We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Lisa Rehurek a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Lisa, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
I’d say my resilience comes from a couple of places. First, my family. I was taught a very strong work ethic, which I believe contributes to resilience. And then just a lot of trials and tribulations throughout my life. I’ve had many challenges and roadblocks, and you have two choices: to continue or give up. I guess it was just dumb luck that I did not really know how to give up. It didn’t seem like an option. So, I kept plowing ahead. When I started my entrepreneurial journey, I had coaches that taught me how to manage stress, how to manage fear, and eventually it became habit to push through it. And then it goes from habit to excitement. I had a coach that taught me about fear challenges, which is basically taking a fear you have and doing something that helps crush that fear. One of those moments for me was doing karaoke. Sounds silly now, but back then it was a huge fear to be in front of a room and knowing I wasn’t going to sound good. But doing it anyway. Now my resilience is much more conscious, and I have tools and strategies to help me through anything.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I am founder and CEO of The RFP Success Company, which helps businesses that bid on state government contracts win more. I’m really passionate about helping businesses find simpler ways to succeed. Responding to government RFPs is hard for so many people, and we love it here. We know how to do it well and how to get our clients over the finish line. It’s extremely rewarding when we hear someone say they’ve just won their first government contract ever. Or when they say they’ve lost the last ten in a row, and then they work with us and they win. That’s significant revenue to these businesses and it allows them to continue to grow and employ more people.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
The number one quality I’ve found to be most impactful on my journey is self-awareness. That covers a lot of ground – from learning what motivates us, what we’re good at and what we’re not good at and embracing our weaknesses. There’s so much power in really knowing ourselves, and it gives us that opportunity to follow our unique path instead of trying to fit in. Second, Emotional Intelligence. EQ allows us to better understand other people. When we understand that others don’t always see the world the way we see the world, it gives us incredible power of empathy and understanding. And lastly, I’d say curiosity. I can sometimes be a pretty judgmental person, but if I can shift that judgment to curiosity, it changes the game. Be curious about why someone does what they do, or why I do the things I do.
What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Any advice or strategies?
There are a few tools and strategies I employ when I feel overwhelmed. First, I need to step away. I meditate, take a little drive, do some artwork, go for a walk, book a spa day, take a dip in the pool – something that takes me out of the overwhelm moment. That helps me get out of my head about it and just relax. Second, I make a list of everything that is making me overwhelmed. When I put it down on paper, it gives me a weird sense of control. Then I look at that list and decide what I need to Do, Ditch, or Delegate. Which of these, as CEO, are my responsibility to do, and which ones do I personally love to do? I then prioritize those. Then, what are the things I should ditch – that aren’t a good use of my or anyone else’s time but I’m holding onto them for some unknown reason. And lastly, what can I delegate to someone else? This last one is fun because sometimes you have to get really creative. I now have a solid team that I can usually delegate to, but sometimes they are overwhelmed, and we have to find creative solutions. I had to do that a lot in the beginning when it was just me.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.therfpsuccesscompany.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RFPsuccess/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisarehurek/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/RFPSuccess
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheRFPSuccessCompany
- Other: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-rfp-success-show/id1410853706
Image Credits
Karianne Munstedt
