The Uncommon Leader Podcast

Redefining Cybersecurity Leadership with Empathy and Grace: Tammy Klotz's Journey

• John Gallagher

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Tammy Klotz, Chief Information Security Officer and author of "Leading with Empathy and Grace," joins us for a compelling conversation about redefining leadership in the cybersecurity world. Tammy opens up about her formative years, sharing a childhood story that laid the foundation for her empathetic leadership style. As a self-proclaimed "unicorn" in the field, she challenges the outdated perception of the security office as the "office of no," advocating instead for a collaborative approach that welcomes innovation while maintaining robust security.

In a year of personal transformation, Tammy made the courageous decision to step away from her long-term role at Air Products and Chemicals, focusing instead on family and writing her book. Her journey underscores the power of authenticity and humility in leadership, offering indispensable insights for anyone guiding a team or community. Tammy's story is a testament to the importance of aligning personal values with professional goals, inspiring listeners to embrace change and pursue their own leadership aspirations.

We explore Tammy's innovative TIPCY principles—transparency, togetherness, inclusion, presence, participation, and consistency—as she shares how these core values have helped her build high-performing teams. From using Disney quotes and pixie dust to motivate her teams through organizational changes to balancing work with personal responsibilities as a single mother, Tammy embodies resilience and connection. Her emphasis on self-care and setting priorities serves as a powerful reminder that personal well-being is crucial for sustained success in leadership roles. Join us for an insightful episode filled with practical advice and heartfelt stories.

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Buy Tammy's Book, Leading With Empathy & Grace

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Speaker 1:

Transparency is a super big thing for me, and setting that as a foundational element of my working relationship with my team is extremely important, because without that, you have a much more difficult time building a foundation of trust and respect.

Speaker 2:

Hey, uncommon Leaders, welcome back. This is the Uncommon Leader Podcast and I'm your host, john Gallagher. I just finished up an incredible interview with Tammy Klotz. In this episode, we dive into the heart of authentic leadership, the power of empathy and the magic of making people feel valued. Tammy shared her journey as a chief information security officer and her new book Leading with Empathy and Grace. From impactful childhood memories to her tipsy principles, this episode is packed with actionable insights. Let's get started, tammy Klotz. Welcome to the Uncommon Leader Podcast. Great to have you on the show today. How are you doing?

Speaker 1:

I'm great, john, thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to our conversation today.

Speaker 2:

I am as well, and I know, just getting to know you just a little bit before we jumped online. I think we're going to have a fantastic conversation today, but I will I don't give anybody any breaks first time through. I'll start you off with the first question. I always start my first time guests and that's asking you to tell me a story from your childhood that still impacts who you are as a person or as a leader today.

Speaker 1:

Sure, Um. So I'm searching the memory bank but I can talk to you about um. I was in fourth or fifth grade and the reason I can't discern what year it was is that I had the same teacher, uh, in both fourth and fifth grade. So that was a unique opportunity. But she, honestly, has been very impactful in my life for a very long time, so from those early days. But she's also been a part of my life through my marriage, through my divorce, through my birth of my two children, my graduation, et cetera. So she's been a presence for me.

Speaker 1:

But the reason I picked this one is that during class, the one day, she was extremely frustrated with the behaviors that were going on in the class and you know, I don't remember all of the organization, the classroom that were demonstrating the behaviors that she was looking for the rest of the class to actually emulate. So I think, in the context and in reflection, that's one that I would say, you know, from an influence perspective, definitely kind of struck a chord with me and stood out from a leadership perspective going forward. So that is this story that I will share with you.

Speaker 2:

I love fourth and fifth grade stories that generate, so fourth grade for me was Mrs Nolan. Fifth grade was Sister Nicodema lefty, both of them lefties.

Speaker 1:

Oh goodness yes.

Speaker 2:

Paddling lefties Catholic school. You're able to still get paddled at that point in time, but I do remember that as well. But great teachers both had positive impact on me as well. Impact paddle whatever we want to go with, but they tend to. It's something about that age group that tends to have some of the influence and I love when we can go back to teachers who made a positive influence. But certainly them being able to recognize those traits in you early on was pretty cool, and it's something when they call it out that you memorize for a long time. So that's really cool.

Speaker 2:

But we're not here to talk about fifth grade stories necessarily the whole time, although they may impact it. We're here to talk about your book. So I want to take the time here to talk about your bio and then connect it to your book so that the listeners have a little bit of context as we go through. So you currently serve as the Chief Information Security Officer with Trendzeo you joined them in October 2023, and you're in the process of defining cybersecurity strategy and you intend to improve the overall security posture of the organization with a focus on securing production operations across a fleet of 24 manufacturing sites and 11 R&D facilities.

Speaker 2:

You have goals for increased cybersecurity training and awareness for a 3,400-person workforce, as well as building a more robust third-party risk management program for TrendZero Holy smoke. I don't know how long it took to go through that, but I love that. And you just wrote a book recently and published it called you can see behind your back Leading with Empathy and Grace. Help me tie those two things together, because I'm an engineer and I often get said you don't talk like an engineer, you talk about leadership so much. I can't connect all that cybersecurity jazz and all the responsibility you have with leading with empathy and grace, especially in a large company.

Speaker 1:

So tell me, I love that question, john, because you know what I've been told and I actually have a prop that I should have brought with me. But I tend to be a unicorn in the space Right in the space right Because typically you know, a lot of the CISOs or chief information security officers have kind of started out in much more of that engineering technical kind of disposition in the role and very much focused on tools and technology. Right, where the role is evolving to is very much focused on your communication capabilities with the executive leadership team being able to talk about business impact in terms of language that the business can understand from a risk perspective. So definitely not about you know all of the techie terms that come in the security space and really thinking about how to embrace when there's a new technology that somebody wants to use, whether that be AI, whether that be quantum computing, whatever the latest and greatest is and oftentimes those things can be shunned by the security office as the office of no, we can't do that because it's not secure, right. So we try to shift the narrative and make it about okay, so help me understand why you want to do this and what value is it going to bring to the organization and then we can talk about how we're want to do this and what value is it going to bring to the organization, and then we can talk about how we're going to do that so that we can continue to keep the organization secure, but we also get to take advantage of that new technology.

Speaker 1:

So there's a way to do it and that really boils down to how you deliver your message and the points that you make to your constituents, to your internal clients about that, because you want to be perceived as a team player, as part of the fabric that helps move the company forward, but in such a way that it can be done securely.

Speaker 1:

So when I talk to my executive team and it also traverses down the organization as well, because you've got to be in this role that allows you to translate also from the techie speak to the business speak and then vice versa, right back to the team as to what's important. So for me, the empathy and grace piece of that is really around active listening, effective communication and really bringing in a lot of different perspectives and thought processes and talking about it in such a way that is comprehensible to whatever audience that you're talking to at that point in time. So it is a balance, and I think the other part of the book that I'm sure we'll touch on is about how do you build high-performing teams using empathy and grace, as well and.

Speaker 1:

I think that's inherent in a high-stress type of role that cyber can be in an organization, and how you navigate and manage both yourself and your teams through some of the crazy times that we're faced with.

Speaker 2:

Well, we are going to dive into that, no doubt about it. So you know, ultimately your work history is a myriad of those CISO opportunities and again, you mentioned too working with the executive team. So so many different levels. You've got to lead with Empathy and Grace in your space. It's leading up in the organization, across with your peers and then, to your point, down in the organization as well. So you've written the book Leading with Empathy and Grace that I'm sure is loaded with stories that you talk about in that. But who did you write it for and why did you decide to write it now?

Speaker 1:

So I'll answer the second question first. So why did I decide to write it now? So in 2023, I actually ended my employment on my terms with my current organization. I just I needed a break and I recognized that and I told myself that I was going to take some time off to kind of purge right and kind of reset. And I actually had some pretty significant milestones going on in my life personally. So my oldest daughter was graduating from college and getting established, my mom was transitioning into a nursing home, so pretty big life transition periods for both of them, and I really wanted to take the time to be present for them without any distractions. So that is the timeframe, then in which I said, okay, I've always wanted to do this book thing.

Speaker 1:

And the inspiration for the book came from one of my prior leaders at the company I spent 24 years at at Air Products and Chemicals, and he told me early in my career that he wanted me to teach people to lead the way that I did. And I kind of looked at him and I was like, okay, but this is kind of just who I am, Like, I don't know how to teach somebody that. And he's like, yes, you do somebody that and he's like yes, you do. He's like you just need to figure out how to do that, Right? So tuck that away. I am now have this chunk of time where I've decided to take some time off and you know, there's something to be said for how LinkedIn or Facebook knows what you're thinking, because somebody is always listening, whatever Right.

Speaker 2:

So I started getting all of you would know cybersecurity. I started getting all of these would know cybersecurity.

Speaker 1:

I started getting all of these prompts on LinkedIn. Have you ever thought of wanting to write a book, you know? And I was like, hmm, okay. So I said, okay, why, why not now? Right, and I use that time to one help my mom and my oldest daughter, and then also use that as time for me to make something that I had, you know, always wanted to do become a reality and really went through kind of a mini RFP process for myself that says who am I going to work with? Why do I want to work with these people? And I started in August of 2023, and the book got published April 1st of 2024. So that talks to both the timing why now? And also the inspiration for the book.

Speaker 1:

Your question around for whom is really for anybody who is in a leadership role of any sort. Right, it doesn't necessarily have to be, you know, a leader that's responsible for a team and have has a team of direct reports. It could be somebody that's leading a project, somebody that's leading, you know, a nonprofit organization, whether that be in scouts or you know anything else that you know people are involved in externally, in, you know, outside of their professional lives, because I think the things that I talk about throughout the course of the book are really applicable to any type of leadership role that an individual is a part of.

Speaker 2:

I love that. So there's a certain humility in how you bring this out as well. It's just who I am. Okay, in terms of a former boss asking you that you should write about your leadership style and you say it's just who I am, and I think that's, frankly, some of the power inside of leadership, the authenticity that exists in that world. But there's a level of the size of the companies that you would work with and probably in in the chemical space you talked about product and manufacturing space now and probably other you know other organizations as well Was. Was there a time that you recognized your leadership style was different and maybe where it would have been a hindrance for you and how it helped you as well on both sides?

Speaker 1:

So yes, and I'll go back to again my early career days at Air Products, we were going through some organizational development activities, right, organizational development activities right. And at that point in time, that's when you know Myers-Briggs typing was, you know, a big thing. So we did that across my peer group and with our boss at that point in time. And in you know, chemical manufacturing in corporate, in the company culture that I was in, you know, istj was kind of the classic and as an engineer you probably can relate to that as well, right, that's kind of the classic type.

Speaker 1:

So you know how I knew I was different is I was an ISFP or ESFP, so that complete opposite of the. Istj Right. So that was kind of the first like oh yeah, okay, right.

Speaker 2:

And they have you stand in the room at different places, right, and they're like, yeah, everybody goes over there, there's always two of us or whatever, right, so, yeah, so, and then you know a lot of it over the.

Speaker 1:

You know, as I moved into the cybersecurity field and really established myself in that industry over the past 10 years it's I I am sometimes not as aware of it as I should be, but there's been many, either stories or comments that folks have have shared with me, and that's why that's why I wrote the book the way that I did, because I wanted it to be a conversation with whoever was reading, and it wasn't going to be academic, it wasn't going to be step by step.

Speaker 1:

It's like you know, these are some real life examples of things that have worked for me in the past. And as I was putting the book together, I also, as I was working with my angel writer, I said to her I don't just want this to be me right, it needs to be validated, right. So we actually I came up with a list of about 60 people that I had either worked with, of about 60 people that I had either worked with, worked for or they had worked for me, and asked them to share some of their experiences so that my angel writer would be able to kind of grasp you know who I was and really talk and represent me accurately as we went through that development process.

Speaker 2:

So you wrote August 2023, published April 2024, angel writer to help. So in eight months you published that 300-page book and they interviewed 60 other people as well. That's phenomenal, that's unheard of in terms of how quickly from ideation to publishing the book. So that's in and of itself, a great accomplishment. But again, you touched on it with regards to telling a story and you wanted it to be examples of what was happening. Is there a story or an example in the book that you really remember? That just typifies who you are, especially strikes you.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and one of it, the one I'll share with you, is really around. You know how to keep your team motivated and how to really sustain an organization that you've built Right. All of my team meetings is I always end a team meeting with a motivational moment that's either focused on current business conditions, maybe a certain milestone, that's coming from a project perspective, or the fact that everybody's completely overwhelmed and it's really just time to stop and recharge your batteries, and it's, you know, perfectly acceptable and required to actually do that. So I'll end every meeting like that.

Speaker 1:

But one of the things that I had done during my time at Covanta is it was a you know, a lot of business change so got bought by private equity. New leadership team came in, a lot of uncertainty around what the future of the organization was going to be, and you know a lot of demand on the organization. So I'm a big visual person and tangible right. So one of those motivational moments was around. There was a quote that I shared from Disney that was focused on all you need is faith, trust and a little bit of pixie dust. Peter Pan and Tinkerbell, right. A key chain that had a little vial of pixie dust and the two tags that said um faith and trust on it and I gave that to everybody on the team.

Speaker 2:

Oh, wow.

Speaker 1:

And there were a lot of men on the team as well, so not necessarily a you know, probably more of a feminine touch. The blessing for me on the other side of that is to see afterwards all of them had it on their backpack, on their desk or with them as a reminder of what we were going through and the fact that, yes, it was going to be hard work, but we were going to be able to that. Yes, it was going to be hard work, but we were going to be able to get through it together as a group.

Speaker 2:

Hey listeners, I want to take a quick moment to share something special with you. Many of the topics and discussions we have on this podcast are areas where I provide coaching and consulting services for individuals and organizations. If you've been inspired by our conversation and are seeking a catalyst for change in your own life or within your team, I invite you to visit coachjohngallaghercom forward slash free call to sign up for a free coaching call with me. It's an opportunity for us to connect, discuss your unique challenges and explore how coaching or consulting can benefit you and your team. Okay, let's get back to the show.

Speaker 2:

I love that. I love the little motivational moments too. Just those little, those little touching things. I mean again, I got stories of them all up on my bookcase and several of them even that one's probably 25 years old, as a gift from employees and things like that. Just little, uh memories of what was happening, pens that have sayings on them or slogans or really care, really cool. Now you touched on that team development component and you've used the term high performing team. So talk about that just a little bit more. What you know, what is that? What is a high performing team, if you will? And then how did you foster that environment to be successful?

Speaker 1:

So you know you can when you walk into a new team, right, it can take on a variety of different dynamics. It can be, you know, a new team to you because you've recently joined an organization and they're having to assimilate to the fact that there's, you know, the new boss that they need to figure out. There's also okay, I've been given two teams as a result of reorganization and I have to figure out how to make them mesh and work together.

Speaker 1:

So there's different, you know. Do you always have the opportunity to cherry pick who you want on your team? Usually not. So it's really figuring out what makes everybody tick. Not so it's really figuring out what makes everybody tick. So a couple of things that I'll share with you is one getting alignment within and across the team of what the goals and objectives are for the organization becomes paramount, because everybody has to be on the same page with regards to what we're working towards. And if there are things that are noisy in the background, that are preventing us from accomplishing those things, those are the things that we need to address and figure out how we're going to deal with them, whether that means we're going to say we're not doing that particular thing or we're going to do it, but that means something else is going to have to, you know, take a back seat for a period of time. So aligning on goals and objectives and being a reminder, a consistent reminder to the team that that that is first and foremost. The other thing is really around. There's a topic in the book that I talk about around TIPSI, the TIPSI principles. So these are some things that I really instill in my teams when I work with them.

Speaker 1:

Tipsi stands for transparency, togetherness, inclusion, presence, participation and consistency. And transparency is a super big thing for me and setting that as a foundational element of my working relationship with my team is extremely important because without that, you have a much more difficult time building a foundation of trust and respect. So transparency comes into play when I'm going to tell you what I can and what I know. But if there may be things that I'm not going to be able to tell you because, with my place in the organization, I may know some things that are not public or they're still confidential and I can't share with you. Also, if you ask me a question that I don't know the answer to, I'm not going to make something up to pretend I know the answer to it. I'm going to tell you that I don't know and I will go find out what the answer is for you, so that transparency around what is going on, acknowledging you know where potentially I don't have all the information again builds.

Speaker 1:

That is the start of the relationship building right Togetherness. I mean this is you know something, you know again. It's one of those soft words and I hate that description, so everybody knows what I mean when I say it, but I really like to refer to those as critical skills, especially when you're dealing with human beings and we're all human beings and we really need to foster that teamwork between the folks who are spending so much time together more time with us as a team in a lot of cases than their actual families just because of the workweek dynamic and the demands. So togetherness is, you know, how do you form some bonds, and one of the examples I'll share with you that I do today with my current team is everybody's geographically dispersed. There's only three of us that are in the same office. Everybody else is elsewhere around the world. So how do we do that? Like we can't go to happy hour together?

Speaker 1:

We can't go bowling or whatever. So we actually instituted a Friday fun teams meeting right on Fridays 930 every Friday. That speaks to consistency and everybody just comes. The only rule is that there's no talk about work. So it's what are you doing this weekend? What do the kids have going on? Are you going on vacation? Did you buy a new car Anything? From that perspective, because what we've found is that those are the ways that you form an outside of work bond and in some cases, you would never know. You shared that I have one member on the team right now who's a huge Marvel comic fanatic, right. So we wouldn't have known that if we wouldn't have had those conversations, right. But now, when something you know, you know, comes across, we can go. Oh you know, harshal would really like this. Or because it makes you it, it creates that human element that I'm so focused on, even when I join an organization, like I meant to mention this earlier, is I actually?

Speaker 1:

I do a presentation mentioned this earlier is I actually I do a presentation that's it's a who am I? Presentation that talks about, you know, tammy, the the person, not Tammy the CISO. So we talk about my family, we talk about the activities that I'm involved in, my leadership styles embedded in there, because, again, it breaks down that you know, oh, she's the, she's the CISO. So, um, because you know, I, I am a human being in the, in the, in the end as well, um, I'm sorry, I was just scared.

Speaker 2:

Like these. These letters are going to go in those. Did they come to you over time? Or these are the ones you sat down as a group and put together, or no, these, these are, these are mine.

Speaker 1:

Those are you, okay, good, and it is like again not being able to see some of that because I'm so close to it. Everybody who talks to me about the book, this is the thing that everybody picks up on right and asks me about so it's turned into. It's a little surreal, right? Because it's part of the branding now Sure absolutely.

Speaker 1:

So inclusion is the I in TIPSY and again, there's a lot of focus and has been growing over time around diversity, equity and inclusion. So this is, you know, the continuation of that, right, but it's really around making sure and this is maybe a little bit of a flip on it is that, from an inclusive perspective, making sure, as a leader, that I am equally accessible to every member of my team. So there's no perceived favorites, right, because that would be bad. And really making sure that they know their time with me is their time and they should use that time wisely, but I'm also here to help them and that is our one-on-one opportunity to talk about those types of things. Similarly, if you go to presence, then and in today's world, this can be a challenge because we're all behind our screens, usually not in a meeting room together, and we are creatures of multitasking. So when you are not fully present with your audience, it's usually pretty obvious, right? So making sure that you're free of distraction when you're meeting one-on-one with a member of your team, you don't want them to think that something is more important than them at that point in time Participation than them at that point in time Participation making sure everybody has an opportunity to contribute.

Speaker 1:

My team meetings I will usually update individuals on what's going on from an HR perspective, what are some important dates that they need to know about. You know whether it's benefits enrollment, you know all of the kind of the administrative piece of it. But then, as we go through the team meeting, everybody has an opportunity to share, whether that's the project that they're working on, whether that is. You know what's the one thing that everybody on the team should know about. That you learned this week right. So it's really just an opportunity to make sure that everybody is contributing to the conversation and the dialogue. And then the last part of TIPSY, the C is really around consistency Making sure you show up when you say you're going to show up. If you're doing a monthly team meeting, make sure it's happening at the same time as much as you can.

Speaker 2:

Sure.

Speaker 1:

But what you don't want to be doing is like rescheduling it and moving it around because you know it's the first thing that gets bumped. That's not what I like to create. I like them to know, when it's happening, what the agenda is going to be. We try to follow a set agenda, with special topics as appropriate and being consistent in your messaging and walking the talk. That's been a huge part of the vulnerability for me actually writing the book, because it's in black and white and they all have a copy of it.

Speaker 1:

So, to say to them now I'm like, okay, so if I'm saying something in the book that I'm not doing on a daily basis, you are allowed to call me out, and so that that again breaks down that barrier.

Speaker 2:

I love that Cause again, the consistency, even whether it's you know it makes the acronym more fun Cause you can say tipsy, but having at the end is being consistent with with the first five as well, in terms of understanding that you know discipline, you know good intention, you can have good intention with it, but if you don't have discipline or consistency along with it, it just leads to excuses. You hear those things all the time. But if you can, if you can keep it in line with good discipline, with good consistency, then you have a chance of reaching excellence Absolutely Something I talk about often. I appreciate those. I mean, I would imagine you've probably got stories where you've had to have conversation with folks who maybe violated one of those values and how you had to stress that importance to them.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'm trying to think of, I mean, an example that I can share with you, and this maybe not as so much around the tipsy principles, but it's around some of the qualities that I talk about of a great leader in the book.

Speaker 1:

And again, this particular example was not for anybody who was necessarily having a team of direct reports, but they were responsible for a project work stream and we were partnering with an external party to stand up a new service, and it was a constant oh well, look what they're doing, look what they're doing. They're not doing it this way, they're not doing it the right way. And I literally had to, you know, sit down with that person and look at them and say, okay, you are responsible for this project work stream, are responsible for this project work stream. There's no, there's no they, it's we right. So if they succeed, you succeed, we all succeed. If they fail, you fail, we all fail. So, building that sense of accountability in in individuals as well from a leadership perspective, you can't um, the blame game doesn't doesn't work because you're part of it.

Speaker 2:

I'm dead. So important If we can post, get folks take responsibility for their activities and own it, we'd be in a much better place.

Speaker 2:

Um, yeah, so outside of that, like you're leading like very, very structured, the values are there. The other side of that is also, we'll say, outside of the workplace and self-care, and I know that's important to you. You mentioned developing resilience in life roles as well. Uh, in essence, take care of yourself. Leading a global team, which can't be easy, a large team inside an organization uh, making sure you can also take care of yourself and as well as continue to address those life roles that you have yeah, so self-care is extremely important, um, and and it varies over you know your personal life and your professional life and how those two need to blend together, right?

Speaker 1:

So some of the things that I'll focus on. There's actually a whole chapter on self-care in the book, and the first one is really around knowing your boundaries. And when I coach and mentor folks, we talk about this a lot, right, whether it's because they're looking for a new position, whether it's because they're not quite happy with how things are working in their existing position, but it's really an exercise in self-awareness to reflect and say, okay, what am I willing to compromise and what am I not willing to compromise, and in writing those things down as a mental reminder for yourself and then holding yourself accountable to those. And the example that I like to share for me personally that resonates with with that particular boundary conversation is around when, when I was raising my girls, I raised them as a single mom and I also had responsibility for taking care of my mom as the primary caregiver, and I was working full time and I was always transparent in my communications about where I was going to be and when I was going to be there, so there was a particular Friday afternoon or Friday morning where I'm, I sent an email to the team, including my boss, my peer group, and said look, I got to take my mom to a doctor appointment this morning.

Speaker 1:

The girls have their end of camp you know weekly, you know performance Friday afternoon, so I'll be online later this afternoon. And my boss at the time he replied to my email and he goes. So are you working today, are you taking vacation today? And I said well, let me ask you a different question. I said is my job getting done?

Speaker 1:

And that was pivotal in changing that working relationship between me and I and I said look, I said, if you're telling me I have to take a vacation day, I will do that.

Speaker 1:

But previously it would not have mattered, because if I'm not working Friday morning, I'm probably working Saturday morning or Sunday night to make up that time, to make sure that my deadlines are met and that my deliverables are being achieved. So I knew I had to be present for my children and my mom, but I also knew what my other responsibilities were and just needed to kind of you know, adjust things a little bit.

Speaker 1:

And one of my dear friends. She's recently come back to me about this particular topic and she's like but, tammy, she's like how did you know it was okay to do that? And I said I didn't have a choice, it had to be okay, right, do that. And I said I didn't have a choice, it had to be okay, right. So those are. You know, that's an example, from a boundaries perspective, of what's most important to you and where your priorities need to lie.

Speaker 2:

Sure and to your point. It's also in support of tipsy, with the transparency that you're talking about as well, letting folks know what you have going on, so there's no question.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely Sure.

Speaker 2:

So, so let's do the book test. Folks are going to read your book. They're going to write the review on Amazon and give you a five-star, of course, uh is what they'll do and then they're going to set it on a bookshelf, Just like I got behind me. They're going to set it on a bookshelf a year later. They're going to be going through their books and they're going to see the binding of the book and it's going to be sitting there. What do you want them to think when they see your book, after having read it and after they see it there for a year?

Speaker 1:

So what I want them to think about when they, you know, come back to it is one first of all, if it's somebody that I've had the opportunity to personally sign the book, I want them to remember the moment in which that happened, and I did do a book signing in May in the King of Prussia area here in Pennsylvania, and I was overwhelmed with the response. There were over 140 people that came and you know. So my approach was I wanted to write a personal message in everybody's book. Well, the gentleman who was working with me to run the book signing, he's like you're taking too long. You're taking too long, just sign your name. And I was like I can't do that. That's not who I am, that's not the authentic me, that moment and what that book means to them If I haven't had the opportunity, I think, the uniqueness of what comes from the book and remembering that, first and foremost, we're all human beings and we need to focus on how people feel and how we make them feel.

Speaker 1:

One of the quotes that I also have in the book is a Maya Angel Angela quote, which is really around the fact that people will not remember what you said or what you did, but it will. You will remember how they made you feel, and that is important to me.

Speaker 2:

Amen. They will absolutely remember how you made made them feel. No doubt about it. I love that, tammy. How do folks get in touch with you? I look at my time and I can't believe how fast our time has gone. I committed to you to some time, but how do folks get in touch with you?

Speaker 1:

Sure. So the best way right now, john, is to look me up on LinkedIn. I'm currently in the process of putting together a website, but that's not quite ready yet, but LinkedIn is the best way. My only ask is that if you're going to connect to me, please tell me why you're connecting and how. And that's because you picked up my book and read my book. That's what I want to know, so I know what that personal connection is. And then the book is available on Amazon, and if you do read it and love it, I would love the review as well, because apparently there's some magic algorithm at Amazon as well, so I would love that also.

Speaker 2:

I think you're right Amazon as well. So I would love that also. I think you're right, tammy. You've been such a gracious guest with your time, with sharing your story and understanding, and I've enjoyed our conversation. I want to give you the last word and I know I teed it up for you before we hit the record button just a little bit, but it's a chance for you to give a message to those that you want to talk to, that have listened in, who I know have gained value, but you get a billboard and you can put it anywhere you want to. What's the message you're going to put on that billboard and why do you put that message on?

Speaker 1:

there, it's actually easy. Now that I kind of paused and thought about it. It just says with empathy and grace full stop. And you know my goal is I want to do at least two more books focused on living with empathy and grace and loving with empathy and grace. So I've started to sign my emails with empathy and grace, so it's kind of become my brand, so that's what I would put on the billboard.

Speaker 2:

There you go. Fantastic. Put a little hashtag in front of it. Let it just become viral. Absolutely With empathy and grace. Tammy Klotz, it's been a lot of fun chatting. I enjoyed our time and our conversation. I wish you the best in this book and the next two books that are coming out as well.

Speaker 1:

Excellent. Thank you so much for the opportunity, John. I enjoyed our time together as well.

Speaker 2:

And that wraps up another episode of the Uncommon Leader Podcast. Thanks for tuning in today. If you found value in this episode, I encourage you to share it with your friends, colleagues or anyone else who could benefit from the insights and inspiration we've shared. Also, if you have a moment, I'd greatly appreciate if you could leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback not only helps us to improve, but it also helps others discover the podcast and join our growing community of uncommon leaders. Until next time, go and grow champions.