Sharing, Pink Flags and Values

Today on the podcast, I unpack a value that’s become non-negotiable for me as a founder: sharing. Not just sharing credit when it’s easy, but sharing the spotlight, the workload, and the hard moments in a way that reflects true alignment. I talk about a past team experience where a person’s inability to truly “share” quietly eroded trust and momentum. I had to stop ignoring my instincts that came from the subtle “pink flags” and finally accept that I couldn’t influence this person to be someone they simply were not. 

This conversation is about the responsibility we carry as founders to protect the environments we’re building. If you’ve ever questioned your instincts around a relationship, I think this one will hit home. If it resonates, please leave a review and come connect with me on Instagram @Kimberley.Hiebert because I’d love to hear what this brings up for you.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to Found Her, the podcast for women who build empires, break barriers, and blaze trails all while finding themselves. These are bestie level conversations from behind the scenes, the real work, the messy middle, and the wins that last. I'm Kimberly Hebert, founder, franchise builder, wife, mom, and Grammy, and a woman who has done the inner work while building the outer winds. Here we talk business, identity, relationships, and the kind of growth that cracks you open, then puts you back together. Stronger, better. This is your space to rise as a founder and as your truest self. Let's dive in. Hey Bessies, I want to chat about sharing. I know it sounds very elementary, right? But this concept of sharing goes back, of course, to childhood. I'm just picturing the whole sharing is caring as we teach our children how to share. When I look at kids sharing and how hard it can be sometimes for them to share because they want what they want. When I look at adults who don't share, for a while I didn't really connect how they shared as a youngster, let's say, or throughout their lives, with how they share as an adult, because it seems like obvious that sharing is the kind thing to do, right? But here's fun fact, I don't share. I say that tongue in cheek, but here's what I don't share. I don't, while I've gotten better at it, I don't like to share popcorn with my husband at a movie theater. Uh, I have gotten better because we get two different containers. So there's that I don't like to share. But what I so that's just me being cheeky. But when I'm talking about sharing, I'm talking about the very energy of sharing the spotlight, sharing the moment, sharing the experience, sharing the work. I'm talking about now as an as a founder who has a team and different levels of team, and I require different levels of sharing, if you will. And also from my past experiences in business, uh, in our other, you know, three other businesses, this whole idea around sharing has really made itself very clear to me. And because it comes down to value misalignment or value alignment, which is kind of funny because you think, haha, how would you frame that in an interview? Uh, how would you find out what and how somebody feels about sharing? So let's let's break it down a bit. So somebody in your life uh does something really exciting, gets achieves something really exciting, whether they get a gift, a surprise, or they've achieved something or whatever. We share in that excitement. Yay, good for you, good for you, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, so proud of you. That is not what I'm talking about, because that anybody can do. Even if you don't truly believe in sharing, you can still fake that. Yay, right? But are you you, you know, are you truly happy at your core for the other being? That's being able to share abundance or share success or share the letting that person have the moment that they that they deserve, whatever that is. That's letting it be all about somebody else and sharing that excitement of that. And I think some people can fake that, honestly. I think a lot of people do, but there are people that don't. They they have a hard time, they may get cranky or irritable, or like we like to say, activated uh if something good is happening to somebody else. But so we all know people like that, uh, and I'm sure you do too, where you you feel like they say they're for you and they want good things for you, but anytime you share good things, um, they don't really receive it with such happiness. Just a gentle reminder, we know that that's more about them. Well, it's all about them and not you. But just so you know, we all have those people. But when I'm looking back over like how to build teams that aren't that that have value alignment, and I look back at our past struggles in other businesses and some of my current struggles and you know, in the future, future struggles that I may have that I'm not even having yet. But looking at how do, you know, how do you identify real value alignment in staff or team or relationships, because this happens in friendships as well. Um, friendships, you know, intimate relationships. It's covers all of those things. And it's such, to me, it's such a subtleness because when it comes to values, I find people are always going off about what they value. They always say they value this, they value that, and blah, blah, blah, and blah, blah, blah. But really, anybody can say anything. But what really shows us our value or what we value is our action, right? Our actions and our behaviors will actually be the light that shines what we truly value. How you behave during a stressful time or a time of frustration really is shows what you value. It does not show a deficit in the other person. It shows and is reflecting what your value, what you value. And um, so I've been on this kick quietly lately, just really doing some deeper work, if you will, understanding. When I say work, I don't mean inner work myself. I mean understanding, trying to understand on a deeper level how these values, how I can notice within myself. So maybe it is a little bit more work, uh, internal work. Yeah, it is actually. I'm just thinking this through as as I'm as I'm podcasting this episode. I'm thinking it back through. But how I can notice what are the things that I notice in past relationships, friendships, and team and like uh staff and all of my businesses, across the businesses, even uh uh when I worked as a social worker. So I I look back at all of that. That's one of the beautiful things about being my age is I have a lot of history that I can reflect back on and a lot of patterns that I can I can go back to reevaluate once, once I'm aware of new information. And so, you know, I heard this saying the other day what remains unconscious will stay unconscious until it becomes conscious. Then you can start doing the work. And so every layer, of course, brings the unconscious to consciousness. Now I'm rambling, but you know what I'm saying. Okay, so back to this. So as I've been reflecting on what are what are the red flags that I would see in people, friends or otherwise, teammates, that I would be like, ooh, that's not gonna be a good fit. Or that might that's kind of rubs me the wrong way. And so in the past, when that when I've had those moments with friends or team members or uh yeah, employees, uh, when I've had that in the past, I've always been, I've always thought it was like maybe it's just it's one of those things where, oh, I can't, I shouldn't be so judgy. Stop judging people and oh, it must be me. I just have to learn to uh not learn to, but I just have to be let people be people, which is true. It's true. It's not my place to control them, except for my kids. I'm just kidding. Uh but yeah, so I I I I look back and I'm like, okay, so what are some of those signs? Like, okay, this one business I had, I had hired, we were a retail store and um it was my failed franchise. For those of you who have listened to my keynote, I hired, I was I was in need of help. Um, we were running 60 hours a week. Uh, we had no staff. I needed, I needed some help. And I was interviewed this lovely gal who really presented well. And she had been working at a vet clinic as a vet tech and was really having a hard time with some of the harder parts of that job. And it was just a very, she was, she was saying it was so hard to be in a position that brought such sadness and grief to people that she didn't want to be, she wanted to do something that brought happiness and joy and all that. And uh, so she again just really saying the right thing. She presented well. I mean, it's a retail position, so it's not like you know, brain science or anything or brain surgery. But, you know, I still trusted her. I trusted her, you know, brought her in, started the onboarding, all that kind of stuff, and trusted her with, you know, with the staff, with the customers, more importantly, with our customers, and with our inventory, which is cat like cash because it paid for it all, and our cash and all of those kinds of things, right? And um, as she put in her time, she demonstrated a level of accountability, responsibility. She was really customer focused, had lots of good feedback from the customer, like all those kinds of things. And so, of course, comes more, you know, give her more freedom, more rain. So she started working alone, that kind of stuff. And one day she, one morning, she said to me, Oh, I uh I just wanted to let you know there was a bag of frozen food. I think it was frozen food or was it bones? A bag of bones, I think it was bones because it's a small item. Um, there was a bag of bones that was ripped open, and so I just took them home for my dogs. I hope that's okay. Okay. Now, this is what I'm saying. So this was like one of those things where you're like, okay, it's not the end of the world because I would have given it to her. But this was one of those she sought forgiveness, not permission, right? And although it was like an $8 item, it was not that. It was the fact that she was helping herself and making a decision that was not within her job description or her level of authority or ton or authority in the business, right? It wasn't her product, it wasn't her place to make that decision. But remember, I needed something. And so I said to her, hey, look, next time shoot me a message before that happens, right? Like I need to see the product, we need to, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. I found myself justifying why I needed her to do that, right? So that was one little thing. About a month later, I had come, I was driving by the area for some reason. She was on closing shift. And um, I was driving by, what was I driving by for? Oh, I had to go to the, I had to go there for something after hours. But it was like half an hour after closing. And when I drove by, I saw the back door wide open. And I thought, oh, that's weird. And so as I circled back around, I see her coming out carrying a big water jug, like a five-gallon water jug or 10-gallon, one of those big, big ones. And I would like that you would take for camping for the weekend. And I was like, what the hell? Uh, what the hell y? And uh anyway, so I pull around and um go go. So by the time I pull around and park, she has already left, closed the door, she locked up and she went the other way where her car was. And so I had actually missed her when I got into the shop. But she was actually carrying water, and she had filled up water from my bathroom. Again, not a big deal. It's water. However, she didn't ask, she didn't tell me, hey, I need to fill some water jugs up. Is it okay if I use your water? Well, like anything like that. Um, they lived off the grid. And so my guess is she was getting free water, so she didn't have to pay for it. But again, taking something that doesn't belong to her. Now it's not a big dollar item, but again, the red flag, right? I needed something, I needed somebody to be there. So I know, I know you know where this story is going already. So lo and behold, surprise, surprise, right at the peak of our busiest month, always in December, she doesn't show up. Oh no, it was the end of November. She doesn't show up one day, and we're missing money from our float, and she never came back. So, yeah, she ended up taking uh it wasn't even that much money. Again, it's not about that, right? So the point is that how do you like how how do you find so in the beginning of the interview, everything aligned. People say the things that they need to say in order to do what they need to do to get what they need to get, but then their actions start showing differently. And that example was I I know is fairly obvious now, but understanding I've had that situation happen multiple times, but in a more subtle way, and it has left me feeling like, what the hell? And then I realize that these people in my life that I've come across have shown me who they are in these subtle, in subtle ways that I have, I have reframed them as the it was me just being judgy or me just having this exceptionally high standard or me just not liking this person enough or whatever. I've always turned it back on to it being a deficit in me. I'm not a good enough leader, I'm not a good enough boss, I'm not a good enough friend, I'm not a good enough whatever. And it it reminded me, so like I said, I've been thinking about this a lot lately. We've uh just having a few things going on in different businesses and past and all that kind of stuff. And how do you, you know, how do you make different decisions for the future? You gotta look at how you made decisions in the past. And so this is kind of where my head's been. And uh I realized that I kind of am, you know, the girls, maybe when they're younger women, younger women, when they meet somebody who's not quite a right fit, like a boyfriend or girlfriend, that's not quite the right fit, but they gloss over and think that they can change the other person or influence, let's say that. I feel like that's kind of my problem is I feel like when I see a small little red flag, let's call it pink at first, because big red flags is obvious, but these small pink flags, sometimes I think that if they're just in my environment long enough or if they're just influenced by me long enough, I can actually influence them to change. I guess, ultimately to change. But I think, oh, I could influence their value system, or which would mean changing, right? Yeah, see, and this blew me away when I realized, oh my God, that's me in relationships, not in my intimate relationship, not in my partner relationship, but with teams and with friends over the years. That's me. What? That blew me away. I'm like, I'm that person that's like, oh, I can influence and have them changed. But here's the problem, and this goes back to basics, and we all know this, but you can't change anybody else, you can just change yourself, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. See, I know all this shit. You know all this shit, but when it is so subtle you don't see it at first, you have to start looking for it because otherwise you just will never become aware. And so when um so seeing all this and doing this reflection, be like, what you what I realized is all these books and podcasts on culture and how one bad seed can, you know, infect everybody and all that kind of stuff. I think on some level, I didn't really believe that. I think on some level, I believed that all the good can can really kind of overtake the not so good. I don't even like to say bad, but the not so good. Here's where my theory and my head that I was operating on went wrong is more good can influence bad. I believe more light can bring reduce the darkness. The problem is the person has to have had some awareness. If they don't have awareness, then that's not that's just going to continue to seep. They will either self-destruct within that environment, which has happened to me, or they will take down the environment. And in one of our other businesses, it took down the environment. And it that business is still existing and still it takes down the environment. In in other places, it has the person involved because more one-on-one, they have self-destructed within the environment. Um, because without awareness, there is no chance for evolution. So I wouldn't even call it change, I would call it evolution because sometimes it isn't evolving. Most times it the thing that changes us is an evolution, right? We're one step after another, or one little thing after another, evolves us into a deeper awareness, understanding, that kind of thing, which I think is easier to digest than changing per se. But this is so this is the awareness that I've had recently is that I am that girl in that scenario that thinks that her goodness will change the pink flag that I see in people occasionally. And what this girl has come to realize is the only way that that actually happens is if that person actually has a level of awareness in them own selves and that they want to evolve from. Pardon me, not tell me, but show me who they are. And I need to be swift at taking a stance in order to stop a further eruption or deterioration of relationship because it has cost me relationships. It has caused heartbreak and hurt. It's not just like, oh, that person didn't, I didn't get along with that person. The explosion or spinouts, you know, or or right? It's cost me, it cost me in my other business uh money and time and again hurt, a little bit of hurt. That one kind of felt a little bit on me. I was overlooking the obvious. But when it's really subtle, it it can hurt. It's happened to me with friends, it's happened to me with other teammates. And so the question around sharing, so coming back to sharing, sharing is caring. It's not just caring, but to me, so for me, one of the things that I've decided as a leader that is really super important for me is that you know how to share. And I mean share everything, share the spotlight, share the the trials, share the celebrations, share the tasks, share all of it. And I want to see your action doing that. And the moment that your action does not do that, you're no longer for me, and it's time for us to separate in whatever that looks like. And that is tough, but it is absolutely because I feel responsible for the deterioration of some relationships, not because that person intentionally did something, it's because I could have seen something coming and I could have made some choices and shaped the outcome in a way that valued leaving people intact. Because when people spiral or crash out is the what is the what do all the cool kids say? Crash out now, before it used to be spiral, um, crash out, I think is the new term. But when people crash out because of something you're saying, doing, didn't do, are or are not, it that doesn't feel good. It doesn't feel good to be a part of somebody's crash out story. It really doesn't, at least for me. And so I feel like it's the responsibility is mine to be more aware and so that I can conduct myself in a way that's respectful and maintains the integrity of relationships without giving it room to continue to crash out. So that's my uh that's my little story on building culture and sharing and why sharing is really one of I think it's a redefined value for me. I think I can actually start to put that in our business in a more because I'm way more aware of it. I think I can now articulate it better in my business and articulate it better with my friendships. So anyway, remember if you loved any of these episodes, be sure to share with a friend. Okay, that'll be all. Or that's all. That's all. Who's that from? Like I'm talking to you like you're here. Uh, that's all for today. Until next time. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Found Her podcast. If you've enjoyed it, please, please, please leave me a review, subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes, and more importantly, please share with your business bestie. You can join our newsletter, find me on Instagram, all the places. I would love to hear your feedback and connect with you during your journey of building your legacy.