Join Dina and John Simon as they welcome Dr. Amelia Reigstad, PhD – Speaker, Author, and Facilitator.
Dr. Reigstad, PhD is a passionate change agent, speaker, and facilitator with a passion and love for knowledge. With over two decades of experience, she enjoys sharing her expertise across a variety of industries and has designed communication and leadership training programs, facilitated workshops, and has led team members to success across North America.
Amelia has spoken on a global scale at numerous conferences and events and has also taught a variety of university-level courses throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe, and the U.K. Over the course of her career, she has authored numerous articles on gender, communication, leadership success, authenticity, and is also a published author.
As a Twin Cities Business Magazine Notable Women Entrepreneur 2022 and founder of The Women Empowerment Series, she inspires and encourages women to use their voice to initiate change through authentic communication.
Resources:
Email amelia@ameliareigstad.com
Website
LinkedIn
Grab a copy of her book “Virtual Communication Skills”
Transcript
John Simon Sr. 00:06
John, welcome to Simon Says, inspire a podcast about life, leadership and building legacies. I'm John Simon, Sr,
Dina Simon 00:14
and I'm Dina Simon.
John Simon Sr. 00:16
Our guest today is Dr Amelia rigstat, PhD. Amelia is a keynote speaker, author, communication and leadership development consultant and founder of the women empowerment series. Amelia, Welcome to our broadcast.
Amelia Reigstad 00:31
Thank you. Thank you. I'm happy to be here.
Dina Simon 00:33
We're super excited to have you. Yes,
John Simon Sr. 00:36
why don't you take a second and tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and where you live, and maybe what you do in your spare time?
Amelia Reigstad 00:43
Sure. So I am originally from just outside of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Very cool. Oh, okay. So I spent the first 30 years of my life in a small town called Abbotsford, so it actually sits right on the Sumas Washington, Abbotsford, BC, Canada border. So, so always grew up going across the line, you know, with my folks to get gas and eggs and cheese dairy products. So grew up in Canada, and in 2010 I met my husband at my childhood best friend's wedding in Lynchburg, Virginia, and I went down there to be a part of her wedding. And sure enough, met my husband, or soon to be husband, and we dated long distance for a couple years, and then I ended up in White Bear Lake, Minnesota.
Dina Simon 01:35
Oh my goodness. So how did you get to white bear? It was he from this area? So he,
Amelia Reigstad 01:38
yeah, he is from white bear. So it's really, really fun because his parents are still in white bear. You know, it's Hammond, and he's got an older brother and a younger brother all still live in the area. Nice. Our kids go to school together, so the cousins are besties, and, yeah, it's fun. Oh,
Dina Simon 01:54
that's so great. How
John Simon Sr. 01:55
large of a town is it? White Bear
Amelia Reigstad 01:57
Lake? Gosh, that's a good question. Now I probably won't have it right, but I want to say maybe 30,000 people in white bear, but it's surrounded by a lot of other communities too, so it certainly doesn't feel small. Yeah, and we're only 20 minutes from St Paul, Minneapolis, so yeah, okay, yeah. So John, we'll
Dina Simon 02:20
have to take you there sometimes. So Amelia, the white bear is an area that we love. So John, it's kind of similar to Stillwater, like the cute little town, yeah, and that in our retirement, we'd love to find something that we could live in, that we could walk to. And white bear is a very desirable area, so very fun that you settled there. Yeah,
Amelia Reigstad 02:39
it's lovely. I think if there was any place, I mean, it would be here. It's great. And we live right off the lake, so like you said, like, we're able to walk everywhere. We can go downtown. We can ride bikes. It's great, nice. Okay,
John Simon Sr. 02:51
well, I mentioned to Nina before that you're not the first person who's had on the podcast that started a business during the pandemic. Yeah. And I was reading a little bit about the friend of yours who said, Look, you got to change the way you do things in order to make it work during a pandemic, as a lot of businesses have to learn to do. But we had tamaka Jones labs, who is the founder of workers team, and she started it right during the pandemic, and she's done very well with it, and we enjoyed having her on the podcast that it's, it's great to see that people are flexible enough to do those type of things that you know that's you have to just change the way you you do business. Yeah,
Amelia Reigstad 03:30
absolutely. And for me too, my kind of jump to starting my own business. I was a university professor for 15 years, and so the start of the pandemic, I was teaching full time. I had just turned 40, I finished my doctorate degree, and I was like, Huh? I don't really want to teach anymore. What am I going to do with my life? So I was really, really fortunate. My doctorate dissertation was about gender differences in communication styles, so essentially, how men and women communicate differently in the workplace and leading up to the pandemic. You know, my study had taken place in and around the Twin Cities, so different professional associations and business professionals were really interested in the findings from that study. And so I found myself doing a lot of speaking, and when I got to this point in the pandemic where I was like, gosh, I just don't know if I want to teach the up and coming professionals anymore, because doing that for 15 years, I felt that my time was maybe up with that. I had always said to my students, be passionate about what you're doing, and I style that my passion just wasn't quite there anymore. So I thought, Well, why don't I start a business? You know, let's take what I learned, you know, throughout my doctorate and my and my master's degree was about gender communication as well, and and let's start a business. And then the pandemic hit, so I was like, All right, we're really doing this.
John Simon Sr. 04:55
But if it can survive through all of that, you know that it's going to be a great business. Yeah. Yeah,
Amelia Reigstad 05:00
it is, and I and, you know, I just feel really fortunate that, you know, I had the ability to do the things that I want to do, and thinking about it from that leadership perspective too. I mean, I've certainly had my fair share of leaders who weren't fantastic leaders, and it's probably, you know why it really because this isn't my first business that I started. I had a PR consultancy prior to teaching as well. You know, while I really felt it was important to kind of get back to my entrepreneurial roots, I'm not really a rule follower. I don't really like having other people tell me what to do. So having my own business works out really well
Dina Simon 05:38
for me. Love that, love that. And I would imagine during the pandemic, because of marketing and messaging and things were so important during that time, like everybody was scrambling to figure out, okay, how do we communicate what we do and our products and services? And what an amazing lens to have, as far as truly the audience on who's receiving that. So you got through the pandemic then and now, what's like an ideal client for you?
Amelia Reigstad 06:03
So ideal client is, you know, you get that question, and some people be like, Oh, anybody? Anybody the ideal client, right? And sure, you can say that. But for myself, really, it is, you know, either departments within larger organizations, you know, like a training and development department. Maybe it's the women's leadership group or mid sized companies, you know, and I'll say too, folks that have the budget for training and development or leaders that know how important you know, leadership communication training is, because there's a lot of organizations out there that you know. They can say one thing, you know, but are they actually kind of putting in the steps to help out their team?
John Simon Sr. 06:45
I like the way you talk about elevating every conversation you have with people to make it a better conversation. I think that's really, really important to people, because sometimes you hear different things than somebody saying and to elevate it. And it looked to me, from what I looked at on mine and everything, it looks like your seminars are a lot of fun.
Amelia Reigstad 07:08
They are a lot of fun. I've got purple hair, so you can't get more fun than that, right? No, they are, I mean, and it's really important to me when you know whether it's, you know, a keynote speaking opportunity, or if I'm working with a team for a half day workshop, that it is engaging, that it is fun, and I really feel as a facilitator and trainer, I want to share insights. I want to share concepts. I want to have people think a little bit differently, but then I want them to take that and start applying it right away, right? So a lot of my sessions, certainly, they're conversational, and folks are learning something, but they're taking what I teach them straight away and applying it to something really tangible within their business that they can really apply to their day to day. Rules, nice,
Dina Simon 07:56
and that's where the rubber meets the road, right? Absolutely,
Amelia Reigstad 07:59
yeah, absolutely, yeah,
Dina Simon 08:00
yeah.
John Simon Sr. 08:01
What I saw that you spent considerable time on the work life balance, knowing when to separate everything and and really engage so you don't have burnout with with people.
Amelia Reigstad 08:13
Yes, definitely. And you know what? It's interesting, because it is, I would say that the whole the idea of balance and burnout is still this hot topic right now where some people won't agree with me that work life balance is attainable, right? Sometimes people will say, Okay, it's work life balance. Integration. It's work life harmony, whatever word we can come up with, right, whatever word that we can come up with. But I really feel that we can have balance between our work lives and our personal lives, and that we should on the flip side of that, though, it really does take effort. It does take effort. Yeah, you know, you have, you have to try to separate, yep, you know, in order to make it attainable, yeah, yeah. I don't want to be working 24/7, I'm sure a lot of people don't.
John Simon Sr. 09:07
When you do have that work life balance, that's when your productivity moves up.
Dina Simon 09:12
Yes, yeah, yeah. And it takes a village, like, you know. So, like you said, you got to try and and there's got to be people around you have to work for an organization that gets it. You know that business is business, business needs to get done. But where is there some flexibility the community of people you have around you and all of that? Yeah? Well,
Amelia Reigstad 09:32
it's true, because burnout is systemic, right? It manifests in individuals, but it doesn't originate, yeah, right. So we do need the support of our village. We need the support of really good leadership. Yes, hate that whole kind of cliche statement of lead by example. Oh, isn't that a wonderful, wonderful realization,
Dina Simon 09:54
exactly, well, and you said something super important too, like a line item. Leadership training and development needs to have a budget. It has to be a line item, because we do so much to find people into our organizations, and then that retention and developing them so often gets left to the wayside. And yeah,
Amelia Reigstad 10:16
and it's such an important point too, Dina also that I feel that there's a lot of time and effort and money put into developing our leaders, but what I'm trying to do with my business as well is, let's develop all of our team members. Right? Because everybody can be a leader in different ways, shapes, forms. Not everybody wants to be in a leadership position, right? So why aren't organizations investing in teams?
Dina Simon 10:49
Yes, yes, and absolutely yes. So you talked a little bit about where you were from and where you live now, and so talk to us a little bit more about your family, yeah,
Amelia Reigstad 11:01
so back in Canada, and I would say, back home, well, I collect two homes. Yeah, it's different. So I'm really fortunate. My mom and dad are retired, and they're traveling, lots of traveling. I'm actually meeting them in Fort Lauderdale on Thursday before they head out on a cruise. So going to hang out with mom and dad for a couple days. I've got a younger brother who's married. I've got two nieces back in Canada. And then here my husband, Jared. We have Aubrey, who is 17, my stepdaughter. And then we have Maverick together, who is nine, nice so. And my husband's family is all here, his parents, brothers, their wives, lots and lots of nieces and nephews. So it's fun.
Dina Simon 11:45
Very fun. Well, Fort Lauderdale, you mentioned it's one of my favorite places. We go there often, and so I know right where you will be to be waving that ship
Amelia Reigstad 11:54
on, yes, yeah, I think we're in there staying in Pompano Beach. I'm just showing up like I'm sleeping on the couch, and that's okay. What does Jared do? My husband is a structural engineer, so he him and his brother are both vice president of the family's company business. It's Rick said, engineers. And then my father in law is a brilliant man who created and invented this new system. It's called PS zero, and it's a concrete coupler, mechanical splice system that's really reinvented in the concrete industry. So it's super fun to see. You know that my father in law developed this product, and then my husband and his brother involved in selling it. So it's really cool, fun, exciting time for our family.
Dina Simon 12:44
Wow. Well,
John Simon Sr. 12:46
that's great,
Dina Simon 12:47
yeah, talk about like so education. Obviously, there's a huge piece of education, innovation, entrepreneurialism, right there with all of this. Oh my gosh, yeah, it's super fun. So then legacy. So life, leadership, legacy. So we talk about legacy being something that we're doing now, not something that necessarily is, you know what happens when we're gone? So living legacies and building legacies, talk to us a little bit about
Amelia Reigstad 13:13
that. Yeah. I mean, I think that's really cool. I mean, and even just, you know what I just shared with you, with my husband's family's company, I mean, that's essentially what they're doing, right? Is setting up, you know, this legacy of this incredible, you know, company that's really, you know, doing revel in, what's the word I'm looking for? Revolutionary. Yep, thank you. Yeah, revolutionary things within the industry. So, you know, understanding it's super fun to see our kids. You know, whether they're hanging out down at the office, like they they see papa, or they know that Papa has, you know, developed this really cool system, and they're all interested in it, right? You know, my, my in laws Christmas card this year was all the grandkids, and there's, let's see 368, of them all wearing the PS zero shirts for Christmas on the Christmas card. Oh my gosh, fun. Yeah, certainly, some legacy there and and even, you know, from our immediate family. So if Maverick and Aubrey are kids, you know, just sharing with them what we're doing, yep, right. Like, Maverick knows what I do for a living. And it was so funny after his I think it was his first conference in the fall. So he's a third grader, I got an email back from the teacher saying, hey, you know, MAVs, really proud of you, like he talks about, you know, you as a as a teacher, and you know women empowerment series, and you know the stand up in front of large audiences and talk. And I asked him about it, and he's like, Yeah, Mom, you're perfect. Oh, like, how is that? I know that
Dina Simon 14:51
is amazing. So tell us more about the women empowerment series.
Amelia Reigstad 14:56
Yeah. So the women empowerment series, it was after. Passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, so fall of 2020, I didn't really know too too much about her. I just knew that she was this incredibly badass woman who changed a lot of things for women. And so I was sitting on the couch, and I was like, I wanted to do something that would continue her legacy, and you know, that would really encourage and inspire women to use their voice to initiate change. So it's a cohort based program that does just that. So that underlying kind of foundation of, you know, sharing with women, insights, research, thoughts of like, literally, how can they use their voice to initiate change? So it's all about communication, you know. And it could be, you know, how do you navigate through a tough conversation with your male boss? Or it could be something really, really big, right? How do we go change a lot that we're really passionate about so big, small scale, but it's certainly a passion project of mine. You know, I'm certainly a feminist at heart. So
Dina Simon 16:03
and do you have like, a cohort going at all times? Or how does that work? No, I
Amelia Reigstad 16:08
just offer it a few times of years, and then I take it into organizations as wise, nice, right? So organizations, if they want to do something for their women, especially right now, around International Women's Day and Women's History Month, there's a way to celebrate, like all these amazing women and organizations. You know, we can come in and do specific workshops. We can come in and run the cohort series, but it's really fun.
Dina Simon 16:32
Love that, well, right? There is a piece of legacy, but I love that the T and I love that the teacher reached out to you to let you know that what Maverick was saying, I think,
Amelia Reigstad 16:41
yeah, it was really sweet. And super sweet. There is no way shape or form, you know, I am perfect. Hence the book that I am writing about perfectionism. But it's really sweeping my son, basically, right? And,
Dina Simon 16:52
and, and, and even, even if it was for that moment, because our kids don't normally think we're very perfect, no,
Amelia Reigstad 16:58
we just got back from a walk, like, and I dragged him. I'm like, Bud Mom, get some exercise today before I hop on this call this afternoon. Let's go for a walk. He's like, Oh, I'm doing pastor, right? Like, come on.
Dina Simon 17:12
So you just mentioned that you have a book coming out. I do hear about that. Yeah.
Amelia Reigstad 17:16
So this has been a long time coming. I had a goal of writing a book by the time I was 30. I published my first book when I was 40. So during the pandemic, I wrote a book with a publisher in the UK about virtual communication skills, so how to communicate more effectively virtually in the workplace. And that was that was great, because that was a business book, but I always had this idea. I always had the title of the book, and it was called the perfect daughter. And at the time, didn't know what it meant, where it came from, you know, to an extent, but I always felt, you know, that I was or that I represented this perfect daughter in the eyes of my parents, right? Like I was a good kid, things came easily to me. I excelled at school, and as I continued, you know, through adolescence into adulthood and then with my education focused on gender communication, really starting to understand, you know, kind of all these different pressures in women's lives to feel perfect. So whether it's self pressure, whether it's societal pressure, patriarchal pressure, right? Like, we know men and women aren't equal. We still aren't. Maybe one day we'll get there, you know, but I had this, I know it kind of is, I feel this duty that I need to share more about perfectionism. And so I'm sitting here beside me. I've got all of my developmental edits that I need to get back into with the start of the new year, and then the plans for it to be published by September, October of 2024 nice ecos crossed. Yes, that's a it's a lot of work to go through that. And
Dina Simon 18:56
are you working with the publisher now?
Amelia Reigstad 18:58
I am so the lovely, amazing team at wise Inc nice in the Twin Cities. Yeah, they're very familiar. A lot of people know who they are. So I'm excited to work with Amy and Dara and their team.
Dina Simon 19:09
That's exciting. So boat launch in the fall. Fingers crossed.
Amelia Reigstad 19:13
And if not, like, my like, kind of like, last deadline, I need it to be out by next year International Women's Day. There you go. That's like, my final. It's got to be done. And
John Simon Sr. 19:25
I'm sure in the show notes, Dean will put some information in about how to purchase your your book, the virtual communication skills. Yeah,
Amelia Reigstad 19:33
that sounds great.
Dina Simon 19:34
Yeah, that Wow. During the pandemic, we sure needed a lot of that. And now there's this whole trend, you know, where companies are saying you must come back, and a lot of people are like, Nope, I'm not coming back. You hired me to be virtual, and I'm gonna stay virtual. So it's a really fascinating time right now. I think moving into this new year, yeah,
Amelia Reigstad 19:52
I think that's interesting too. I always kind of felt like, Oh, we'll get back to all in person. You know for sure, we will. Well. But now I'm like, gosh, you know, I don't, I don't know, you know. And now on the flip side of it, you know, I know that love, some people love working virtually, you know? And I do it all has like, a time and a place. But I think we need connection too. We do right? We need face to face collaboration, yep. So I wonder if that might, or the emphasis, baby is put more so on the hybrid. Like, okay, we're not going to get rid of everything completely. We'd love for you to be in the office. What I do, think it's done, though, it's really made leaders kind of going back to the leadership side of things, listen to their employees more, right? Or take, kind of take. And maybe it took a global pandemic to do this, right? It'll really take into consideration what works best for teams,
Dina Simon 20:49
right? And and individually, that what works for one is it going to work for another? And, yeah, how do you really listen in? What are you what are you most excited about going into the new year?
Amelia Reigstad 20:59
Yeah, so my I'm all about words of the year, and so this year for me is purpose. So everything that I'm aligning myself with, both personally and professionally, I'm really looking at it from this purpose lens, right, to make my life more purposeful. So even if it's a matter of turning down business, because that doesn't necessarily align with maybe what I believe in, or, you know, just the purpose side of things, you know. So that's what, that's what I'm excited about. It just doing some cool things. So I'm speaking at a conference in Costa Rica in March. Yes, I think we all need to go with you, yes, through the United Nations University of peace. So it's a United Nations mandated University, and it's a global happiness Summit. Wow. I mean, which is just cool, right? It's just cool. So that those types of things align with my word of purpose, yeah, like going traveling, which I love to do, meeting people from around the world, focused on happiness, right? Oh my gosh, that's
John Simon Sr. 22:07
that falls right into your wheelhouse, right?
Amelia Reigstad 22:10
And we're talking about burnout there. So it's gonna be great going
Dina Simon 22:14
to Costa Rica, where you get to, like to spend a few days actually being in Costa Rica. Okay? So
Amelia Reigstad 22:19
this is again too. Goes back to that purpose service, living. So, yep, I fly out on a Wednesday. The conference is like Thursday through Sunday, and then my family's meeting me for a week.
Dina Simon 22:30
Yay. Good for you.
Amelia Reigstad 22:31
So we've got a sloth hike booked, and some zip trekking and some coffee and, you know, cuisine tours with Costa Rican families, like it's gonna be incredible. Oh my gosh, yeah, minus the snakes, the spiders and the other insects. We're all kind of, oh, not so sure about that, but maverick's thrilled about the snakes. I'm not going anywhere where I can't see what's in front of me.
John Simon Sr. 22:59
Well, that whole thing solves right into your purpose.
Amelia Reigstad 23:01
It does, yeah, and I'm really
Dina Simon 23:03
excited about it. And congratulations for actually taking the time, like we often take those trips, and we're like, oh, just gonna power through and come home. But that's so awesome that you on purpose. Yeah, family will be there. And what an ex, just extraordinary experience.
Amelia Reigstad 23:20
Yeah, it'll be really, really great. And so, you know, Costa Rica was never on our family radar for a trip of any sort, so we did. We hummed and hot about it, but however, we were like, Well, no, let's just do it. Yeah, let's do something different. I mean, yeah, so the kids are excited, and yeah, it'll be great,
Dina Simon 23:36
very fun. I'm
John Simon Sr. 23:37
sure Maverick and operating will have a great time there.
Dina Simon 23:39
I think so. Too, yeah, too, exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we sure appreciate this. Is there anything else as you were prepping to be on our podcast that you wanted our listeners to hear from you?
Amelia Reigstad 23:51
Oh, I would just say, like, do what you love to do. Think about things with that purpose. And you know, authenticity is really important to me as well. So thinking about you know, what you do and how you communicate from authentic perspective is really helpful as well. Nice. Well,
Dina Simon 24:08
we sure have had fun getting to know you, and we'll be excited to hear about Costa Rica, and then we'll be celebrating a book launch, whenever you're ready, and whatever we can do to help you be successful in that launch.
Amelia Reigstad 24:20
Thank you.
Dina Simon 24:21
We'll be here to support you.
Amelia Reigstad 24:22
I appreciate it so lovely to chat with you both.
Dina Simon 24:25
I want to thank Dr Amelia rigstad for joining us, and my father in law, John, as always, for CO hosting the podcast with me. But Amelia was fantastic. We love the word purpose, and that she's absolutely being on purpose with how she's moving forward in this year. Good luck to you in Costa Rica, and in the show notes, we will make sure people know how to get in touch with you. As John said, Your facilitated workshops look like they are way too much fun, and I love just your strategy on how taking leadership into those types of settings and. And the rubber meets the road when there's something that they can apply immediately into their lives. So thanks Amelia for being on thank you again, John and until we talk again, you.
John, welcome to Simon Says, inspire a podcast about life, leadership and building legacies. I'm John Simon, Sr,
Dina Simon 00:14
and I'm Dina Simon.
John Simon Sr. 00:16
Our guest today is Dr Amelia rigstat, PhD. Amelia is a keynote speaker, author, communication and leadership development consultant and founder of the women empowerment series. Amelia, Welcome to our broadcast.
Amelia Reigstad 00:31
Thank you. Thank you. I'm happy to be here.
Dina Simon 00:33
We're super excited to have you. Yes,
John Simon Sr. 00:36
why don't you take a second and tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and where you live, and maybe what you do in your spare time?
Amelia Reigstad 00:43
Sure. So I am originally from just outside of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Very cool. Oh, okay. So I spent the first 30 years of my life in a small town called Abbotsford, so it actually sits right on the Sumas Washington, Abbotsford, BC, Canada border. So, so always grew up going across the line, you know, with my folks to get gas and eggs and cheese dairy products. So grew up in Canada, and in 2010 I met my husband at my childhood best friend's wedding in Lynchburg, Virginia, and I went down there to be a part of her wedding. And sure enough, met my husband, or soon to be husband, and we dated long distance for a couple years, and then I ended up in White Bear Lake, Minnesota.
Dina Simon 01:35
Oh my goodness. So how did you get to white bear? It was he from this area? So he,
Amelia Reigstad 01:38
yeah, he is from white bear. So it's really, really fun because his parents are still in white bear. You know, it's Hammond, and he's got an older brother and a younger brother all still live in the area. Nice. Our kids go to school together, so the cousins are besties, and, yeah, it's fun. Oh,
Dina Simon 01:54
that's so great. How
John Simon Sr. 01:55
large of a town is it? White Bear
Amelia Reigstad 01:57
Lake? Gosh, that's a good question. Now I probably won't have it right, but I want to say maybe 30,000 people in white bear, but it's surrounded by a lot of other communities too, so it certainly doesn't feel small. Yeah, and we're only 20 minutes from St Paul, Minneapolis, so yeah, okay, yeah. So John, we'll
Dina Simon 02:20
have to take you there sometimes. So Amelia, the white bear is an area that we love. So John, it's kind of similar to Stillwater, like the cute little town, yeah, and that in our retirement, we'd love to find something that we could live in, that we could walk to. And white bear is a very desirable area, so very fun that you settled there. Yeah,
Amelia Reigstad 02:39
it's lovely. I think if there was any place, I mean, it would be here. It's great. And we live right off the lake, so like you said, like, we're able to walk everywhere. We can go downtown. We can ride bikes. It's great, nice. Okay,
John Simon Sr. 02:51
well, I mentioned to Nina before that you're not the first person who's had on the podcast that started a business during the pandemic. Yeah. And I was reading a little bit about the friend of yours who said, Look, you got to change the way you do things in order to make it work during a pandemic, as a lot of businesses have to learn to do. But we had tamaka Jones labs, who is the founder of workers team, and she started it right during the pandemic, and she's done very well with it, and we enjoyed having her on the podcast that it's, it's great to see that people are flexible enough to do those type of things that you know that's you have to just change the way you you do business. Yeah,
Amelia Reigstad 03:30
absolutely. And for me too, my kind of jump to starting my own business. I was a university professor for 15 years, and so the start of the pandemic, I was teaching full time. I had just turned 40, I finished my doctorate degree, and I was like, Huh? I don't really want to teach anymore. What am I going to do with my life? So I was really, really fortunate. My doctorate dissertation was about gender differences in communication styles, so essentially, how men and women communicate differently in the workplace and leading up to the pandemic. You know, my study had taken place in and around the Twin Cities, so different professional associations and business professionals were really interested in the findings from that study. And so I found myself doing a lot of speaking, and when I got to this point in the pandemic where I was like, gosh, I just don't know if I want to teach the up and coming professionals anymore, because doing that for 15 years, I felt that my time was maybe up with that. I had always said to my students, be passionate about what you're doing, and I style that my passion just wasn't quite there anymore. So I thought, Well, why don't I start a business? You know, let's take what I learned, you know, throughout my doctorate and my and my master's degree was about gender communication as well, and and let's start a business. And then the pandemic hit, so I was like, All right, we're really doing this.
John Simon Sr. 04:55
But if it can survive through all of that, you know that it's going to be a great business. Yeah. Yeah,
Amelia Reigstad 05:00
it is, and I and, you know, I just feel really fortunate that, you know, I had the ability to do the things that I want to do, and thinking about it from that leadership perspective too. I mean, I've certainly had my fair share of leaders who weren't fantastic leaders, and it's probably, you know why it really because this isn't my first business that I started. I had a PR consultancy prior to teaching as well. You know, while I really felt it was important to kind of get back to my entrepreneurial roots, I'm not really a rule follower. I don't really like having other people tell me what to do. So having my own business works out really well
Dina Simon 05:38
for me. Love that, love that. And I would imagine during the pandemic, because of marketing and messaging and things were so important during that time, like everybody was scrambling to figure out, okay, how do we communicate what we do and our products and services? And what an amazing lens to have, as far as truly the audience on who's receiving that. So you got through the pandemic then and now, what's like an ideal client for you?
Amelia Reigstad 06:03
So ideal client is, you know, you get that question, and some people be like, Oh, anybody? Anybody the ideal client, right? And sure, you can say that. But for myself, really, it is, you know, either departments within larger organizations, you know, like a training and development department. Maybe it's the women's leadership group or mid sized companies, you know, and I'll say too, folks that have the budget for training and development or leaders that know how important you know, leadership communication training is, because there's a lot of organizations out there that you know. They can say one thing, you know, but are they actually kind of putting in the steps to help out their team?
John Simon Sr. 06:45
I like the way you talk about elevating every conversation you have with people to make it a better conversation. I think that's really, really important to people, because sometimes you hear different things than somebody saying and to elevate it. And it looked to me, from what I looked at on mine and everything, it looks like your seminars are a lot of fun.
Amelia Reigstad 07:08
They are a lot of fun. I've got purple hair, so you can't get more fun than that, right? No, they are, I mean, and it's really important to me when you know whether it's, you know, a keynote speaking opportunity, or if I'm working with a team for a half day workshop, that it is engaging, that it is fun, and I really feel as a facilitator and trainer, I want to share insights. I want to share concepts. I want to have people think a little bit differently, but then I want them to take that and start applying it right away, right? So a lot of my sessions, certainly, they're conversational, and folks are learning something, but they're taking what I teach them straight away and applying it to something really tangible within their business that they can really apply to their day to day. Rules, nice,
Dina Simon 07:56
and that's where the rubber meets the road, right? Absolutely,
Amelia Reigstad 07:59
yeah, absolutely, yeah,
Dina Simon 08:00
yeah.
John Simon Sr. 08:01
What I saw that you spent considerable time on the work life balance, knowing when to separate everything and and really engage so you don't have burnout with with people.
Amelia Reigstad 08:13
Yes, definitely. And you know what? It's interesting, because it is, I would say that the whole the idea of balance and burnout is still this hot topic right now where some people won't agree with me that work life balance is attainable, right? Sometimes people will say, Okay, it's work life balance. Integration. It's work life harmony, whatever word we can come up with, right, whatever word that we can come up with. But I really feel that we can have balance between our work lives and our personal lives, and that we should on the flip side of that, though, it really does take effort. It does take effort. Yeah, you know, you have, you have to try to separate, yep, you know, in order to make it attainable, yeah, yeah. I don't want to be working 24/7, I'm sure a lot of people don't.
John Simon Sr. 09:07
When you do have that work life balance, that's when your productivity moves up.
Dina Simon 09:12
Yes, yeah, yeah. And it takes a village, like, you know. So, like you said, you got to try and and there's got to be people around you have to work for an organization that gets it. You know that business is business, business needs to get done. But where is there some flexibility the community of people you have around you and all of that? Yeah? Well,
Amelia Reigstad 09:32
it's true, because burnout is systemic, right? It manifests in individuals, but it doesn't originate, yeah, right. So we do need the support of our village. We need the support of really good leadership. Yes, hate that whole kind of cliche statement of lead by example. Oh, isn't that a wonderful, wonderful realization,
Dina Simon 09:54
exactly, well, and you said something super important too, like a line item. Leadership training and development needs to have a budget. It has to be a line item, because we do so much to find people into our organizations, and then that retention and developing them so often gets left to the wayside. And yeah,
Amelia Reigstad 10:16
and it's such an important point too, Dina also that I feel that there's a lot of time and effort and money put into developing our leaders, but what I'm trying to do with my business as well is, let's develop all of our team members. Right? Because everybody can be a leader in different ways, shapes, forms. Not everybody wants to be in a leadership position, right? So why aren't organizations investing in teams?
Dina Simon 10:49
Yes, yes, and absolutely yes. So you talked a little bit about where you were from and where you live now, and so talk to us a little bit more about your family, yeah,
Amelia Reigstad 11:01
so back in Canada, and I would say, back home, well, I collect two homes. Yeah, it's different. So I'm really fortunate. My mom and dad are retired, and they're traveling, lots of traveling. I'm actually meeting them in Fort Lauderdale on Thursday before they head out on a cruise. So going to hang out with mom and dad for a couple days. I've got a younger brother who's married. I've got two nieces back in Canada. And then here my husband, Jared. We have Aubrey, who is 17, my stepdaughter. And then we have Maverick together, who is nine, nice so. And my husband's family is all here, his parents, brothers, their wives, lots and lots of nieces and nephews. So it's fun.
Dina Simon 11:45
Very fun. Well, Fort Lauderdale, you mentioned it's one of my favorite places. We go there often, and so I know right where you will be to be waving that ship
Amelia Reigstad 11:54
on, yes, yeah, I think we're in there staying in Pompano Beach. I'm just showing up like I'm sleeping on the couch, and that's okay. What does Jared do? My husband is a structural engineer, so he him and his brother are both vice president of the family's company business. It's Rick said, engineers. And then my father in law is a brilliant man who created and invented this new system. It's called PS zero, and it's a concrete coupler, mechanical splice system that's really reinvented in the concrete industry. So it's super fun to see. You know that my father in law developed this product, and then my husband and his brother involved in selling it. So it's really cool, fun, exciting time for our family.
Dina Simon 12:44
Wow. Well,
John Simon Sr. 12:46
that's great,
Dina Simon 12:47
yeah, talk about like so education. Obviously, there's a huge piece of education, innovation, entrepreneurialism, right there with all of this. Oh my gosh, yeah, it's super fun. So then legacy. So life, leadership, legacy. So we talk about legacy being something that we're doing now, not something that necessarily is, you know what happens when we're gone? So living legacies and building legacies, talk to us a little bit about
Amelia Reigstad 13:13
that. Yeah. I mean, I think that's really cool. I mean, and even just, you know what I just shared with you, with my husband's family's company, I mean, that's essentially what they're doing, right? Is setting up, you know, this legacy of this incredible, you know, company that's really, you know, doing revel in, what's the word I'm looking for? Revolutionary. Yep, thank you. Yeah, revolutionary things within the industry. So, you know, understanding it's super fun to see our kids. You know, whether they're hanging out down at the office, like they they see papa, or they know that Papa has, you know, developed this really cool system, and they're all interested in it, right? You know, my, my in laws Christmas card this year was all the grandkids, and there's, let's see 368, of them all wearing the PS zero shirts for Christmas on the Christmas card. Oh my gosh, fun. Yeah, certainly, some legacy there and and even, you know, from our immediate family. So if Maverick and Aubrey are kids, you know, just sharing with them what we're doing, yep, right. Like, Maverick knows what I do for a living. And it was so funny after his I think it was his first conference in the fall. So he's a third grader, I got an email back from the teacher saying, hey, you know, MAVs, really proud of you, like he talks about, you know, you as a as a teacher, and you know women empowerment series, and you know the stand up in front of large audiences and talk. And I asked him about it, and he's like, Yeah, Mom, you're perfect. Oh, like, how is that? I know that
Dina Simon 14:51
is amazing. So tell us more about the women empowerment series.
Amelia Reigstad 14:56
Yeah. So the women empowerment series, it was after. Passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, so fall of 2020, I didn't really know too too much about her. I just knew that she was this incredibly badass woman who changed a lot of things for women. And so I was sitting on the couch, and I was like, I wanted to do something that would continue her legacy, and you know, that would really encourage and inspire women to use their voice to initiate change. So it's a cohort based program that does just that. So that underlying kind of foundation of, you know, sharing with women, insights, research, thoughts of like, literally, how can they use their voice to initiate change? So it's all about communication, you know. And it could be, you know, how do you navigate through a tough conversation with your male boss? Or it could be something really, really big, right? How do we go change a lot that we're really passionate about so big, small scale, but it's certainly a passion project of mine. You know, I'm certainly a feminist at heart. So
Dina Simon 16:03
and do you have like, a cohort going at all times? Or how does that work? No, I
Amelia Reigstad 16:08
just offer it a few times of years, and then I take it into organizations as wise, nice, right? So organizations, if they want to do something for their women, especially right now, around International Women's Day and Women's History Month, there's a way to celebrate, like all these amazing women and organizations. You know, we can come in and do specific workshops. We can come in and run the cohort series, but it's really fun.
Dina Simon 16:32
Love that, well, right? There is a piece of legacy, but I love that the T and I love that the teacher reached out to you to let you know that what Maverick was saying, I think,
Amelia Reigstad 16:41
yeah, it was really sweet. And super sweet. There is no way shape or form, you know, I am perfect. Hence the book that I am writing about perfectionism. But it's really sweeping my son, basically, right? And,
Dina Simon 16:52
and, and, and even, even if it was for that moment, because our kids don't normally think we're very perfect, no,
Amelia Reigstad 16:58
we just got back from a walk, like, and I dragged him. I'm like, Bud Mom, get some exercise today before I hop on this call this afternoon. Let's go for a walk. He's like, Oh, I'm doing pastor, right? Like, come on.
Dina Simon 17:12
So you just mentioned that you have a book coming out. I do hear about that. Yeah.
Amelia Reigstad 17:16
So this has been a long time coming. I had a goal of writing a book by the time I was 30. I published my first book when I was 40. So during the pandemic, I wrote a book with a publisher in the UK about virtual communication skills, so how to communicate more effectively virtually in the workplace. And that was that was great, because that was a business book, but I always had this idea. I always had the title of the book, and it was called the perfect daughter. And at the time, didn't know what it meant, where it came from, you know, to an extent, but I always felt, you know, that I was or that I represented this perfect daughter in the eyes of my parents, right? Like I was a good kid, things came easily to me. I excelled at school, and as I continued, you know, through adolescence into adulthood and then with my education focused on gender communication, really starting to understand, you know, kind of all these different pressures in women's lives to feel perfect. So whether it's self pressure, whether it's societal pressure, patriarchal pressure, right? Like, we know men and women aren't equal. We still aren't. Maybe one day we'll get there, you know, but I had this, I know it kind of is, I feel this duty that I need to share more about perfectionism. And so I'm sitting here beside me. I've got all of my developmental edits that I need to get back into with the start of the new year, and then the plans for it to be published by September, October of 2024 nice ecos crossed. Yes, that's a it's a lot of work to go through that. And
Dina Simon 18:56
are you working with the publisher now?
Amelia Reigstad 18:58
I am so the lovely, amazing team at wise Inc nice in the Twin Cities. Yeah, they're very familiar. A lot of people know who they are. So I'm excited to work with Amy and Dara and their team.
Dina Simon 19:09
That's exciting. So boat launch in the fall. Fingers crossed.
Amelia Reigstad 19:13
And if not, like, my like, kind of like, last deadline, I need it to be out by next year International Women's Day. There you go. That's like, my final. It's got to be done. And
John Simon Sr. 19:25
I'm sure in the show notes, Dean will put some information in about how to purchase your your book, the virtual communication skills. Yeah,
Amelia Reigstad 19:33
that sounds great.
Dina Simon 19:34
Yeah, that Wow. During the pandemic, we sure needed a lot of that. And now there's this whole trend, you know, where companies are saying you must come back, and a lot of people are like, Nope, I'm not coming back. You hired me to be virtual, and I'm gonna stay virtual. So it's a really fascinating time right now. I think moving into this new year, yeah,
Amelia Reigstad 19:52
I think that's interesting too. I always kind of felt like, Oh, we'll get back to all in person. You know for sure, we will. Well. But now I'm like, gosh, you know, I don't, I don't know, you know. And now on the flip side of it, you know, I know that love, some people love working virtually, you know? And I do it all has like, a time and a place. But I think we need connection too. We do right? We need face to face collaboration, yep. So I wonder if that might, or the emphasis, baby is put more so on the hybrid. Like, okay, we're not going to get rid of everything completely. We'd love for you to be in the office. What I do, think it's done, though, it's really made leaders kind of going back to the leadership side of things, listen to their employees more, right? Or take, kind of take. And maybe it took a global pandemic to do this, right? It'll really take into consideration what works best for teams,
Dina Simon 20:49
right? And and individually, that what works for one is it going to work for another? And, yeah, how do you really listen in? What are you what are you most excited about going into the new year?
Amelia Reigstad 20:59
Yeah, so my I'm all about words of the year, and so this year for me is purpose. So everything that I'm aligning myself with, both personally and professionally, I'm really looking at it from this purpose lens, right, to make my life more purposeful. So even if it's a matter of turning down business, because that doesn't necessarily align with maybe what I believe in, or, you know, just the purpose side of things, you know. So that's what, that's what I'm excited about. It just doing some cool things. So I'm speaking at a conference in Costa Rica in March. Yes, I think we all need to go with you, yes, through the United Nations University of peace. So it's a United Nations mandated University, and it's a global happiness Summit. Wow. I mean, which is just cool, right? It's just cool. So that those types of things align with my word of purpose, yeah, like going traveling, which I love to do, meeting people from around the world, focused on happiness, right? Oh my gosh, that's
John Simon Sr. 22:07
that falls right into your wheelhouse, right?
Amelia Reigstad 22:10
And we're talking about burnout there. So it's gonna be great going
Dina Simon 22:14
to Costa Rica, where you get to, like to spend a few days actually being in Costa Rica. Okay? So
Amelia Reigstad 22:19
this is again too. Goes back to that purpose service, living. So, yep, I fly out on a Wednesday. The conference is like Thursday through Sunday, and then my family's meeting me for a week.
Dina Simon 22:30
Yay. Good for you.
Amelia Reigstad 22:31
So we've got a sloth hike booked, and some zip trekking and some coffee and, you know, cuisine tours with Costa Rican families, like it's gonna be incredible. Oh my gosh, yeah, minus the snakes, the spiders and the other insects. We're all kind of, oh, not so sure about that, but maverick's thrilled about the snakes. I'm not going anywhere where I can't see what's in front of me.
John Simon Sr. 22:59
Well, that whole thing solves right into your purpose.
Amelia Reigstad 23:01
It does, yeah, and I'm really
Dina Simon 23:03
excited about it. And congratulations for actually taking the time, like we often take those trips, and we're like, oh, just gonna power through and come home. But that's so awesome that you on purpose. Yeah, family will be there. And what an ex, just extraordinary experience.
Amelia Reigstad 23:20
Yeah, it'll be really, really great. And so, you know, Costa Rica was never on our family radar for a trip of any sort, so we did. We hummed and hot about it, but however, we were like, Well, no, let's just do it. Yeah, let's do something different. I mean, yeah, so the kids are excited, and yeah, it'll be great,
Dina Simon 23:36
very fun. I'm
John Simon Sr. 23:37
sure Maverick and operating will have a great time there.
Dina Simon 23:39
I think so. Too, yeah, too, exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we sure appreciate this. Is there anything else as you were prepping to be on our podcast that you wanted our listeners to hear from you?
Amelia Reigstad 23:51
Oh, I would just say, like, do what you love to do. Think about things with that purpose. And you know, authenticity is really important to me as well. So thinking about you know, what you do and how you communicate from authentic perspective is really helpful as well. Nice. Well,
Dina Simon 24:08
we sure have had fun getting to know you, and we'll be excited to hear about Costa Rica, and then we'll be celebrating a book launch, whenever you're ready, and whatever we can do to help you be successful in that launch.
Amelia Reigstad 24:20
Thank you.
Dina Simon 24:21
We'll be here to support you.
Amelia Reigstad 24:22
I appreciate it so lovely to chat with you both.
Dina Simon 24:25
I want to thank Dr Amelia rigstad for joining us, and my father in law, John, as always, for CO hosting the podcast with me. But Amelia was fantastic. We love the word purpose, and that she's absolutely being on purpose with how she's moving forward in this year. Good luck to you in Costa Rica, and in the show notes, we will make sure people know how to get in touch with you. As John said, Your facilitated workshops look like they are way too much fun, and I love just your strategy on how taking leadership into those types of settings and. And the rubber meets the road when there's something that they can apply immediately into their lives. So thanks Amelia for being on thank you again, John and until we talk again, you.