 Welcome to the Leaders Mindset, where we have enlightening conversations with leaders of all kinds and all organizations and we learn about how they became leaders, what the challenges they face are, and especially how they're developing the future leaders coming up behind them. I want you all to welcome our very special guest, a good friend of mine from Wayback. Wayback. She is the Vice President of Investor Relations at the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance. Please welcome Brooke Malone. Thank you so much for having me, Jason. I'm so excited to catch up with you and I know that you and I have had many discussions on leadership because that was what you were doing at United Way when we first met seven or eight years ago. Yes. Over longer ago that was. So you are at LVGEA now. Yes. And not many people, well I shouldn't say not many people, but a lot of people don't know what LVGEA is and how it's really having an impact on our community and our economy in Las Vegas. So tell us what LVGEA is, what your role is there and how you're trying to lead Las Vegas into the 21st century. Sure. So LVGEA, it's a very long acronym. It stands for the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance. And our role is to help attract businesses to our community, to the community of Southern Nevada. So we are designated by the State of Nevada. There's eight of us total. We are one of the largest, us and Reno, we're the two largest, what we call EDOs, Economic Development Organizations in the state. And our goal is to help diversify the economy. So here in Las Vegas we are super fortunate because we have a big spigot of money coming in from gaming and hospitality, which is fantastic because I always say when we're up, we're up, right? Like when we have money coming in through that source of income, it is, it's amazing for us. However, when we go through a bus cycle in the economy, we are usually hit the hardest out of like large regions in the country. Typically Las Vegas has hit the hardest because what's the first thing people cut out of their budgets? Fun stuff. Right. So the role of LVGEA is to help diversify the economy by way of bringing businesses here. And it's such a really, it's such a cool and unique organization because we have a chance to partner with a ton of different sectors, public sector, private sector. Our organization is a two sector partnership, so public and private. Half of our funding comes from the state and municipalities. The other half of the funding comes from our private partners who really believe in making sure that Southern Nevada is successful in the way that we do business and have a well running functioning economy. And that's your job is to build those partnerships with those private companies and bring those investor dollars in. Yes. To help build, to help build the economy here in Las Vegas. So very similar to what I was doing when I met you at United Way of fundraising. I love fundraising so much. It's so much fun. I looked at your resume on LinkedIn and I saw a lot of fundraising. So you must really love it or be really good at it or both. A little bit of both, I hope. I've been doing it for so long since I was 19 years old. But to me, fundraising is the art of telling a story and finding stakeholders who are interested in investing in that. So very similar. Again, my role at LVGEA. I have an opportunity to identify companies who are interested in making sure that our region is successful and globally competitive in attracting businesses here. So yeah, it's fun. It's really cool work. So what kind of businesses are we trying to attract here? Because we are known for hospitality. We are known for gaming. We are now getting known for sports and entertainment. What else are we trying to bring in so when that cycle always occurs, there's always an up and there's always a down. So how are we going to be less down the next time around? Yeah, less down. So focusing on a few different industries. And I'm so glad you're asking me this because one of our goals is to really help get the community rallied around making ourselves attractive to these types of industries. So the first one is battery. Of course, batteries, lithium are becoming huge in everything that we have between cars, devices. So here, as a state, we're pretty uniquely positioned because we're so close to California. The natural resources that we have here, our climate is pretty unique. The dry climate is actually to our benefit in attracting a battery manufacturer here. So battery is one of them, which falls under clean technology. Another one is fintech. So we actually have quite a few fintech companies in town and we're working to do more, especially with all of the gaming and the sporting events that we have now. This is a prime place for a fintech company to come and set up shop because you have a great audience. You have a worldwide global audience always coming in. And even when they're not coming in, the locals, it's still an opportunity for them to test out what they have. Some of the other industries that we're going after include biotech. So healthcare for us is going to be huge. For one, because we have an aging population, that's going to be coming up soon. The boomers are getting of age where they're going to need a lot of healthcare and support. So here in Southern Nevada, with the med school being here at UNLV Roseman University, we have so many great resources here that we actually can be pretty competitive in that space. So those are some of the top three industries that we're going after right now. Okay, great. And it's not just big companies. In the past, that's what I understood was in the past, LVGEA was focused on how we really bring big companies here. You're starting to dive into fostering entrepreneurship, bringing smaller companies, bringing those startups here to Southern Nevada. So what kind of startups are you looking for and how are you bringing them here? How are you trying to get those companies, how do you try to get them to move out of Silicon Valley or Austin and come join us here? So a few ways, one of them is actually starting by listening to them. So what do you need and what does our community not have that we can support you with? So together as an ecosystem, we can start to build those resources and bring them in to make ourselves fertile ground for them to plant themselves. So that's one area. Another area is bringing in experts. So I don't know that here in Southern Nevada, we just typically haven't had that type of background. So we've been working to identify partners who can help us in bringing in those types of companies and just identifying what other businesses they want to sell to. So in order for a startup to be successful, they have to have a customer base and that customer base can either be another business or if it's B2C, like the consumer. So how can we build the infrastructure and a system to give them access to their customers easily? So those are some of the ways we're looking to build the entrepreneur space here. That's great. I'm so glad to hear you say that you're looking to bring expertise in and not just companies. I do a lot of mentoring with the startup community here in town and I'm a big believer that one of the things we really need are those experienced mentors, those exited founders who have done it a couple of times successfully or not. Those savvy investors who know how to help guide and mentor a startup founder. It's not that we don't have great startup founders here but we don't know what we don't know sometimes. And I think I'm excited here LVGEA is kind of in lockstep with the rest of us going. We need some expertise. We need some help here. We do and we've been very fortunate here in our region because we've had some pretty big names come out of Silicon Valley and at LVGEA we've also been fortunate to connect with them. So recently we participated in something that was already going on prior to our involvement. It's called the Vegas Tech Summit. You may be familiar with Vegas Tech Summit. But the amount of billionaires that come to our region during that time is phenomenal. And the fact that we have access to those people and we can share the assets of our region and get their honest feedback on what we are lacking. It's such, am I allowed to say bad words? It's the internet. You can say whatever you want. Okay. It's such a badass opportunity for us. And again, I said a bad word. I'm so sorry. Again, it's a really cool opportunity for us just because you have all these people who have experience in this area and they see a place like Southern Nevada where we don't necessarily have the experience. So I think we're all pretty porous and open to receiving their mentorship and their feedback. And I'm very grateful that at LVGEA we're poised pretty well to take that in. Yeah. I'm glad to hear that. And I think LVGEA is really uniquely positioned to be the broker of that conversation. That's our goal. That's really great. So how did we get to you being a vice president at LVGEA? Jason! Where did we start? How did we get here? I want to do the same thing. I wake up trying to find my socks and matching in the morning. I try to figure that out myself like, how did I become a vice president? That's a good question. My story is different, I mean like all of our stories, than probably a typical what you would call executive or person in leadership. So pros and cons to everything, but I always tell this part of my life because I think it's relevant to who and how I am today. So I had my son very young. I had my kiddo the first day of second semester going back to UNLV. So I was like forced, like I had to get a job. Fortunately, that job happened to be a fundraising role. So I started out in a call center environment, but we actually had really cool clients like West Point Military Academy and the Naval Academy at Annapolis and universities and healthcare systems around the country. So I started off just like being a caller in a call center and pretty quickly the supervisors pulled me off the phone, the management and the owners and made me a supervisor, mind you, I'm like 20. So I worked there for like a year, a year and a half and I'm young, I'm in college, I got a kid. And they were like, Hey, you're really good at this, like you should help us train other callers. And I was like, I mean, I'm like, okay, like I don't really know what that means, but I'll take it. So pretty early on I learned to read people, how to compel to others, how to tell someone else's story to help get others involved and feel passionate enough to want to give back and support. And I've always just built on that momentum. So I started there. I did an internship with American Red Cross from there. I went to work at Habitat for Humanity. From there, I went to go work where you and I met at United Way. So I truly love the art and science of fundraising and it's led me here. That's incredible. Here we are. Yeah, we'll be looking for your masterclass. Fundraising and reading people. Fundraising 101. Jason the Duke Leadership Consultants will be sponsoring that. I love it. And you didn't just learn this all on the job. You actually studied media and communication for your college and your degree. I did. I did. Proud Sun Devil went to ASU. I call myself a cyber Sun Devil. So I went to school online through ASU's online journalism and media program. Cronkite graduate, very proud. But I will say, although I studied media and communications, a lot of what I learned was on the job. And I was recently listening to an interview with Jay Shetty and Adam Grant. And he said something that resonated so well with me and was so spot on because he said, the way we learn the best is when you, it's when we learn something and we have an opportunity to implement it immediately. So because of my path, because I was in school, I mean, it took me eight to nine years to finish undergrad. So because, you know, I had like a human that I had to raise and pay the bills and stuff. Priorities. So I had a chance to go to school and work at the same time, would not recommend teen parenting. However, because of my story and because I had to work full time and go to school full time, I would go to class and learn a concept and have an opportunity to implement it pretty immediately. And sometimes I have really cool professors. They would allow me to use my work as assignments. So for an example, I always am so grateful to a professor. She, we had like a press release assignment. And I told her, I was like, hey, like I actually just wrote a real press release for Habitat for Humanity. Like we had a home build and family just move in. Can I use that? And she was like, absolutely. Please, please do. You sent it to the media and they actually came outside. Yes, you can absolutely turn that into your real work as your homework. So it was really cool having an opportunity to learn a curriculum put on by a phenomenal school and and be able to implement it at the same time. I've noticed that more and more I did education in various parts of my career starting as an undergraduate as a teenager. Yeah. And then going to the Air Force and doing a master's degree in engineering in the Air Force. And then finally, after I got out of the Air Force doing my MBA at UNLV and I did find over all those years that there was more and more emphasis on you can do real world stuff as your assignments. I think that's that's really valuable when you can implement and reinforce what you're learning with something that you're actually doing and you're passionate about. Yeah. I think that's when we learn the best, right? Like I think we learn the best. What is it called experiential learning or like tactile learning when you just like you just got to do it. That's that's how I should know what that's called. But yeah, it's the it's the do it learning. You just got to do it. Just do it. Yeah, just do it. Well, when we first met, you were involved in doing a lot of leadership development stuff with the community through United Way. In addition to the fundraising, that's that's one of the ways we really connected is over some events at United Way. Yeah. So what have you learned about leadership in addition to in addition to what you've learned about learning and doing? What have you learned about leadership? And more importantly, because we really believe here that our number one job as leaders is develop future leaders coming up behind us. What have you learned about leadership? But what have you learned about developing future leaders? Yeah, so something I've learned about leadership, there's a few key qualities that are important. I just finished reading Good to Great by Jim Collins. And he talks about humility. And when I think about some of the leaders that I admire, they absolutely have that trait of humility in addition to having a vision. Communicating that vision clearly to their people. They are humble. Also, a quality leader empowers others. My job as a leader is to make sure that everyone on my team, those who report to me, those who are my equals, those who are above me can do the absolute best they can do. And any and everything that I can give them to support them in their work. I feel like that makes me and anyone around me who's aspiring to be a leader like that makes you a quality leader is making sure that everyone else around you is uplifted and you're giving them the tools and the resources they need to do the absolute best they can do and to learn. Learning is so important. Like, I think sometimes we undermine what it means to be a lifelong learner and learning just that's why you know when you ask the question about school like yes I you know proud grad of ASU. However, most of what I've learned has been outside of the classroom and continuing to grow is crucial to anyone's to anyone's success as a leader. Yeah, we agree. We agree with that here. So it's it's that lifelong learning piece is something that I think a lot of leaders come to later. Yeah, they because you're when you're a young leader you're always learning something new and then you kind of get to a point where you go okay I got this figured out a little bit. Yeah. And then you realize oh I don't have this is figured out as as well as I did and we're always trying to push that lesson of keep learning because if you don't you're you're going to learn one way or the other. Yeah, and to your second question around what do I do to empower my people so that's it. I encourage my team to constantly learn more like teach yourself something new teach me something new. And go outside right like don't just stay within our organization like I encourage benchmarking. I we've all heard that a sentiment that comparison is like the thief of joy but I think like a healthy comparison can help boost your productivity it can help boost your learning like don't envy you know what someone else has to have going on but if you look outside of your bubble and if you can look outside of your sphere and really understand what another organization or another person that you admire is doing. That is something I highly encourage my team to do benchmarking and understanding what others are doing so we can make ourselves better. Especially what you're doing is those relationships are so important. Yeah, right. So looking outside building relationships outside and really starting to develop a more strategic view of your own job is really important to start thinking about what what what is my boss's problems. What can I help with what are my boss's boss's problems that I can help with absolutely how does how does if you're in a in a for profit company how do you how does our industry work not just how does our company work. How does how does our how do our customers industries work and developing that strategic big picture knowledge. Yes, really. That's huge. It's so important and also when we teach others helps us learn more as well. And I always encourage my team to and myself for that matter to listen more listen more than you speak. Right. So two ears one mouth for a reason. Right. So I think we know we hear about critical thinking speaking clearly. But to me listening clearly and listening critically is just as important if not more important than it was just as important. I wouldn't say it's like lesson lesson more important thinking critically but listening critically and clearly is also just as important. I think it's fair to say that the that the core skill set of communicating is the listening part. That's the that's the piece you've really got to have and the critical thing you know listening critically is if you want to manage conflict and if you want to have win win solutions. The listening and understanding piece is really the core competency of that kind of communication. Yep. Absolutely. All right. So you took a break from the fundraising for a while. I did. You went and worked for a tech startup. I did. Tell me all about that. Do I have to. You do. I'm just kidding. It was fun. I had such a great time. And it was nice to go outside of what I know. Really cool how I came across the company. I was actually at United Way. I was working and one of my colleagues comes. He calls me into the conference room. I'm like dude I got to go. I'm late for a meeting. Like I'm already I'm late. I got to go. I remember how fast. I remember how it was. Yeah. And he's like you got to meet this founder and I was like I don't have time to talk to a waiter like I got to go. And he was like no seriously like you got to meet him and I'm like okay fine. So I go and meet him. I end up like super late for my meeting because I am just overwhelmed with excitement and the vision that he expressed in such a short amount of time like really sucked me into want to be a part of it. So for a few weeks actually probably like a couple months he kept telling me like hey Brooke I'm hiring for this position. And I was like oh great. Like I know some people like I'll send them your way. I'll send you resumes. I'll you know send me the job description. I'll forward it. So one day he says hey can I take you out for lunch. I'm like yeah for sure. And he slams we're a bone fish girl in town square. I'll never forget he slams his portfolio on the table and he goes Brooke I want you to work for my company. I was like oh you want me to work for your company. And he goes yeah. And I was like wait let me see that job description again. Like what do you need me to do. And I was like I like I'm a fundraiser. I don't know if I can do this. And what did they have you doing sales sales. So which is I mean fundraising is sales right. So but again. I didn't want to say no because I was about to graduate when I took on the role. So I was about three months out from graduation when I took on the role. And I was willing and open to trying new things. Also I found it was very similar to fundraising. So it was the art of creating a story as to why this founder made this business. It was in a sector that I'm incredibly passionate about which is education specifically higher education and giving students access to resources that they may not otherwise have. Great experience one of the most brilliant men I know the founder Gerald mega the company's called circle and he's so smart. He actually I read pretty well I think I read pretty often now and one of the reasons I read so often is probably because of him he sometimes would read like a book a week and I'm like how are you doing this and working like 80 hours and running a company but having an opportunity to work under him. We had to hustle hard. We had fun. We went from you know two schools to 20 schools and within like a year. I had an opportunity to visit lots of states and cities and meet with provost and presidents and deans and learn how they are aspiring to make sure that their students can access the tutoring center and other resources to help them on their journeys and getting through their education. So having an opportunity to be a part of that was super cool and fun until it wasn't and it wasn't because like if the company was bad it's a great company. The founder is just as amazing the team is amazing. However being a mom it was really hard. I was on flights and in hotels and meeting with people. There were days that I was in three states in one day and having meetings in like three different states like flight flight hotel and it was tough on me. So I had to take a step back like the founder and I like mutually agreed that I would take a step back from the company. He's still doing amazing things. He's getting kids tutoring and access to resources to this day. But something I learned from that experience was to be adaptable because things are going to change and you have to be flexible enough to take on that change and still move forward regardless which I've worked for the company prior to the pandemic so having that type of skill set built before this pandemic was really helpful. Because when things changed rapidly during the pandemic I had already built some grit around change and not being so frazzled by when things are different. Startup life can be demanding. It's hard. You know you hear about the stories about like Facebook and how these founders like in their dorm rooms like at these crazy hours I was like oh that's a real thing. This is real like the engineers are over there eating pizza. I'm trying to eat a salad but I can't stay up. I mean it is demanding. It's very demanding. So what did you take from start up life? How does that help you with what you're doing at LVGEA and help LVGEA especially in their efforts to foster entrepreneurship? Yeah so I would say adaptability. So having the being flexible enough to change. So an organization like LVGEA fortunately we are not but an organization like ours that has a lot of government partnerships can become very complacent. We are fortunate to have a leader who does not allow or go for that. She's very open to change and I encourage my team to like stick to what you know and give space for learning new things and adopting those new things when we see that it can be a better practice to what we're already doing. So I think something my major one of my biggest takeaways from being in the startup space was just being flexible like giving yourself some space for change and developing grit like just keep going. Don't be afraid to try. Don't be afraid to fail. Just pick yourself up and keep going. What is it? Fail forward? Yeah. Fail forward. Yeah. Very cool. Yeah. Well you mentioned your boss a little bit. Yes. And if that's the answer to this question that's great. But who is someone you admire as a leader? Yeah so her. Tina Quigley. She is amazing. She's a rock star. I love working with her. She actually brought in someone who I also admire as a leader. You may be familiar with him. His name is Jeremy Aguero of Applied Analysis and I was really excited to work with him because if you've ever seen Jeremy Aguero speak he is such a dynamic speaker. And I tell folks he has the exact same energy offstage that he does on stage like that is not an act. That is not a facade. Like he is really like that. I was really excited to work with him. And we worked together for almost six months and I will tell you the first 30 days of that six months I had a complete 180. I was like I do not like this man. I never want to work with him again and this is terrible. Reason being is because now that I'm coming back to look at it he does not allow mediocrity. He does not allow complacency. There is no space for half ass. There is no space for what kind of sort of did my best. No you are going to do your best. And at the time that was so uncomfortable because our organization had gone through a lot of change. And my colleague and I we kind of have this saying where we say apply pressure and give space for grace. And when I think about who embodies that type of motto it's Jeremy Aguero. He brings out the best in everyone around him. He if you spend just an hour with that man he will ask you incredibly thoughtful questions. He's going to do his research. And when I think about the type of leader that I want to be how prepared he is that is who I want to be. And lucky enough I have an opportunity to connect with him a few times throughout the year. And every time I meet with him I walk away with something so valuable. And when I think about the type of leader that I want to be when I grow up he's definitely someone that I think of. And of course my boss Tina Quigley she's amazing. She's killer at collaborating. She the way she can bring people together to solve a problem just blows my mind. I kind of think she's like the godfather a little bit too though. Yeah like a little bit. I don't know. Not unusual here in Las Vegas. No she's amazing. She excites me. And the way she can get people inspired to accomplish something and you know a group of people may be thinking like there's no way in hell we're going to get that done. She'll pose questions plant some seeds for thought. And by the time everyone's walking away we're like yes we can do this. So the way she inspires is something I aspire to do with the micro and I hope I something I embody so far working with her but she is the if I can like combine two people. I would combine Jeremy Aguero and Tina Quigley and like one human. And if I can be that type of leader that would make me very happy. That's fantastic. I love how you brought up how she's inspiring and building bridges because that's my next question for you. So there are a lot of interest and stakeholders in the economy here in Southern Nevada and they don't always agree on the best path forward. Yeah. How how does LVGA and your team work to help get those interests aligned and keep people moving towards this transformational economy we're looking for. Yeah. So Jason you'd be surprised they so again when you ask that question I immediately think about gaming and hospitality. However they are pretty on board with the industries that we are trying to attract. So when we were developing the industries that we were going after to help diversify our economy of course we wanted to lean into our strengths. So you can't hide from what we have here. Right. The the support that we get from gaming hospitality sports and entertainment we wanted to build on that. So with that they're pretty supportive of the industries that we have coming here. So when you think about an industry and industry like fintech if a gaming company has access better access closer proximity to. A digital payment provider or some type of like digital wallet all the better for them. Same with sports and entertainment. Right. When you think about biotech sports medicine sports tech we have all of the resources you could imagine when it comes to having professional sports collegiate sports here. So it works out pretty well for them. Whenever we have someone who is not on board an organization not on board it's helpful for us to just present the data. People can wiggle a story but numbers don't lie. So presenting the information in terms of numbers potential what it could do for our community and our economy. That's usually how we can help people get in line with what we're doing. Having numbers that show the upside to get involved is certainly hard to argue with. So let's talk about your team. You've got a team now. They're doing great stuff for you. Tell us about your team. How did you find them? Did you bring them on? Were they pre-existing? Yeah so I inherited partially. So I partially inherited my team and brought someone else on. So this is a misconception about LVGEA. With the interns we are a team of 14. We're pretty small. When I think about a lean team I mean I think about us. We are a pretty tight team. So it's myself, my colleague Jason who runs our events and our administrative assistant who's like the Wonder Woman who really makes everything happen. Dawn she's great. She's in college. She's hungry. Love having her on the team. She's going to be a lifelong learner. Like I think about her. She's asked great questions. She's great. And we, Jason and I brought her on. So my team, we have been able, I believe, we've been able to help the organization grow in a way that they have in historically because we've helped break down silos. So when I started at LVGEA, previous leadership was great. However, like we, the team, the overall organization was like, we were siloed. And because of the work of our current leadership, Tina, and my colleagues who have recently come on, we've really been able to break down those silos, encouraging everyone to speak up. Like if you have something to say, speak up. If you see an opportunity for growth within someone else or within our processes, like speak up and say something. And I think that's what's made our team strong is that we were, we're just honest with each other and we trust each other enough to know that no matter what we want, what's best for the organization and what's best for our organization ultimately becomes what's best for this community. So I've, I got a great team. I am, I feel like I say this word a lot grateful, but I am, I'm just, I'm so grateful. I have a really, I have a great team. Well, that's a great attitude I think for a leader to have is to be grateful for the people who are there supporting the mission and supporting the people getting the mission done. Yeah. How do you view your role as the leader of that team? Oh my gosh. So it's so funny you say that because I always say like, technically the person who reports to me always say like, Jason's in charge of his name, Jason as well. I always say he's in charge. Can never go wrong putting Jason in charge. Can never go wrong putting Jason in charge. How do I view myself as the, say that question one more time. How do you view your role as the lead as a leader? I think it goes back to what we talked about earlier around allowing my team to learn new things and encouraging them and giving them the resources they need to do the best job they can do. So, and that's, that's just not, you know, Jason, it's not just with my team. We, because we're such a small group, our organization isn't that large, although we have a large impact, like the actual employees and the organization just isn't that big. Giving, it is so important for me to give my team what they need because I know when I give Jason what he needs, he's going to execute flawlessly. The same thing with Don. I know when I give Don, when I give her clarity and when I give her the resources that she's asking for, she's going to execute exactly what we need to get done. And I view my role as that facilitator of providing that stuff, whether it's information, whether it's access to another person, whether it's a conversation with another leader on our team, making sure that the folks who report to me have what they need to do their jobs well. Like that, that is my job. Like, I know we've heard a lot about service leadership and it's true. Like, my job is to serve my team. And that's how I view my role. Excellent. Yeah. Well, it sounds like you have a really scrappy bunch of folks, a small, small but mighty team. Yeah. And I hear a lot of great qualities like initiative and accountability in the word, you know, reading between the lines a little bit, that you've got a great team that believes in that. Yes. And they're doing great things for all of us, even though there's only a few of them. Yeah. So, at LVGEA, everyone who's there really wants to be there. And you have to be when you work in an organization where you have, we have a board of 60. We have 60 board members, countless stakeholders in the community that include the governor's office of economic development. All of the local municipalities, the mayors they serve on our board, higher education presidents and executives of for profit companies in town. When you have that kind of like those set of eyes on you, you, it is so important to have a team who wants to deliver to the community and we have that. That's great. It's not just like my role in investor relations and events. It's our business attraction team, our client services team, government affairs, every aspect of the business and what we do. They take initiative and they have their own intrinsic drive to get something done. So it's a matter of us all deciding like essentially like what the most important thing is to accomplish and we're going to get it done. That's great because that intrinsic drive, that is, it's not that you can't teach it, but it's something that's, it can be a long, painful process to develop someone to have that drive. Yeah. And I think, you know, I believe maybe not 100%, maybe like 80%, 85%. That is something that has to be self-developed. Like you have to, you have to get that within yourself. So I'm going to go back to Adam Grant. He just came out with this book that I haven't read yet, but it's called Hidden Potential. And from what I could hear so far regarding like the reviews and the summary, it talks about uncovering what's already there. So a lot of people that I've come across at least, they already have it within them. It's just up to you as a leader to dust off the extra and the access and get them to what's already within them and help us shine. Well, it sounds like you're doing that. I hope so. My team may tell you the opposite. I don't know, Jason. I hope I am. We'll get them on next time. Yeah, we'll get them on. I see how they really feel. We'll do a panel. Yeah. All right. Will you play a game with me? Of course I will. All right. This game is called Rapid Response. Ooh. Okay. I'll ask you a question and you're going to tell me the first thing that pops into your head. Okay. We're going to do it quickly. Are you ready? Okay. All right. Brooke Malone, Rapid Response. Your time starts now. A book everyone should read. Mindset by Dr. Carol Dweck. Okay. Best way to spend the holidays. With family and food. All right. And drinks. And drinks. Next vacation. Alaska. Ooh. Good one. An important trend we should all be watching. AI. Okay. Favorite sports team. Professional collegiate. It's up to you. LA Lakers. Oh, I wasn't expecting that one. All right. A podcast recommendation. How rapid is my rapid response? These are digital cameras. We'll just keep going. Let's see. Ah, there's so many good ones. So it recently stopped, but dare to lead by Brene Brown. That's a good one. Although all of the episodes are like stale. Not stale. They're still relevant, but she stopped recording it. Yeah. That's a good one. Yeah. And this one, of course. Think carefully about this one. The best Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner side dish. Listen. I'm going to have to go with like the holy grail trio. It's not one. Okay. It has to be a combo. Of the Mac. The greens. And the candied yams. You got to like have them all like touching a little bit on the plate. And you got to like eat it at the same time. That is like the perfect size. That's like maybe like a little crumble of cornbread right there. That's why people tune into this podcast. They can get their dinner strategy tips. It's a strategy. Yeah. Besides AI, something we should all be paying attention to. Or someone. Each other. Each other. Good answer. All right. You get a choice here. Okay. Either. Your get psyched up song. Or your walk on music. Ooh. And it could be the same one. Next episode by Dr. Dre. Oh, okay. Finally, last question. Your biggest influence in life. Oh, people. People. People. People in general. People in general. That's great. Very, very human of you. So we talked about what's going on with LVGEA today. Yes. And the things you're trying to achieve today. Yeah. What's the long-term vision that LVGEA has? And how are you, how are you taking the steps to get there? That is a great question. So you're going to have to like talk to me in about four weeks. So we're in the process of working through the EOS system. EOS, the entrepreneur operation system by Gino Wickman. And we're in the midst of putting together our 10-year vision, our 10-year plan. Here's what I think we're going to go in the direction of. You've heard us at LVGEA. If you've ever attended any of our events or like heard any of our content, we talk a lot about what I said today to diversifying the economy. It's our role as our job. But it's also making sure that every stakeholder in this community has a role and a place in making sure that we are successful in doing that. Something that our organization has a responsibility to this community around is helping them recognize that the success of our economy, the success of the quality of life for our neighbors, it's up to us. So I think, and I could be wrong, and I'm sitting in on these sessions, so I hope I'm right. I think when I think about our 10-year vision and like our long-term plan, it's really going to be around making sure we have a successful economy and making sure that those who matter and who are participating in that economy have a place that makes them successful. That's a very good degrade of making sure everybody's in the right seat on the bus. Yes. Come on, Jim Collins. Great book. I like that. So in your role, your teams get at what they're doing today. What are you going to have to do to help develop your team to meet that challenge for that, to achieve that 10-year plan? Learn. Something that Tina has encouraged all of us to do is become expert in our area. So I mentioned to you some of the industries that we're going after. So I didn't say all five of them. I can say all five of them now. So biotech, health care, sports technology, slash medicine, corporate headquarters, fintech, and... Which one did I miss? The first one? That's how that was going. No, battery. It's a little battery, okay. Battery. So something that she's encouraged the individuals within our organization who's responsible for those industries and attracting those sectors is to become the local expert. The person who is leading our battery technology initiative and effort, he needs to be the local go-to expert. So that means him tapping into the current experts, reading absolutely any and everything he can get his hands on, understanding the trends and what's coming in the future. And I encourage my team to do the same. So actually my team member, my Jason, he's going to be going out to Kansas City this week because the Kansas City Area Development Council, which is the LVGEA of Kansas City, they are planning an event that we aspire to reach the same number. So our biggest event, we'll have about 800, almost 900 people there. They have 2,000 people in Kansas City. And I'm like, if Kansas City can do that, Las Vegas certainly can. So sending the team out to understand what's working and adopting principles, practices that will work well in our region. I think that's what's going to take us to the next level. It goes back to learning. Oh my gosh. I just like ding, light bulb just went off. Learning. So in order for us to get to the next level, we all need to continue learning. Learning and growing. And Kansas City is a great example to learn from. They've been doing this a long time. And they have an incredible, both an incredible corporate ecosystem but also an incredible startup ecosystem too. And we're in the entrepreneur community here. We're trying to learn a lot from places like Kansas City and Tulsa, Oklahoma and Oklahoma City. They've been doing it a long time and they're doing really great. Yeah. And you know, they also, so especially when you mentioned a place like Tulsa, they have incentives, like state incentives, state municipal incentives that are geared toward attracting entrepreneurs. And we currently don't have that. So it's going to be, it's going to take us going back and looking at what we currently offer to companies and making sure that we make ourselves competitive to attract those types of startups here. And maybe there's something we can learn from Kansas City and Oklahoma and adopt it here. But we'll check back with you in a few weeks when your 10-year plan is ready. Yeah, when our 10-year plan is done. I'll let you know. What is one of the best mistakes you've ever made? And what did you learn from it? Yeah. One of the best mistakes I made. Jason, this is going to sound so silly. I learned it very early on when I was 16 years old. So my first job, Cold Stone Creamery, best job ever. Okay. I'm a cheerleader. I'm in student government and I work at Cold Stone. So like I'm just excited all the time. Cool job, like making good money, making tips. And this girl and I, and like I'm not really like prone to like confrontation with folks, but this girl and I, we like get into a confrontation at work. Like Cinnamon and Carmel Sauce was involved, like throwing it around. I was 16 years old. This person, she started it. Like she started the confrontation. I ended it. And I got fired and she did not. And when I reflect on that moment, it's so funny because my girlfriends are always like, bro, that was like 20 years ago, let it go. Which is true. I have since let it go. But something I learned very early on was that you never allow someone to take you out of your element. So I made a mistake by retaliating and like throwing Cinnamon and Carmel after she like threw Cinnamon and Carmel on me. But when the owners reached out to me to fire me at the age of 16, I was devastated. It was my first job. I'm seriously devastated. They said, you know, I'm, wow, sorry, I just thought about this. They said, Brooke, like you are the, like she'd only been working there for a couple months. You were the leader in the situation. You had tenure. You set the expectation. So even if someone does something wrong, you don't double up their wrong with another wrong. And that fortunately I learned that behind a cold stone versus like in a boardroom. That's a lesson some leaders never actually learned. So it's great to learn that one early. Yeah, I learned it early with Carmel Sauce and Cinnamon. But that seriously has stuck with me early on. And even to this day, when I deal with folks like folks in pretty authoritative positions who do something that's probably not right. I wouldn't say that I like, I exactly think it about throwing Cinnamon or Carmel on them. I do think about keeping my integrity in place and my morale intact, allowing them to behave the way they behave, but just having a response that embodies and encompasses like who I know I am as a person and what needs to get done and don't like do something negative to top something else that was negative. It's really important to live up to the kind of leaders we say we want to be. Yeah. And that's a really good example of that. Yeah, yeah. Don't throw Carmel Sauce and Cinnamon on people. First time on this podcast we talked about a Carmel and Carmel Sauce and Cinnamon fight. Yeah. Probably the last. Rancho Cucamonga. Rancho Cucamonga. Is that place still there? It is. It is. I might need to take a trip and say this is the place. This is the place. This is where I went down. Yeah. So what is an accomplishment that you are particularly proud of? An accomplishment. An accomplishment. Does my kid count? Yeah. If you're. Okay. He's cool. I got a kid. He's cool. I'm proud of him. I got kids cool. So, oh God, I hate to be that person who's like, I'm so proud. But I'll give you like a real one that's like work related. But I will say one of the reasons I'm super proud of my kid is because he is so kind and not like in a way that like people take advantage of him. Like, but he is just like a genuinely nice person. I've had teacher. I had a teacher come up to me in tears. Jason. And I, she actually made me cry too. She was like, are you Brenton's mom? And based on where we live. I was like, lady, who else's other mom would I be? Like, do you see these other kids in this classroom? Who else is mommy and my lady? I didn't say that. So I was thinking. Um, but I was like, yeah, like he's my kid. Like maybe he's my kid. And she was like, he's so polite. Yes, ma'am. No, ma'am opens the door for people. And she just listed off all of these other behaviors. And I was having a really crappy day. So to have that woman stop me in the parking lot and tell me. Um, that I'm doing a halfway decent job of raising this human that during the same time when I was like raising myself, um, that felt really good. So I don't know if that counts as an accomplishment. I'd say, I'd say so. I'm pretty. He's a pretty cool dude. I'm proud of him. You don't have to come up with a work related one. Okay. I think that takes the cake on that one. Yeah. But again, another thing that some, some leaders, some folks never learn that lesson about being kind and doing it just for the intrinsic value of being kind to get something in. And the fact that your son has already learned and embraced that lesson. I mean, you're doing something right. So I hope so. You may have to have him on. He may tell you otherwise. I don't know. We're always looking for guests. He may tell you sometimes. Does he know the caramel sauce and cinnamon story? He does not. And he will not. We're going to skip this part, that part of the interview. We don't like to cut out parts. I'm just going to fast forward. Sometimes we will. Fast forward that part. Okay. Let's shift gears back into the nuts and bolts of work. Okay. What are some of your favorite work tools, digital or otherwise that you can't live without? My favorite work tools. My calendar. My calendar runs my life. Yeah, I cannot live with it. Like if it's not on the calendar, it is not a real thing. Outlook's not my favorite. Like tell Bill Gates to holla at me. But I'm sure he's watching. Yeah, he's totally watching. And the calendar. What else can I not live without? I still walk around. You know, those yellow pencils that have like the twisty thing at the bottom. Do you know what I'm talking about? Like a mechanical pencil? Yeah, mechanical pencil, but not the ones that you press. Like the ones that you twist at the bottom. Like the yellow ones, the old school ones. That. I love walking around with my pencil. Like I don't like using a pen. I like pencils. Okay. I think I have one in my purse actually. Seriously. I believe you. No reason to challenge you on that. Yeah, my pencil on my calendar. Okay, cool. That's awesome. It's not very fancy. I wish I had more. I'm a simple girl. They don't need to be fancy. We're just trying to, we're trying to give leaders and entrepreneurs out there and folks some advice on how we're doing our jobs. And yeah, sometimes the simple answers are the best. Right in pencil instead of pen. Yeah, right in pencil. Yeah, pens pencils. You should don't let me down. So you know what? Actually, one more thing. Um, thank you cards. I don't know if that's, I don't know if that falls into the category, but best answer I've heard so far. I send out a lot of thank you cards and hand. So because we send so much digitally, usually, um, when folks receive something handwritten in pen, I do use pens for my cards. I don't use pencils. I wasn't going to judge you if I did. Maybe I'll start using pencil. Um, that means a lot to folks. So I'm going to go with my calendar, my twisty mechanical pencil and thank you cards. Okay. Awesome. What is, or who is someone or something that shaped your views on leadership that you have today? My boss at United Way, Angel Williams. So I don't, do you remember Angel? I do. I ran into her. She's with the energy now. Yeah. I ran into her at a, she was doing a hiring. She was there. It was a hiring event for veterans and I was there representing vets in tech. So we ran into each other. Oh, super cool. And the last time I saw her was I think the last day that I saw you. Oh, wow. Well, there you go. I see both of us, uh, recently here. So something Angel taught me and not that it's like she, she didn't like sit me down and, you know, write it out on the board or we didn't have like a formal meeting about it. But something that she showed me is that you don't have to be in a role of authority to be a leader. So we know folks who are in authoritative roles that lack leadership skills. And we also know folks who are maybe not in those roles and they have strong and leadership skills. And the way she taught me that was by sharing with me like, Hey Brooke, folks to you, like whether you realize it or not folks to you in this organization and outside of this organization really look up to you. And here are some of the things you should do to prepare yourself. And here are some things that you can do in the future to ensure that others around you have an opportunity to learn and grow with you. And some of the lessons that she taught me really helps me understand that just because I'm not a director yet, just because I'm not a vice president yet doesn't mean that I cannot be a leader. So I'm really grateful for the time that I spent with her because she was not shy about pointing out my flaws, but I always knew it was with a heart of gold. It was because she wanted to make me better. And again, when I think about the type of leader that I want to be, I often think about her when she was leading our team at United Way because she is another one who helped bring out the best in others. She called us to the carpet when we needed to be called to the carpet, but it was always with pure intention and it was always solutions driven. So I really value that lesson that she taught me. That's fantastic. And now you're sharing those lessons with your team. Yeah. Again, I think so. I hope I am, Jason. We'll send out a survey. Yeah, let's do that. We'll get some feedback. So you do have a lot of responsibility now as a vice president. I do. And one of the things we like to talk about here because leadership is not always easy. No. What are the things that keep you up at night? What are the really significant challenges with your role at LVGEA and what you all are trying to bring into the world right now, bring to Las Vegas? What's on your mind? What are those challenges? So I'm going to use a word that's commonly used in the space of economic development and then break it down. It's regionalism. So some of the things that have held us back before when we're talking about getting federal grants or accomplishing a grand goal is not collaborating. And it is incredibly important to me that our partners know that they have a place in this work, whether it's like directly tied to like their municipality or their mission or what they think. If they think they're just like in a certain part of this bucket, this is an ecosystem and everything works together. So when I say regionalism, I mean the act of collaborating together as a region. And the reason that keeps me up at night is because I understand the power of collaboration and partnership. And anything great that's been done has been done together. And I know that if we don't get our act together, we will continue to be outperformed by other communities that may not have as much as we have to offer. But if we can put our disagreements to the side and come together for the sake of building something bigger and greater, it can happen. So I would say when I think about what keeps me up at night or what concerns me, it's togetherness, collaboration. And that's what keeps me going is getting people together. And it's something traditionally we have not been good at in this valley, in Southern Nevada. And I've lived a lot of places. I've never lived in a place where the boundaries that people played, those arbitrary lines that people draw on maps, where they are, they're so unimportant to what we do. They really are just lines on a map here. There are a couple of lines on a map, just a couple blocks from here, right? But all of our lives go on going back and forth across that line, and that's those lines. And I'm glad LVGEA and you are in particular are thinking about those things and how we collaborate to get across those lines together. Yeah, it's important for us. So again, when you're talking about changing an economy for the better and building a quality of life that is attractive to workforce and business, it takes togetherness. That is not something LVGEA can or should do alone. That's my next question. Where do you and LVGEA need help with that? Oh, thanks for asking. So I'm going to get a little technical for a minute. Part of our action plan is to build the Vegas business brand, lead business attraction, so the act of recruiting businesses to come here and create value for our investors. And when I think about that first goal within our action plan is building the Vegas business brand, we all have to do a better job of having community pride. So believing in ourselves. Something I love that all of our sports teams have done for us is really bring us together and make us proud. For so long, we've, our own publications and newspapers have talked about essentially how our education system sucks. Like we suck, our education sucks, but we don't do so good of a job highlighting the good stuff. So if we all can help amplify our voices around the positive things, that doesn't mean that you, you know, you're not putting lipstick on a pig. You're not saying that the bad stuff doesn't exist and that we're not going to, and that we can't make it better because we can. Like let's talk about the bad stuff. But when we talk about it, like come to me with a solution. Don't come to me with a problem without coming to me with a solution. So when we bring up these challenges that we have in our education system, our healthcare system, housing, homelessness, anything else, like we have to come prepared with answers or at least ideas so where we can need, where we need the most help is building and amplifying the business brand and what are the great things about living here? What are the great things about doing business here? Because we have so many and if you don't have any, I have a list that I can give you that you can promote on your social channels and in your talks with people, you'd be surprised how many smart folks come through this town for conventions all the time and didn't think that we had anything to offer outside of that four miles of strip. Absolutely. I love that. I think that's great. I would love to be part of that and help share that and help inspire others to talk about what's great about Las Vegas and the achievements we do have. When I lived here the first time, they said this town could never support a professional sports team so don't even bother trying. If in the desert we can get a hockey team and win a Stanley cup, we can achieve a lot of things in Las Vegas that a lot of people think are impossible. Absolutely, 100%. We can do it. We've got to work together. We're all going to be more positive about Las Vegas. Yes, please. Spread the word. Send us that list and we'll post it and people can we can do it like a daily Instagram challenge or something like that. We can call it tell me something good. Like the song. Tell me something good. Okay, we don't have the rights to that song. Oh, cut it out. Sorry. Thanks. Caramel sauce and cinnamon aside. As leaders, there's a lot of stress being a leader sometimes. How do you stay calm and centered in the face of adversity without throwing caramel sauce and cinnamon on people? Yes. I think it starts outside of work. Outside of work, I have a pretty stable routine. I wake up, I pray, I meditate, I exercise. I journal probably not as much as I should, but I do journal so I can come to work with a clear head. And also like silence. So when there's a lot going on, giving myself space and time to like stop, think, process and then respond, which I didn't have that skill set. When there was caramel sauce and cinnamon. Another skill set. It's hard for people to develop. I find myself as I get older, appreciating moments of silence much more often than I used to. Yeah, just giving yourself that time to be quiet. And we talked about listening, right? Like listening to others, but also like listening to yourself, like taking a minute to stop and listen to yourself is just as important in remaining, like even. Evenness is important. Something that I'm working on one of my team members with, they have a tendency, like when things get overwhelming, they can like panic or just get very stressed out. And I fear that sometimes my calm demeanor like scares them like I don't care. Because that's also, that's important too is I'm pretty calm and there has been moments where Tina has come to me. She's like, you're not upset. And I'm like, oh, I am. I just, I, there's no way I can react in a way. I am cold stone upset. I was like, I'm very upset actually. But I'm, I will not raise my voice. I will not like, essentially like throw a tantrum. Like I have to, I need to be quiet in this moment and I need to stop and think. And that's something that I'm trying to allow my team to learn. And I'm encouraging them to learn is to give their space, their self, give themselves that time to like stop and think. That's great advice for all of us. Especially with as fast paced as things are. So speaking of fast paced, what are you excited about that's coming up in the future for you and LVGEA and the community here? The Super Bowl. The Super Bowl is going to be fun. So we are working with our municipal partners, the local cities in the county, along with some of our private partners to bring out a group of companies that we are hoping to attract to our region to set up shop here. And we're leveraging the Super Bowl, which we haven't done before. So this is the first time that the public and private sector has really rallied around economic development in this way and leveraging the assets that we have to bring and land what we would call a big fish. So I'm really excited for that coming up. I think the Super Bowl is going to be an incredible opportunity for us to showcase our region's assets. I'm looking forward to that. I think we're all excited. Not just for the game itself and the fans and all the excitement that we're going to bring, but all those other opportunities that are going to come with that as being recognized as an international sports city. So I have a couple more questions for you, but I like to get the housekeeping out of the way before we get to the final question. So what else should we know about Brooke Malone and where can everyone find you and anything else you want them to find? Sure. So what else did you know about me? I am super optimistic about the future and not just like for work, not even just for this city, but I think the way, in the midst of a lot of turmoil in the world, there are bright spots of togetherness. And I think if all of us could come together and find those bright spots and lean into them, we will be stronger and better together in that way. And I am committed to being one of those folks that has my, not a microscope, what is that thing called? Oh my gosh, I can't think of any of the words. Mechanical pencil? No. Like the glass. A magnifying glass? A magnifying glass. I am keen on having a magnifying glass to find those bright spots within my peers, within my community, around the country, around the world to help us come together and be stronger. Okay. Yeah, I think that goes with your message of we're good at things here in Las Vegas too. Let's focus on what we're good at and use that to inspire us to tackle some of the things we're struggling with. Sure. And I don't want to fall into, there's something called toxic positivity. So it's not necessarily like being in La La Land and acknowledging that turmoil doesn't exist and that there aren't hard things out there. However, those things come to our doorsteps pretty often. So I think we have to work a little extra harder to find the positivity and lean into that. So I guess something I would want everyone to know about me is that you can expect me to be the cheerleader, be right alongside of you and my community to identify the good stuff and lean into that. We look forward to doing that with you. Yeah. Where can everyone find you? Tell everyone on camera where they can find you. Yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn, just LinkedIn, Brooke Malone, or I'm on Instagram, Brooke Business. That's my handle. Not hard to find. I'm around. I find you. Yeah. Okay. Two last questions. Sure. And I think we have already kind of talked about this, but someone or something you're grateful for. My mommy. Aw. I love my mommy. She has, I love both my parents. My mommy especially has always encouraged me in times of turmoil. She will be the first to check me when I'm tripping. And she, she just always has my back. I love my mommy. That's great. Yeah. That's great. Finally, what is some advice you would give to future leaders, especially young women who are either becoming leaders or aspiring to become leaders? Learn as much as you possibly can. Listen as clearly and concisely as much as you possibly can. Pour into others around you while also pouring into yourself. If you can continue to learn, understand what others are thinking, how they're thinking, and help people grow, there will always be a place for you at the table. Always. It's not much you'll have to fight for. There will be times where you have to put up a, put up a fight. But if you can always help others be better, you'll be fine. And you, you are a leader if you do that. That is fantastic advice and a great place to leave it. Brooke Malone, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me, Jason. I appreciate you. I'm glad we got to reconnect again. Same. And I'm so glad we got to have this conversation about the future of Las Vegas and Southern Nevada's economy. Yeah. All right. I want to thank all of you for watching the leaders mindset. There's so much going on in the world. Whatever you go do today, make an impact.