Leading from the Frontline: Why Roll-Up-Your-Sleeves Leadership Still Wins

Intro: Welcome to Honestly We’re Learning, a podcast from ClearEdge, the marketing agency that also helps marketers grow their careers.

Join Leslie Vickrey and Lesly Cardec as we explore the turning points that shape a person’s professional story, the highs, the stumbles, and everything in between. We’ll bring you candid conversations with leaders and rising talent, plus our own take on what’s changing in marketing and recruiting today. Because behind every success story is a few lessons learned the hard way. And honestly, we’re all still learning.

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Lesly Cardec:
Okay, we’re back.

Leslie Vickrey:
Hey, Lesly!

Lesly Cardec:
We’re back in action! I’m excited to jump into Myla’s episode today, but I want to reflect on a conversation we had and I hope you don’t mind that I’m bringing it up in front of, you know….

Leslie Vickrey:
Well…we’ll see…what is it?

Lesly Cardec:
What am I going to say?! I recently called you Kris Jenner, the Momager, because when I think of Kris Jenner, she is like, she is like you know in charge of a lot of different careers of the Kardashians. And sorry, if anyone hates them, just keep it to yourself. But I called Leslie Kris Jenner because recently you went to VidCon with with Greyson and you had a great time and and everything, but you kinda took it a step further in multiple ways. I’ll let you share!

Leslie Vickrey:
I feel like this is the Saturday Night Live skit where the news anchors, Colin and Che, don’t tell each other what they’re going to talk about and then they just like drop it on them once a year. Okay, so yes, I am officially a Momager. I’ve actually posted about this on LinkedIn before, like the letting go and letting your kids kind of find their way and so forth. So, you know, Greyson is super creative. He has a YouTube channel.

VidCon, for those who don’t know, is a conference, basically a convention for YouTubers, TikTokers, you know, the people who are content creators. And we spent, gosh, three days there in Anaheim, California. we surprised Greyson for his 10th birthday because he’s been asking to go for years now. And we said, you know what, well let’s surprise him for his tenth birthday. Double digits, big deal. He loves creating. He loves doing videos. We’ll take him.

So leading up to it, I, you know, I used, I asked him, Who are your favorite creators? I used AI to help us create a schedule. And then I would prep him, well, you know, we’re going to sign up for these meet and greets. Who who do you want to prioritize? We get these meet and greets set up.

My biggest fear, Lesly, was, you know, I get nervous seeing people. He these people are YouTube famous to him. So he’s nervous.

Lesly Cardec:
So just to be clear, this is like the equivalent of like…for Greyson to see these YouTube stars is what the equivalent of…

Leslie Vickrey:
I don’t want to say it’s as much as like me meeting Eddie Vedder, but it kind of is. Like, I would probably be like, what am I gonna say? What am I gonna say? So I was trying to help prep him and we did it together, you know, what do they specialize in? Blah, blah, blah. Just so he’d be prepared. Okay. I am mortified, Lesly, so we do all this prep. We get there. It’s hours beyond hours of standing in lines to meet these people. And they were so gracious. They were super kind. Families were there.

One thing I will say is just seeing like the families of the creators there, getting the kids excited, handing out swag, you know, supporting their kids. It was really cool to see, I have to say. And when I say hours to meet them, it could be three to four hours to meet one person or a group of people, creator-wise. So imagine that was our days. We’re set up that way. So now Greyson’s getting up to meet a, you know, creator he loved. He’s hyperventilating. I’m like, what what is happening? What is going on?

So I didn’t realize how much of a Momager I was until, which I think this is what you’re talking about. One of the things I was taking video and Collin, my husband, was with me. I’m like, I’ll do the video, you do the pictures. So I’m doing the video. And in the replay, I could hear myself on the video saying, Greyson, don’t forget you have a gift for jmancurly that he created this cute little stuffed animal.

And had like, you know, this jmancurly thing on it and signed his YouTube channel on the back of it and I’m like, don’t forget to give it to him. So we get out of that moment and Greyson looked at me as he does when I turn Momager, he’s like, next time, you don’t need to talk. You don’t need to tell me, you know, what to do, so on and so forth. So I don’t pick up on it until I hear the video.

And I did apologize to him later. I’m like, I’m so sorry. I I must have gotten nervous and excited for you. So, you know, went a little over the top. Okay, so fast forward we get home and you know, all these kids are there handing out business cards with their YouTube handle on it and you know, trying to get people to follow them. So he was fascinated and asking the kids, how did you create that? Exactly. What program did you use?

You know, and he doesn’t quite get what I do being in marketing. But I said, buddy, I think I can I can help you with that. So he has business cards now. So Momager came through, they’re printed. The funniest thing is he’s afraid to give them out because he thinks these are the only hundred cards he’ll ever have. I’m like, well, they reprint them, you know, trying to educate him so you’re reminded of it, like, don’t worry, Momager will take care of you.

Lesly Cardec:
Oh my God. Does he have a business address on it?

Leslie Vickrey:
No, he just he has his YouTube handle in a QR code.

Lesly Cardec:
Oh my goodness. I love it. I love it.

Leslie Vickrey:
But yeah, I guess I am a little bit like Kris Jenner. I don’t know. I just take over in that moment and I’m like, okay, let’s go. Let’s you know, whatever. But he as he always does, Lesly, puts me in the place of like, I got this, Mom, you know, thank you, but I got this. And he was right. So after that I was like, Okay, I need to…

Lesly Cardec:
It’s hard. It’s hard to like not jump in and it’s at the perfectionist too in you, I think, and a lot of people who wanna jump in and make everything perfect, right?

Leslie Vickrey:
Right. So he’s in part of VidCon, there’s GorillaCon, which GorillaTag is a VR game that he loves to play. So a lot of VR famous people there are there. Founder of Gorilla Tag, founder of Scary Baboon. These are games he loves. So he’s out of his mind excited. We go to GorillaCon in the VidCon Stage Center, and they’re doing this competition on stage. And they ask for audience members to participate. Well, we’re way back.

And Greyson’s, you know, like me, me, me. They call on him. And he’s like, Me? And the guy says, Yes, you come up, you know. And we’re like, my gosh, he got called up on stage. So he, you know, works his way up. Now he’s in the back. So it took him a while to get up. And by the time he got up there, they had started the competition and the security guard, he got on stage, and they said, you need to get off of stage. His little heart, Lesly, was so broken.

I mean, it was like, so the Momager in me woke up at three o’clock in the morning thinking, should I have walked him up there? Should I have gone up there and been like, you know, no, he called him, hey, you up here, you know, you called him up here. He’s coming up, like helped him because he’s, you know, he’s ten years old. But I also realized, and this is something I’ve written about before too, you have to have those moments to grow and realize that not everything’s gonna go the way you think it will go.

So after he recovered, he was like, well, do you want me to show the two of you, me and Collin, what I was gonna do up on stage? Like, absolutely. We’re like, oh my gosh, that would have been hysterical. It’s all good. So he was fine, but it was one of those moments where the Momager in me was like, I should have taken control! And at the end of the day I knew no, I needed to let let him live in that moment of that feeling as hard as it is as a parent.

And then teach him to, you know, lesson like use your voice, you know, you you were called up, you know, all the things, but it happened for a reason and you know he’s still talking. One of those lessons they’ll take with him.

Lesly Cardec:
Yeah. It’s so tough. Well I love that. Well, I’m not gonna call you Kris for very long. Just this episode. So…

Leslie Vickrey:
Here you go! QR code here!

Lesly Cardec:
If anyone needs promotional items for their…for their individual escapades…

Leslie Vickrey:
Don’t even get me started. AI is amazing for these things…

Lesly Cardec:
I know, you showed me other things. I’m not gonna go into it. We’re gonna cut it here.

Leslie Vickrey:
All right, let’s get into the episode here. Myla, we’re coming for you!

Today we’re excited to welcome Myla Ramos, founder and CEO of SearchPros, an enterprise workforce solutions provider built around one simple but powerful idea: people and performance should work hand in hand. As a national leader in managed service programs, total workforce solutions, and staff augmentation, SearchPros helps organizations streamline contingent labor, strengthen compliance, and connect with top-tier talent.

But SearchPros is also the product of Milo’s remarkable personal journey. She grew up in a small province in the Philippines and immigrated to the United States at a young age, carrying with her a deep respect for hard work, humility, relationships, and opportunity. That journey took her from working as a recruiter into senior leadership over the course of a decade before she left to build SearchPros from scratch. Over the past 21 years, she’s grown it into an entirely self-funded, debt-free with no outside investors.

Those values have not only shaped the leader she became, but the culture and mission of the company she co-founded in 2005. Myla has spent her career as an entrepreneur, a business leader, and passionate advocate for people first hiring. She has been recognized among the 100 most influential people in staffing and the global power 150 women in staffing, and was named a twenty twenty five EY Entrepreneur of the Year, Bay Area Award winner, among many other honors.

And yet what stands out most about Myla isn’t simply what she has accomplished. It’s the stories behind it all. And let me tell you, I know firsthand, she has fascinating story after fascinating story about her journey, the people she has met, the challenges she’s overcome, and the lessons she’s learned along the way.

So many in fact I personally think she needs to write a book. And I can honestly say that I have rarely, if ever, seen a company or an executive give back more than Myla and SearchPros do. Your commitment to supporting communities, creating opportunity and helping others, it’s not a side initiative. It is woven into who they are. So if there’s one thing that comes through immediately when you talk to Myla, it’s that she doesn’t see hiring as a transaction.

She sees it as the foundation everything else gets built on. That perspective has shaped SearchPros into a firm now, not just for filling roles, but for helping companies grow the right way with intention, with purpose, and with people at the center of every decision. Myla, it is an absolute pleasure to have you here with us today. Welcome to the show!

Myla Ramos:
Yikes. I’m gonna need to put that recording in a pocket for bad days and keep that as my golden sprinkle in goodness. Thank you, Leslie. That was quite…thank you.

Lesly Cardec:
Myla, I’m so excited to have you here. I saw you on stage for American Staffing Association’s event. And I just remember, I think I might have texted you, Leslie, and been like, wow, that was that was really, really great. And I just wanted to hear more about you. So we’re just, we’re just so excited to have you. We like to start this off with a little rapid fire before we dig into some of the meatier topics. So quick answers, no overthinking.

Just go with your gut. You ready? Okay. Okay. Are you a morning bird or a night owl?

Myla Ramos:
Morning.

Lesly Cardec:
Physical notebook or digital notes?

Myla Ramos:
Physical.

Lesly Cardec:
I love that. I’m a notebook person too, but I’m, I’m, I kind of sway in the middle. Absolute silence or do you have a playlist?

Myla Ramos:
I have a playlist.

Lesly Cardec:
Okay. Do we want to dig into that now or later?

Myla Ramos:
We’ll do it later. I mean the more dramatic it is, the cry…the you know, that’s…I need drama. And it can’t be yeah, it can’t be in English. It messes up my brain.

Lesly Cardec:
Interesting. Okay, we’ll dig into that. Most used emoji in Slack or text.

Myla Ramos:
I’m not very good at emojis, I guess it’s just a very simple thumbs up.

Lesly Cardec:
Thumbs up. Okay. Like it. Coffee, tea, or anything else.

Myla Ramos:
Coffee.

Lesly Cardec:
And if you could have one superpower for one week only, you know, would it would you choose reading people’s minds or super speed or something else?

Myla Ramos:
Knowledge to be able to comprehend it quickly. If you ever watch that movie Limitless, I wanna be that guy.

Lesly Cardec:
Yeah, that’s a good one.

Leslie Vickrey:
Alright, so we know that it’s coffee and we will just get right into it because I think that is an important piece to know about someone. Morning person, have your coffee to get going. You’ve got a great playlist, kind of all, all the things. So Myla, I think of you when I hear the stories that you share and I hear the stories about you, you know, delivering things to clients firsthand, your spam story. If no one’s familiar with that, they need to look up Myla Ramos and Spam to understand what I’m talking about. But there are so many journeys of your, you know, just career from starting the company all the way to where you are today. So I’m curious, is there a moment in particular, big or small, that really helps shape the way, the way that you lead and the way you show up for your clients, your team, company, family, all the things?

Myla Ramos:
I was kind of thinking about that in some of the prep questions. And I remember coming in the US, you know, at a, at a young age, seventh, eighth grade, and watching, and I’m gonna date myself now, right? There was this show called Dynasty. Do you know what it is? It’s these very glamorous women with big hair and perfume and matching outfits.

And I was thinking that was the epitome of the American dream. If you could be like the women in Dynasty, all dressed up, that would mean you’ve made it. That’s the golden dream, right? And the and the closest thing I could get to that, because you watched them getting ready on TV, was this wondrous thing. This was my goal in life at age 14, was to afford Jean Nate Cologne.

That equated to me as glamour. And I used to walk by a store called Mervyn’s. I don’t know if you guys know the store. It’s a long time ago. It’s dead now. And this really cheap perfume, I see now as cheap, was the epitome to me of making it. And then getting a job and over the years, finally affording it and getting it, I thought I had made it.

And getting that job to me, I guess, was, was the trigger, right? Because I’m like, my gosh, you can get anything done. If you have a job, then you can afford money. You can afford the glamorous things you always thought was the dream job. Even if it was just a two dollar bottle of Jean Nate cologne, which is the cheapest, smelliest, yuckiest cologne you could possibly imagine. And being able to afford that out of my stupid little job at the mall.

And I worked at a place called like Contempo, which was like again, I’m dating myself, super 80s girl, right? With the plastic bracelets, you know. I thought was it. I’m like, wow, if you know, little me nothing could get a job and save up on my own to buy what I want, what can I do if I could help people do this? So I know it’s really silly, but I guess that was the first trigger was being able to buy out of my own paycheck of my own money a bottle of Jean Nate perfume from Mervyn’s.

It’s really stupid and crazy. But it it really wasn’t like, wow, if I could do this, what else can I get if I work super hard and really, really hard? Right? So that I guess that was the origin story, realizing it could be done. I wish it could be more impactful or romantic, but it really was a bottle of Jean Nate.

Leslie Vickrey:
Right. And I, I just looked it up. It’s a crisp citrus scent with notes of lemon, lavender, and musk.

Lesly Cardec:
Do you still wear that?

Myla Ramos
No no. No, God no. I think it’s at the dollar store now.

Leslie Vickrey:
They sell it at Walmart. It’s on Amazon. It’s funny. I do remember Jean Nate. I remember the commercial, the splash, like the whole, the whole thing. And it is those moments though that make you realize, you know, someone had said to me once, you know, when do you, when did you know you made it? And I said, I haven’t made it. I’m still learning and growing. And, you know, it’s those little moments though that stick in our heads, those Jean Nate moments of you know, if I can do this, I can do anything to help other people too.

And, you know, those are the things I think Myla, when I because I know your story with the, you know, the other founders of your company and why you started and how you came together. And you do have incredible stories as a team as to how you started SearchPros and what was behind the the reason behind you doing it.

But knowing those other pieces of your story kind of even before that is it’s important to know where that where that comes from. And I think for me, when I think of that, it’s part of what keeps you grounded and humbled because we always know where we came from and our roots and what drives us. And we want to make sure we’re able to give those opportunities for other people who can also have that Jean Nate moment, so to speak, in their lives and that’s the beauty of what you’re offering and giving them.

Lesly Cardec:
I love that Jean Nate story. I know it’s not as big as as you wanted to be, but it’s a core moment that you clearly remember. And I just wanna iterate, Myla, that you have a knack for storytelling. even though it seems small, you’re just very good at describing that moment and bringing people in. So I appreciate you, you sharing that moment. And it’s you know, it’s independence. Everyone wants, you know, that so it that’s a big moment.

So let’s talk about something that you believed earlier in your career. You’ve been in the industry for a long time, you’ve built the business up from scratch, maybe something that you used to believe so fiercely that you’ve kind of had to let go of with more experience.

Myla Ramos:
So as an immigrant, watching my parents work, you know, two jobs, three jobs, and that whole story. I used to, no, I, I take pride in helping people get a job. It was a noble idea, right? Hey, let me find your career path, let me find you a job. And I used to equate the hard work and effort equals great job.

And it has changed so much with COVID and AI. Now being a good employee or doing a good job doesn’t necessarily equal working hard anymore. And people don’t want to work hard anymore. I get it, right? So it it I used to take pride in being the first one at work and being the last person at work. That was a badge of honor that I was the hardest working, you know, Gen Z, Gen X, I, I don’t even know what generation I’m supposed to be in.

But coming from that era and being an immigrant, you took pride in burning yourself out and working 12, 16 hour days. That was your badge of honor. That showed why you progressed, especially as an owner-operator. Today, with COVID and understanding limitations and finding yourself, not just as an employee or a worker, but even more than that, AI has changed everything.

It’s no longer how hard you work, it’s about how smart you work, how efficient you are. So, you know, AI has institutionalized work completely. Really, the word is not lazy, but really efficient people doesn’t have to put in the same time as people that work their butts off twelve hours and more than likely they put out the same output.

So finding that balance has been is a crazy journey we’re on right now. We’re all trying to figure out that balance between working hard and leaning on AI and showing the work ethic, but being more efficient and compliant. That’s a crazy crossroad that we’re all in right now. And if you’re not embracing that or trying to figure that out, because your people, at least my team, they they want to have time to binge watch whatever Netflix new show is out there. They want to have time to relax.

So that expectation of how many phone calls did you make, the KPIs of our industry, right? Even just clock in, clock out, is no longer relevant. It’s it’s about what they’re bringing. So that, that to me is is such a crazy thing that’s happening that we’re all trying to learn along the way. And I don’t, I don’t know the answer. We’re just kinda trying to ride the wave and make sure we’re somewhere in the wave. It’s crazy out there right now.

Lesly Cardec:
It is interesting ’cause I think there’s still you know, there’s still organizations out there that they do the clock watching still. There is there are some in, I’m sure that, you know, that you’ve come in contact. We’ve all come in contact with that before. And I think we’ve had a conversation recently, Leslie, about that mentality and trying to unlearn that mentality. It’s hard. It’s hard because it’s ingrained in you.

Myla Ramos:
We grew up work this our whole lives clocking in and clocking out and saying, Hey, yeah, I got up at six today and got all this done and I’m working till six. Look at me, I’m an amazing CEO. And it’s like, well, no, what did you get done?

So I had a client come to me one time, like just recently, and say, hey, we think we think your contractor’s working two jobs. And I’m like, is there a conflict of interest? And they’re like, well, no, but they’re having two jobs and I’m paying them.

I’m like, well, are they doing the job you need them to do? Like, yeah. So what’s the problem? If there’s no conflict of interest, if there’s no conflict of interest, you’re getting the work done, you’re paying for what you’re getting? What’s the problem?

But it’s this whole, but they work for me, they’re supposed to be mine from eight to five. Like, well, what are they gonna do for the next four hours if they figure out how to do that? Twiddle their thumbs, right? So, but it’s an education process and a lot of people, including me, have reservations.

It can be done correctly. But a lot of people are also taking advantage of it. So it’s it’s it’s finding that balance is really hard and I guess we’re all just still learning. But it that’s definitely a big change from when I started the company to the my immigrant story of you just work hard. And it’s like, No, you gotta work smart. You gotta work hard to work smart. That’s kind of the two part series.

Leslie Vickrey:
And people still, you know, if you’re performing to your point, then you’re performing. If you aren’t performing, then sometimes you do need to go back to well, what what are you doing with the basics of what what is your call volume? What does your outreach look like? How much time are you spending on this? And if they’re not taking advantage of the tools that are available to them today, you know, why not?

So if anything, it there’s still an opportunity to identify performance issues and challenges with people if they’re not performing. But while those high performers, it’s an opportunity to be even more high performing because they’re able to then do, you know, all all of the things to be, to be more productive. And lastly we do talk about that a lot as it relates to unlearning something because we that’s how we grew up in the industry as well is you want to be the first one there and the last one gone. But then you, you know, you hear those stories.

And I saw it in my own mom who, you know, was a CEO of multiple credit unions and, you know, you’re not taking care of yourself. You’re not sleeping well. You’re not eating well. You’re not exercising. You’re not doing all of the things that you should be doing. You know, whether it be throughout the day, which again is something I’ve had to unlearn and I helped show by example with my team is if I want to go for a bike at two o’clock and that’s the only time I can fit it in to get it in, I’m going to do that.

I’m also a high performing, you know, achiever and will know, you know, when to do these different things. But I think you’re, you’re absolutely right. When we look at this moment, and you kind of touched on this a little bit, Mila, you know, this…the hiring, the workforce expectations, technology, it all continues to shift at once.

This isn’t necessarily new for our industry. We’ve had a lot of shifts and changes, you know, over the years. But to your point, with AI accelerating that change almost daily. I know we’re all trying to learn and keep up with and be you know, ahead of that curve. It’s near impossible when every day something changes, but it is reshaping how companies hire. So how your clients hire, how they interact with you, whether it’s, you know, sourcing, screening, interviewing, all of the stages of bringing people to work and the organizations and how they bring in talent of the future.

So when you think of your business and all of these things happening in real time, what’s the question you find yourself really wrestling with the most the most right now?

Myla Ramos:
So many.

Leslie Vickrey:
I know! It’s so hard!

Myla Ramos:
It’s so hard, right? But I think it’s, you know, the first is intent and capability. Like we can teach a lot of things, right? I I would rather have intent rather than ability, because we can teach ability.

And the first is being open minded. You know, I’ve interviewed some really great people that have been in the industry for a long time. And the first thing one of the first things they say, AI scares me, I don’t use it. You know, they’re they’re gonna lead you wrong, they hallucinate.

And I’m like, Ooh, you’re out. I can’t, if you can’t even understand that there are pros and cons and you’re open to learning it, then you know and and a lot of them and it’s, it’s because our industry was for so very, very long relationship based.

It’s it’s a relationship of this person that and it’s been successful for them for the last I don’t know how many decades our industry’s been around. And it’s like, yes, relationship is important, but it’s different. You can’t cold call people to give you a job anymore. There’s no want ads, there’s no CareerBuilder or Monster. All the things that just four years ago existed, no longer exist.

And if you did not or do not have the capacity or want the capacity to learn, it’s okay if you’ve never used AI. But if your answer is I am so intrigued for it and I want to learn about it, then the conversation continues. But when the conversation starts with, no, I have my own book of business. I my customers love me. I don’t need to use AI. I’ve got this. I’m like, do you, really? Cause your customer’s probably about to go out if they don’t use AI either. So…

Flexibility and open mindedness, because we’re all learning moving forward now. The skills that we learned are changing so fast because AI could fix so many of those things. I mean, like, did you know that there’s an AI appreciation day in two days on July 16th? Like, I thought that was a joke. Somebody was telling me, hey, it’s AI appreciation. I’m like, wait, what are you talking about? That didn’t exist last year. And now it’s a national thing. I’m like, how did that happen?

How did AI become institutionalized into the fabric of our lives? There’s an AI day. That doesn’t make sense to me! But that just shows you how fast. And if people that we’re interviewing or talking to do not recognize that yet, it’s not my job to educate them. I got other things to worry about. So it does not…I don’t know. That’s kinda how we look at it.

Leslie Vickrey:
Yep. Always be learning and growing. It’s a, it’s a mindset and a cultural piece too to always be learning, always be growing. And listen, we’ve all been in the industry a long time. We, unfortunately, a lot of times we lead by fear of the industry going away. Every time there’s a change, workers are gonna lose their jobs, sales reps are gonna lose their jobs right now. Marketers are gonna lose their job. Everyone’s gonna lose their job.

If you look at it and take the fear out of it and look at what that opportunity can bring to you on the other side. Think of the opportunity and the success being so much greater than the fear. And the outcome of that is so much greater than the fear. But we let fear and life get in our way. And I think that’s something for you too. I might add that, Lesly, to our interview question, something around being fear-based, because we really want people who think opportunity-based.

Myla Ramos:
I am like so excited. You know, I I used to compete. I have always competed with the big boys, right? Where they when people ask how many people you have in your team and I tell them they’re like shocked. And when they ask, who created this RFP proposal? Because RFP proposals are these massive thousand page documents. And typically the big boys have, you know, dozens of people working in this, right? And I’m like, there’s one of me, maybe two.

And now I’m like, no, dude, I’ve got an agentic team of twenty people that’s researching. So you can actually compete at the level of the big boys. If you know how to use it correctly. But that’s all what we’re all learning to do. So like you said, and I think coming from my roots being scrappy, we’ve always MacGyvered everything. So it was easy to be, to change. Like I I have my whole Change the World Tuesday series, right? It’s always been a matter of change for us. So AI was just another change venue. So that’s made it a little bit easier to swallow all the rapid fire.

Don’t get me wrong, I still have team members that are like, what? No, but yes, little by little, bite-sized pieces. Let’s start Copilot. Let’s, let’s clean up your email just a little bit. Okay. We don’t need an agent. We could just clean up your verbiage. You know, it’s kind of like spell check but better. You know?

Lesly Cardec:
I it’s interesting to hear you speak and just having conversations with other leaders too, because the scrappiness, the just the notion of like, we’ll figure it out, that type of mentality, I think, is so unique and just, I just feel I feel like it’s ingrained in a lot of high level senior executives that we were speaking to. So that just it reaffirms me every time I hear that.

I have a feeling you’re gonna have a really good answer for this one. The next one I wanna talk about is cause you have such an interesting story of, you know, you’re how you grew up and how you built this company and and I wanna talk a little bit about the people that have shaped you. So whose voice or presence has shaped you the most?

Myla Ramos:
My grandmother, she grew up in the twenties, thirties. So after I was born, my parents had this wonderful opportunity to go to America as tourists. And then civil war broke out and I got left behind. So I grew up with my grandmother, who was a widow, in a convent. So it’s the opposite of what I am now, I guess, but the foundation of it all…

So imagine a nunnery where 6 PM the bell would ring. The whole nunnery would kneel to would kneel wherever we are in pray the Rosary. Philippines is 99% Catholic. So your role as a woman was serve God, first and foremost, serve your husband, which there’s no divorce, have babies, cook food, take the children to church, serve God.

So that service mentality of make sure everyone around you is taken care of, make sure there’s food on the table for everyone was the foundation where I grew up. And then my parents came back, you know, 15 years later, 14, 15, and said, Let’s take you to America. And we landed in Baltimore, by the way.

So first of all, you take me from this countryside village church with no running water or electricity. You drop me in the middle of Baltimore, Maryland. The snow itself, like, shivering day and night, was like, I couldn’t believe how cold it was that it would go down to your bones. Like no matter how many pieces of clothing I wore, I was just always, always cold.

I didn’t know what a sandwich was. Like it was ridiculous that you would put two pieces of bread and a cold piece of meat and eat that. So imagine being a seventh grader coming to work, I remember a foil ball. So I would put rice and put a piece of fish and then put it in a foil and wrap it and that would be in my pocket. That was not very popular because of the smell.

And they would bring me this thing called the peanut butter jelly, and I ate a peanut butter. I’m like what is this…? Why is there sticky stuff in my mouth?

So I have never been taught to lead. It was always serviced. And so when you asked me like beginning of this, I heard you speak, I heard you tell them. I wasn’t trying to be funny. I really didn’t know what peanut butter was. I wasn’t trying to lead. I just didn’t know any better. So I asked this question, but because of all of that.

It’s never been about, you go do this or I want to show off to people. When when I went for Robert Haplf, they’re one of the most known people for their SLAs and KPIs. Everything’s about numbers. When our manager asked or you need to make twenty five calls a day, I’m like, Well, my expectation coming from that background is I need to do fifty. And I did, right? When they said come to work at seven, I was there at six. I never complained, never thought about it. When they said, Hey, I need you to do this, I did double, whatever.

It was never an excuse of well, I didn’t know how to speak the language or gosh, I already worked twelve hours. Why am I working fourteen? It never occurred to me to question things that were told to me ’cause I came from nothing. So it didn’t matter that you wanted me to work twelve hours. I would work twenty four if I could stay awake. But you know, stuff like that.

So I guess that has always been and then as you they, as you grow up and you grow into the business, they start putting you in front and say, do this. I’m like, no. And at first it’s always been, and I guess that’s a very hard change. I’ve always led by example. You do this, and this is how you do it.

You get to a certain size and you can’t do that anymore. Example doesn’t work anymore because you can’t be all to everyone and show everything. So we grew steadily until the point where my partners brought me aside, shook me, slapped me around and said, We can’t all three be recruiting at the same time. You are gonna be sales. And I’m like, I don’t wanna be sales. I don’t even like people. I’m scared of people. I have nothing to talk to them about.

People talk about sports or drinks or movies. I’m like, I don’t watch sports. I don’t know anything about sports. I don’t know anything about movies. I don’t watch movies. I listen to Filipino music. I don’t know who Madonna or why she’s a virgin. Why do I know these things? And I’ve never drank. So they’re like, what am I gonna do at a bar? I don’t know what to do in a bar. I don’t even know what to order. I don’t like beer. So I remember those early years, like five, six years into the company, my partners were like, No, you have to be the salesperson. We don’t care that you don’t know anything. We’ll figure it out.

And I remember doing role plays with them. And they’re like, okay, we’re gonna be at a bar. You’re gonna come into a bar and you’re gonna have a conversation. You’re gonna start with the weather and you’re gonna order a drink. I’m like, but I don’t like wine. It tastes horrible. Okay, we’re gonna get you a margarita. You can drink a margarita. You’re like, okay, I don’t like margaritas.

So you learn. So those are kind of this the shaping stories that every inch the way, and I think that’s what my team follows. If I’m not afraid to do what I asked them to do and I’ve done it and I’ve done it with them.

Maybe it’s not so bad that they do it. You know, and from time to time I’ll get out of my office and I’ll sit with the recruiters and recruit with them. And from time to time I’ll get out of recruiting and I’ll sit with onboarding and onboard a couple of people with them. And they’re like, Well crap, if she can do twenty onboardings in one week, you better get yourself together because that’s all you’re doing. So I guess that’s kind of the difference of it. So when you say it was a good speech, I’m like, I wasn’t trying to be funny about spam. I really had a can of spam in my purse. I mean…

Leslie Vickrey:
That’s the beauty, Myla, of your stories is they come from the heart, real life experiences. And they are unique and different from what most people have. And that again, the more you share about your upbringing, the story with your grandma and your parents, the more, you know, people learn that this is why you are the way that you are when you think about the spam story or eating rice with fish.

You know, all the things it’s, you know, what has helped shape you to be the leader who you are and is why your team wants to be right next to you and follow you along that journey. So thank you for being so open and and sharing and sharing that even more. I highly encourage our listeners, if you have a chance to see Myla speak live or read, you know, definitely follow her on LinkedIn, read her stories.

There’s a lot of really interesting things that they’ve done as a business starting out and how they’ve remain successful over the years and continue to use that really servant leadership style that you bring to the table, Myla, leading with that service mentality. Your clients love you for that. And so so do your team. Myla, where can listeners connect with you or follow along with your work? I mentioned LinkedIn. Is that the best place for them to connect with you?

Myla Ramos:
Yeah, it really is. It’s the only place. Honestly, I didn’t even know like somebody told me, okay, you guys are doing something really cool and you have a brand and you have a story. Like for 21 years we’ve been heads down just working and actually it was Leslie, that said, you guys should do like marketing and like PR like, really? Why?

We we really didn’t know. No one has really heard our story until maybe this last year when we started putting some articles out and we got invited to some speaking and they’re like, Wow, this is really cool. I’m like, Why? Because this is all we know. This is not unique. This is just everyday life. I didn’t know that there was a difference. So it’s still like mind boggling to me when you guys see it.

But yeah, no, I only have LinkedIn on our website, of course. We write some articles and some blogs sometime, but that’s that’s really all we have.

Leslie Vickrey:
All right. Well, all you have is a lot. So as we wrap up, I think what really stands out consistently is you always come back to people and not as a talking point, but as the actual foundation of how you lead and how you’ve built SearchPros. So thank you for sharing not just what you built, but how you thought about it when you were actually building it. Super grateful for this.

Myla Ramos:
Thank you. Appreciate your time, everybody.

Lesly Cardec:
This was fun!

All right, that’s a wrap on Myla’s episode. And it was as good as I thought, and and probably more. What did you what did you think?

Leslie Vickrey:
I agree completely. And I love when guests start to warm up and open up and share personal stories. And I know we like to think about what’s that take three. I’m gonna jump in with my first, it’s that service mentality with Myla and her sharing the story of being raised by her grandmother in a convent and her parents leaving and coming back.

Taking her at the age of 15, moving back to or moving to the United States and landing in Baltimore and listening to those stories. But what stood out to me was really where she was raised to be in a service mentality, that servant mentality, and really, you know, serve God first and foremost. And then she went into servicing other people, but always taking care of everyone.

And I think of her as a leader and I think about the nonprofits they’ve set up and they support and what they do for their teams, it’s coming from a place as a leader. If she never expected to be a leader, she always expected to be in service of leaders. And now transitioning into that leader, you can see in her the way she leads, the way she interacts with people. She’s, you know, very humble, but also wants to take care of people, which I think is really a fantastic trait of hers. Jean Nate, I think is how it’s pronounced, she kicked off with one of her stories and that piece of wanting to be able to give other people that experience. She really brought that full circle in her talk when it came to, you know, where that really stemmed from with her growing up in that service mentality.

Lesly Cardec:
She’s such a good, such a good storyteller. I mean, she doesn’t even realize how good of a storyteller she is. But yeah, I I love that too. She when I heard her talk about just taking care of everything, just that’s ingrained in her.

Yeah, the other thing too that stood out to me, she mentioned something about working smarter. And it’s not a novel concept, but it’s more of like how she operates now when she’s even just looking for folks to bring on board to her company. and the topic of AI came up, surprise, surprise, but just more about you don’t have to know how to do everything, but you have to be open to it.

And just the importance of that learning stance that we talk about quite a bit. And yeah, it’s a good way to lead because again, you’re not asking folks to have everything figured out because we’re all in this together trying to figure out how to make our lives more efficient and and do everything better and smarter and and but I just I liked her notion of that in terms of her story about meeting someone and if they come in with very a closed mindset and not open to just learning and figuring things out with them, it’s an automatic no. So I thought that was that was a nice story.

Leslie Vickrey:
I love how she also leads by example. So when she was talking about, you know, being in the sales role and getting twenty submits in a day, whatever that may be, her team, and I know a few leaders who are like this and I’ve always admired this about them, where they travel around to the local markets and they’re, you know, in the pit basically working with the recruiters and making the calls and doing the things.

You know, staying true to your roots really of where you came from and what you learned. And her roots are recruiting. And then her team having her go into sales. That was funny to hear the stories of how they had her, had her do that. But I love the fact that she continues to this day to really lead by example. So when she needs to, she’s rolling up her sleeves, she’s doing the work. She’s, you know, leading and selling and and doing all of the things for the team to see that and know, wow, if she’s still doing that, I I need to step up and do it too, I think speaks volumes to the the culture that they have and that they’ve created. So leading by example.

Lesly Cardec:
Yeah. Yeah. I love I love like the she used the word scrappy. And I just I love that mentality of someone that you can lead an organization but you can also roll up your sleeves and jump in if you if you need to and she’s just, she’s someone who’s kind of lived all of those roles before, so she’s not afraid of it. That was great.

Well that was such a great conversation. And I know I saw her on stage a long time ago, what feels like, and was really excited to have her back on. So that was that was hopefully the start of more conversations with Myla. Thank you, Myla, if you’re watching. We really loved having you on and I know our listeners will love it too.

Lesly Vickrey:
I know. It’s so hard, Lesly, not to dig deep into some of these questions because after we’ll be like, what about this? What about that? We only have so much time. So we hope you enjoy and like we suggest, follow her on LinkedIn if you have an opportunity to hear Myla speak and definitely encourage her to publish a book. I think she has a very interesting story to tell from childhood to entrepreneurship and one we can all learn and grow from. So honestly, we’re still learning, right?

Lesly Cardec:
Yeah, we are. Till next time!

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