Authenticity, Accountability & Community with Alisha Ochoa
Meet our guest expert, Alisha Ochoa, who shares her wisdom about developing community as a leader.
Alisha is Founder of ALO Co., a digital directory and education platform for female entrepreneurs. She is an expert in community building and creatively challenges those in her network to set big goals and meet them with accountability. On today's episode she talks about why finding a community for you as a leader is so important, how to take your ego out of it, and what the core components of a loving community look like.
On this episode you’ll hear…
How Alisha spends her time creating and fostering authentic community for women at ALO Co.
Combatting the loneliness that you can feel as an entrepreneur and learning how to embrace solitude
The importance of having connections with people outside of your industry or expertise and finding what you have in common
The difference between a loving relationship and a caring relationship and why we should aim for more loving within our own communities
The best approach to finding collective and community if you don’t work in a team setting
Alisha’s best advice for being an authentic leader
Ready for more?
Listen in:
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** This is a raw, unedited transcript
Chaili Trentham 00:00
Last week we talked about self care for leaders. And this week, I am so excited to be highlighting a conversation on community. So grab a cup of coffee for this interview with Alicia of aloe Co. She has been building authentic communities of entrepreneurs for years and we explore the idea of a loving community and how to find it for yourself. She's the most genuine person and I am so grateful you get to hear her wisdom on today's episode. Welcome to the coffee on leadership Podcast. I'm Chaili Trentham higher education practitioner and Professor Trump's consultant guiding leaders in cultivating creativity and wholeness through learning and development. And this podcast is a whole lot of that fitness short segments, you can listen to over a cup of coffee. Meet me here as I design conversations around leadership that you can authentically integrate into the spaces where you leave impact impact. Cheers. Well, Alicia, welcome to the coffee on leadership podcast. So glad to have you here today.
Alisha Ochoa 01:00
Thank you, I'm very excited to be here. Um, I ever since I found your podcast, I've been a fan. So it's exciting to be a guest.
Chaili Trentham 01:09
Well, thanks for joining me, I'm excited because we met each other in like an entrepreneurs group where we were talking about purpose. And when you wrote your purpose statement and shared it with the group, I thought it was like, This is my kindred spirit, like this is somebody I need to talk to because she's doing for women in business, what I do kind of more in the corporate setting. And so I'm just so excited to have you share today because you spend your time creating and fostering authentic community for women. So you do that in a business setting. And community is a core of a core component of how you navigate success for those women. So can you share a little bit about like what you do?
Alisha Ochoa 01:48
Yeah, absolutely. So I run a company called Aloe Co. And essentially, with aloe CO is a digital directory and community for female entrepreneurs and creatives. And that looks like the community is online. But eventually, once it's safe, we'll also be doing in person events as well. But what I've found over the years is that having people who can relate to you in wherever you are on your path, whether they've been there before or whether they're going through it now. And also people cheering you on can exceedingly help your your success. And whether that's personal success or professional success, you can grow by having the support of the community behind you. And the results that I've seen from this have just been beautiful. And not only that, but like personally, I've grown from it so much. And the growth that I've had has been really beautiful as well. And so that's kind of why I want to share it with others,
Chaili Trentham 02:47
right? How do you bring women into this community? Like how do women decide that they need community component, a community component with their leadership?
Alisha Ochoa 02:55
Well, I think that, especially in the world of entrepreneurship, there's a level of loneliness that can occur for women or for people in general. And loneliness can feel really heavy in your body and in your practice. And I think that loneliness can be really painful for people. But there's also a level of solitude, that is kind of the opposite of that that can be really peaceful. And throughout the years, as I've explored these concepts, I've also realized that the way that I feel my best is when I'm surrounded by community, and when I'm helping my community, and so the way that you would get, I guess, you have to decide for yourself where you are in the loneliness versus solitude battle. And then, at some point, I just generally feel like there's kind of a click or an aha moment where you're, you know, that you need support. And part of that is breaking down your ego, and realizing that you can't do everything yourself. And it's not realistic or healthy for you to have those expectations of yourself. And so what shifts there means that you need the help of the community. But if you don't know that you have a community behind you, then who do you ask. And so that's where Aluko comes in. And so within this digital directory, we essentially have like a membership platform. And there's a variety of resources, whether they're free downloads on on how to find and build a sustainable morning routine, or whether it's a resource on figuring out where you're allocating your time throughout the year to make sure that your values and your actions are aligning amazing. But then on top of that, we also have a, like a private Facebook group where you can ask questions and you can engage with other women. And then simultaneously we do events. So we actually are launching two events this month, or two events series. This month. One is called Work Share, which is like a collaborative, working at our co working environment. That's all virtual and then the other one is called community conversations by Loko and that's where we work with other female entrepreneurs who are thriving and whatever they're working on or whatever their business is, and sharing their experience with the community. And I, one of the things that I love about that so much is that I know that I personally learned so much from storytelling, and from absorbing other stories, and it makes you feel once again, kind of less alone, it makes you feel that sense of commonality. And I think that commonality is really one of those core features and foundational elements of community. Right, and, and so that's what can build that connection for people.
Chaili Trentham 05:38
I love that feeling like people can come together under a common mission or common message, even sharing a story that can bring unite people in a way that's so unique, and then opens up the door for an opportunity for depth in that relationship. Right?
Alisha Ochoa 05:55
Absolutely. And even if it's something that is not necessarily an exact match of what you've experienced, so maybe someone is running a beauty boutique, and another person is running a social media marketing firm, right. But if they have those same underlying emotions, and feelings and challenges that they faced and have learned to overcome, that's what that commonality can look like we learn best from not only the people that we aligned with, in the sense of what we're doing, for example, you and I have discussed that we're kind of kindred spirits, we have the same underlying value systems. But that doesn't mean that I don't have friends who are experts in the financial realm, right? Who are physical therapists, right. And we all have something in common. I remember when I was in my early 20s, I loved to throw parties and just invite as many friends from as many different groups as possible. And I would always just tell people, like, Look, you already have something in common with the people here because you're my friend. So worse comes to worse. If you need a conversation starter, just start talking about me, good things, bad things. I don't care, but at least you know that you have something that you can fall back on that you can relate to each other. Right? And then that will organically shift into a different conversation where maybe you both like rock climbing, or maybe you both really love coffee, you know, but if you have that one foundational aspect and commonality that can be the launching word for something great.
Chaili Trentham 07:27
I love it. So you've been developing community forever, even when it was just developing community amongst different friend groups. I love that it's been in you for so long.
Alisha Ochoa 07:37
It's it's a core part of my being for sure. I love it.
Chaili Trentham 07:41
Okay, so you've you are an expert in community, and you've been exploring an idea of love and community, I want you to share about that, and what you've been learning what you've been researching, and how you're writing that.
Alisha Ochoa 07:54
Yeah, so this idea of love and community was first introduced to me when I was in college, I have read quite a few books by the feminist author Bell Hooks. And this was really introduced initially for me when I was learning about education and the the space of love within the classroom. And I think the first thing to define here is that she defines love as something that's trust, commitment, care, respect, knowledge, and responsibility. And unless a relationship has all of those things combined, then it's not a loving relationship, it may be a very caring relationship. But it may not be a fully loving relationship, unless all of those aspects are there, right. But one of the things that I really loved about this concept, no pun intended, was that when you learn to love your friends, it allows us to explore love in different ways in both our family and romantic relationships and bonds. And that by giving love, and by giving a piece of yourself to the community, it strengthens the community as a whole. This can also be really small actions on the daily, it doesn't have to be these huge, heartfelt rants to your closest most intimate friends, right? But even just speaking to a stranger, let's say you're grabbing a cup of coffee and you ask how their day is or ask a question that's a little bit out of the routine. One of my favorites is like, hey, what's been the best part of your day so far? It shows that you're actually taking the intention and care to get to know that person and build that deeper connection. Yeah, it's
Chaili Trentham 09:31
so simple, but so profound when it is rooted in the idea of being truly loving, right? For leaders who are working with teams, this seems like such a simple thing. How does a leader who has a team maybe it's within their own business, maybe it's within a department in an organization, but how do they grab on to some of this idea of a loving community relationship?
Alisha Ochoa 09:54
I think that the first step would be to like if you were to look at it from more of a business sense you need to figure out what your pain point is first, so you need to figure out why it's not a loving community to begin with. And to do that, the first step that I would take is I would look at this definition of love as trust, commitment, care, respect, knowledge and responsibility. And I would figure out what's not aligning right within those areas. And then I would break it down from there. And the other thing that I would say is that in order to have a loving community or a loving leadership team, that you have to communicate honestly, and with trust, and community can only be established if there's honest communication. And sometimes that means I said this earlier, but sometimes it means taking your ego out of it, even if you're the boss, and admitting when you're wrong or admitting when you need help. Because community is at its core, about not doing things alone, right. And I think that for a lot of us, that can be really, really challenging. Let's say you're, you're super type A, and you've got this checklist and, and you want to be able to mark everything off, but learning how to delegate some of those tasks can actually help to strengthen the bond within your community, because you're showing that you trust your team to help you and you trust their skill set, and you have enough respect for them. And for their knowledge base.
Chaili Trentham 11:24
I always say leadership can be lonely, because it can be lonely, you're in your head, you're making decisions on behalf of your team always. But the antidote to that is to invite your team into it in the ways that you can make space for them, like, like you said, delegating and inviting them to be a part of projects that maybe you would have held really closely or tightly before. But that frees up your time to go move into other spaces, right? Absolutely. And so helps with that feeling of loneliness in the work as a leader that you sometimes feel but then also, you're right builds trust with a team when they feel like, Oh, my my leader trusts me with this information, or my leader trusts me to hold part of this project, while they deal with something that might even be unseen. But it's this beautiful cycle of you give them a little bit more trust and responsibility. And then that breeds more trust and a more open, honest relationship in the workplace, which is beautiful.
Alisha Ochoa 12:24
Absolutely. And that also encourages your team to grow because it maybe pushes them outside of their comfort zone just a little bit. Right. Yeah. And so then they understand the the kind of risks that they can take, and the steps and leaps that they can take, which gives them more courage to to do so in the future. So overall, your team strengthens from the foundation up, right, because you're allowing them to, and because not only is the boss, allowing them to whoever that leader is, but collectively, they are all doing it together. I've also been exploring this idea of like a collective accountability lately, I think that that can be a really beautiful component of teamwork as well, because it means that you're essentially declaring what your goals are, but other people are holding you accountable. And and this can easily be taken into the workplace, but it can also be used within your personal life as well. For example, last year 2018, I declared I was going to run a half marathon and I've run a couple of half marathons before but I did not train for at all Oh, right, which is okay, do not recommend, not, not my. But my goal for it was even the night before I was like, am I going to do this, like, I didn't train for it. And I was like, you know, I am going to do this, I know that I can hike 15 miles, I did that, like a couple months before. So I can I can walk jog 13.1, you know, with without a pack. Like, I feel like I can physically complete this task. So really, it's a matter of my ego. And since I have already told people that I'm going to do this, they've been asking about it. So I have a set of collective accountability for me to complete this goal, right. And it's like a healthy level of pressure that you can add to your goals because and you can also add a timeline to it. And that's been a really beneficial tool for not only me personally but also for creating a sense of community because the people that you are asking to help you be accountable, see that you have a level a level of respect and care for them and that they become more integrated and ingrained in your life. Yes,
Chaili Trentham 14:33
I love that the accountability and community actually creates further community and depth of the relationship. That's beautiful. Okay, so as leaders are navigating in spaces where they might need to invite others into their goals. What is the best approach in your opinion for finding collective accountability and community if they don't have if they don't have like a team setting so you work with entrepreneurs. So what does that look like? Is it going out and find Indian communities like you're creating is that the the salt?
Alisha Ochoa 15:03
I think that could easily be one of the salts. The other thing is, I mean, you I've even seen people recently just posting on their social media saying, Hey, this is what I'm looking for. Does anyone have any, any resources for me? or can anyone point me in the right direction? You know, with Instagram, for example, you have the ability to post questions, and then people can answer them and honest on anonymously. So it's built in this for you. And, and we know through studies that social media and a simple text that can act as that face to face time within a relationship, as long as there's a mutual understanding of the intention behind it. One thing I will note with this is there tends to be kind of a generational gap of where the meaning and actions are coming from. So you may or may not feel less fulfilled based on the generation that you're in. But for Sam, yeah, super fascinating. But using social media as a tool to build community is proven to create strong communities as well. But it, it's based on the intention behind it, the honesty behind it, and the trust behind it. This isn't necessarily saying that everything you see on social media is true, because people have the option of only posting the good things. Right. Right, which a lot of people do. And that's cool, good for them, right. But if you want to build authentic community, it's about showing both sides of the picture and showing the whole picture because we're complex humans, and communities are complex, but when you start being more authentically yourself, then you'll get that in response
Chaili Trentham 16:46
when you're authentically showing up as the whole person. Right, right. Okay, so what is your biggest piece of advice for leaders?
Alisha Ochoa 16:55
I would say that the more you know yourself, and the more time you spend exploring who you are and what your values are, the more authentically you can show up for others.
Chaili Trentham 17:06
We are the same person. Everything you say like yes, I fully agree. I'm like, such a big fan of like, oh my gosh, I could just listen to you all day. Alicia, thank you so much for sharing where can people find you if they want to follow along you post great, honest, authentic things on Instagram. So where can they find you on Instagram and if people want to get in touch with you
Alisha Ochoa 17:33
on Instagram, it is aloe alo.co Co dot community or aloe co community.com
Chaili Trentham 17:41
Perfect. Well, I am so grateful that you're willing to come share your expertise on community because I think it's so significant to the way that we move forward and walk forward as leaders. So thank you for sharing today. Thanks for listening to the coffee on leadership podcast. Take a few moments to reflect on how you will integrate today's episode into your life. And let me know if it was helpful to your leadership. Reach out Visit my website or leave a comment. And don't forget to share with colleagues. Subscribe for future learning. Until our next cup of coffee together. Cheers