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The Path To Leadership
We podcast about strong leaders, loyal employees, avoiding burnout, and raising profits building strong cultures. Everyone is a leader, but the path isn't always easy. Developing critical skills to build stronger, more successful and profitable organizations.
The Path To Leadership
From Burnout to Beauty: Rhonda Jolyean Hale's Transformation Through Aesthetic Exploration
Feeling stuck in a linear career path or struggling to see yourself as creative? In this illuminating conversation, Rhonda Jolyean Hale , founder of Jolyean Creative, overturns conventional thinking about creativity, career progression, and personal transformation.
Rhonda's journey took her from changing college majors seven times to nonprofit work, executive coaching, and eventually corporate burnout—before discovering a powerful approach to healing through what she calls "aesthetic exploration." With warmth and wisdom, she explains how reconnecting with beauty and creativity became her pathway not just to recovery, but to founding a business centered on helping people "transform in a more beautiful way."
The conversation delves into our fundamental human need for beauty and sensory experience—a need that traditional change models often overlook. Whether you're navigating personal change or leading organizational transformation, Rhonda offers practical insights on incorporating aesthetic elements to make change more effective and enjoyable. She shares fascinating research from the emerging field of neuroaesthetics about how our environments affect our wellbeing and performance.
Perhaps most empowering is Rhonda's passionate belief that everyone is inherently creative. "Just as you were born with the ability of language," she explains, "you were born with the ability to be creative." The difference lies in how this creativity expresses itself—through parenting, problem-solving, cooking, gardening, or countless other outlets beyond traditional "artistic" pursuits.
Discover how becoming a "mirror believer" for others can help them achieve their dreams, why workspace design matters more than we realize, and how Rhonda's nonprofit Pass the Bricks Project is using Legos to bring joy and creativity to children in need. This conversation will leave you inspired to embrace your creative potential and transform your approach to change—in work and in life.
Contact information for Rhonda:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rhondajhale/
https://www.jolyean.com/
Follow Catalyst Development on LinkedIn @catalystdevelopment and @drkatieervin
www.cdleaders.com
Learn more about Supervisor 101 at www.cdleaders.com/supervisor101
Theme music by Emma Jo https://emmajo.rocks/
Welcome back to the Path to Leadership. I am so pumped for today's guest. Well, I'm just not even going to go into it, I'm just going to introduce her, and then the energy is just going to come from there. Hey Rhonda, how are you?
Rhonda Hale:I'm good. How are you doing? I'm so excited to be here.
Dr. Katie:I am good. I'm good, it's funny because full transparency before we jumped on. I'm like I'm tired and exhausted and April's been wonderfully crazy, but knowing that we're going to have this conversation and we're going to share it with everyone, I can't wait for this.
Rhonda Hale:Me, too, I felt the exact same way, but I had this to look forward to all weekend, even though it was a good weekend. I was excited to get to talk to my friend, but also my community partner, and I'm really looking forward to it.
Dr. Katie:Well and it's what's so cool is our mutual friend, Mark Schaefer. Shout out to Mark. He's such a good connector, but I think he's so powerful in his connections because he's so intentional and from the first moment we met, like before words were said, like the energy of us together. So I can't wait to record this and share it with everybody. Me too. Thanks for having me, Of course, Of course. So before I go too deep, can you just introduce yourself? Who are you? What do you do? All that good stuff? Yes, absolutely.
Rhonda Hale:My name is Rhonda Jolene, even though it is spelled very weird. It is Jolene, like the legendary Dolly song kale, and I am the founder of Jolene Creative.
Dr. Katie:That is awesome. So can you kind of take us through your career journey? What has led you here to having your own company? Absolutely.
Rhonda Hale:So I think, like most people these days, I didn't follow a linear career path, and I think it's powerful to embrace that there's no linear life path anymore. There's no linear career path, and that was something that took me a long time to get over thinking that I didn't step up this beautiful career ladder. If you will, that I think we were. A lot of us were fed when we were younger that dream. I started out thinking that I was going to be on Broadway when I was younger, then thinking I was going to be a news anchor, then switching my major seven times and being shamed by society Not by my friends and family, but really by society. And then I spent my 20s bouncing around from nonprofit to nonprofit, which I cannot emphasize the importance of. If you don't know what you want to do, start out in nonprofits, because that is a great place to dig your heels in, to be able to wear multiple hats and to get a creative feel and to just be able to experiment with what you want to do, while also helping people, but also just to use your twenties as that exploration period. No one ever told me that, and that is something that I wish somebody would have said just chill out Like you have time. Yeah, um, so that I spent time bouncing around from nonprofits, working in marketing, community organizing, design work. I was even a youth pastor, a youth minister, for a while, which is a thing that nobody really I don't really talk about a lot and then I became an executive coach actually at the end of my twenties and that was before TikTok and that was before everybody was an executive coach actually at the end of my twenties and that was before TikTok and that was before everybody was an executive coach. People thought that I was a little nutty for doing it, but I lived in Wichita, kansas, and I had such an amazing community and they embraced it and I got to speak at a lot of amazing events and with people and got great experience.
Rhonda Hale:Moved up here to Kansas City in 2014 and got to work at an amazing company wherein I did quote, unquote executive coaching. It was actually did change, management and organizational development. I worked for Cerner. I feel like a lot of people in this community have a run at Cerner and I had a great experience. I got to.
Rhonda Hale:I was one of those people that said I'm not going to take a traditional career path. I'm going to carve my way through this employer, this organization, and I think I give credit a lot to not knowing what I wanted to do in my twenties and still in my thirties not knowing what I wanted to do. So I just, you know, networked with people at Cerner, figured out what I wanted to do, learned about design thinking, learned about presentation skills, do Learned about design thinking, learned about presentation skills, learned about leadership and got to work with CEOs, cfos of huge hospital systems and got to have amazing experience there. And I will say, like a lot of people I think, especially a lot of female identifying folks in our society burned out hardcore, and this was before the pandemic, whereas a lot of people burned out during that time. I was like, oh, I've been burned out way before this. So I stayed because I wanted to see some projects through, but, um, I, I burned out and stayed for about three years too long.
Rhonda Hale:Finally, in 2021, made the really hard decision, due to some health, health journeys that I needed to take, to leave because, um, you know, I didn't want to leave. I, I loved the people I worked with and that was something that was, I think, keeps a lot of people in jobs. Um, it helps a lot of people with burnout. You know, um, to have great, energizing people around them, but I left and honestly took me to a career pivot that a lot of people I think are in right now, which is what do I do with my life? I have all of these skills, but I'm really, really burned out. I had the privilege of taking some time to think about it, um, and I called it my Rhondaizons, and that was before Queen Bee herself came out with Renaissance, and I have that in writing.
Rhonda Hale:I love it, yes, and I thought about it as a Renaissance itself. I said I'm going to draw, I'm going to paint, I'm going to do crafts, I'm going to volunteer, I'm going to meet with people and see what they love, because for the first time in my life, I wasn't just going to try to keep up with everyone else. I wanted to get back to what I really loved doing, which was to create, and in doing so, that's really how Jolene Creative was founded Through aesthetic exploration. That's how I realized what I was doing was healing myself from burnout.
Rhonda Hale:And what I was doing was, in all of my years of helping other people transform, whether it be through community development and nonprofits, whether it be through executive coaching or change management of large organizations, like the 375,000 veterans in VA through the largest healthcare IT transformation in the history of time. I was helping people transform and learning all of these amazing skills, but I always knew there was something missing and I always wanted to infuse a piece of creativity and fun elements, but I wasn't doing it for myself. And when I finally started doing that, that's when I realized what my mission in life became, which was to infuse both of those things together. So how do I help people and organizations transform and use my love of creativity and my 20 plus years of research around professional and personal development and the neuroscience behind it to do so, and that's how Jolene Creative was born, and that's our mission today is to help people transform in a more beautiful way.
Dr. Katie:That is what a journey. And, as you were talking like there's, I know so I send questions before and I tell people I'm not going to take you on a hard left or right hand turn. But there are two things that you talked about that I want to, before we jump into your current work, that I really wanted to highlight. And one is something I think is so powerful that you said is you know finding yourself and you know going through that journey? I mean, that's really why I have the podcast and it mirrors into my life. And you said you know you were shamed by others for changing your majors. And I think about my son who so bravely dropped out of college because it wasn't a fit for him and it was unhealthy for him, it was making him sick. And I think so often we're afraid to do that because we're afraid of other people and it just it sucks because other people have their opinion on what a successful journey looks like. And shut up Like your journey doesn't matter how you't give. As a society we don't give people.
Rhonda Hale:I saw I had the privilege of meeting Julia Cameron, the wonderful writer of the Artist's Way, and if people listening have not heard of the Artist's Way, it is the pivotal book that changed so many people's idea of how to unleash their creativity. And I know we're going to talk about who's creative and who's not and all of that here in a little bit. But she I heard her talk about people who are called mirror believers, and what we don't do is we often don't give people, we don't mirror belief back to people, so we only have each other to say, oh well, katie, your journey looks like this, and so I guess, if your journey looks like this and my dad's journey looks like this and my mom's journey looks like this, mine can only look like that too. And if no one says, oh well, I appreciate you dropping out of college and yes, you can do this, and yes, and if we don't mirror that back to people and believe in them, there's no way that we're going to believe in ourself, because that's the only proof that we have is what is around us and what's in our hearts.
Rhonda Hale:But sometimes we cannot hear what's in our hearts because it's really easy to find that proof outside of us, and so I try to. I try to be a mirror believer for everyone around me because, honestly, the world would be a much better place if we all were mirror believers for each other. And who cares, right? I mean, I don't. I want people doing tons of different cool stuff. We need people coming up with new stuff all the time.
Dr. Katie:So yeah, yeah, yeah, I had never heard of that mirror believer, but I think that's so, so true. And it's okay to, you know, be concerned about someone else's journey, but showing it in a very supportive way, I think, the believer way, I think is really a powerful way to to think about that. Exactly, absolutely, yeah, well, and the other thing you said that I think is is I mean, we all fight this is, you know, keeping up. You were, you were trying to keep up with everyone else, and we see this all the time, whether it be in personal life or professional life, or you know that comparison is the thief of joy. You know, statement is so powerful and I think it's okay to be different. It's okay to celebrate other people's success and and I think that's another thing we just don't see enough right now, and and you and I practice it with each other, and I think we try really hard to practice it with other people, which is, I want everyone to be successful.
Rhonda Hale:Exactly. I mean there's that is, an abundance mindset, which is very difficult to have sometimes, but that there is enough slices of pie. The pie is big enough for everyone to have a slice. I think it's very hard, especially it gets easier as you get older, and I hated when people said that to me when I was younger me when I was younger. But it does get easier to feel that as you get older. But when you're younger, I mean you just feel I felt I'll speak for myself. I felt like everyone around me knew what they wanted to do. I did not know.
Rhonda Hale:I mean, listen us as solopreneurs, we still don't fit into a nice pretty box. We don't fit into what people think. I mean me trying to explain to my mother, who definitely wants to listen to this. So, hi, mom, if you're listening, you know it's hard for me to explain what I do. She believes in me and she believes in you know entrepreneurship. But it's really hard when you don't just say like I'm a, you know entrepreneurship. But it's really hard when you don't just say like I'm a, I'm a lawyer, I'm a doctor, I'm all a teacher, all these celebrated professions and so, um, it's great to be able to have like people like you, people like Mark, um, people who just believe and to say, yeah, it's hard, but um, we believe that you can do it.
Dr. Katie:Yeah, yeah. Well, and it's funny. Talking about slices of pie, I want to say you said it. If you didn't say it, it would. It would sound like it would come from you. But it's like yeah, if there's not enough slices of pie, make your own damn pie. Like go make another pie. And I forget who said it, but someone said that recently and it's like that makes sense. Like if you don't fit with this pie or there's not enough here, then get the ingredients and go make your, make your own.
Rhonda Hale:Yeah, exactly.
Dr. Katie:Well, let's talk about aesthetic exploration, because I'd never really heard that term until we met, and you talk about the transformation through aesthetic exploration. So what does that mean to you personally? What? What is that?
Rhonda Hale:Yeah, well, I'm a huge proponent of why, like I know, a lot of people listening are. So, to go back to my rondesance, I, you know I had a lot of delayed grief. So I, when I was 18 years old, I had lost my father in a really traumatic way. He was everything for me and he was my entrepreneurial spirit Right, and so to not have him here cheerleading me on has been difficult. And I think, you know, the pandemic brought up a ton of grief for everyone and for me.
Rhonda Hale:It really forced me to focus on my grief and how I had kind of delayed that throughout my 20s and 30s and I had said to myself you know, okay, how am I? You know I did this unconsciously, but how can I start healing? And so I actually started going through his and my grandmother's, his mom's heirlooms and just to start reminiscing. And then I started putting things together, just because I like to craft and do you know creative things. And then I started realizing that as I was doing that, I was finally able to start journaling about some memories. And that was the first time in 20 years that I was able to do that. And I thought, if I'm doing this through objects and if I'm doing this through painting and we know that creativity and art and all of these things are good for us and our soul and our mind and our body, what is this helping me do with grief? What is this helping me do with my transformation to maybe a different career? And so at first it was, honestly, just how is this helping me heal?
Rhonda Hale:And then I started to realize that, as everyone um through the pandemic and even 2025, we're all living in what a lot of change psychologists would call, you know, the valley of uncertainty. You know, when you think about, like, how are we going to all climb out? It's harder. It's harder to have good days these days Tons of uncertainty financially, tons of uncertainty politically and in the world I started to think well, we all gravitate towards beautiful things, and I'm not talking about you have to have a certain amount of money, you don't have to be in any socioeconomic background.
Rhonda Hale:People love to be surrounded by beautiful things and they love to do creative things, and you can see this even in social media. This is why people love ASMR videos. This is why people love cooking videos. It's because we have this primal need deep down inside, just as we have a need. I fully believe this and it's been researched that we have a need, just as we have a need for food, for water, for sleep, for connection, for beauty. We have to have that sense of sensory. You know, that focus on sensory and that focus on aesthetics. And that can mean anything. That doesn't mean you have to go to an art museum. It can mean gardening.
Rhonda Hale:Gardening is a great example. I don't do it, but a lot of people love gardening. It's getting your hands in the dirt and it's that tangible feeling. It's seeing what you're able to grow and that beauty of flowers or vegetables, tasting of the vegetables you grew yourself, cooking, and I thought you know, okay, so we've got.
Rhonda Hale:I have this background in understanding how people can change their behaviors for the better and how hard it is for us as human beings to change. But I also know that we have this need for aesthetics, if you will, or for beauty need for aesthetics, if you will, or for beauty. And I thought how can I use my experience of healing myself through this grief and also knowing how can organizations and people do the same and how can I put the two together? And what I realized was that normal change models. So I'm talking about, and some people listening might know and some might not.
Rhonda Hale:But if you this shock and denial of like, okay, I'm going to try to lose weight, but, oh man, I really don't want to give up sugar, or I really don't want to, you know, stop drinking alcohol, something like that Then you go down into the valley of despair and uncertainty where you just think this really sucks, I really am not going to be able to lose this weight, even though I want to. But then the valley goes up. It's the roller coaster of life. You go up and you start to climb your way out of the valley. Once you get, maybe you get an app to help you lose weight, you get a tool, maybe you start doing the behavior change thing of putting your clothes by your bed in the morning, so then that way you can adapt to going to the gym or going on a walk in the morning. So then you're like okay, I start to see how I'm experimenting and doing new things, until you get into integration, which is the top of the mountain, and integration is really making that behavior a part of your life.
Rhonda Hale:What I noticed about Kubler-Ross who I love she was way ahead of her time in inventing that change curve.
Rhonda Hale:But what I noticed about traditional change models is they didn't take into account all of the exterior change and then all of the sensory interior change.
Rhonda Hale:So when we have resistance and then all of the sensory interior change. So when we have resistance, how can I, if I'm trying to lose weight, what about in that I might want to wear? Or how can I journal in a way that feels better for me? Or what if it's even just? I really don't want to do this, but I can have pictures, I can collage pictures of people that really inspire me. It's just giving extra tools to people about how they can make their goals easier to achieve and this transformation easier. Because I think what happens is we want change so bad, especially in this country or in Western countries I shouldn't just say this country we want change so bad, but we don't make it really easy on ourself. We want to take a pill, but that's not how change lasts, lasting transformation. Really, we have to take the right tools and we have to make it attractive for ourself and that it does take work.
Dr. Katie:But it's really doable if we figure out the things that work for us and that primal need of beauty, yeah, yeah, that's so fascinating and I think you know going back to you know trying to keep up with everyone, it's you know what works for someone else doesn't necessarily work for you, and I think you know there's there's books out there that you know if you wake up at 5am and you do these five things, you're going to make a million dollars. And I tell people all the time if 5am doesn't work for you, you can still make a million dollars, like it's just different. And so finding the beauty and finding what works for you and doing that I think is a really cool. You know part of what you said.
Rhonda Hale:Yeah, what you said, yeah, and it's that. Again, it's, I think, to your point of what is beautiful to you is not always necessarily beautiful to me. And I mean, I know, for example, I know that your favorite color is green and that is awesome and I love that about you. My favorite color is pink, red and yes, that's one color and you know that's great and that's what makes us different. And also, how can we utilize those unique characteristics about ourselves to help ourselves live our best lives and to help ourselves change, just just as we would use those strengths in any kind of business situation? I'm not going to say Katie and Rhonda are the exact same leaders. No one would ever say that we wouldn't be able to transition people the exact same way. Or in an organization, say, every single person is going to go through this change the exact same way. It's just not going to happen.
Dr. Katie:Yeah, yeah. Well, and it's interesting because before I met you, I would say I'm not a creative person, but I can do creative things. And now I am creative. It's just it. It looks different for for everybody, and so I think, so often many people say I'm not, I'm not creative, I'm not creative. So how do you respond to that? What do you, what do you do with that statement I'm not creative?
Rhonda Hale:So how do you respond to that? What do you? What do you do with that statement? Yeah Well, I love and I hate when people say that. Um, I love it because it's a great challenge to me to convince them otherwise, but I hate it because it makes me really sad that a lot of that. I realized that a lot of people think that.
Rhonda Hale:Um, I respond to anyone who actually thinks that with, just as you were born with the ability to of language, just as you were born with the ability to think, and just as you were born with the ability to connect with people, you have the ability to be creative. Now, you might be an introvert and I am an extrovert. Your creativity is going to look different. So I know, katie, the way that you and I have worked in the past is you know, you have a way of coming up with a workbook, and I have made suggestions that would be different to that workbook, and we need that because if you and I made the exact same workbook, the world would be really boring.
Rhonda Hale:And I tell people when they say, well, I'm a busy parent and I, you know, I just work all the time and I'm trying to juggle these kids and I? You know I have no time to be creative. I'm not creative. Well, okay, how do you juggle that schedule? How? You know I have no time to be creative, I'm not creative. Well, okay, how do you juggle that schedule? How do you make sure that your kids flourish? How do you make sure that you get all of how you? How are you succeeding at work? How are you making sure that your family feels successful? All of that is being creative.
Rhonda Hale:Again, I really hate the stereotypical image that our Western societies have put on creativity, because being an artist let's talk about that being an artist and being creative is totally different. Being an artist is a profession or a hobby. Being creative is born with skill and you can nurture it as much or as little as you want, and I would suggest that you know. Any hobby that people have um can be very creative if you nurture it, and I hope that people I mean I will continue to profess that everyone is creative and can do creative things and I think, hopefully, that breeds confidence within people and it breeds the ability to um take more empathy into the world and also to take more positivity into the world too, because that can only bring more innovation and fun honestly is what I'm always going for.
Dr. Katie:Yeah, yeah, yeah, me too, me too, and what I love is you talk about beauty and sensory experiences and we've talked about it kind of from that personal standpoint. But I we both think it's important in the workplace and workplace growth, and I know this is an audio podcast, but your background is so beautiful so we're going to have to I'll have to pull out some videos so people can go on LinkedIn and see you know the art and things behind you, and recently I'm a big like experienced person and then I like to display pieces of my experience so it takes me back to those moments and how I felt in those moments. So I actually did a whole display that you can't see my video, but I shared it and said that you inspired me to do it. Some people don't necessarily want the clutter that I love in my workspace, so can you talk about, from our workspace and workplace growth, how that all ties together? Absolutely.
Rhonda Hale:So our environment affects us more than we realize. In fact, there's tons of research coming out on how. It's an emerging industry that I am very much connected to. It's called neuroaesthetics. So how does our brain, how is our brain affected by beauty, by art, by our environment? And if you think about it, you can feel it.
Rhonda Hale:You can walk into a space and if you like clutter and it is cluttered, then you will not be affected by it. If you are a person that cannot stand clutter, you will feel stressed out in that space. The same thing with colors. We've known this about color theory for years. There are certain colors that people respond to better than others, and it's not true for everyone. But you know, kate, if you see green, you're going to probably be like, ooh, I'm excited. And if I see green, you know that's mostly neutral for me. But if I'm in and I am not dissing on any case staters here I just want to say purple in a room for me is just not. I'm just like not my favorite color. But it has nothing to do with K-State, I am all about Kansas schools. So I, you know you, just colors affect us more than anything.
Rhonda Hale:So this is something we've always known. We're now trying to figure out okay, how can we utilize this in our personal life and in our professional life? Think about this when you and I have worked in professional settings before with lots of people, one thing that people tend to do is, when you have a desk, people come up and if they have maybe just met you, or if it's a colleague and haven't been to your desk lately, and you have a desk, people come up and if they have maybe just met you, or if it's a colleague and haven't been to your desk lately, and you have a picture of your family, or you have a really cool maybe award that you've won, or you have just a really weird object, they might point to it and say, oh, that's really cool. Or tell me about your family. It's basically adult show and tell, right? That's a way to get connected. So not only is our environment good for ourselves, but it's also a way to tangibly connect ourselves within our environment.
Rhonda Hale:I always tell workspaces and organizations they can use this as talismans to the past, to the future, as what they want to be. When I was working in organizational development and change management, we used to use things as environmental cues. So if you were trying for a goal, you would want to put it as many places as possible and think about it. Vision boards work for a reason. Work for a reason.
Rhonda Hale:There is research that says you are 40% more likely to achieve a goal if you are able to see what you want your future self to look like visually, because if you see it repeatedly, then you are more likely to adopt behaviors, to make choices, to look like your future self. So think about how powerful that would be for an organization, and that's what I preach to personal goals and to professional goals constantly. So there's tons of different tactics that we can use. Utilize that, and I'm actually this is the first time I'm mentioning it, but I'm coming out with a free mini guide ebook on how people can utilize this in their personal and professional lives, and that should be coming out within the next month.
Dr. Katie:So watch out for that. Oh my gosh, I can't wait for that, I cannot. Well, and it's funny I'm thinking about so one of my closest, dearest friends. She is a wild introvert and at her company they go into the office and they do hybrid, so three days a week, but they do I forget exactly what it's called but no one has a desk. Like you just come in and you just sit at the first desk available and you plug in. She does not care, it does not affect her. I would have to, like bring a bag of my own goodies every day and I would have to put up like at least a picture of my family. I can't imagine not having some of the things that bring me joy sitting in front of me. Yeah.
Rhonda Hale:And, depending on what their goals are there, I mean, I might suggest that they have a space where they at least have here's our team values and have people sign it or have pictures of the team to at least say this is, I belong here, I have a space here, or, you know, and that's something too that we, that we can talk about which is like, what people get wrong when they try to enforce or encourage creativity, is that, you know, they don't include the actual human being themselves.
Rhonda Hale:They just say, well, okay, let's try to have fun day, let's force some fun, let's get butts in seats.
Rhonda Hale:How many times have we heard that butts in seats get you back here and then, you know, maybe I'm not saying this is your friend, but like, okay, three days a week, but then you don't feel connected in any way. So you know, for me I always encourage people to ask their employees, and maybe their employees, you know, don't care, but I guarantee that's not the case, because even if it's a well, I'd like to have my favorite coffee in the coffee bar. I'd like that's a very sensory experience. I'd like to have a connection lunch. I'd like to have some place where I can put my stuff that feels safe, you know any of these things? People are going to feel more connected to that workspace, and if you're not including that human being at the center and helping them design with, that's going to be a missed opportunity for them to feel connected and engaged, which we know is something that's low right now in this country. And then also it's an opportunity to miss out on really good ideas.
Dr. Katie:Yeah, Really good ideas. Yeah, yeah, and that's fascinating because, from a workplace motivation and happiness standpoint, like people from my research, people have to feel like they belong, which ties in beautifully to your research, and as you were talking, it just made me think, um, I worked for a company every year and we had a word of the year and they released the word and then it was like on a poster, but then they never did anything with it and they never like backed it up and they never like it became a joke at some point. And so I'm thinking you know, what are workplaces doing wrong when they're trying to innovate or encourage creativity? What have you seen? What are some of the missteps that they might unintentionally take?
Rhonda Hale:Yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah, like I said, the, the leaving out of the human being is number one misstep. Um, the innovate um. I, you know I do still like having the spaces, the dedicated spaces, for innovation and creativity. I do think that that's good, but you also need to have time for people. I always, you know, when I was at Cerner, I helped to institute a time for our clients, of all things, to be able to have space to mind map and to brainstorm, because if you I mean there's nothing worse as an employee to say to have your leadership say, okay, I want everybody to feel encouraged to be more creative and have ideas, but also, you need more billable hours. You need to, you know, come up with this much more projects for the client.
Rhonda Hale:If you don't give people time to think, if you don't give them the space and the tools I mean these are all behavior change tactics, right If you don't give them what they need to succeed, it's never going to work and they're going to get burned out and they are going to get resentful, which is part of burnout. And so I would encourage companies to one design with your employees about what is your actual goal, do you? What does innovate even mean Like, what are you trying to get at? Or what does creativity mean to you? Do you just want to increase ROI, or what? What does that mean creativity mean to you? Do you just want to increase ROI, or what? What does that mean? But design with your employees.
Rhonda Hale:Number two is, if you truly want to innovate and be creative, give your people space. Literally design spaces for them, especially with your like your friend who doesn't have her own space. Like, maybe they have a dedicated room or conference room where people can go and give them time. Cut out I mean, google has still their Fridays off so that they get that 20% time to be able to innovate on things. So you have to give them time and then set them up for success. So you have to have that leadership sponsorship to say I still believe in you. This is still something that we're going to do and not just say again the more billable hours, more you know, keep piling on the work, Right right, yeah, I think that's so valuable.
Dr. Katie:Well, and before we get to the last question, I want to talk about this amazing initiative that you're doing. You're involved with a nonprofit Pass the Bricks Project, which is just such a joyful and impactful initiative, so can you talk about what it is and what you're doing with it? All that good stuff?
Rhonda Hale:Yes, it's one of my favorite things. Pass the Bricks is a nonprofit 50 that good stuff. Yes, it's one of my favorite things. Pass the Bricks is a non-profit 501c3. It was founded by a teenager, all things out of California.
Rhonda Hale:I am the Kansas City ambassador. What we do is we take gently used Lego and we package them, we wash them, sanitize them. We wash them, sanitize them, redesign sets and then package them into renewed sets for low-income children and children in need. And this speaks to so many aspects of Jolene Creative. It speaks to sustainability, it speaks to joy, it speaks to creativity and innovation and dreaming, to creativity and innovation and dreaming. And the reason that I wanted to do it was there had to be a way for me to give back to the community. That tied all of those things together, and what came out of our first project was so much more than I could have even imagined.
Rhonda Hale:Kids from the Kansas City community were donating their entire Lego collections, which I mean I got teary-eyed every time. People were volunteering to just wash and sanitize Lego, which let me tell you, that is not the most glamorous job as a volunteer. And then, when we repackaged the sets, we were able to partner with Rosebrook Center, which is a local Kansas City domestic violence shelter, and they often take in families who have to leave everything behind so they don't have any toys, let alone anything else, and we were able to donate over 80 sets renewed sets to them and it was really important that we gave it to a community resource like Rose Brooks, because, you know, I never grew up with Lego. They were Lego's amazing and it promotes so much dreaming. But let's face it, it's expensive. Yeah, and the sets that we made, we really put time and effort into making them look beautiful and we made them so that any kid could pick it up, look at the instructions and recreate what the build was. And then we added an extra Lego so they could start their own Lego collection if they wanted to.
Rhonda Hale:But I believe in promoting that dreaming, promoting that again. It's that sensory fear feel, that tangible way of dreaming and healing. I mean, even if they could just take themselves, even if we gave them just a moment of taking them out of whatever situation they were in or whatever emotions they had, that made all the hard work worth it. You know Um, so if people are interested in that, I know that you'll connect and link um all of my information. Um. We are always looking for donations, always looking for volunteers, and we're hoping to work um with uh different community partners soon and um do another huge campaign.
Dr. Katie:So very excited. That's exciting. Yes, I will put your contact information, how they can follow you and connect with you and all that stuff, in the show notes. So that will be great. Yeah, Well, and so the final question I ask everybody and I think this is a powerful question especially based on you know what we've talked about and what you've shared, Because everyone's journey is different and we learn and grow from our journeys. So, to the level you're comfortable sharing, what's the biggest leadership or career misstep that you've taken?
Rhonda Hale:For me, I think the it's the career misstep and it almost ties into the leadership misstep as well. It's thinking too yeah, it's kind of like what we talked about at the beginning. It's thinking too much about what society wants and what other people want, and not what I wanted myself. And really listening I know it's cliche, but really listening to my gut and really listening to my heart. And then for me, I didn't think I was a leader for a really long time because I never held traditional leadership roles. Because I never held traditional leadership roles Because, again, I bounced around and didn't want to manage people and all of those things. But what I realized was just like and it's so ironic, right, because I tell people, everyone's creative, you just have to nurture it. Everyone has the ability to be a leader and I'm sure that you say that all the time it's just because my journey didn't look like everyone else's.
Rhonda Hale:I didn't manage a ton of people on purpose, I didn't climb a career ladder, but that didn't mean that I wasn't a leader in some capacity. I mean, I know I led various projects, I led initiatives, I led different. You know, I pushed for different things to improve in various companies and I know that in a way, you know, I fought for different people and groups of voices and people and I think that took me a really long time to learn and I think if we could instill in people who are I know that there's a lot of people you work with who are early career, even in college just to think, wow, you know really, truly, really, really, truly. And if you know, if anyone ever wants to get into it with me, I can show, I can literally map out how nonlinear my career is. It can look so different and that's great, because we need people's career to look different. And, yeah, there's no, there's no missteps, because looking back, you can only see the value, looking back, which I think is one of life's biggest tricks, right, yeah, yeah.
Rhonda Hale:It's such a joke. It's such a joke looking back, but it's so valuable. It's so valuable, and so I just I would encourage anyone to just be open hearted and to explore and to think about how leadership can look different to every person too.
Dr. Katie:Yeah, yeah, I think that is beautiful and perfect. When we talk about leadership, it, it, you know, bringing that creativity and leadership is is different and beautiful in each person in their own way. Yeah, yeah Well, thank you so much for your time and sharing your experiences with everybody. More importantly, thank you for being in my life. I cannot wait for our next coffee, just so we can be together, and I'm just so thankful for you.
Rhonda Hale:Oh, I ditto, I am so thankful for you. This was so fun. Yay, yay, all right. Well, I want to thanks for am so thankful for you.
Dr. Katie:This was so fun. Yay, yay, all right, well, I want to. Thanks for joining me on the path to leadership. Please reach out to Rhonda. Gather all of those Legos, the ones that are on your floor that you keep stepping on when you're done with them, yes, get, get with Rhonda and donate them so somebody else can can have the joy and the creativity that comes with it. Thanks for joining me and I will talk to you next time on the path to leadership. Bye, everyone.
