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Hello and welcome to Building Leadership Community Podcast. I'm your host, Dora Mendez. I am the founder and CEO of Coach Dora LLC. Our guests will be entrepreneurs, small business owners, and community leaders that drive social impact. It can be lonely at the top,
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but it doesn't have to be.
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Hello and welcome to Building Leadership Community Podcast. I'm your host, Dora mendez, known professionally as Coach Dora. I am so thankful and grateful to our audience of listeners and viewers. And if you're new to our podcast, please, don't forget to like, share, subscribe. So click that little look at where it is on the screen or the little bell button to make sure you get notified of when new, content posts.
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Since launching Building Leadership Community Podcast, the journey has been nothing short of transfer but transformative. As a champion of inclusion and leadership growth and connections, season two is all about deepening those conversations, those connections, and expanding our impact. At its core, Building Leadership Community Podcast is about fostering authentic leadership and empowering professionals to build more engaged communities.
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Every episode dives into strategies, insights, and personal stories that help leaders navigate their leadership journey with confidence and purpose. Let me tell you about today's guest. Today we're joined by Stephanie Martinez, a dynamic leader with over 20 years of experience in HR, entrepreneurship, learning and development, and coaching. Passionate about helping organizations and individuals thrive. Stephanie specializes in creating psychologically safe environments that foster leadership, growth and success.
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As she was building relationships with like minded Latina entrepreneurs like myself, Stephanie reached out to me and we are both authors and members of the Latinas Rising Up in HR and recognizing the power of connections and shared vision and leadership. I just knew I needed Stephanie, to be on the show. Her expertise spans industries including healthcare, consulting, tech, finance, and nonprofits.
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She continues to inspire professionals with her insights and leadership, team effectiveness and strategic development. Join us as we explore the transformative power of Stephanie's leadership. Welcome to the stage, Stephanie Martinez.
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Guest
Hi. So happy to be here with you.
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We're happy to have you. Thank you for agreeing. I know, I know, you have so many things going on, so we promise to, just take up a little bit of your time. And we'd love to hear from you. I'm going to pass, you know, the virtual mic to you. Can you tell us a little bit about your leadership journey or your career trajectory?
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Yeah, it's kind of a wild ride, you know? And I think about it, I was looking back and and thinking, I started this whole journey, you know, in college and thinking, what do I want to be when I grow up? And the first thing that started to come to mind was, was really based on my professor, an advisor, who said, you know, Steph, there's a great opportunity to be an HR, OD, you know, organizational development and consulting.
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And I was like, what's that? Tell me more about it. And it was so fascinating when he told me, you know, you get to work in all different types of organizations, solve real problems that those organizations are facing, and create this positive employee experience. I was like, sign me up. That's exactly what I want to do. I want to help others have that great experience and help companies, you know, succeed.
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And so I started my career as an HR business partner, really working my way through different organizations, experiencing different industries because I felt if I ever wanted to get into the consulting realm, I needed to see how organizations were structured and run in each of those industries. So that gave me a lot of, experience in that space.
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And then once I kind of felt like I had gotten to the point where I was experienced enough so that was about 15 years into my career. I said, you know what? It's time for me to go for the next new challenge. And that was getting into a VP of HR role. And then later on running my own HR consulting firm.
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And the purpose of that was really I wanted to become a coach. And in order to become a coach, you got to sit in a leadership position. You really got to know what it feels like to be there, interacting with the other leadership team, the CEO. And that was great experience for me. But as I was, you know, in those different client companies, as a consultant running my business, I saw that there were a lot of different gaps within leadership development.
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And as I started facilitating training and coaching some of those managers, I said, you know what? This is the space I want to be in more often because it's an opportunity for me to help others get to where they want to be in their careers. And I had a real, you know, passion for teaching and and coaching. So now I, I work for the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago.
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I am running their learning and development programs there. And then on the side, I have my own coaching business called Empowered Leadership Consulting Group. So that's my story.
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Thank you so much. And I think that's part of the reason why our stories are very similar in the sense, that we both enjoy sort of that interaction and helping people learn. But what I'm finding is that coaching is something that's seen as inaccessible. And so I work really hard. Part of the reason for this show is to, to make it as accessible as possible, to really help support people in their leadership journeys.
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And just like the tagline, it can be lonely at the top. Stephanie. So tell us what community means to you. Like what has that you know with? What does community mean to you? Because I find sometimes it can be really lonely. And then as a business partner, you go in, you do your thing and then you leave. So how do you find sort of community?
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Yeah. Two things to that I, I would say the first thing Latinas rising up air being a part of that book launch and writing the book with all of those wonderful women, all the authors, was my first time feeling like I was a part of a community, a Latina community. And all of the women were just so wonderful.
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We bonded by writing the book together, by, you know, hearing each other's stories, hearing our triumphs and things that we struggled with personally and professionally and felt like I feel heard. You know, I feel like other people understand my struggle and they know where I'm coming from. And I'm not crazy, you know, like, this is normal. So people who had experienced things that I never had that with anyone else, you know, like I would talk about things and people are like, I don't understand.
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I can vouch.
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For that was amazing.
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Especially H.R.. I feel like HR has a PR problem. It's very it's a very lonely path because you there's so much confidentiality involved. Yes. You can't really share what you learn, you know, and you learn a lot of personal stuff and you really can't share. You have to keep things confidential, kind of close to the vest. And because of that, building trust is can be challenging in that role because you can't really share a lot of the things that, you know, because you need to keep those confidences and and discretion is so important.
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Guest
I think that's true. But there's also that other point that you made about being lonely at the top. Like when I was a VP of HR, it was the first time I was offered an executive coach in my entire career, where some companies are offering it now at different levels, you know, maybe mid-level managers, where I was like, finally, like finally, I have a coach who I can have a safe space to share what's going on and how I'm dealing with the CEO or the CEO and what challenges I'm facing, maybe building relationships with other leaders and trying to get these business initiatives off the ground.
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And to me, that was just an amazing experience, because I never would have thought that that could change the trajectory of my career.
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Host
Oh, wow. That's right. Give all the coaches the credit that we need. I find that people ask me to help new managers. So someone who was promoted into a role and has never managed a team before, and they're great at their jobs and they're great at being ambassadors for the organization, but they have no experience people managing.
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And so that that people often reach out to me to help that new manager kind of get their bearings. But I want it to, well, quickly, since we are for our listeners, you'll find the link in the description for our viewers. I just want to share that they could get a copy. There are, three editions of Latinas Rising Up in the air, and it's a it's just really if you want to be inspired, and it's not just for Latinas.
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Everyone can learn from us and learn from our stories. It's really about how we overcame adversity and, how in community we're able to share our stories and those stories. So I want to shout out to, Priscilla and all our coauthors and how this, community has helped build this together. So that being said, what advice, what advice would you give to the next generation of leaders?
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I think, one thing that, you know, growing up, you know, I'm part of Gen X, we talked a little bit about this and, you know, back then everything was kind of seen as a very linear career path. You know, you kind of followed a straight line and you start in HR. You end up in HR. And even though I'm still in HR and focus on something different, but I wish I would have opened my mind to different experiences earlier on just to try them.
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You know, sometimes, like fear. I'm also an introvert, so it it can be challenging to kind of want to go outside my comfort zone and do different things, but it's in doing those different things that you really start to discover who you really are and what you're capable of, which just elevates that confidence level and kind of opens different doors, different possibilities, different people, and you start to feel a little bit more alive every time you do something like that and you explore it.
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Not to say that everything's going to be amazing, but you sure? Certainly see what you can do. Like, for me, I never thought I'd run my own business. I mean, going out on my own. I'm a single mother. I never would have thought I would have taken that leap. Facilitating in-person training. Whoa. Super scary. But I do it.
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And I love it. Because just like you, I love to see, like, people catch on to learning and, like, it creates a spark. And then they're just like, I'm going after it. I feel more confident now that I have this knowledge. So I say all that to say, go after those things that scare you, at least try them 1 or 2 times before you throw in the towel, because you just never know where all of those things could lead you.
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I love that, I love elevating that. You know, that's part of our mission here at Coach Dora, which is courage, courageous and compassionate leaders and courage is really just, being scared and doing it anyway. And so I love how you uplifting, you know, getting over that feel. Try it. Just try and take the chance. And so that is some great advice, uplifting advice about what courage really is.
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Host
And, you mentioned you are an introvert. And, and that's why it was hard for you to, like, facilitate these trainings because you're an introvert by nature. But there are some famous extroverted introverts like Brené Brown, right? She goes, oh, she talks to yes, like millions of people. And she is a like, well recognized introvert. So you are in great company.
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Stephanie. And so can you share with, our listeners and viewers how they can keep in touch with you, tell them about your business and how they can reach out to you and keep in touch, in touch with you.
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Guest
Yeah. Well, number one, you can always take a look at my website. It's empowered LLC, lqg.com. Take a look at that. It has everything you need to know about the types of coaching that I offer. I coach all levels. I focused a lot on leadership. Certainly love supporting women. I've done some coaching with the University of Buffalo in New York, working with minority women who are trying to run their own businesses.
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So I love coaching in that space. But, you know, I'm open to that. Connect with me on LinkedIn. I'd love to hear more from you if you want to, you know, kind of explore different, different coaching options.
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Host
Stephanie. So what we're going to do is, in the in the description of this episode, we'll put those links that you mentioned. So your business link and your LinkedIn profile. Thank you. So that so if you're listening you don't have to pull over and write it down. It'll be right in the description. And if you're watching we'll it'll be writing in our YouTube description.
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So I want to thank you for coming, Stephanie. It's been a long time. It's been weeks. We've been talking about, getting together and finally getting you on the show. So thank you to our listeners and viewers, for tuning in to Building Leadership Community Podcast. We appreciate you so much. And we hope that you take away, we hope that this episode is encouraging you to go for it.
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Get over that fear, man. Definitely. Thank you so much. We really appreciate it.
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Guest
Thank you. Have a wonderful day.
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Hold on. Okay.
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Intro-Outro
You've been listening to Building Leadership Community. Watch on YouTube
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@CoachDoraM. Listen, wherever you get your podcast,
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follow me on LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube @CoachDoraM. Visit me on the web at CoachDoraMendez.com. Hosted by me, Dora Mendez. Produced by Dora Mendez and Dylan Rogers. Graphics, editing, and sound mixing by Dylan Rogers.
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