Thank you, Harry. Pleasure to be here today.
Absolutely. My vision, Harry. And I just want
to say, first off, thank you so much for having
me. I really respect what you do on this podcast.
And I think the message that you guys bring out
with Vision Pros is so essential because I think
in today's day and age, it's so easy to get caught
up in what everyone else's vision is and get
caught up on what we are to do because of what
we see on social media or on LinkedIn or whatever
that may be. There's so many different visions
out there, but really what we have to get clear
on is what's our purpose, what's our passion,
our motivation, and truly boiling that all down
to figure out what is our vision. So for me,
Harry, my vision from a very young age. due to
a couple different uh circumstances of why i
was born after a family member passing away was
that i really wanted to utilize every single
day to make a purpose and an imp i started an
impact on whoever i could in this world even
if it just meant one person and so in the midst
of that you know that kind of translated in various
different ways i was a competitive athlete for
20 plus years um you know you're not really able
to make a whole lot impact that way but what
that journey of mine was able to teach me was
a lot of how I'm able to cultivate and hone those
skills that way I could go out into the world
and really, really develop and cultivate exactly
what I wanted to see. So my, I would say corporate
journey started when I was 17 years old. And
as the years went on, and when I started to get
very clear that I wanted to become an entrepreneur
and start my own company, I really not only wanted
my team and whatever team I were to cultivate,
obviously starting small, but My vision for my
team is quite large for the future. I really
want my team to be one that when they come together,
culture is number one, that they feel seen, heard,
appreciated, because what you appreciate, appreciates.
And of course, as you know, Harry, you have a
team as well. When we're able to cultivate and
hone in their skills and really make sure that
they're in the right seat, they're doing the
right thing, that really, really. uh captivates
what their skill set is i mean gosh the the sky's
the limit for them and then when they feel like
the ceo or the leadership actually appreciates
them for what they do and they're not just a
number in the company everything changes so beyond
that on the team scale So right now, currently
in my business, I was actually in luxury real
estate for just over a decade. And what I was
able to do through that was actually lead several
teams on large developments, both with luxury
and commercial and residential developments.
And what we were able to do through that, which
was so incredible, was to really see the correlation
between, you know, you come into a project, let's
say, and there's... five or six top top builders
in the city and then you have a couple developers
everyone's very talented everyone's incredible
what they do but they might not really be on
the same page and zeroed in on the shared vision
of say the development and i worked on one that
was 103 lot subdivision you know large dollars
coming in and out of that project everyone was
very good at what they did but they sometimes
didn't always share that same vision so in the
midst of that I got to learn so much that process
and now it has brought me to where I am today.
I'm a public speaker, a consultant, trainer,
coach, as well as an author. So whether it be
my children's book, my vision for that is to
really help parents and just loved ones be able
to connect with their little ones in terms of
grief and loss and what that journey looks like
afterwards. And in more of my corporate life,
whether it be speaking, training, coaching. My
focus and my vision here is more on the resilience
and grit aspect of things and how we can help
teams, entrepreneurs really scale their business,
but really hone in how they're able to adapt
and modify to the constant change that we live
in and really come back to, you know, how are
we able to see the value in ourselves and bring
that to our team and really do that in the midst
of using that gratitude, that resilience and
that grit to do so. Thank you for sharing that.
So this is what I understood from it. Your goal
is to help others. And one of the ways you do
that is through building your own teams and empowering
them. Absolutely, Harry. Is that what you live
and breathe by? Is that what you get out of bed
every morning for? Yes. Yes, absolutely. That's
awesome. Thank you for sharing that. How long
have you been doing that? I would say when I
started my, I guess it would have been the end
of 2023, I decided to completely hang up my real
estate license because that would have been about
10 years in the making for that process and really
step into the public speaking world and the coaching
world. Where that kind of came into, Harry, was
it was in 2019. This is kind of where the seed
was planted. I had made a post on social media.
And essentially, it was along the lines of talking
about my brother's passing. I apologize. Talking
about my brother's passing, talking a little
bit about my divorce years ago, and just really
in the midst of grace and appreciation for what
all these parts of my journey have taught me.
It was probably one of my more vulnerable posts.
Didn't really expect anything of it. Just hope
that it would help one person in the audience
gain a different perspective or perhaps realize
that there's always something powerful that can
come out of challenging times. And that, as we
say, like something about our mess kind of turns
into our message at the end of the day. And in
the midst of me posting that, it was maybe about
half an hour to an hour later, I got a call from
one of the directors of the University of British
Columbia Okanagan campus. um i honestly thought
they had the wrong person at first i'm like are
you sure you're trying to contact you know francesca
they're like yes you're the one we're wanting
to contact they said we just read a couple of
our directors just came across your post we were
brought to tears and there was just something
so powerful about it we want to meet you and
i was dumbfounded because i was like okay i didn't
expect that they met up with me and they ended
up sharing that they were going to be doing this
um essentially it was called the gratitude project
it was this large speaking event raising money
for an incredible organization they had different
speakers coming from all over to speak at it
they said we want you to be one of our keynote
speakers everything that you said in this post
is exactly embodying the message that we're wanting
to bring out and it's powerful And of course,
I joked with them. I said, look, like, you know,
I will disappoint you. I am not a public speaker.
This is not what I do. Like, trust me, this is
not the path I'm meant to go down. I'll disappoint.
And they were like, no, no, trust us. This is
it was all meant to happen. Pardon me. I very
quickly asked them, you know. Who else is speaking
on your panel? And of course, they had a TEDx
speaker locally. They had Joshua Dueck. He's
a Paralympic gold medalist who was actually on
the Ellen DeGeneres show. They had this other
powerful woman on there. She was featured on
Forbes at a time. And I thought. You can understand
why I'm not meant to be on this particular panel.
They're like, trust us, Francesca, you're meant
to speak. So of course, 10 days later, I show
up, I do my speech. Within a couple minutes of
my talk, the whole audience is brought to tears
and something clicked for me, Harry. I was like,
maybe this is what I meant to do. I felt so at
home on that stage, holding the microphone. I
know that public speaking is often a fear of
most people, but it just felt so, I don't know,
familiar, I guess would be the word. And that
would have been in November of 2019, kind of
the precipice of the rest of my journey. And
bringing it to 2023, kind of in that chunk of
time, I had been asked to speak on several different
stages since that point. And just even though
it wasn't my main focus, it was very clear to
me that there was going to be a day that I would
leave the real estate world and truly help and
impact people through this vessel, through this
avenue of public speaking and coaching. and so
to say maybe i've been doing this full time now
for the last year and a half i'm grateful for
the journey harry of course like any business
when you're starting it up there's momentum that
you're building just like i did in real estate
and what i've gotten very very clear on is that
when you have a not that i didn't make a lot
of impact people's lives in real estate but there's
something so incredible about standing on a stage
sharing something from a vulnerable space or
from a a place of experience where you can see
the ripple effect of how each of these people
walk away from, whether it's a talk or a coaching
session, and you see the impact that they're
making on their lives now, putting certain little
micro habits into practice to bring it all back
to how can we be better tomorrow than we were
today? Wow. Francesca, thank you for sharing
that. You're welcome. Wow. That's a neat and
clean story. I really, really like what you shared
with us. Thank you. What would you say that being
able to go on the stages and speak and coaching,
coaching is also something very special. I think
people don't talk about it enough or they talk
about it way too less in how necessary it is,
has gone to you, has given you with your vision.
How has public speaking aligned with my vision?
Yeah, public speaking and coaching. I want to
see how they fit in together. Oh, absolutely.
I mean, how they fit in together. I mean, on
the public speaking realm, Harry, as you know,
sometimes we get a call to speak and it's about
maybe a topic that we're not familiar with or
maybe something that we haven't spoke on before.
But something is always going to tie back to
that core purpose and drive of what we're doing
and what our passion is and what we want to help
people integrate into their day to day lives.
And I would say even through the coaching, you
know, the speaking is one thing, right? There's
an academy that I feel very blessed to be a part
of each year. And one of the things that myself,
my partner and many other people get to do is
to share, whether it's a training, a workshop
or a speech at that academy. That is one thing.
And I think that's incredible because you see
that everyone well up in tears in the audience
are having these shifts. I had one young man
who was, he used to be in the army and he had
shared with me, you know, one of the things that
was so impactful to him was that these are some
of the questions that he had never asked himself
until sitting in a room like that, where you
can be in front of a speaker and kind of go,
holy crap, I have never thought about these things
this way. And that's how you make those fundamental
shifts. What I love about coaching here is that
we take that seed that's planted and now we're
able to actually work with it. We're actually
able to nurture the seed, to water the seed,
to put it in the proper sunlight, let them know
when it's time to take it out of the sunlight
so we can kind of, you know, reduce burnout,
all the different things that we know come into
play day to day. And I think that's one of the
most rewarding aspects of coaching, I find, is
that week to week you get to see, okay, how are
my coaching students developing these skills?
Where do they get stuck? Because as you know,
growth is, you know, it's an up and down cycle,
right? Like, I mean, some days we feel like we're
far ahead, you know, it's two steps forward,
one step back. But I would say that's one of
the greater ways I'm able to incorporate coaching
into that main vision and how I'm able to sustain
that moving forward. especially with the goals
that I have in speaking and coaching, because
this is just the start, Harry. Thank you for
being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned
in to Vision Pros Live. I'm looking forward to
seeing your reactions as these episodes continue
to move forward. This is going to get more and
more fun. We'll have more and more engagement
as well. We'll invite people to participate in
the show. And thank you for giving us your time
and attention. Have an excellent time building
out your vision and becoming a vision pro yourself.