Karen Hite / Co-Founder Hite International. Scale with Stability

Karen Hite knows what it looks like to win on paper and fall apart on the inside.

As the COO of Committed Mastermind and co-founder of Hite Digital — a three-time Inc. 5000-ranked digital marketing agency she built alongside her husband from their home in Nicaragua — Karen has lived the full spectrum of the entrepreneurial journey. She has experienced the thrill of explosive growth, scaling to 27 franchise locations in under two years, and the crushing weight of the anxiety, depression, and personal disconnection that came with it.

Now Karen is on a mission to help business owners do it differently. Through Committed Mastermind, events like Scale with Stability and The Commitment Summit, and a newly developed framework rooted in purpose, Karen equips entrepreneurs to grow their businesses without destroying the things that matter most.

In this conversation with host Paul Povolni, Karen shares her origin story from Nicaragua to the US, walks through the four pillars of her Scale with Stability framework, challenges the hustle culture mentality, and opens up about one of the most important — and most neglected — questions in business: What is your gift, and are you actually using it?

Links: http://scalewithstability.com/summit

Gift: http://gifts.scalewithstability.com/

Paul Povolni (Voppa) is the founder of Voppa Creative and a creative leader with over 30 years of experience in brand strategy and design. Based in Jackson, Mississippi, he has worked with clients internationally, leading teams in award-winning branding while serving as a coach and speaker. Paul delivers workshops and keynotes on brand strategy, creative thinking, and organizational culture, and hosts The Headsmack Podcast: Conversations with Misfits. His work centers on helping organizations lead with Clarity, Creativity, and Culture.

Headsmack Website

Voppa Creative Website

Transcript

Paul Povolni (02:20.812)
Hey, welcome to the Head Smack podcast. My name is Paul Pavolny and I have another misfit with me. have Karen Hite with me and Karen is the COO of Committed Mastermind and co-founder of Hite International, a digital market agency she built alongside her husband over the last six years. Through Committed Mastermind, Karen equips service-based business owners with the tools, community and connections they need to grow. She also organizes events like the Commitment Summit and Scale with Stability.

bringing industry leaders together to share insights and strategies. Karen's mission is simple. Make sure business owners have the knowledge and support to reach their full potential. Karen, how are doing?

Karen Hite (02:58.894)
Doing good. How are you, Paul? Thank you so much for having me.

Paul Povolni (03:02.056)
I'm looking forward to this conversation and so glad you're on. And I think we're to have a good time. We're going to talk about a lot of things that I think are going to help business owners to scale and to have a business that thrives. And so what I usually like to start with my podcast is just kind of hear a little bit about your backstory, a little bit about your origin story. So tell me a little bit about Karen and you can go as far back as you feel would be relevant.

Karen Hite (03:27.47)
Yeah, of course. Well, how back can we go really, right? I was born in Nicaragua. So I grew up in Latin America. Definitely didn't see myself owning a business, especially serving the US market. So what I'm doing today is like far beyond any dream that I had growing up. I really thought that I would just go to school, get a degree.

find a good job and hopefully make a good living for myself. I never thought I would be supporting business owners, much less having my own business and multiple businesses as I was working on figuring out what I wanted to do. I initially wanted to be an architect. That was my dream. I then got a scholarship to come to the US for a full ride scholarship, which was I think the biggest blessing, obviously. That completely shifted.

Paul Povolni (04:09.848)
Wow.

Karen Hite (04:19.802)
my path in life and through that I got to meet JC, my now husband and it's crazy how we got to meet through that. He was at the university at the same time that I was here. We never met while I was in the university, but something like graduated and I was back in Nicaragua that we actually connected and it's pretty crazy because he then ended up moving into Nicaragua. We lived there for

the last, I guess, 11 years before, two years ago, we moved back to the US. And through that process, we started just playing around. He's always been an entrepreneur at heart and had played with, you know, like creating businesses. But it was until we really started working together as a couple that we started creating, you know, something that we felt was long lasting. And to this date, I think it's just such a blessing to be able to work next to him.

We are so different in so many ways. We're definitely a contrast in any way possible, but it has been one of the biggest blessings and challenges I think that we've faced both of us running a business while also trying to be present parents and navigating just the ups and downs of business and marriage as well. Because marriage is already hard. It's already complex in many ways. And I just.

Paul Povolni (05:19.554)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (05:38.998)
Yeah, yeah.

Karen Hite (05:44.44)
I don't know, I feel really blessed to be able to go through this journey, even while we're so different, right? And coming from different backgrounds as well, think that adds a lot to the relationship that we have today and those different perspectives really help. yeah, running businesses together is fun. We get to do it with our team and that's, think, one of the biggest blessings that we have. This is definitely...

Paul Povolni (06:01.645)
Yeah.

Karen Hite (06:12.76)
not be done just by the two of us by any means. And yeah, like today we get to support other businesses that are trying to do the same thing, right? They're trying to grow their businesses. They're wanting to do it in a way that they can feel fulfilled. I think that's one of the biggest struggles business owners have. You started the business because maybe you were really good at the thing that you were doing and then you decided why not do this for myself or you wanted to provide something for your family.

Paul Povolni (06:14.649)
Right.

Paul Povolni (06:28.962)
Yeah.

Karen Hite (06:41.38)
But then along the way, just because of the complexity of owning a business, you can feel very lost and it's such a real thing. And the fact that we get to not only experience that but help others along the way, it's really encouraging.

Paul Povolni (06:55.894)
That's awesome. So how did that transition from studying architecture to being an entrepreneur and, and owning a business? What was that like?

Karen Hite (07:04.489)
It was, it has been, I think, very challenging, not only architecture, but just coming from a third world country mentality. I think a lot of people don't really understand unless you have been, you know, you have lived in a third world country, understand the different brains that you have, like you just have different perspective. And I think that more than, you know, wanting to be an architect, if anything, I think wanting to be an architect just like really helped me.

with business. Normally, when I went to school, I went actually for interior design, that was the degree that my scholarship allowed me. Just because interior design is a lot quicker, you don't have to do so many specialties and things like that. You have to do with architecture. But it's all focused on problem solving at the end of the day in a way that you make it beautiful, aesthetically pleasing, but more importantly, you're solving problems whether it's in a

Paul Povolni (07:53.038)
Yeah.

Karen Hite (08:02.596)
you know, like this space and this is all the things that we want to accomplish here. And this is a feeling that we want to create. And this is the accessibility that we want to have for the spaces for people. And it really is problem solving at the end of the day. And that for me translated more into operations, more into actually CRM implementation. I started using tools at school when I was doing interior design. And I really loved the technical side of all of that. And so when I started using like

CRMs, it just became really natural to me. And so I think it actually helped me more than anything.

Paul Povolni (08:39.564)
So with coming from Nicaragua, was there, you know, was entrepreneurship frowned upon? Was it encouraged? Was it, did you have to flip some mindsets into being able to think like an entrepreneur?

Karen Hite (08:54.338)
I think in business, you have to have two sides of one coin. The visionary perspective, right, of like where you want to go and the operational savviness to be able to make this dream a reality. I think I really honed into that operational side just because my initial thought process with anything even today, I have to like fight it a little bit, but even today is,

how could this idea go wrong? And so it creates challenging conversations, you know, when you're talking to your husband about an idea. But also I've learned to, you know, take advantage of this gift that I have. I see it as a gift, right? Like, how can we, not because I try to be on the negative side, but more importantly, I think it's just trying to understand how can we make this possible in having just with anything, like any gift that you have, right?

Paul Povolni (09:26.101)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (09:37.911)
Yeah, yeah.

Karen Hite (09:49.882)
If you combine that gift with love, it's something that's biblical, right? If you have wisdom, but you don't combine it with love, then it's not going to be well received. It's actually going to hurt the person that you are trying to provide this wisdom to. I think same with this operational gift that I feel like I have, right? Like if I'm not cautious on how I communicate this, it could hurt the other person. So I think I didn't start wanting to be an entrepreneur. It really scared me because that visionary aspect comes

Paul Povolni (10:01.879)
Yeah.

Karen Hite (10:18.66)
It's not something that comes natural to me. really have to force myself. But I think that through business, I've learned to not only accept the reality that we need visionaries in the world, but to love that. I think there's this friction between visionaries and integrators that happen a lot of the time in any company. I see it all the time with the businesses that I support. I'm constantly in between.

Paul Povolni (10:22.7)
Yeah.

Karen Hite (10:43.544)
the integrator and the CEO, like the CEO and the CEO, because I'm like, I totally understand the vision that you have. I see it all the time. This is the conversations that I have with my husband. And I'm trying to be that bridge that is bridging just that gap between these two key elements in a business.

Paul Povolni (10:51.575)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (11:01.292)
Yeah. Yeah. So when, when you, when you first started venturing into this, this new world of building a business with your husband and stuff, what were some of the, the things that you had to overcome or some of the challenges that you had to overcome, you know, especially in that starting off in, something new like that, what were some of the things that you felt you, you overcame to get to where you're at?

Karen Hite (11:24.388)
think creating our own framework of communication was number one. Just because of everything I've shared so far, sometimes I tend to be, or I tended to be in the past, a lot strong with my opinion, or I would voice something out in terms of asking questions, but really there were criticisms. And there's a time and a place for that. There's a time and a place for a visionary to like, hey,

Sometimes they just want to dream. so creating that opportunity where we are able to understand, okay, JC, is this idea that you have, are we dreaming? Are we casting vision? Are we trying to see what's possible? Or do you want me to kind of understand more of the details of that? And just that allowed us to have better communication because then the other person doesn't feel like I'm destroying that idea right away. And also I have my own space.

Paul Povolni (11:55.598)
You're right.

Paul Povolni (12:19.499)
Right, right, right.

Karen Hite (12:22.264)
to be able to, that is still important. It's still important for us to be able to figure that out, right? All the details in order to make it happen, but there's time and place for that. I think the other thing that as we're working together, we've realized that we, especially with owning like different businesses and just, know, missions and activities that we do, like the events specifically, having key roles that, you know, if you're responsible for that, you're taking care of that, that's great. I trust you with that.

If you need help, you know, come like I'm happy to support as well. But we have clear responsibilities from both sides. And that allows us to just have our own like way of because we do do things in a very different way than the other. Right. So like it allows us to have that space where we can own the thing. And if I if I'm failing at something, you know, if I need some help, I can say, hey, I'm raising my hand. I need help here. But it's allowed us to both blossom, you know, in the in the areas that we want to do.

Paul Povolni (13:14.466)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (13:19.852)
Yeah. Yeah. Now with your businesses, they, you know, for sure they haven't always been the way they are now. So what were some of those early businesses that you, realized that, were good and some of them that weren't so good or something that maybe you put aside and said, this is not for us for right now. What was that journey like in, in just trying to find your, your thing?

Karen Hite (13:41.186)
Yeah, I think especially depending even one business, depending on the season that you're in, you you might be full force on it and then you might, you know, take your foot off the gas a little bit and focus on the thing. think you have to constantly evaluate, you know, especially now with AI, for example, you know, what's the future holding for us as business owners and what will really help if I think we're more focused less on we're less focused on the business itself.

and more focused on what is the solution I want to bring for the problem my specific avatar has. And I think we always have to be in that as business owners, right? We have to be in that. Our people, our team, our integrators, yes, they need to be solely focused on the thing that they're doing, but as business owners. so I think, you know, we started a business, like our first for first business, actually, JC started it and we had just been like, we had just gotten married.

He was just starting in and it was an English school. So we were in Nicaragua and he was doing a virtual English school. he had teachers, he was developing a platform. This was before AI. So it was expensive, know, something that first off, he's not a teacher. Second off, he doesn't really speak Spanish. So that was already a challenge. And third, you know, like I was not involved as well in the business. And so that created some,

Paul Povolni (14:54.06)
haha

Paul Povolni (14:57.805)
Wow.

Karen Hite (15:04.408)
I think opportunities, as I mentioned, like he's very much visionary. I'm more the integrator and we learned through that that we needed to like work together instead of like working apart, you know, but just have like clear segmentations of responsibilities that we just, we, we, we actually like we had, I think like hundreds of people in the platform at a point we had some really good partnerships going on, but it was just not the business for us.

It led to starting our digital marketing agency. And that was just a real blessing. That journey has been incredible, incredible just because of all the things you learn if you're an agency owner. You're sort of in one of the most chaotic, I think, businesses that probably are out there completely. They're changing all the time. A lot of the time, it's not even your

Paul Povolni (15:44.374)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (15:51.448)
Yeah.

Karen Hite (15:57.23)
like you don't have control over the things that are changed, like the algorithm, you know, you're just like a reaction to the changes that are happening that affect your clients. And you're really put into a very tricky situation sometimes, but we're enjoying it. And that's one of the things that's one of the areas that I'm, really having a lot of fun supporting Hispanic business owners, specifically contractors. And so I get to do it in Spanish. I get to serve that audience and ensure a little bit of what we have done.

Paul Povolni (16:22.764)
Yeah.

Karen Hite (16:27.098)
throughout the years in the contractor market in English, right? But now bringing that to Spanish and our team is enjoying it as well.

Paul Povolni (16:38.018)
So how did that transition happen from teaching to having a digital agency? Was it something that you met somebody, you saw something, you read something? How did that transition happen?

Karen Hite (16:48.282)
Yeah, so we had the business and at that point, when you have a business, know, most of the time, one of the person is like one of the people in the relationships like the entrepreneur and the other one is more of like the, okay, the stability, right? Like I have my steady income. That was me. I was a steady income, the stability of us. And so I started in like sales.

Paul Povolni (17:01.998)
Yeah.

Karen Hite (17:14.106)
Then I went into another job that had like just marketing. So I started getting into like social media Then I got hired by an agency to do more of operational stuff for the sales department And so I learned about the agency itself that space and and just more in like the operational side I was part of the team that was implementing a we moved from like Hubspot to Salesforce Then I was I became the Salesforce a admin for the entire company. That was over 350 team members

You know, back then when team members actually meant, you know, like growth in the business, now it's like, no, that's not efficient. You know, now you have AI. But back then, you know, having 350 team members was pretty crazy. And through that, the company that I was working with, like the owners got to meet JC and offer him also a position there with like minority equity. And so we became minority equity owners in the, agency, which was kind of crazy. And then we exited that we decided that.

Paul Povolni (17:46.733)
Yeah.

Karen Hite (18:11.13)
We wanted to do something on our own, and that's how we got into the digital marketing space. We started as a white label agency, then we moved into a franchise model, and then we pivoted to direct. And has been just a really crazy but fun journey to learn. And yeah, it'd be challenge. I think we have lived like 10 lives just in this same year, probably.

Paul Povolni (18:28.099)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (18:33.262)
Wow. Wow. What a journey. You know, it's always interesting. I like hearing people's origin journey, origin story, because, you know, we see people and what they've attained and kind of where they're at in life. And, you know, we think, well, I could never retain that, you know, they're somebody special, you know, and then, you know, when you hear somebody's origin story, you hear, okay, they, had the same challenges that I have. They have the same struggles that I have. And so it's always good to hear.

people's origin story because you kind of see that journey that kind of led from one thing to another one open door to a closed door to a know pursuing a passion to realizing that's really not what I'm passionate about I thought I wanted to do that and I kind of this pathway that kind of leads you leads you to where you're at now So, you know with what you're doing now, I know you have several conferences or several events You know talk about scaling and things like that and you've kind of addressed some of the stuff already

and started talking about that, but I do want to dig deeper into scaling and maybe even the hidden costs of scaling. Talk to us a little bit about that.

Karen Hite (19:40.27)
Yeah, I think that's a great question and totally applies. You know, when we talk about skill with stability, especially, and people think about the event, we always make this, I don't know if it's like asterisk, you know, as we're talking about scaling with stability, because it's not like if you come to a conference thinking that you're going to go to one of those events where it's like hustle and, you know, just go through it. And as long as you do this, you know, you're going to be OK. And then by the end of this, you you can focus on X, Y, C.

I feel like there's a lot of suffering while it's happening. And although I'm all for working hard and yeah, sometimes you have to make some sacrifices. I think it can never be at the sake of, it can never take away the most important parts in your life. And I think that's where business owners fail constantly. And we've been guilty of that. We're not coming in creating this whole.

Paul Povolni (20:28.995)
Ryan Ryan

Karen Hite (20:36.812)
movement, I feel like scaling with stability, where we're trying to focus our focuses for business owners to like, yes, grow your business, grow that impact, but never forget why you're doing this. Right. And whatever that mission is, whether it's like a mission that you felt like God had given you in your heart, whether that is for your family, whether that is you cannot lose sight of yourself in the process.

Paul Povolni (20:50.393)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (21:02.563)
Right, right.

Karen Hite (21:03.204)
your values in the process, the people that matter the most to you, because at the end of the day, I see a lot of business owners saying like, I'm building this for my kids, or I'm building this for my spouse. Yet they haven't gotten a date once in the last who knows how long, they haven't had a real conversation, they're strangers to their spouse, their love life is, I don't know what's happening there, right? They haven't had deep conversation with their kid in a while.

Paul Povolni (21:26.787)
Yeah.

Karen Hite (21:29.966)
They are just there, but they're not like sometimes they're physically there, but they're not like spiritually there. They're not, you know, like they're there emotionally there. And there's so many, it is challenging being a business owner. And most of the time our families have never owned a business. They cannot relate to the level of chaos that we're handling. And that is really hard to be able to translate to somebody, right? Also with your spouse.

Paul Povolni (21:35.981)
Right, Emotionally there, yeah.

Paul Povolni (21:53.333)
Right, right.

Karen Hite (21:59.404)
If you are, you know, the entrepreneur, most of the time you are the, that's a heavy weight that you have in your family. We have the blessing that we're both, you know, in the business. So I totally understand what, when he's talking about, you know, this didn't happen or we lost this year or we win this year. I've now learned, I don't get excited about anything and I didn't get sad about anything like in depth, know, like really anymore, because I've learned that, you know, there's so many ups and downs and the real gift is to stay calm.

Paul Povolni (22:17.656)
Yeah.

Karen Hite (22:28.568)
whether things are great or whether things are not so great. That's not something that every couple gets to have. But having that relationship is the number one thing that's going to help you as a business owner be able to withstand the chaos if you have stability in your home. So we really focus when we talk about scaling with stability, the stability is within yourself. making sure that that is priority for you as a business owner is the one thing that will allow you

Paul Povolni (22:50.659)
Yeah.

Karen Hite (22:58.168)
to stay the longest. This game of entrepreneurship is not to get there quick. It's how long can you stay on the game? And that focus can only happen, or that can only happen if you remain your focus on yourself. And for us, obviously, we're very faith driven. We feel like that is our secret weapon, you know, in many ways in our business. The fact that we're able to pray about things and surrender this, knowing that this is not ours.

Paul Povolni (23:05.326)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (23:19.416)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (23:27.757)
Yeah. And I think it comes down to your why, right? You know, it's why are you doing this? And sometimes we forget the why along the journey because, you know, we see people that, you know, we, kind of went through a hustle culture. I'm not sure that it's as strong as it used to be, you know, sacrifice everything, you know. and, know, when it comes to, you know, hustle culture and the sacrifice, anything, something, something or someone pays, is somebody, you know, pays for.

Karen Hite (23:31.523)
Yes.

Paul Povolni (23:56.015)
that hustle, that grind, that over commitment, that overworking, that sacrifice. And so you have to ask yourself, is that something I'm willing to pay? And most people don't evaluate it. They don't stop and count the cost and realize, you know, something's paying for it. And like you mentioned, you know, it's the relationships with your spouse, with your family, with your kids, with, you know, different parts of your life that you're sacrificing. And some people like, you know, hustle, hustle. It doesn't matter. Just keep going.

And then you kind of get to the place where you're like, okay, I've got my success. I've got my two commas. I've got my whatever. And you realize you're alone and you're miserable and you've sacrificed the things that really mattered the most. And so I think that's an unhealthy scale, a way to scale, right?

Karen Hite (24:43.556)
Yeah, I agree. Yeah, it's crazy the conversations that you can and I love that you mentioned like it's not like that that much anymore. You know that hustle. I agree with that. I think like thank goodness, you know, we're getting better at that. I still see though the conversations that I'm having with business owners money and growth. It's still the idol that we have. Right in business like if we can call, you know, like things by by what they are and I feel like if that is the only focus that we have.

Paul Povolni (25:04.438)
Right, right.

Karen Hite (25:12.952)
and weren't happy or not. I think that there's something about being content at all times, but still seeking to grow for the impact that you're doing. That contentment, that's the one thing that I see lacking most of the time, right? When I'm talking to business owners and how can we find that contentment in a way? Not because we don't want to grow, but because we truly enjoy where we're at today and we value where we're at today, seeing how far we have come.

Paul Povolni (25:22.361)
Right.

Karen Hite (25:41.068)
and the things that are going to be possible because of this growth that we're continuing to experience.

Paul Povolni (25:46.753)
Now, do you feel that the scaling with stability is a slow grow or is it, cause I, you know, I see in culture, we see these people that overnight success, you know, I got, you know, this, this amount of attention and I got this amount of likes and I got this amount of, you know, people coming through my funnel and leads and blah, know, is, is can they both happen or is it either stability and, slow or not slow, but

steady growth or is it unhealthy to grow that fast? And what do you talk to people about when it comes to, you know, a stability that is enduring?

Karen Hite (26:28.558)
You know, I will say we have been through different seasons ourselves of like really rapid growth and we have seen the pros and cons of that. I think it can be possible. I'm not saying that, you know, having that rapid growth means that you necessarily like lose yourself in the process if you have the right foundation. And I think that's the key. We found ourselves in that season. And even with all the things that I'm telling you right now, I...

Paul Povolni (26:47.936)
Right, right, right.

Karen Hite (26:54.394)
knew all those things before. Like this is not something, this is not a new message necessarily, but it's one thing to experience it, right? And to say like, oh, now I'm going to put this theory into action. And it's interesting that, you know, like we dealt with anxiety and depression and all these things, like while we were scaling and while we were growing, I mean, we went from having, for example, in our franchise model, we went from like getting started in two years, 27 locations.

in the US for a franchise model, that's for digital marketing, that's unheard of. That is a crazy, crazy thing. that is, I will tell you, the highest probably that we've been in our years of business, yet it was some of the most unhappy years that we've had in business. And so think it is possible. don't want to, just because I was not happy in that process.

Paul Povolni (27:27.437)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (27:42.509)
Yeah, yeah.

Karen Hite (27:49.464)
I'm not trying to say like, you cannot be unhappy. But I think it is our responsibility because we have experienced that and we have seen what that can do to you and your family. I think it's important for us to send that message of a reminder to other people to say, yes, it's great to grow, but don't forget about taking care of yourself. Don't forget in whatever way that means to you, whether it's like health-wise, spiritually, whatever that means.

like helps you to stay grounded, having that being grounded, think more important. And don't forget about the people that are the closest to you. Because at the end of the day, that's your support system. You know, when all this clients and when all this thing, what happens when you're scaling and growing so far is that everybody's your friend at that point, right? Everybody wants to be with you. Everybody wants to, you know, hang out and all this stuff. When when you're at your lowest, I think like that's where you really get to test relationships.

Paul Povolni (28:20.086)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (28:27.576)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (28:33.778)
Right, right, right.

Karen Hite (28:45.24)
you really get to test yourself. What do you really value? I see a lot of businesses, business owners, their identity is merged with the business. So whether the business is doing good or bad, know, they are completely like, they're not the thermometers of a thermostat, right? Like based on the business. And when we saw that happening to ourselves, you know, like we felt in a season lost completely because our business was not

Paul Povolni (28:54.85)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (29:03.822)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (29:10.605)
Yeah.

Karen Hite (29:12.462)
the business, you when you get to those highs, like the lows can feel like way lower, you know, they are. And we were still blessed, you know, we're still like, you know, just man, like so many blessings that I have today that, you know, my family never had in generations past, you know, yet, you know, like we are finding our, again, our happiness and joy is linked to something that you really have no control over, which is your business. And so that's, that's, think the biggest thing to focus on as your

Paul Povolni (29:16.884)
Right, right, right.

Paul Povolni (29:39.129)
Right.

Karen Hite (29:42.276)
thinking about scaling your business, there are seasons for that as well. And as long as you, I think you set up some strong foundation, you also set some key frames or timeframes as you're scaling of checkpoints, I think that's always important. And then having just a really good foundation and support system around you.

Paul Povolni (30:04.929)
Yeah, that's so good. And I would imagine that, you know, if, there's rapid, almost unnatural growth that you have to look and see like what's suffering because of it, like, know, you can, you can build muscles using steroids, right? But there's consequences to that. Then most people don't look back, look back and say, okay, I've had this rough rapid muscle growth, but what have I, what price did I pay for it? Like what's the consequences of that? And so I think even with building a business fast,

You know, it's exciting, it's awesome, it's wonderful. You get to show off your awards and whatever, but I think it's also good to self-evaluate and say, okay, but what did it really cost? what, you know, are there any things that I haven't really paid attention to that are the consequences of this supernatural, this, well, not supernatural, but this abnormal growth that is mind blowing, but is there something that I've missed along the way, right?

Karen Hite (31:00.952)
Yeah, I think one thing that I've tried to do, you how people are like setting new year goals, you know, and like this is what I want to accomplish. I actually stopped setting those like goals for myself. And now my I guess like my way of like measuring, you know, the year is if at the end of the year, I can look back at the last 12 months and think about all the experiences that I had, the reactions that I had to whatever scenarios or things that happened along the way.

If I can see those last 12 months and really find myself in a place where I can have gratitude and I can find joy in the journey, that is for me the biggest metric, I guess, that I want to have less focused on, you know, yes, I want to achieve and I want to grow and because because we have teams, right? Like in team, our team members need races and our team members, you know, like have families. And so like, I'm not taking that away. I'm not trying to create this utopia of like entrepreneurship, but I think

Paul Povolni (31:43.385)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (31:53.602)
Yeah, yeah.

Karen Hite (32:00.556)
At the end of the day, the business will only be as good as the leaders in it. And if the leaders are not finding joy in what they're doing, it doesn't matter how many millions of dollars. mean, I don't know if you have seen the interview that Hormozi did, right, with Tony Robbins. I think everybody saw. I thought that it was very interesting that somebody like Hormozi that I think, especially in our space, like we think it's one of the highest entrepreneurs, right, like has accomplished like more than most people have in their long

Paul Povolni (32:16.045)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (32:27.8)
Right.

Karen Hite (32:30.554)
in their short spam, that the main topic, they could have talked about any topic, business, whatever related. And the main topic that they talked about was how to find fulfillment in life. And I think that was just a confirmation that as business owners, it doesn't matter the millions that you make in business.

Paul Povolni (32:43.853)
Right, right, right.

Karen Hite (32:53.754)
if that's still going to be the question that you're going to be asking yourself at the end. nothing, I thought it was a great podcast. I found it amazing. I'm not trying to criticize or say anything about, you know, a Hormozi but I just thought it was very interesting because it was a clear lesson for us all as business owners that that is it's cool, you know, to accomplish all of that. And it can impact so many people. But if like I think he said at some point, like, yeah, I wrote a check for a charity.

Paul Povolni (33:07.243)
Right.

Karen Hite (33:21.35)
and he just wasn't even happy about it. Like it's not the things that you're doing, it's the intention behind it and the heart behind it. So at the end of the day, you cannot look at your goals and still find joy and fulfillment because of the things that you feel that you are achieving. I don't know, I think there's something to think about, you know, for each one of us.

Paul Povolni (33:23.991)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (33:41.534)
Yeah. Yeah, I agree. think having purpose and having intention and passion and joy in what you do at the end of the day, that's what it comes to because you don't want to get to a point where you're kind of like Solomon. I have all these riches. Anything I wanted to do, I did, but I didn't find satisfaction in it all. And we imagine that once you have a certain level of financial income coming in that that

that alone will bring happiness. Well, it'll bring some, but not a lot, not everything. You'll still feel a little bit of emptiness. You'll still feel a little bit of something missing if you don't have purpose. And if you don't have some sort of thing that really matters to you at the end of the day, when all of that stuff is shut off and you're sitting alone and you're like, okay, is all of that worth it? Or am I still missing something, right?

Karen Hite (34:33.912)
Yeah, the key question there is I think we all understand this. But for those that feel really lost in the midst of it, right? Because like you're like, OK, yeah, I want to feel that way. But how do I even accomplish that for me? And I'm curious to hear your response, on this. Now I'm going to interview you on this podcast. But I'm curious to hear your response to it because for me, when we felt that way, I remember I went through this book, The Purpose of Living It.

Paul Povolni (34:53.231)
Hahaha

Karen Hite (35:03.108)
purpose-driven life. was reading it when I was just being really challenged by finding like a new norm. When we started our business, it was all about like, I was seven months pregnant. I guess I didn't share that, but I was seven months pregnant and we didn't have any insurance. had just, Jason had just like started the entrepreneurship. I went into a job, you know, that was, I was a contractor, so I really didn't have insurance. So was like, I either worked or I didn't get paid.

Paul Povolni (35:17.576)
wow.

Karen Hite (35:28.434)
And we were really trying to, we were really putting all of our eggs in the business to try to make it happen so that way we could pay for the delivery of the baby in three months. Right. And, and that was so challenging, but it got us there, you know, so like that was the drive. It was all adrenaline, all of this, like, you know, excitement and, you know, just be feeling scared. got us there. But there's a point where like that calms down and like, okay, now I have my kid. Now I can fulfill it. Like now I can provide, now I can fulfill the needs. What happens now?

Paul Povolni (35:49.539)
Yeah.

Karen Hite (35:57.506)
And when I found myself in that moment where I was satisfied, you know, I really had to dig deeper to see what do I really need? Cause I feel like a lot of business owners are probably able to get, you know, like some salaries are not struggling. think that's the scariest place to be in as a business owner when you're not in need. When you're in need, you're in survival mode and like things are happening, want it or not, because your body is just like, we gotta make this happen. But when you're not in need anymore.

Paul Povolni (35:57.827)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (36:17.644)
Right.

Karen Hite (36:24.142)
I think that's where I see a lot of business owners also, I felt myself lost in that. So I started reading this book. And for me, what helped was finding an opportunity, finding my path moving forward was more focused on how can I impact other people's lives and serving others than because if I just focus on myself, man, I'm going to have a really rough time. Just I have so many needs. My head continues to like make lies to me, you all the time about my

Paul Povolni (36:40.92)
Right.

Paul Povolni (36:52.867)
Yeah, yeah.

Karen Hite (36:53.614)
self-worth about what I'm doing in this world about my purpose, but when I focus that lens in other people and I can help them that's where I found my own fulfillment. And so I'm curious to hear what you have found in your journey.

Paul Povolni (37:06.126)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (37:10.275)
Well, think, I think for me, I think, and I think this is probably universal, especially in 2026 is purpose. And I think, you know, Rick Warren wrote that book, you know, 20, 30 years ago. I think it's probably more relevant than ever is purpose, a reason to be a reason to exist, a way to give back. And I think that's why we see a lot of the younger generation involved with, different causes.

whether right or wrong, whether you disagree or disagree or disagree with them, they want purpose. They want a reason to be. They want to feel like they're serving outside of themselves. And I think we have a generation that kind of feels lost in, know, where can I serve? Where can I give back? Where can I have purpose? Where can I have identity? And so, you know, for me, I think once, as long as I keep purpose, as long as I keep my why, as long as I keep my identity in front of me,

I think I can be healthy as soon as I forget who I am and why I am and who I serve and what purpose I'm here for. I think that's where I get distracted with pursuing the wrong things.

Paul Povolni (38:20.109)
So, know, when, so let's talk some more about scaling in healthy ways. And we've, we've addressed a lot of things already, and this has been awesome. What are some other ways that we can maybe scale in unhealthy ways or scale in healthier ways that we might be missing?

Karen Hite (38:36.302)
Well, think depending on where you're at in the business, we sort of have this like skill with stability framework that we use because there are so many areas in the business that can feel unhealthy and that will end up affecting everything as a whole. At the core, we need to have our purpose, our commitment. We call it the commitment.

Paul Povolni (38:51.779)
Yeah.

Karen Hite (38:57.018)
We also have like the commitment summit and it's ingrained in a lot of the things that we do because we really feel like without this purpose, it doesn't matter what you're doing in business. You can make millions and then eventually you wouldn't want to do this for a long time. So commitments at the core. The next part of this framework is four pillars that I think they're really important. And it's kind of like when you're having, they have to be balanced, right? Not that one.

Paul Povolni (39:10.691)
Yeah.

Karen Hite (39:25.272)
not that all need to be right, but they just have to be balanced out. And these are more related to the business pillars, right? So for example, your operations, your operations doing good, your sales, right? Do you have an offer? Do you have a way to create leads? Do you have like, there are so many aspects when it comes to sales, right? If you have a really great operations, but you don't have the sales, the business is not going to last, right? So it's not going to stay in stable way. You're always going to need to have something else.

Paul Povolni (39:36.868)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (39:50.647)
Right, right.

Karen Hite (39:54.484)
your customer service right? customer experience, like anything that's related to that, your account managers, like whatever in your business is related to creating the best experience for the customer. If you have really great operations, if you have a really good sales team, but the expert, the actual experience, you know, when they're working with your people, like it's bad, then they're not going to want to go for you anymore. Right. And so there's like different aspects of this like framework. And then outside of that.

Paul Povolni (40:13.326)
Yeah.

Right, right.

Karen Hite (40:22.566)
is, you know, focus on like the entrepreneur itself, right? So are we learning constantly? Are we motivated? And are we executing? If we're constantly learning, but we're not executing, then we're not going to be able to like grow, right? Because especially like, let's just the example of AI, right? Like, there's so many business owners I see, like playing with tools, like, I saw a post from Bryce the quarter, and I have interviewed him before, but he's such a great guy. And he like was made a post about

Paul Povolni (40:36.249)
right.

Karen Hite (40:51.162)
What do you say? Like if you're spending your weekends and your nights, you know, working and playing with AI, he said, and not with your family, you're not doing it for their business. You're just wasting time or something along those lines. And I was like, man, that is so true. You know, a lot of business owners are like, oh my goodness, this is so cool. But have you spent time with your family? You know, have you, have you even done anything with that? I've seen so many people that are like, have so many apps built and like, which one of these are you even promoting? Have you promoted one? Yeah.

Paul Povolni (41:02.168)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (41:17.999)
Yeah, yeah.

Karen Hite (41:20.59)
How are people going to buy this if they don't even know that this exists? So execution, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's key. And I think the last thing that we haven't added, but we're probably going to be adding. So you're, so you're like one of the first people actually that I'm talking about this exclusive, exclusive, but I've been there. heard it first here at Headsmack Podcast. The first, you know, another thing that I want to add to that framework that we've talked about.

Paul Povolni (41:34.575)
Exclusive. You heard it here first.

Paul Povolni (41:43.343)
You

Karen Hite (41:49.29)
is this concept of gifts and what is your gift? Because sometimes, again, all of the stuff that we talk about, we're talking about from experience because we have been there. This last year, I found myself in this new level of, well, we had depression and anxiety and dealt with a lot of that in the business, right? Like, and it was mainly JC that was experiencing it. So I got to experience it with him.

Paul Povolni (42:00.985)
Yeah.

Karen Hite (42:15.754)
not fun, wouldn't, wouldn't buy something by having that. So please, please take care of yourselves. but through that, you know, I got into this like role of survival. Well, if he was, you know, if he was having anxiety and he was depressed, then I need to step it up and I need it to be ready to go to give a talk, to go and alive, to go and do all these things, to run the parts of the business that I could, right. And, support in that way. And you know, like,

Paul Povolni (42:18.681)
Ha ha ha ha.

Yeah.

Karen Hite (42:45.146)
through that and I thank God I will always give, it's amazing the miracle that he has done in his life, the fact that he's out of that completely. He used to get to the point where he couldn't even fly, like anxiety in that way. I remember stopping, we would try to get into a flight and at the airport he would just have a complete full panic attack. We couldn't jump into the flight. And you'll never think about that when you see him or you talk to him.

Paul Povolni (42:59.191)
Wow, wow.

Paul Povolni (43:12.077)
Yeah.

Karen Hite (43:12.92)
I would think that he was experiencing that. And it was a big struggle for us. And now he's able to be on flights. it was something that only in his case, I know that a lot of people are dealing with this. So everybody has a different scenario. But in this case, it was a lot of prayer and surrendering. I'm just it's a miracle, honestly, because I really thought once you go through that and you're in it, you can see how this can just go really far real quick.

Paul Povolni (43:41.933)
Right, right.

Karen Hite (43:42.842)
get really bad. But through that now, we're in a different state where JC is like up here and he's like active. And if you go and follow him, you'll see all the crazy things that he's doing with content. So like, make sure to follow him. But now don't have to be that I don't have to be in that survival mode, right. And so I found myself asking, now what if I'm if I don't have to be the this person that has it all together?

you know, that's taking care of the family, is taking care of the business that I student all of this, then where do I fit, you know, and what is my path forward? And I found myself like praying a lot about this and reading my Bible. And through that, if you have and I know I'm talking if you don't if anybody listening to this, I'm not trying to like, you know, preach here, but it's just what has helped me. whatever helps you, you know, I hope that you find it if you're listening to this.

Paul Povolni (44:18.733)
Yeah, yeah.

Karen Hite (44:41.722)
But it would be, I think, of the service not to share what I experienced. But through that, I found this passage of the gifts and how every one of us, we have a gift. And it's our responsibility, kind of like the talents, right? I think it relates to that a little bit. It's our responsibility to not only understand that we have a gift, but also to develop that gift. And I realized that I wasn't...

Paul Povolni (44:44.993)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Paul Povolni (45:07.203)
Yeah, yeah.

Karen Hite (45:11.058)
First off, I didn't know what my gift was. I was so lost because I've been kind of like business owners, know, like they see this business model and they think, that works for that person. So I'm just going to do the same business model. And you feel like not excited about it. That wasn't your thing. You're not doing the thing that you're meant to do, right? Like that. And then I think goes beyond the purpose and the commitment because you can be very focused on your commitment and still not be developing your gift.

Paul Povolni (45:22.137)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (45:30.19)
Right, right.

Karen Hite (45:38.318)
And so I started doing that, which we're going to launch something at Skilled Stability. And I'll share with you if this comes out before or whatever. But I'm really focusing on how do we help business owners to first off understand their gift. So yes, it's coming from a biblical standpoint, but everybody has a gift. So you can even go through this assessment that we've created to understand, even if you don't, OK, what's the Bible? What's all of that? Just be curious about what your gift could be.

Paul Povolni (45:38.424)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (45:57.305)
Right.

Karen Hite (46:08.11)
Because it really is like something more that every human is experiencing whether you're a faith, know of any faith or whatever But in the second thing is like how can we develop that gift right? How can I do more of it? So I can enjoy what I'm doing if I am for example, my gift is discernment I'm very quick to like understand very empathetic. I understand, you know situations and I'm critical about things but the sermon is that it's a

Paul Povolni (46:08.121)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (46:20.622)
Right.

Karen Hite (46:36.13)
It's a big thing in business, right? And if I'm not using gift, I could be affecting my business. I could be affecting. And so there's different gifts that each one of us has. And the whole goal is, how can I delegate the things that are not, know, conducing me to the How can I create systems around things that I don't really need to be around? I think in more of the secular, it's...

Paul Povolni (46:38.243)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (46:50.671)
Right, right.

Karen Hite (47:01.388)
I think there's another word for this. It's not necessarily a gift that we owe the zone of geniuses. We have seen that before, right? So what's the zone of genius? Where do you develop yourself? I'm just taking it more on a faith aspect right now and helping people understand that from a faith perspective. Because I really want to see every business owner, you know, be the best version of themselves and believe work from that gift.

Paul Povolni (47:07.231)
Right. Right.

Paul Povolni (47:14.499)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (47:26.829)
Right. Right, right.

Well, I think one of the things that we need to remember, it's when it comes to gifting, when it comes to your zone of genius is what's easy for you is genius to somebody else. And I think we forget that sometimes, you know, for me, creativity, for me, know, branding and speaking and kind of doing all that stuff for me, that's easy. And for somebody else, they're like, wow, how do you do that? It's like, it's kind of

actually comes easy to me. And I think, I think we don't take time to evaluate ourselves. And it comes back to identity as well, is we don't take time to see, you know, what, what comes easy for you that's genius for other people. And maybe that's something you need to lean into and work with a little more and not try and be everything all the time that everybody else is doing and kind of neglect that thing that actually comes easy for you that actually might be something that God has put in you to use to help others with.

And I think it's easy in today's culture too, be so, you know, we have access to so much information. We have access to so many people doing so many things and doing it so well that we feel we got to keep up. We got to somehow, you know, be able to, to, to do what they do and do it as well as they do. But, you know, one of the things that I've learned in leadership is there are some things that if I tried really, really, really, really, really hard at

I can get average at, you know, but there are some things that if I just leaned into it, I can get amazing at. And I think sometimes we do that is we pursue the things that if we try really, really, really hard, we'd get average at them. And we spend a lot of time wasted time in pursuing those things that really in the end don't matter a whole lot. So I love what you're saying there about gifting. think it's absolutely vital for the business person to recognize that.

Karen Hite (49:22.874)
Yeah, I'm excited. I think it's gonna be great. I'm gonna share it. And maybe I can share it with the people that are listening to the podcast. I have this assessment that I just, I just want everybody to like learn what their gift is and whether it is 100 % accurate. I'm actually curious to see how accurate this is because I've been developing with AI just like everything else right now. But I'm really curious to see how accurate this is. And if this can be a confirmation to people, I like literally went through the creation of the assessment because I was needing that.

Paul Povolni (49:33.379)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (49:52.706)
Yeah, yeah.

Karen Hite (49:52.816)
personally, to understand, know, like what is really the things just like we do, like the personality test and it's actually, it of that format as well. but I'm, yeah, I'm curious to see, you know, like if, understanding your gift and giving you a path forward, you know, would that help you in your business? And especially for those people that are like, have been doing this for a while and they're finding themselves in that season of life. like, okay, like, am I really enjoying this? You know, this

Paul Povolni (49:59.373)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (50:21.305)
Yeah.

Karen Hite (50:22.54)
Or could this be even better than what I have today? And is there something that I might be missing perspective on?

Paul Povolni (50:30.387)
Right. Well, and I think it gives you clarity too. You know, it gives you focus. lets you know, you know, what to develop more, what to lean into more. And also the, probably the things that you don't need to be as concerned about that you just, you know, you're spending a lot of time trying to get average at it, you know, and, I think that's great. And so that's exciting. I look forward to seeing more about that. And so, you know, when it comes to.

building a business and continuing to scale it and things like that. Once you've hit a momentum, what are the things that you need to watch out for so you don't go back into instability, but you want to keep stable?

Karen Hite (51:09.752)
I think having healthy habits is number one. I've seen myself, if I can have a structure to my day, and more than just a structure of like, how many meetings, structure of like what I want to continue to work on in myself with the people that I have.

as you grow business, especially if you work with people, people was actually part of the framework as well, because they're still a key element. Hopefully, we're going to continue to have to be a key element, you know, working with people to support people. know AI is changing quite a bit of things right now that we're going to have a debate. I think we were talking about this if I maybe like we were talking about this earlier with like Jeff Hunter and Jonathan Mast on this topic of like, don't know, like

Paul Povolni (51:41.081)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (51:56.385)
Yeah. Yeah.

Karen Hite (51:58.99)
destroy all the jobs or is this going to continue to help us? Today, we still need people, right? So think it's very important. But I've seen a lot of business owners, as they're growing and the businesses are less and less in touch with each other in terms of the parts of the business, right? And as we were scaling, that's something that happened to us as well. When we were 30 people, we really small, were like,

Paul Povolni (52:15.458)
Yeah.

Karen Hite (52:25.496)
the leaders were talking to the person executing and doing the fulfillment and that culture was like living, it was a living culture, right? And the more you grow, think that that is one of the things that will stop you from growing when your person that is talking to your clients is not speaking the same language, when they're not acting in the way that they should be acting based on the DNA that you have built for the business, right? It's not that they're necessarily doing things wrong.

Paul Povolni (52:31.971)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (52:46.112)
Right, right.

Karen Hite (52:54.198)
is that that is not the way that we do things. And that, you know, like that is that is sensed by the most important people sometimes in the business, which is the clients, the people they are trying to solve the problems for. If they sense that there's a disconnection between your marketing, right, the values that you're putting out there and the way that they get fulfilled. Well, that's with so many options out there, especially in digital marketing. Right. If we're talking about one of the

Paul Povolni (52:56.845)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (53:08.813)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (53:21.6)
Yeah.

Karen Hite (53:22.234)
One of the industries that can be more affected by this, right? Now they can do it on their own, really. You know, they could start developing a lot of things. So what is the thing that's, when you do the exact same thing, and this applies to as well, but to home service businesses, right? If everybody else can do the roof the same way that you would do it, because it's a guideline, right? What sets you apart? Yeah, it's the brand, the why, the purpose.

Paul Povolni (53:45.411)
Yeah.

Karen Hite (53:52.046)
And if that's not lived in the experience that they're getting after they signed up, then that's going to affect. And so there's so many parts of this, right? In the business that are affected. So that's why that framework that I was talking about earlier, one cannot live without, know, like if one is failing, the other three big pillars of the business are also going to fail and the business will fail at the end of the day.

Paul Povolni (54:13.235)
Right, right. Well, and, and, know, like you said, it's, you know, it's about people. It's about valuing people. It's about everybody kind of being on the same page. It's about the same, verbiage, the same conversations, the same way of doing things kind of filters throughout the whole business. And as a business grows, you can start getting detached from real people and, real problems and the customers and, things like that. And so, you know, you need ways to maintain.

that connectivity and to have a healthy culture that is internal, but also a healthy brand that people are seeing from the outside is that everything's consistent and you're doing what you say you would do. You're keeping your promises and things like that. I absolutely love that. And I think it's so critical. think as AI continues to infiltrate into businesses, I think people are going to be more and more important, right?

Karen Hite (55:05.69)
Okay.

I love that word infiltrate.

Paul Povolni (55:10.351)
That's what it feels like. know, it's, it's sometimes it feels like, know, whether you like it or not, it's going to, it's going to come, come into your business in some way.

Karen Hite (55:13.752)
Yeah.

Karen Hite (55:20.25)
It's going to happen. I, you know, one of the, when we were at the highest, I remember the key conversations that we were having at that point wasn't necessarily like how to get more clients or, you know, like retention rates or any of the topics that I feel like you have growing up, you know, when you're like trying to get to a million or maybe getting to through a million, like at that point, I think the biggest conversation we had at that point was how do we create more leaders in the business? And that is something that, you know,

Paul Povolni (55:47.939)
Yeah.

Karen Hite (55:49.976)
Revenue is not going to create. That's something that, you know, focus on operations is not going to create necessarily. You can create systems, right, to like create leaders. But that focus, you know, when you're above, you know, five million, that's really when we're talking about scaling, right? Like growth is a different there are different problems that we're trying to solve there. But at scale, creating leaders, it's one of the most important things. And today, you know, one of the recent acquisitions that we had in our businesses

was this company appreciation at work. I don't know if you have read the book. It's the five love languages applied to the workplace. So yeah, Dr. Gary Chapman and Dr. Paul White wrote this book. So it was applying the five love languages to the workplace. And we recently acquired it last year. And the main focus is how do we create leaders? How do we understand the way that people receive appreciation so you can continue to build this culture?

Paul Povolni (56:24.941)
Yeah, yeah. Okay, okay.

Karen Hite (56:49.102)
But as leaders, we understand what is the actual needs of the people that are part of this ecosystem. So we can lead them better, encourage them in a better way, support them in a better way along the way. And as a result, our clients are getting the best service right out of us.

Paul Povolni (57:07.139)
Yeah. Do you feel that that's one of the reasons that businesses plateau between certain amounts, whether it's 1 million and 3 million or whatever that amount might be is because they haven't developed leaders or what do you feel is it causes them to plateau?

Karen Hite (57:22.938)
Oh, 100%. I feel like if there's only one spark building that fire in the business, that fire is not going to grow that big and it's not going to go for that long. Right. So you need multiple sparks, multiple things happening in the business that are all focused on how do we make this fire bigger, you know, and better. And like it's impacting people. It's giving light to others. But it's really hard to depend only on one spark, you know, for a business.

Paul Povolni (57:35.885)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (57:50.913)
Yeah, yeah.

Karen Hite (57:52.142)
You need to really focus on how do we create other people that are also feeding that spark. know, business owners, especially like visionary business owners, they really rely upon a team, you know, most of the time to continue. We're sort of like building, or maybe it's just us, right? But we have been really encouraged by building a culture that continues to feed on the mission that we have. know, lot of the things that we do today,

Paul Povolni (58:18.936)
Yeah.

Karen Hite (58:20.334)
We could, you could literally create a new agency today without that many team members, you know, with all the AI efficiencies and all this stuff that is happening, that's totally possible. But if you really want to go far, you go far with people and that continues to be true today. And so I think it's, yeah, it's really important to understand how do we create this parks to continue to happen in business in a way, you know, things can continue to grow.

Paul Povolni (58:34.691)
Right, right, right.

Paul Povolni (58:47.533)
And when you're talking sparks, you're meaning, developing other leaders that also have the same DNA of the founder. Is that, is that what you mean by that?

Karen Hite (58:56.63)
The DNA, think if you're talking in the sense of like values, yes, you know, there's different gifts. I would I would say right that everybody so like there I would say if we're talking about the gift, you know, analogy there, I think there's complementary gifts, you know, that one person can have an ideal you're you're finding in your leadership circle, people that are gifted in different ways. So that way, the ideas get better, you have like more inputs and more perspectives and more ways to to impact. But yes, creating leaders.

Paul Povolni (59:01.625)
Okay.

Karen Hite (59:26.202)
that are actively thinking about ways to improve your product, your team, understanding if like a leader is not, there's some leaders that are not very empathetic, you know, with people, they're not, their social skills are not there because they're gifted in other ways. We need somebody in leadership that is empathetic, that can say, hey, we need to create those activities for people to engage and connect. One of the recent studies that we've had from appreciation at work is that,

Paul Povolni (59:37.794)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (59:45.879)
Right, right, right.

Karen Hite (59:54.638)
People are now not, you know, like that saying of like people leave the leaders, like when somebody quits that leader, that's not true anymore. People are leaving other people. If you have somebody that's well connected, that has friends within the company, that is, you know, like there's those relationships happening. They don't really like need to like have a connection with the leader up top, but that culture is so important now because now people are.

Paul Povolni (59:59.33)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (01:00:06.859)
Right.

Karen Hite (01:00:21.914)
when you're getting bigger offers, and especially in places like home services, when they can offer them bigger salaries by going to another place, it's even more important having that, creating those connections. And so one of the things that we are asking constantly is, who's your best friend at work? Not necessarily that you need to have, but who's the best relationship that you have? How are you staying connected? That healthy competition as well, I want to do better because I want my

Paul Povolni (01:00:38.339)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Karen Hite (01:00:49.604)
friends to see that I'm trying, you know, and that I'm like doing good. It's healthy to have connections and that's something that we are losing by focusing slowly on creating and having that just focus on ourselves.

Paul Povolni (01:00:57.41)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:01:02.891)
Yeah. Yeah. And I think, I think you're absolutely right. And that is people don't necessarily leave leaders. Sometimes they do if it's a toxic leader or whatever, but for the most part, they leave a culture. they, they don't like the culture that they're in and some, some places will even keep people, even if they're not paid as well, even if, you know, whatever, whatever the situation, if the culture is strong, if the purpose is strong, that they'll actually hold onto people longer than, even

Karen Hite (01:01:09.122)
Yeah, of course. Yeah.

Karen Hite (01:01:21.518)
Yes.

Paul Povolni (01:01:31.208)
just for a paycheck. know, there are some people that will stick with a job that pays less simply because the culture is strong and the purpose is strong.

Karen Hite (01:01:39.802)
Exactly. mean, there wouldn't be well, it depends on which NGO we're talking about. But, know, like so many so many organizations in the world that are active, that, know, are going through like, you know, if we think in business sometimes like our problems, there's real problems that companies are trying to solve that they're experiencing, you know, in many countries that we don't even have here in the US. Right. And how do they remain, you know, actively focusing on the mission that the company has?

when they could try to get another job somewhere else remotely, but they're still focused on the mission, I think. And it's not a matter of how can we pay less to people? Because I think some people are like, oh, let's focus on appreciation and the culture so we can pay less. That is a benefit that, for the most part, you're going to have if somebody's happy, if you're giving good benefits. It's like you're focusing on other ways to impact their lives, 100 % that can happen. But I think it's more of like,

Paul Povolni (01:02:20.151)
Right, right, right.

Karen Hite (01:02:37.592)
man, like we'd really want to create this kind of like islands of happiness. Some people outside of work don't have the best families, don't have the best like foundations, you know, so if you can create those opportunities for people to enjoy what they're doing and feel fulfilled, you know, while they're doing it, why not? know, like, not try to create that for others?

Paul Povolni (01:02:55.331)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. And it makes such a huge difference for the scaling of a company and for the stability of a company is having a lot of that that you discussed in place. Well, this has been an amazing conversation. can't believe it's already been an hour. I so appreciate you, Karen, for coming on and talking about all this. I know we can probably talk for hours more on all the great things that you're doing, your event. So tell people how that can get a hold of you. Tell them a little bit about the event that you have coming up as well.

Karen Hite (01:03:27.8)
Yeah, so like we're going to have skill stability happening in April 22nd to the 24th. So depending when the podcast is live, you might have already like seen it. You might be seeing it. Definitely come and visit us there at the website, skill with scaling with stability, skill with stability.com. We would love to have you learn more about all this stuff that we're doing. We have a yearly event, but we really are focusing on this being a mission that we want to have others be part of.

So whether you're part of our Facebook group, connecting with us through Facebook, Karen Hite is my handle. So I would love to chat and just help in any way that I can. Our goal is to support as many business owners grow their businesses, right, and scale with stability. And hopefully this is something that is a good reminder for anybody listening today. So thank you for the time, Paul.

Paul Povolni (01:04:18.818)
Well, thank you very much, Karen. And I'll put the links in the show notes as well, for accessing all of that stuff. And, hopefully this, this podcast will probably be out just before it, the event happens. So maybe you'll have some late, late people will sign up for it as well, but Karen, this has been so good.

Karen Hite (01:04:29.038)
Great.

Karen Hite (01:04:33.23)
beer. Thank you so much, Paul. I appreciate it and excited to just be part of this. So thank you so much for having me.