Lessons in Effective Leadership & Team Dynamics

Speaker: 00:00:00

Lady Jen Du Plessis: It was in that moment that I realized it wasn't serving my client. Because I'd have to ask questions again. I knew that later I would say, Now remind me again, because I wasn't in front of them. I wasn't taking notes. And I wasn't serving myself because I was freaking out that I wasn't with my family, oh my gosh, I gotta get to this phone call. But I have to be polite. And so all this angst was happening there. And then I definitely was not serving my family.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:00:27

We are back for a nother incredible episode of The ReLaunch podcast and what makes it so good. The people, the people that come on that share their stories, and this lady that I'm about to bring on is really someone near and dear to my heart, I have had an opportunity to get to know her over the last year. She is nothing less than remarkable. And what she's going to share with us today, not just the relaunch journey, but she is also going to share so many of the things the big tips, takeaways that we all need. And let's dive right in. Today I am being joined by Lady Jen Du Plessis. She is the leading authority in building world class teams. She's got four decades behind her in financial services, and over 1 billion in mortgage loans that she's helped fund. Lady Jen helps corporations and entrepreneurs scale from that six figure to seven figures. And here's what I love and beyond. Through masterminds and mentorships. Jen enhances leadership skills and builds powerful teams for multiple results. She's a multiple Amazon number one best selling author. I think there's four or four books out right now Gen.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:01:59

Lady Jen Du Plessis: Four of my own and then I'm currently 22

Hilary DeCesare: 00:02:02

Yeah, okay. I knew there was something crazy there. She actually is the host of two top ranking podcasts and the TV show. Tell me I can't reaching 350 million homes monthly lady Jen's innovative a technique create powerful teams align priorities and rapidly scale systems. She has been featured everywhere, including LA Weekly success, just to name a few been on covers done it all. She's been on stages. This is what I love. She's been on stages with Tony Robbins, Les Brown, Shannon Lechter. And that is just to name a few. She actually has mentors that she's going to talk about as well, that are that she has had so much incredible, just mentorships through it and why she believes that everyone needs a mentor. But outside of work. This is what I love. Remember, we are not just the business, Jen enjoys hurt. She has a 21 acre farm it in Northern Virginia, that she lives with her husband, Brian, and she's got oodles of grandchildren now. So she's you know, really trying to live that life of everything she's dedicated to so many of her philanthropies. And she's ready to tune in to the relaunch podcast today. And let's let lady Jen guide us to live above and beyond your business. Lady. Jan, thank you so much for being here. And it just lights me up to have you here.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:03:40

Lady Jen Du Plessis: Thank you. I'm always lit up when I'm with you know, we've just answered. And we don't even want to tell everybody all of the similarities that are just crazy,

Hilary DeCesare: 00:03:52

crazy, crazy, crazy that we're discovering. Well. And we're and here's the best part. Hmm, I have two more events with you coming up in June that I just I pinch myself when I'm like I heard just before we got on here that you're going to be at another one. And I'm like, Yes, more time with you the better. But now I want to I want to introduce you to the people listening right now. And I always like to dive in with a relaunch story or relaunch that's happened to you a transition that has allowed you to transform into the woman you are today. But it left a major impact. And so take us back to what would that what would that look like for you? What's a significant relaunch?

Hilary DeCesare: 00:04:34

Lady Jen Du Plessis: Yeah, I mean, the thing is, there's a couple and I think we have many in our lives. Right? And I had you on my podcast success to significance life after breaking through glass ceilings. We always are breaking through glass ceilings. And so having these relaunches we tend to have a lot of them. But yeah, there's significant ones or small ones. There. I think the biggest relaunch, you know, I was 25 some year into my 40 year career in the mortgage lending space, I'm no longer doing that anymore. But I was climbing the corporate ladder, a woman in a man's world for years and years and years, and just doing everything that the men did, which was being a workaholic. And, you know, that was the most important thing. And, you know, I was I was pretty successful. I was in the top 1% of all,

Hilary DeCesare: 00:05:27

I was pretty, pretty successful top 1%. Everyone, she was very successful. Nailing it. I

Hilary DeCesare: 00:05:34

Lady Jen Du Plessis: was pretty successful at the top 1% of loan officers in the country. And at that time, I think there was 850,000 loan officers. So that put me in the top 85,000. So I wasn't going well, that's not going to knock anything off. But I wasn't, you know, okay, I was in top 1% I was closing $50 million a year in loans. So if you know if every loan was a million, that was 50 loans, if every loan was 500,000, it was 100 loans, but every loan was not 500,000. So it was a lot of business. And I was I was dog tired. I was miserable. I was laden with excuses why I was always late for everything for dinner for the kids, for my husband for meetings, just everything, you know, just trying to survive at 50 million a year. And I just wanted a way that I could do it with less hours. And so so my relaunch was the night that I was it dinner with my family? I'll do it in quotes for those not watching. Right? I was, uh huh. Sure. I'm at dinner. We're entrepreneurs, right. So when the phone rings, I took the phone call because my client needed me. They needed me so much needed.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:06:45

It couldn't wait, it couldn't wait that 30 mil they need me,

Hilary DeCesare: 00:06:50

Lady Jen Du Plessis: right. And, you know, so out the door and land and I was walking outside of the restaurant and what I call the concrete balance beam. We've all been there where we're on the phone, or we're walking back and forth on the curb. Sometimes we're walking on the on the car bumpers, things were on the top one, and then we dropped down and walk up to the top one and walk back and forth. And so to concrete balance beam. And as I was doing this, you know, people were coming in the restaurant, and I was just kind of waiting, like, look at me, I'm important. I'm on a phone call, hi, you know, moving myself from, you know, when a car wanted to park in the spot that it was like, rebalance me. And even opening the doors. I was opening the doors for people, I'm talking to my client, and I'm opening the door for a family who had a bunch of kids and like, and I wasn't getting paid for any of this, right. And so here we are walking back and forth. And you know, I have to look over into the restaurant into the window window of the restaurant. And I happen to see my family and they had little spit balls with straws. And they were laughing and they were you know, having such a great time and coloring and you know, doing all those beautiful things. And my husband was with them. But I wasn't I was never there. I was watching my life through a looking glass. I mean, literally not a looking glass. It just a glass. Yeah, because it was always I was never part of it. Never part of is always the outsider. And it was in that moment that I realized it wasn't serving my client. Because I'd have to ask questions. Again. I knew that later, I would say, Now remind me again, because I wasn't in front of them. I wasn't taking notes. And I wasn't serving myself because I was freaking out that I wasn't with my family. Oh my gosh, I gotta get to this phone call. But I have to be polite. And so all this angst was happening there. And then I definitely was not serving my family never ever there. And I said there's got to be a better way. And that's when I set out to find a better way. So the reason why I said pretty, pretty successful. Four years later, I received a notice is somewhat long story short, I received a box in my office and it was a flat box with cardboard, and I don't know what it is got my scissors out, you know, screenshot scrolled along the line that opened up this box, and I still get goosebumps when I think about I open up this box and on the top of it's a plaque. And on the top it says top 200 loan officers in the United States. At that time we had 785,000 And so I went 123 and being as competitive as like four or five at 100 Where am I on this list. Gonna get down to the bottom of the list and there it was number 178 out of out of 785,000 wasn't in the top 1% It was in the top point 00 3% And that's in I had now I had funded 102 million. And all I wanted to do is fund 50 In four days a week. And here I was funding 102 million in four days a week. And I was like, alright.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:10:05

So once you once you had this moment where you're flipping through, you're looking for your number, where am I? Where am I? And you saw it. Did something happen within you? That was like, okay, because so many people forget to celebrate. They forget to pop the champagne. They forget that it's like you're on in the next one. Well, now I want to be in the top 50. And now I want to be, you know, how did you how did you take this? And realize that you know what? Something's gotta give? Yeah.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:10:36

Lady Jen Du Plessis: Yeah, as you're asking the question, I'm getting emotional. Because I didn't, didn't celebrate right away, it was, wow, I've arrived. I have a right I did it, I accomplished it. And for me, that was a lifelong Accomplishment from a, you know, a life of being called Jenny who ain't got a penny, my father was an alcoholic. And my uncle told me, You're going to be an alcoholic, because that's what happens. My mother was about a verbal abuser, and you're going to be a verbal abuser as well, because a farmer's son is going to be a farmer. And you're going to be poor, because they're poor. And so I had this life of proving, and I moved in, in and transcended that into your transform that into a life of living. And that's what I coach on. Now. That's what I mentor on now is that you don't, you can have your cake and eat it too. And it's not a balancing act. i That's why I failed so miserably for so many years. Because I tried to balance it. And once I learned that it's not about balance. It's about integration. It's about it's about a path. But in that moment, I didn't need everybody else. I had been seeking approval that never came. Right. Oh, great. Good job, Jenny. I'm so proud of you. I never came. And so I got it outside. But but it was the accumulation of all those those hard times. But But honestly, Hillary I became a workaholic. I didn't become an alcoholic, but I became a workaholic. You know, diversion. It's

Hilary DeCesare: 00:12:17

super interesting. You started out with, you know, a woman in a man's world and for I know, myself included working at Oracle almost 10 years, I became that workaholic. And always proving right always wanting ads. You know, just hey, you're doing a good job, same thing, you know, and my dad, I'll never forget what he would say as girls play with girls, boys play with boys. He was a orthopedic surgeon, his you know, my grandfather was an orthopedic surgeon. And so when my mom had said, Hey, I think I want to be a doctor, my grandfather looked at my mom and said, Well, you can't do that, that would take up a man spot. That's not right. So I understand what you're saying. And how it's not work life balance, its integration. That's such a strong perspective. But there's a lot of people out there right now that are in the grind. They're trying to do it all. They've got the kids, they're, you know, they've got and I used to call it corporate guilt, you're guilty. When you're at work, you're guilty. When you're home, you don't know where, you know, you're you don't have that, like, Where do I belong? Right? So how do you I know, you say, this is what you help people do these days? How do you actually get people when they're coming to you? And they've got the limiting beliefs like yours, like, you know, we're struggling, we, you know, we don't have the money, we're all of these things. How do you get started with your clients? And

Hilary DeCesare: 00:13:47

Lady Jen Du Plessis: I mean, really good question. You know, I haven't thought of opposing quotes and things that I do all the time, when you said limiting beliefs. I actually changed that to lifting beliefs. And so we don't have any limiting beliefs. We have lifting beliefs. It starts with the thought that going back to my story at thoughts, it starts with the thought of the feeling that we have to be on demand, rather than in demand. And you know, that we are running around like a chicken with their head cut off that we're everyone's beck and call person. Right. And that's exactly what I was. But then I realized that, you know, on demand is like going to the emergency room, you know, you can find an emergency room anywhere now on urgent care and a hospital would run that on demand, in demand and we're all experiencing it, especially post post pandemic. We're all experiencing in demand with our doctors. You can't get in for seven, eight months. And they're expensive because they're specialists and it's you elevate your market influence to a point where that you can become the expert in your field and what you You do, then you can be in demand. And you don't need to have every type of client out there in the world, you can specialize. You've heard the phrases, there's niches and riches and niches to grow rich and all that. But there is a specialization, that expertise that allows for you to solve people's problems, because that's all we do is entrepreneurs, we're problem solvers, you have a problem, I solved the problem by helping guide you through it. And so when you become that expert, it changes the dynamic of it so that you don't have to serve everybody. And so we start with and you know that I, we've heard the phrase, don't work in your business work on your business. And I think that's so limiting. Because when you're working in your business, it's all about you, right? You have to make all decisions, do all the work, do everything to the marketing, do social media, everything. When you start hiring, you're in the second phase, and that's on your business. And this for me is not an oscillation of I'm going to go to an event. And so now I'm in a conference, and now I'm on my business. And then when I'm in my office I'm in this is actually a different type of transition. So I help people change that mindset, right of getting out of the mechanics actually have a phrase here that I say mindset plus mechanics equals momentum, because I was so ingrained in panics that I couldn't create momentum. So I had to get the mindset of Wait a minute, I, I need to grow a team, I can't do this alone. Can we have that alone mentality as entrepreneurs, and we really move we shift from working for someone for a salary for a certain timeframe to working for ourselves with nothing and a gazillion hours? I know that's probably not formal.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:16:52

Well, and I also have to say, when you said generalist, you know, specialist, I think of like the special, we have so much trouble narrowing it down, thinking that oh my god, that's scarcity. It's limited. No, it's smart. If you can do right now, what do you want to be known for? And I love that when you first you know, said you want to be known as, say it again, you want to be known as what is it?

Hilary DeCesare: 00:17:21

Lady Jen Du Plessis: Are you talking about my mind when

Hilary DeCesare: 00:17:23

when you first come on? You say? Yeah, this is who I want to be when I go? Yeah, I say I want to own the mid lifers re launching into their remarkable, right?

Hilary DeCesare: 00:17:34

Lady Jen Du Plessis: Yeah, yeah, the spirit of building world class teams. I mean, that's what I do. I'm known as, and people refer to me as and people that are attracted to working with me are people that are looking to build a world class team so they can get their life back.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:17:48

And that's specializing you're not trying to do all this other stuff. It's narrowing it down, which means you put everything through a filter of that. Yeah, and everything. For those out there. I want everyone to be thinking, What do you want to be known as? What is that piece of it? What is the what if you had a plaque like you heard, you know, lady, Jen got this plaque? What is it going to say you are the top 200 in the world, and you own this, this is your, because once you get that, and I love what you said, once you get that, and you have that integration, then you stop working on all this stuff. That's just like sucking up your time. Yeah,

Hilary DeCesare: 00:18:32

Lady Jen Du Plessis: and I think, you know, if you think of a trough, a, you know, a deep tranche or a trot. That's where we need to live. And yes, we can do like, for example, I'm really good with, with relationship building, I'm really good with sales. But this is what I'm the best at. And we all have to sort it. We don't have to let that go. Because it's part of your your training, your coaching your product or services, whatever you're doing, it's part of it, because it will always be, you know, part of it kind of dripping in. But But when we're trying to climb out of that tranche, we're going to slip back in because we don't have the strength on the on those others to keep to maintain us, right. And so yeah, that's where that stays. And so, so when people are working on their business, the odd for me is what you're managing is your methods or your systems, right. And so often, we're so busy in the end, that we have the systems in our head, but we don't have them on paper. And so anytime we try to hire someone, and this is why people oscillate back and forth. Anytime that we try to hire someone, we hired them, and I just got back from Mexico, right or from Acapulco, and I just had a big long week. It's called Leap. It's leadership, right and infusion and what we tend to do is go oh my god, they're so fun. I love them. They're so cute. They're I'm going to bring them on. I'm going to bring them on. And we even say it to them. You know, I like you. I'm in bring you on and don't worry, we'll figure out what you can do because you I just like you. And then it's why we fail so much in entrepreneurship and so many businesses fail, is because we don't have our strategy written down. And that's what I focus on in. That's what I focus on in the on this. That's what my focus lies 100 in on is creating your systems, the belief that you can let it go. Because the law of diminishing return is if you have one client, you're great at everything. You're having too many clients, the law of diminishing return is that you're going to start being you're going to be the bottleneck in your own company. And yet we're afraid to hire someone. So if I'm not working 100%, and I'm working at 60. Now, I'm afraid to hire someone who works at 80. Because they're not me. They're not perfect. And people sit in but you aren't perfect anymore, right? And people say all the time I want a mini me and I'm like, Oh God, no.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:20:58

Dad says, well, one thing I do want to say is that you talk to obviously great leaders, you coach them. But one thing that you and I've watched so much of your work that you really talk about is mentorships. And the need, can you talk about your mentors that you've had, because I feel like again, again, ours is so similar mine, one of my biggest ones is John Astra from the secret. And it's so critical to have these people in your life. So share with us yours.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:21:26

Lady Jen Du Plessis: Yeah, I mean, you know, I think let me define mentor to I mean, there are let me give you my perspective, I mentor, there are a first of all, this is why I don't say Coach, coaches know the game, but they may not have necessarily played the game, they're really good at knowing the game. Mentors have played the game. They know, hey, when you go, you know. So for example, a coach might say, Well, I've done a lot of research, and I've watched a lot of things. And I know how you can climb Mount Everest, met a mentor is like I've climbed Mount Everest 10 times, and I know what's good, what's bad. I know what you need to be prepared for.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:22:06

Void these pitfalls, right? Don't?

Hilary DeCesare: 00:22:11

Lady Jen Du Plessis: Yeah, because right. And so that's why I don't use the word coach. I am a mentor. I've walked that walk. And I've walked that walk with four businesses. I have four businesses right now. So I am definitely I'm out of lending. But when I was in lending, you are an entrepreneur. So I help everybody, you know, with all kinds of businesses. So So I also think shifting to mentor I think there's two types of mentors, there's paid mentors, and then there's mentors who are part of a board of advisors. And I have both very have both, and I am both two people, right? I'm a paid mentor to some and some are just, you know, if you called me and said, Hey, Jen, thinking about this, what do you think that's mentorship, right? That's having a board of advisors that you feel confident with so, so right now, I have a mentor who's helping me with celebrity, getting more on TV, it's more about the TV situation than anything else. It's not stages because I get on those, but I have someone who's happy with celebrity. I have someone who's coaching my husband and I, I take coaching loosely sorry, mentoring, my husband and I, who are he's just made a transition. He's in a relaunch. And so this person is helping both of us because my husband had a traumatic brain injury. And I said, you know, if you know what I'm doing, and you know what he's doing, I think this will be better for us. So he's helping, he's helping me with that. I have someone else who is helping me share my gifts, right, my stories, I have 1000s of stories, and discerning which one should go where and whatever is something that I just need more ears on or more eyes on because we can't see our own ears. And so I have that person helping me there. And then then on my board mentors, you know, Jeff Hoffman is one of my mentors. And for those of you that don't know him, he co founded Priceline and booking.com. He also is the inventor of the kiosks that we use at all the airports. And he's one of my mentors. And Greg Reed, Dr. Greg Reed, who wrote Three Feet From Gold was Sharon Lechter, whose dear friend of mine Sharon's another mentor that I learn and she wrote co wrote Rich Dad, Poor Dad and Outwitting the Devil and among other things, I exit rich with another friend of mine, Michelle, who is the top business broker in the world. And you never know it from seeing her. So, you know, I love having his excellency Baron, sir. Dr. James Denley is another one. Les Brown, I was so fortunate to be on his speaking faculty. So I went around and spoke with him and you know, he's just a great mentor to call. Yeah, so I know I

Hilary DeCesare: 00:24:57

didn't I would have stopped I'm gonna stop you for a second because I do want people to hear you have four companies, you have all of these mentors that are both your board advisors, plus actual mentors. There might be people out there thinking, well, with all of this mentorship with all of these companies, how do you have any personal time. And here is something that I heard you talk about, that really was so profound to me. That again, you don't just have, as you call it, not a coach, but a mentor, you have multiple. And so how do you work into your schedule, being able to do all of this,

Hilary DeCesare: 00:25:42

Lady Jen Du Plessis: and podcasts and that I am the TV show, and

Hilary DeCesare: 00:25:45

be on other people's podcasts. And

Hilary DeCesare: 00:25:47

Lady Jen Du Plessis: I'm a competitive ballroom, Latin swing dancer. So I'm always at the studio, right? I mean, it's all of these things. And that's where we talk we've been talking about in and on. And this is where the magic happens with my trademark above and beyond. Because it's the leap, it's taking that leap once you have these first two pieces in place where you're, you've got your systems down, and you've made that one hire and you're really and I help people with hiring processes? Well, I have a lot of leadership and management experience, which again, I think leadership and management are two different things. So we work on both. But it's this leap of faith. And that's what the Acapulco event was was helping people to make that transition to the above because of an above what you're managing so on You people are enabled, because you don't have a system. So they always have to come to you and go, Hey, what do I do? What do I do? What do I do, and that's what bogs you down and says, Just forget it, I'm gonna go back and just do it myself. And this is where scaling and growth never happens. So we develop all of that, so that when you hire people and hire them properly, they are now empowered, right? They're empowered, so that they don't have to come to you for everything. And so that we do that through three things. One is what's the vision of your company? Two is what is the the values of your company and three is what is your voice? The vision is, do you even know your vision, your vision has to be so big, that it includes everybody you're going to hire so that they want to get in the boat with you and take this ride in this journey. The values we have core values in our personal life, but Dewey, Dewey, and have we even explored with the core values the non negotiables? You know, the principles by which your company is driven by? Do you have those? And if you do reason

Hilary DeCesare: 00:27:38

and hiring by right, those hate to be part of that whole process? Absolutely. Yes.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:27:43

Lady Jen Du Plessis: Because if you don't have those, number one, get on the disk discover them. But But the second thing is you have to share with your team because you can't expect that they know what you're thinking. And that's right. So that's the problem. And then the third is the voice. Are you formal? Are you informal? Do you use lots of emojis? Do you are you a phone call person? Do you talk fast you talk slow, talk loud, do you talk suck. Because the magic happens when you can walk in when when a client can call and talk to one of your team members. And it's just like talking to you. And that allows you to tether yourself even further away from the minutia and the daily routine, the in and on of your business, you're still a heart, you're still the voice the talking person, but now you just kind of cameos in your as everybody knows what to do. And that allows you to go beyond and you're beyond is different than everybody else's. Some of you some of you may have your beyond as money driven. Some of you it's time driven. Some of you it's I want to travel, I want to spend time with my grandkids, I want to sleep in, I want to learn learn a new language, I want to start another business. And when I went beyond, I knew that, oh, I can start all these fun businesses that I wanted to have anyway. So aside from the things I have to do, like our get to do let, which is being on a podcast, my business runs itself, all of them do. And I'm only brought in we call it Code Blue. I'm only brought in with Code Blue for four days now,

Hilary DeCesare: 00:29:18

this is so great. And I think when you nail this, it's like I leave tomorrow to go to Europe with my stepmom and my daughter who just graduated Rosie from college. And I'm taking time off and I am just going and when you know the business is going to still overall even be better than when I'm around there. They get so much done when I leave I love it. And you're right as long as you have vision value and that idea of your voice. If you're really clear. Then they have it's like they have the map to follow. They know which direction you

Hilary DeCesare: 00:29:55

Lady Jen Du Plessis: need to be there and this is why we walk into Starbucks. By by design and this is voice, right? By design, they say what can we get started for you? When you go to McDonald's, they say they say mostly, but what they're really saying is, Can I take your order, but see all of that's by design. And this allows you to leave. And so can I wrap up my, my, my restaurant story here real quick. Because once I figured this out, my husband and I decided to go away for a month, a month. Then we went to Europe, right? It was our 30th wedding anniversary, our 30th wedding. And we've been married for 41 years in a couple of months. And it was their 30th wedding anniversary, and we went away or maybe 25th. We went away. And I was freaking out. I was so scared. But then I realized, wow, I because I didn't have another business yet. I was still in the mortgage business. So we went away for a month, we couldn't figure out our phones, we had no choice. And I said, Yeah, I'm gonna come back to nothing, I don't know. But I wasn't worried anymore, because I had built a really great team. And I remember looking and I've got a picture of this, I was sitting inside of our boutique key hotel and my husband was standing out on the balcony was leaning off on the balcony and watching people go by and there was this big beautiful glass, you know that they have and we were in Barcelona, and Barcelona. And here I am. Looking out through this window, and my husband. Right now I'm watching from a different perspective. Beautiful. And I started crying and I started seeing oh my god, this is an eye here I am again, getting emotional today. I think I'm tired from my flight. I just got chills,

Hilary DeCesare: 00:31:39

though. I energetically I'm like, ooh, that's so powerful. But I didn't

Hilary DeCesare: 00:31:45

Lady Jen Du Plessis: look down and I said, You know what? My business is running all by itself. And I'm not there. Okay. And in that power,

Hilary DeCesare: 00:31:57

that's freedom that is that smiling from ear to ear. I do want to say though you also not only from a business, not only from your family, you are incredibly philanthropic, and your title lady John, can you share with us how this all works together for you?

Hilary DeCesare: 00:32:18

Lady Jen Du Plessis: Yeah, I mean, for me, you know, getting the title of, first of all, first of all, I was born into royalty. I am a duchess from Bavaria. And you know, and I've always had that title and I've never used it in business at all. And the reason why I didn't is because I just thought, you know, I didn't I wanted to achieve my success by proving my life of proving I wanted to do it on my own recognizance, and I didn't want it from a title. And you know, Sir James calls me Dutchess Jen all the time. It's hilarious. But so I got that just from being born. But but because I do all this philanthropic work, because I help veterans and I help women, I help people with trafficking. I also very cognizant about animal abuse. And so I'm working a lot with animal abuse as well. And so I work with all of these when I was chosen to be part of the Royal Well, I'm a part of the royal house of kappa dosha. And then I am part of the Royal Order of Constantine degrade in St. Helen, which is the oldest order in the world, we were established in 360 ad, when I was chosen, it was simply an extension of what I was already doing. And so one of the criteria for this is your philanthropic work. The second criteria is what you're doing to impact and get back into the world. And of course, I have a book called impact. I have a podcast called success to significance as I was already

Hilary DeCesare: 00:33:46

on that journey. You've been doing a lot there. Yes, it was. And,

Hilary DeCesare: 00:33:49

Lady Jen Du Plessis: you know, it meant so much more than just the given given a title, you know, the way that we all react to Prince Charles and kidness. And you know, the way that we all react to that, but it was it was birth written is birthright, and this is why they do so much philanthropic work is because they know that they need to show that they're giving back that I was already doing that. So I'm just you know, totally excited about it. And I don't know if you you want me to say anything for about you.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:34:17

i Well, I have to say I am so excited about what's happening. You did come to me and you said hey, I'd like to nominate you and it was over it was my kind of what I was doing for entrepreneurship. And that to me because I've always liked you I've mentored from I mean, I literally have been doing this for almost 30 years now always taking people and going through that mentorship and and so when you came and said I was just like oh my god, thank you. Thank you for like thinking about this because it had never It wasn't even in my I didn't know anything about it. And then I'm finding out more and more about what this group does in there. Some hord and I've been on other boards of human trafficking three strands global is one that I was actually on. And all of a sudden, I'm like, wow, there are so many ways to continue to give back to support to be, you know, living the life of gratitude. But that doesn't mean stopping with what's coming in. It means what can you give. And so I, you know, and I thank you for everything you've done, you've contributed. And I thought, my God, here she is, she's running for companies, she's doing all this great stuff. And she's doing this incredible type of charity work. So since

Hilary DeCesare: 00:35:39

Lady Jen Du Plessis: you didn't say it, it's I'm gonna I'm gonna announce it now. And Justin field is yes, I nominated Hillary to be A Dame to be knighted TO BE A Dame to be part of our royal order. And she was chosen by the prince to the aim. So in June of this year, as we're recording this a joke, 2024, which is really just three weeks away, now. She is going to be knighted as a dame in the royal house of Kapha dosha. And the Royal Order of Constantine the Great and St. Helen so much is required from her now.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:36:16

And I am thrilled to be a part of this of this group of just incredibly CAUTI what they're doing everyone you're like, Whoa, that is amazing. The work that

Hilary DeCesare: 00:36:28

Lady Jen Du Plessis: they it makes you want to do more. And that's what I love about it is, you know, just everybody is pulling everyone up there. There's nobody, you know, having a meeting to go down and grab, everybody's just wanting to go further and improve. So I love it.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:36:43

So thank you for that. But I also want to make sure everyone that is listening that wants to find out what you're working on what's next for you how they can get into your world, where can they go?

Hilary DeCesare: 00:36:57

Lady Jen Du Plessis: Yeah, just go to gender classes.com and connect with me, you know what we're doing, see what we're up to. That's the best place to go. And of course, I'm on all social media. And I know you'll put the links in the notes. So I definitely Well, that's what we're doing.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:37:11

As a final question entrepreneur, you are thinking about the next steps in the next 12 months of really, you know, how could they make the most impact? What advice would you give them?

Hilary DeCesare: 00:37:26

Lady Jen Du Plessis: Oh, gosh, yeah, the most, you know, I would say slow down to speed up instead of speeding up to slow down.

Hilary DeCesare: 00:37:35

So that is, that is amazing advice. I feel like right now I'm taking it in. And thank goodness I'm leaving tomorrow because I'm like I need this. I needed to hear that. And I'm sure that so many others. We will have it in the show notes. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being such a huge impact in my life. And I'm excited to spend as much time as possible with you. So thank you again and everyone you know you're listening to the relaunch podcast and we talk about live now love now relaunch now relaunch into your remarkable and we give you these incredible people that have so much so many things that they can do to help you achieve your greatness. Thanks again everyone. We'll talk to you next week.