to come in to help them with the status quo, or they really don’t have a lot of change or innovation going on in their business, then they’re not a fit for me. But if they’re, if they’re moving through change their fast-growing company, maybe they’re, they’re just dynamic. It’s a fast-paced company, which is why I do so well in hospitality, construction, things like that. They’re going to need somebody like me to just help them get through that and get everybody on the same team. So that’s how to fascinate. That’s the first assessment that I use. The second assessment I use is the predictive index. The predictive index determines what your innate needs are as a professional in a work environment. And then it evaluates how those needs, drive your behavior. It predicts how somebody needs to drive their behavior. I’m a maverick. So you have diff, 17 different reference profiles, but everyone is unique. This is a very wide Maverick spread. You can have a maverick with all of that, like in between. What this tells me is, I’m going to be highly independent. This is the drive the extraversion. Do I need social interaction? Or if I was over here, am I more introspective? This is the C drive. So I like to change competing priorities. If I was up here, I’d be more of the implementer of change, I’d be somebody who would want to put processes around things. If I was over here in the C drive. If you interrupted me in the middle of something, it might take me a second to get back to work. And for me, you can interrupt me, I’m like, whatever. And I get right back to work because that’s what I like. I’m a rule breaker. So the D drive and my formal or informal. I’m definitely informal. I like flexibility goes back to my innovation, right? So these all tie together. So if I know how I show up with fascinating, now I know how I work, how I get things done. This really helps me understand how I need to bubble wrap things. I’m low D, I don’t Dodd eyes, I don’t cross T’s a very visionary. Look how fast I move. So I have all of my team have Heidi’s parallel dotting i’s and crossing T’s. I don’t do that. Anytime I do something without letting my team look at it. There will be an error, right? So I don’t think I’m not a great businesswoman because I hate managing my books. No, I outsource I have a CPA, I have a bookkeeper and I have somebody who handles my payroll. That’s how I bubble wrap this personality type. So we look at how do I show up in the world? How do people best receive me? How am I most influential with fascinate, then we look at the predictive index, how do I behave in a work environment so that I can plan my work accordingly? And how do I need to surround myself What do I need a bubble wrap. And then the third thing that I use, surprisingly, with great results is astrology. So I found that even with the different personality assessments that I use, or if they tried other ones, and sent them to me, there was always some kind of like little disconnection. And so I’m not especially woo-woo anybody who knows me knows that. But what I have learned as I deepen my understanding of astrology over the years and actually have professional software for it now is that it’s it’s just the natural personality assessment for humans. So it’s mathematical, it’s scientific. It’s you know, you were born at this exact time, at this exact location. And this was these were the stars were overhead just kind of like Jesus being born or, you know, the Wiseman where astrologers used to have to actually study astrology to get a law degree in the United States of America. And it just tells you things about yourself. So for example, my son, people think like Cosmo, what’s my sun sign? What’s my sign, like, hooked up with people that’s like, not at all it. When you look at astrology, you can look at how you show up in the world, you can look at how other people perceive you. So how you show up in the world, your sun sign, I’m a Libra, I like balance, I’m about relationships kind of sounds like passion, right? It kind of sounds like a high B personality. And my rising sign is Leo, I show up on large and in charge, kind of like high a, you know, kind of like passion like very, you know, in your face, I’m here, walk-in like a queen, I can’t help it. That’s just how I show up. And then my moon sign is in Taurus. I’m very grounded. I’m very committed, like people who know me know my inner world better. They, they see that aspect of me. But when I look at other elements, like your Kyron, like your, your greatest wound of healing, people get stuck in business, and they don’t know why. And I can go to their Kyron and be like, well, and there we go. I look at their Mars and see how they show up from a, from an aggressive standpoint, what that looks like in business, I can look at their midheaven and see if they’re in the right career, and I could look at their north node to see where they’re going. And it makes sense 100% of the time so I don’t look at it as some like woo woo. You know, crazy thing. Like I don’t believe we can predict the future with it. But I can definitely see that it consistently 100% of the time helps people identify very intimate details about themselves. So that was a really long answer to a question. But that’s my process.

Aydin Mirzaee  20:14  

I think there’s a lot to sort of unpack there. I love this concept of bubble wrapping your weaknesses, I’ve never heard it, you know, but quite that way. I think there’s a lot of thought process around this. It’s, you know, some people who are like, eliminate weakness, other people who are like, ignore weakness and just managed by strings. But I like this concept of, well, you need to kind of dole these out or bubble wrap them like you said, so I think that that’s awesome. But also all these, I mean, whatever personality assessment type, or you know, anything else, it’s interesting, I had no idea that you used to have to study astrology to be a lawyer in the United States. That’s fascinating. But I think like all these things, what are really interesting, what’s really interesting about it is you have to invest in understanding yourself and using various terms to define them. Because once you can label something, you can reference it, you can identify it, and then you can actually manage it.

Amber Hurdle  21:09  

And get those adjectives where you can articulate your value where you can talk about, I mean, I, I said warm emotional connections, I’m innovative, I create change, like when you can look at an assessment and highlight things that really resonate with you. That’s your LinkedIn profile. That’s your resume. That’s how you promote yourself in an interview. That’s how you talk about yourself within an organization.

Aydin Mirzaee 21:29  

Yeah, yes, I think all of these are, are very important tools. And you know, if there’s anything else, I mean, people should obviously go on to your website and check out some of the personality assessment types there, check out, enneagram, check out all these different things, but but really, actually invest some time into it. And I think kind of like a related thing. We’ve heard about this before. So psychometrics. I mean, is it basically just personality assessments. I know a lot of people use psychometrics for hiring.

Amber Hurdle  21:59  

Yeah. So there, they’re personality assessments, behavioral profiles, there’s all kinds of, you know, there’s things to predict like if you’re ethical or not. With most of all data, you really need to be careful about using people’s data. hungry people data, for example, can be an exit interview. That’s data. A simple, you know, employee engagement survey, that’s people data. I like to use psychoanalytic tools because they don’t, there’s not a lot of margin for error. And it eliminates bias. If you don’t look at names, if you don’t look at gender, you’re just looking at here’s like, for the predictive index, for example, here’s the behavioral profile that we need to do this job. When I get a slew of applicants in there’s so much area for bias. Oh, you like Alabama football, I like Alabama football Roll Tide. Okay, great. Forget about the fact that you’re a low D personality, and I want you to be in a position that’s like inventory control like people do that every single day. And then you’re like, Whoa, what happened? I just lost $5,000 because that person barely made it 90 days. So when you’re looking at data, it just eliminates all that nonsense, either the person it’s not, can they do the job? It’s will they do the job? And will they do it? Well, for a prolonged period of time, because they’re designed to do that kind of job.

Aydin Mirzaee  23:33  

Yeah, one of the things that I wanted to also talk to you about is and you know, as you indicated, some of this stuff with, with your own personality assessment type, but let’s talk about confidence. And, you know, the confidence to lead with authority. You know, some people, you know, have difficulty, some are really good at it almost too good to a fault, obviously. But, you know, others are, are maybe hard to have more difficulty having tough conversations and, and actually, like, really, I guess, leaning into the authority that they have at work. So if someone comes to you and says, You know, I have trouble leading with confidence, what do you think are some of the root causes for that?

Amber Hurdle  24:16  

The number one thing is that they haven’t gone to you university, they don’t really understand themselves, they don’t have a level of self-awareness that makes them just say, like, who I am. And these are the things I need to bubble wrap. So I’m not going to camp out over here and be like, Oh, I suck at math, and oh, I can’t do this. And I can’t do that. So I’m a terrible leader. It’s just like, Okay, hold on. Let’s, let’s put this on pause. Let’s come over here. What do you add? How do you specifically add value? What’s the unique thing that you bring to the table in support of the organizational or operational goals and what do you how do you add value to your team? Okay, now, let’s go over here and we’re going to create systems and structures that uniquely support your efforts. Like I have a DD diagnosed a DD, I have mild OCD and I have clinical anxiety, obviously, I don’t care because I’m telling everybody on the podcast like, we all have different things like that. So for me, I’m, I’m, I’m not going to lament over the fact that I have these challenges are these things that I contend with on a daily basis, I’m going to come over here and say, you know, what I’m really good about doing I’m really great at helping people identify their greatness and leverage that I’m able to help people see how to apply that in a professional setting, to shift business results and to ultimately have a more fulfilling life because they spend more time at work than anywhere. Okay, great. Also, I deal with anxiety. So I’m going to eat right, I’m going to exercise, I’m going to take supplements, I’m going to get my sleep, I’m going to take CBD, I’m going to do yoga, I’m going to meditate. I’m going to do all these things, the bubble wrap set thing, which also helped me in so many other areas. So now I’m developing like all this awesomeness, because I’m not kicking my own butt over the fact that I have anxiety, like no big deal. Some days it’s a bigger deal than others don’t mean to diminish anybody else who has more severe anxiety than me. So that’s step one, is the competence factor. Step two is putting those processes in place, building those supportive environments. The reason why I created my own personal assessment, which I didn’t even talk about, as I was talking about the other three is the velvet machete leadership assessment. So is what is your leadership personality, but the thing that really drove me to create my own is because the more quiet leaders, the ones who might not have an answer right away, because they’re more introspective, so they’re going to maybe think on it overnight. And then they’ll have this compelling response the next day, that is way better than Amber, who’s gonna be like, I think this, like right off the top of my head with no thought. And it could be that somebody is more of a collaborative leader, meaning they’re going to buy everybody in. And it’s not necessarily them, like saying, this is what we’re going to do, charge, warrior leader like I am, they’re going to say, okay, gang, you know, well, what do you think about this? Well, what’s your part? Well, how do you think this is going to impact you? Okay, well, would that work? Yeah. Okay, we’re all on board for this great. Now, collectively, we’re all going to make this happen. That’s a pretty powerful way to lead. But somebody like that, like, Oh, well, I’m not, I’m not flamboyant. I don’t have the jazz hands and fireworks. So I created this assessment. And you could go to Amber Hurdle dot com, forward slash, leadership quiz. And there’s all you just go to Amber Hurdle dot com, it’s right there on the homepage so that they can understand here is what I think makes you most influential. And here’s what you might want to consider bubble wrapping. So you have those two things right away. And hopefully, that gives you confidence in saying like, this is me, this how showing up. I mean, I’m 41 years old, I like to evolve. I like to think that I evolve constantly, as for, you know, personal professional development. But there’s a lot about me, that’s just me, and so celebrate that instead of beating yourself up.

Aydin Mirzaee  27:57  

Yeah, that makes sense. I think, you know, there’s this really great book, I don’t know if you’ve read it, but it’s called The Courage to be Disliked. Yeah, it’s an excellent book. And it talks about the teachings of Adler, who is I think, a contemporary of Freud, and maybe not as obviously not as well known in a lot of circles. But yeah, ultimately you can’t control what other people the way other people perceive you. But the only thing you can do is, you know, be yourself. And the sooner you recognize that you know, the sooner you can really leverage your strengths like you said. 

Amber Hurdle  28:32  

We talked about that and creating people environments, too. I mean, we talked about Pete, right. So Pete was a tremendous part and continues to be a tremendous part of my people’s environment. And so when you know, when you know what you’re about, and you know what you’re here to do, and you’re confident in that you don’t need external validation anymore. So you start to let go of those relationships where they want you to be something that you’re not, or they, they bring your energy down. Or they say that you know, the energy vampires that actually suck energy from you. You don’t want to be liked by everybody. You don’t want to attract employees that are not a good fit for you. You don’t want to go to an employer brand that does not align with your own personal values. You don’t want to have intimate relationships if that person is not a good fit for how you show up in the world. And you certainly don’t want customers. I mean, I don’t want any customer that is weirded out by anything by my process at all. Like that’s I’m not going to change how I do things to accommodate a customer. So you do you want somebody to instantly see you go to your website, if you’re a, you know, a business, or interview with you and say, yes, this is for me or no, this is not for me, you should be that clear in your brand, just like showing up to the Nike website. This is for me or it’s not for me.

Aydin Mirzaee  29:49  

[AD BREAK] Hey there, just a quick pause on today’s episode to let you know that we’d really appreciate you helping us spread the word about the Supermanagers podcast if you’re enjoying what you’re hearing so far. dial into your podcast app of choice, whether that’s on Apple or Android or Spotify. And just leave us a quick review. Now back to the interview. [ AD BREAK]  Yeah, I think I think that makes a lot of sense. I think, you know, just On a related note, so we talked about these leaders that, you know, if you lack confidence, you know, what does that mean? But what about people who tend to dictate versus inspire? What about those people? What’s the root cause of that? Is it a problem? You know, start off with that? And, and how do you diagnose it? And how do you deal with it?

Amber Hurdle  30:40  

Well, the problem, it is a problem, because dictating rarely gets buy-in. And so if the people on your team don’t understand why they’re doing it, if they’re not bought into the why, if, if they don’t understand how their unique contributions fit into the bigger picture, they’re, they’re not going to show up at their best. Nobody, nobody jumps out of bed in the morning and says, I can’t wait to get out of bed and go to work so I can meet the operational goals this year for fill in the blank of your company like that doesn’t happen, they jump out of bed, and go to work, because they want to go on vacation, pay their mortgage, make sure their electric bill gets paid, put gas in their car, feed their kids. And the great way that they get to do that is by using their gifts, what they were put on this planet to do their experience. And they bring that to work. And so you have to be able to harness that, and then apply that towards whatever the mission is that you’re on. we diagnose that controlling thing by doing 360s. We talked to the teams, oftentimes, this whole virtual environment has been amazing, because I am frequently like, on the scene of things like people walk in, I see what’s happening. I’m on job sites like I get to see what’s happening. And so I can say, like, you know, this was interesting, tell me more about this. Like, I’m curious why this was said this way, diagnosing it would be having an understanding of how other people perceive them. And then also these type of personality assessments enneagram being you know, one, that would definitely be a core way of seeing where that’s coming from. And to get a little psychological on you. You know, we have different relationship attachment styles, we have different childhood wounds, we all have them. We all have an inner child, I don’t care who you are, you can think you’re the toughest mofo on the planet, you’ve got one, okay. Understanding, you know, really taking a step back being vulnerable and understanding what happened growing up or in your history or in a relationship that has made you think this is the way to protect yourself, this was helpful for you at one point, this was a really helpful behavior for you to get through that season, or that relationship or that experience, it is no longer helpful for you. And so what do we need to do in order to start working towards healing that wound and becoming the person that we were designed to be?

Aydin Mirzaee  33:14  

Yeah, I think I think that makes a lot of sense. And, and it’s not the sort of thing that you can just know, it really requires deep inner work. And, and what I’ve learned about that is that it’s, it’s not also the sort of thing that you can just say, I’m just gonna spend two days and do it, it’s kind of actually a lifelong process. And just because you identify it, it’s not a snap of a finger to just undo it.

Amber Hurdle  33:38  

Yeah. And I’ll give a really great resource. I share her all the time. And in my leadership academy, I’ve referenced her as well. She’s on Instagram and on YouTube, and we’ll hit you square between the eyes, she’s very easy to listen to, has lots of helpful information, and it’s the holistic psychologist. Look her up. 

Aydin Mirzaee 33:58

Cool. I’m excited. That’s awesome. So Amber, one of the things is, you know, I’ve obviously, you know, check out some of your YouTube videos, and you’re an awesome public speaker. So I wanted to ask you, has that always been the case? Is it something that you’ve worked on? Were you born that way? How did you get good at public speaking? 

Amber Hurdle 34:19

Well, again, my rising sign is in Leo. So I that’s I kind of just am comfortable being on stage if you will. My dad is a professional drummer, rock star who traveled the world. And so it was really normal for me to be like, on stage, behind the scenes or whatever. So that was something that was normalized for me. If you if you look at all of my different assessments or my birth chart, communication is my key thing that I offer. And so being able to communicate to the masses seems like the most helpful way to use my gifts. And so I’m not saying it’s always super easy, but it’s natural. I feel very safe on stage. And I love being able to even if one person out of 1000 in the audience walks away with something that that might make them think about things differently than I know that I’ve done my job. So I don’t need all 1000 people to love me, like, that’s just not a need of mine. I did. And elementary school I did, like, you know, the California State speech meets always got blue ribbons. In college, I was on the debate team, I was. Now I can’t even think of what it is Leader of the Opposition. So it was my job to receive a debate like the other governor’s side would start the debate. And then without any understanding of where they’re going, or where they’re taking the topic, I would have to immediately come up with the counter debate. And so I had to think on my feet. And that was a really great training ground for even doing interviews like this. And then I was, you know, I got a PR degree, a lot of my career has been public speaking on behalf of the company that I worked for, or speaking to, you know, the 1000s of employees because I was internal relations. So, again, one of my principles, when you’re trying to build your personal brand or identify your personal brand, is following your breadcrumbs. So you want to look back on your history and start finding commonalities. I just did that for you to show you how all of those things led to me being a competent public speaker now that people enjoy watching. It didn’t happen overnight. That was something that started in elementary school. So that’s what people can do for their own gifts.

Aydin Mirzaee  36:30  

Yeah, and I love the way that you put it following the breadcrumbs. I think that makes a lot of sense. Amber, we’re getting close to time here. But one of the questions that we like to ask all the guests on our show, is for all the managers and leaders out there looking to improve at their craft. What words of wisdom would you leave them with books, resources, tips, or just in general, any parting advice?

Amber Hurdle  36:54  

I say it all the time go to you university, I think especially now, in light of COVID, I think that a lot of our safety that we thought we had in our big, cushy corporate jobs, it is not a reality. I think we all have understood that life is very vulnerable. And so the one thing that you can control is how you show up how you position yourself to attract the right people and the right opportunities. And so, I mean, absolutely go to my website, you know, watch my YouTube videos, if you go to my website, you can take the predictive index-free, just follow you know, go to Amber Hurdle dot com you’ll find it, work with me, I think is the is the menu item, you can take the free leadership personality quiz that I created, if you want to take fascinate, there is a fee for that you can find that there. It’s I think, like 50 bucks, something like that. And, and then you know, there are, this is a really long question, but I hope your your people are taking notes. There are two things I always like for people to do without going through like my whole course or whatever. The first thing is just put on your Facebook page or LinkedIn, What is the one thing that I undervalue about myself? And you will be so surprised at the consistency of those answers because we can always see the forest for the trees when we’re in it. And so that’s a really interesting response that you get. And the other thing I want you to consider is, when you were in junior high, what did you stop doing, thinking, feeling or being to fit in? Because that’s when we’re no longer allowed to be unique. That’s when we start to become vanilla. That’s when we all become you know, well, what do I need to do to be friends with the cool kids or to be generally accepted? Whatever weird thing that you had, by the way, weird, by definition is called supernatural. Like, if you look it up, google it weird. The definition is supernatural. Whatever supernatural thing that you had going for you that you gave up in junior high, is probably the thing that scares you now and probably the thing that you need to laser in on and start rolling with.

Aydin Mirzaee 39:01  

And that’s a great place to end it. Amber, thank you so much for doing this.

Amber Hurdle  39:04  

Thank you. It’s been a pleasure.