August 6th, 2024 | by Carina Hamel
Between me and Robby, we make up a pretty amazing one-two punch. Recently, we were ona podcastwith Liz Bohannon (best selling author, former client & friend) and her husband, Ben to talk about working as a couple. Ben and Liz worked together for quite some time and back when we lived in Portland, we had offices in the same building. We’d often walk to lunch together and there was always an ad hoc story that made us laugh because we totally got each other.
Robby is incredibly creative while being uniquely operational. I often don’t even know how to explain my strengths - but somehow I stir stuff up and force change and the end result is often better than where we started (with some missing details). As Bivo grows, that piece of me is easy to get hidden or pushed to the side (in my own and others doing). We have SO much to do. Every day is filled with serious questions and good challenges - caused by awesome growth and a small team.
Robby and I have a walking meeting every Friday. People who see us think it’s really cute and we kind of roll our eyes at that (if I’m being honest). We used to work with a leadership coach, Mark Koenigsberg, and our meetings with him were every Friday at 11 AM. During those meetings, we’d have intense conversations about business. Sometimes (often) we cried, other times we didn’t know what we were going to talk about and ended the session with an amazing breakthrough. When we shut our footwear agency down, we had to get lean at Bivo and stopped working with Mark. That was one of the hardest decisions we have made but we know that working with him again is in our future.
During this period of frugality (Robby likes to call it scrappy smarts), we have decided to keep our meetings at the same time and we call them our “weekly walking Mark meeting.” This is our time to think about none of the small details and all of the big dreaming/how do we shift/what should we do differently conversations. We weren’t sure if we’d be able to keep them up, it’s always easy to cancel meetings that aren’t specific to one task. But we have been adamant to stick to them, and they are something I look forward to most each week.
I constantly feel torn between being operational and thinking big. How can we possibly do big things when we have our heads down at our desks and detailed tasks are constantly on our plate? Whelp, I don’t have the answer, but I do feel a big shift is coming and I’m excited. We have to let some things go. Or make decisions better independently. And most likely, we will find that yes, some things get dropped and a mistake was made, but we can make up for it by the success we see in thinking bigger. Jumping in the unknown is scary, but being stagnant is even worse.
Carina
PS - on our walking meeting this past Friday, we saw three bikes and 5 Bivos. Thanks Richmond, for the support - that's a pretty good stat! Also, if you’re in search of a leadership coach, Mark is amazing and has no idea this article is being published. Reach out if you’d like a connection!
Between me and Robby, we make up a pretty amazing one-two punch. Recently, we were ona podcastwith Liz Bohannon (best selling author, former client & friend) and her husband, Ben to talk about working as a couple. Ben and Liz worked together for quite some time and back when we lived in Portland, we had offices in the same building. We’d often walk to lunch together and there was always an ad hoc story that made us laugh because we totally got each other.
Robby is incredibly creative while being uniquely operational. I often don’t even know how to explain my strengths - but somehow I stir stuff up and force change and the end result is often better than where we started (with some missing details). As Bivo grows, that piece of me is easy to get hidden or pushed to the side (in my own and others doing). We have SO much to do. Every day is filled with serious questions and good challenges - caused by awesome growth and a small team.
Robby and I have a walking meeting every Friday. People who see us think it’s really cute and we kind of roll our eyes at that (if I’m being honest). We used to work with a leadership coach, Mark Koenigsberg, and our meetings with him were every Friday at 11 AM. During those meetings, we’d have intense conversations about business. Sometimes (often) we cried, other times we didn’t know what we were going to talk about and ended the session with an amazing breakthrough. When we shut our footwear agency down, we had to get lean at Bivo and stopped working with Mark. That was one of the hardest decisions we have made but we know that working with him again is in our future.
During this period of frugality (Robby likes to call it scrappy smarts), we have decided to keep our meetings at the same time and we call them our “weekly walking Mark meeting.” This is our time to think about none of the small details and all of the big dreaming/how do we shift/what should we do differently conversations. We weren’t sure if we’d be able to keep them up, it’s always easy to cancel meetings that aren’t specific to one task. But we have been adamant to stick to them, and they are something I look forward to most each week.
I constantly feel torn between being operational and thinking big. How can we possibly do big things when we have our heads down at our desks and detailed tasks are constantly on our plate? Whelp, I don’t have the answer, but I do feel a big shift is coming and I’m excited. We have to let some things go. Or make decisions better independently. And most likely, we will find that yes, some things get dropped and a mistake was made, but we can make up for it by the success we see in thinking bigger. Jumping in the unknown is scary, but being stagnant is even worse.
Carina
PS - on our walking meeting this past Friday, we saw three bikes and 5 Bivos. Thanks Richmond, for the support - that's a pretty good stat! Also, if you’re in search of a leadership coach, Mark is amazing and has no idea this article is being published. Reach out if you’d like a connection!
Vermont Youth Cycling, led by Rachel Cohen is filled with amazing athletes. The organization has an amazing tradition, where, at the end of the season, athletes get awards, not based on how many races won, but on who fueled the most fun on the team.
In honor of Bivo's 5th birthday this past week, we've opened up the discussion to all of you on our Instagram, you all had great questions! We picked some of our favorites to ask Robby and Carina. Some questions about business, some questions about life, cheers to five years :)
As the head of customer service I often get emails from people who are buying the bottles for others. I have loved hearing from our fantastic customers on why they love these bottles not just for themselves but for the special cyclists in their lives. I wanted to take the opportunity to share some of the spectacular messages we've received over the past year. These reviews and emails seriously made us smile!
