I wrote our own ten-year visions and then compared them. It was surprising that our individual visions had way more similarities than differences. From there we decided to join forces and were managing partners together for 13 years. Stas‘ joining allowed us to grow at a time when I couldn’t keep things growing on my own. All of a sudden it wasn’t completely overwhelming. At first, his presence simply meant clients could book more training days. Then we added more trainers, and we grew revenue that way. In August of 2013, he stepped down as managing partner and started doing some project work for us. He passed away this spring which was really hard for all of us. For us, Vision is everything If you can’t already tell, visioning is a big part of the way we do things. We plan for where we want to end up. Right now, our 2020 vision says that in August I’ll step down and there will be one or more new managing partners. To prepare for that, we already have Katie Frank in training for the managing partner role after I step down. We’re hoping she’ll be approved, buy-in and become an owner. Then Katie and I will have two years of co-managing together before I step down. My family takes visioning seriously as well, in 2013 my husband Fred, took the visioning seminar in preparation for his retirement in 2015. He’s been a pilot his whole life, and part of his vision was to become a flight instructor. Part of my long-term vision was to get a camper and take
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long road trips after I step down. Things are already in motion for us to be on track with our visions. Our managing partner is in training, Fred and I bought a camper, he recently passed his certified flight instructor exam, and we just returned from our first, five-week road trip. While I do feel really lucky, I didn’t just end up here. We consciously decided it would be great to be in this place, both my husband and I, and my team at ZingTrain. The journey has been really gratifying. On being it all, all at once I have women ask me so often, “You had kids, you built a business, how did you make it all work?” And I tell them honestly, “At any given moment, it felt like it was out of control.” There were months I was on the road, way more than I wanted to be. And I could say to myself, “I’m having this March because in July we’re going up north for two weeks and I will be completely off the grid.” At any given moment, life was not in balance, but big-picture, it was. So looking back I can say I had a really satisfying career, I had long vacations and trips with my kids. Was I always around and spending as much time with them as I wanted? No. But that whole idea that you can have it all at the same time? I don’t think that’s possible. I think you can have much of it but not necessarily all at the same time; you’ve got to juggle. A huge “a-ha” for me was learning to say no to things. I got to the point where I said no to the things I didn’t want to do, and that was good. But
then I realized, “Oh, I have to say no to things I really want to do too, because those take energy, and time and emotion as well.” And that didn’t seem fair. But it became clear, “Ok, you can keep saying ‘yes’ to those things and go out of your mind, or you can say, ‘maybe that’s something I’ll try to come back to later.’” I can always go back. There really is a point when your kids don’t need you as much and aren’t as interested in you. I learned control is an illusion. Having a great therapist helps, too. What we left out of this interview were the number of different positions and roles Maggie had before she teamed up with Zingermans to create the ZingTrain arm of the business. Maggie’s willingness to keep following her breadcrumbs (without overidolizing following her bliss) led her to build a cutting-edge training company aligned with her vision and values and trust the process of life’s unfolding. We admire her honesty and willingness to share exactly what it took. When one woman takes off her superwoman mask, it allows the rest of us to breath easier and to know that if she can do it, we can do it, too, just as we are. Imperfections and all. Thank you, Maggie.