Hi, JereMaya. It's Daddy. Today is Saturday, February 5th, 2022. And for this fifth episode, I want to share with you what I do for a living, some of the good and bad things about this career and who I recommend this career path for. It's something I rarely talk about with friends and family. Not because I'm ashamed because I'm not.

But because it's just so different and unfamiliar to them. But before I go into that, I have to share what prompted this idea to talk about my career.

As a movie nerd, I've been planning out what amazing movies to show you at every age, always testing the boundaries of what's exciting, what new ideas I want to plant into your mind, what stories to make you think. And what emotions I want you to experience. And because you're almost 10 years old, I started to think about a movie that came out when I was 10- that's way back in 1990.

It's been decades since I've seen this film. And I don't know if it's aged well, or if it's good anymore, but I have to smile and laugh when I think about certain scenes. The movie's genre is comedy - it's got some action scenes, some drama, a little romance, but lots of laughs. It's called Kindergarten Cop starring Arnold Schwarzenegger - one of the best action hero movie stars ever.

And in this movie, Arnold plays a cop named John Kimble who has to go undercover as a kindergarten school teacher to find the bad guy's ex-wife and his son.

The reason why this is so memorable is that Kimble is a cold ruthless soldier, like cop he's, the buffest dude ever. And he could take anyone on. Well, that is until he actually gets into the kindergarten classroom and pretends to be a substitute teacher. It becomes very clear that Kimble has no parenting experience or even knows how to engage hyper five-year-old kids.

They're running around causing mayhem. It's comical to see Kimble's reactions as he is desperate to gain control without resorting to violence. After all Kimble only knows how to catch murderers and drug dealers.

Anyway, there is a very famous scene that I'll never forget. And it's when Kimble has a creative exercise where he asks his students to participate in a fun show and tell format where each student will speak in front of the classroom to answer a very important question.

[Audio Quote from Kindergarten Cop: "Who is your Daddy, and what does he do?"]

I won't spoil what these kids say, but yeah, I'm convinced now I'm going to show you this film someday when your mommy lets me, it's pretty sexual at times, now that I think about it. So it may take at least another year or so before I pitch it to her I'm sorry in advance.

So this all comes back to what I wanted to talk about today. Who is your daddy and what does he do? The first part of this question is harder than the second part. How do you explain who you are? Most folks will simply say their name, but unless that name is unique and has a powerful meaning, it really doesn't say much to who you are.

Some people focus on what they do for a living. But I think that actually avoids the real question. Who am I? I'm going to answer this question based on values and principles that I believe in and act on. If I were to answer John Kimble, I would say my name is Mike Louie.

I believe that life is very short and fleeting. So if we have an opportunity to lift others up, we should jump on that. At the same time. I also know that we can't help others very well, if we don't invest in ourselves and take care of our own wellbeing. I'm constantly learning and practicing how to be a better husband, father, friend, leader, and teammate to make a meaningful and positive difference in as many lives as I can.

I'm intentional with my time at home and at work, but I'm also the type to escape and wander, whether that's daydreaming, reading a book, playing video games, watching movies or running outside for miles. I really enjoy having these moments to think, reflect, relax, and pursue creative ways to help others.

That's who I am.

As for what I do. There's a lot to unpack, but in context of what John Kimble's asking for, it's about my career and for the rest of this episode, that's what I'm going to talk about, what it is, what I love about it, what I don't like about it and who I recommend this career for. So what do I do?

I lead and support a business function called internal communications, which is also known as employee communications. You're probably asking. So what is employee communications? There's a lot of interpretations out there and it really depends on your role, what team you're on and what industry you're in.

But for me, being in the tech industry, internal comms is Building a connection with your employees so they could be aligned with the most important narratives and be inspired to take action that leads to strategic outcomes. That's a mouthful. So in a future episode, I can unpack this in greater detail, but essentially, if you could get internal comms, right. Building a connection with your employees, aligning them with the most important narratives and inspiring them to take action that leads to strategic outcomes - that enables everyone in your company to have all the information to do their best work. And the speed of getting the right message at the right time and make it easy for employees to access, search, and act on that information - if you can do that fast, , you have a major advantage over your competitors. I often say that internal comms determines the speed of business and after specializing this in over 12 years, now, I could say this isn't easy at all.

Especially as your company grows in size. If a company only has 10 people, they wouldn't need someone like me to join their team because everyone knows each other and communicates frequently. But what if the company grew a hundred times bigger in a very short time? Can the leaders of the organization be able to connect with everyone?

Are they always on the same page? Is everyone moving in the same direction? Is there more room for conflicts and differing ideas? Are people getting the information by email or slack or the intranet? And are the leaders' messaging on point or are they confusing, lengthy or poorly written? That's when companies start realizing they need someone dedicated to improving their internal communications.

What I love about internal communications is that it's a very relationship based career as you're often consulting, coaching and supporting the leaders and executives who constantly have very important things to share with everyone. I learn so much from these folks in how they lead, how they build their teams, how they operate their businesses, and how they approach and focus on problems to solve for their customers and their employees. And if I could help them be at their best when they need to communicate with their teams through the good times and the bad, the entire company and our customers benefit because good comms increases the speed and quality of business.

I could talk another 30 minutes on why I love internal communications. But for the sake of time, I'm going to balance this episode with something that I really don't like about internal comms. Even if you are an internal comms expert, your success is entirely dependent on three major factors, the executive team, IT support and company culture.

If one of these areas are not healthy, then this can make the job much more complicated and stressful. When it comes to executives, internal comms is incredibly difficult when your execs do not understand, appreciate, or leverage your skills. They may not agree with your advice or if they do, they may act on it too late. They can also speak to things in a poor way because they wanted to quickly send out announcements without heeding your advice to prepare first. This usually ends up where employees will be distracted at best or angry and disengaged at worst.

I've personally left companies when I know my advice and suggestions will consistently be dismissed. Why try to help someone when an Exec doesn't want your help, but you know, and everyone else knows in the company that this leader really does need your help?

When it comes to IT support, if you don't have the best technology to connect and inform your employees, especially when you need to scale communications with a growing team - game over.

Bad IT support and obsolete comms tools will always make internal comms look bad and it's painful and time consuming if there are no processes, governance or partnership with the IT teams.

And lastly, your success is highly dependent on company culture. My best employee comms work happens when I'm at a highly engaged company, across all geographic locations, across all levels from execs to individual contributors where transparency, trust, and respect are an expectation.

If you find yourself in a company culture that always questions, attacks, or resents messages going out, it's not a hopeless situation, but it takes years to rebuild trust and confidence in the leadership team. It's not fun. And I will always try to avoid companies that created such a dysfunctional and toxic environment.

So, as you can tell this dependency on execs, IT support and company culture can be a real downer. There are many other reasons to avoid internal communications, but again, that could take another 30 minutes. So I'll have to save that topic for another episode.

Would I recommend this career for you or anyone else? Well, I blame my law school education, but the answer is, it depends. I'd say if you're creative, you love to write, enjoy storytelling, geek out on the latest technologies in employee engagement, or you like to consult and help others deliver their best communications - I'd say most definitely.

If you don't really enjoy building relationships, constantly looking for ways to proactively help your stakeholders or being on call for crisis communications and big warning there, these aren't fun as people's lives are heavily impacted, whether it's a physical threat, a scandal or a layoff, but it's a very necessary skill to help those in need. Also, if you find it difficult to remain calm and help others to be calm during crisis, internal comms may not be the best career for you. To be fair, if you join a good employee comms team, you may not have to be good at everything I just said.

You can specialize and let your manager or teammates focus on those things you don't enjoy.

One last thing about internal comms professionals, at least for the past several years, we are in demand. More progressive and proactive companies are investing in internal communications because it goes back to increasing the speed of their business.

Every week, I get one to five emails from other companies to see if I'd be interested in leading their internal comms function. And I don't share this number to brag. I think internal comms can be a thankless behind the scenes role - we definitely don't get the limelight or the credit as public relations or marketing professionals normally do.

So it's a good and bad thing that the supply of internal comms professionals is small. It's nice to be in demand and it's great job security.

Anyway, that's what your daddy does for a living. And with that knowledge, I have three key takeaways for you.

First start to think about your values, your principles, and a lifestyle that aligns to them. The ideal outcome is to find a career that can support these important aspects to who you are and finding this dream job will not happen overnight for most folks.

For example, I worked at a law firm, graduated from law school, transitioned to the business world and focused on Marketing. It wasn't until five years, after graduating from college, did I discover internal communications and fell in love with it. So take your time, enjoy finding out who you are, what your passions are, and what you're good at.

Second key takeaway when choosing a career, don't limit yourself to what you're good at.

Just because you're really skilled at something and you can make a living out of it, doesn't mean you should always stick with it, especially if you think you'll enjoy something else more. Life's too short to grind away on something that drains your wellbeing.

On the other hand, if you want to maintain a certain lifestyle, make sure you first have a job that can sustain that. The ultimate hope is that you can eventually combine your skills and passions in pursuing an amazing career that can maintain or even enhance your desired lifestyle.

Third, if you haven't seen Kindergarten Cop yet, check it out. You'll have a good laugh and we'll definitely think more on John Kimble's question.

[Audio Quote from Kindergarten Cop: "Who is your Daddy, and what does he do?"]

It's important to know who your daddy is and what he does. And for as long as I can, and to the best of my ability, I'll always be your daddy.

And what I try to do is find meaningful ways to connect and build up my family, friends and teammates - so they can be at their very best to love others and unleash the potential awesomeness in those around them. Every day, I see this potential developing within you twins and I'm so excited for you now and your future. Love you.