For years we have heard the importance of top brands being authentic. Now, with the significance of AI as a business problem solver, how do brands stay authentic with AI present around every turn? And how do brands overcome authenticity fatigue? On this edition of the Can You Hear Me? Podcast, co-hosts Eileen Rochford and Rob Johnson welcome marketing expert Debbie Qaqish(Gah-Geesh) to explore Authenticity Fatigue: Staying Real in an AI World.
Dr. Debbie Qaqish is a pioneering marketing strategist, leadership expert, and the creator of The Growth Factor MethodTM , a leadership approach that blends the science of positive psychology with decades of real-world marketing experience. Her work addresses a critical but often overlooked challenge: modern marketing operates under relentless pressure, yet most organizations have never redesigned how people think, decide, and lead in that environment.
Known as the OG of Revenue MarketingTM, a term and concept she created in 2011, Debbie redefined marketing’s role from a support function to a measurable driver of business growth. Over more than 35 years, she has worked directly with CMOs and B2B marketing teams to align strategy with revenue and growth outcomes.
A Certified Positive Psychology Practitioner, Debbie applies evidence-based insights to help marketers and leaders move out of survival mode, improve decision-making under pressure, and lead with clarity, confidence, and purpose. Her work equips professionals not just to perform, but to thrive amid constant change.
Debbie is a dynamic keynote speaker, award-winning author of Rise of the Revenue Marketer and From Backroom to Boardroom, and a respected thought leader featured in Forbes, MarTech Today, and other top publications. She has taught Revenue Marketing to
MBA students at The College of William & Mary for over a decade, continuing her mission to elevate both marketing performance and leadership effectiveness. She is also the host of the popular weekly LinkedIn Live show Revenue Marketing Raw which showcases her no-nonsense unfiltered takes on marketing teams.
Dr. Debbie's Website: https://www.growthfactor.us/
Dr. Debbie's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbieqaqish/
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Here is the transcription of the podcast episode:
Eileen Rochford: Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of the Can You Hear Me? podcast. I'm Eileen Rochford, CEO of the marketing and strategy firm, The Harbinger Group.
Rob Johnson: And I'm Rob Johnson, President of Rob Johnson Communications. Brands have been focused for years on being authentic, but with the advent of AI as a business problem-solver, how authentic can your brand be? Eileen, it seems like... just about every other episode is devoted to some angle of AI disrupting business and workflow, and this is another perfect example of that.
Eileen Rochford: It is, and a pretty interesting take on it, too, um, in my opinion. I think this is one angle that we have not explored very deeply, so we're going to get into some interesting stuff today. [coughs] So, let me just start off by saying that, um, when communicators are required to ensure brand authenticity, that can be very hard to do when there are competing interests for your brand's relevance. And fortunately, we have someone who's an expert in this field with us today as our guest. Debbie Qaqish is the founder of The Growth Factor...
Rob Johnson: Oh, hold on. You... you have an old copy.
Eileen Rochford: Oh, my god.
Rob Johnson: You have an old copy. You're not...
Eileen Rochford: Ugh! I... I did this like a minute ago, so I don't know why it's wrong. Sorry, guys.
Rob Johnson: Oh, no, it was... it was... uh, I think she sent it like early afternoon, so I... I sent it early afternoon.
Debbie Qaqish: I just sent it to you, Rob. I didn't have Eileen's...
Rob Johnson: Oh, no, no, no, I... it's... it's updated in the script. That's why I... I don't... I don't normally jump...
Eileen Rochford: Great.
Rob Johnson: For years, we have heard the importance of top brands being authentic. Now, with the significance of AI as a business problem solver, how do brands stay authentic with AI present around every turn? And how do brands overcome authenticity fatigue? On this edition of the Can You Hear Me? podcast, co-hosts Eileen Rochford and Rob Johnson welcome marketing expert Debbie Qaqish to explore authenticity fatigue, staying real in an AI world.
Eileen Rochford: Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of the Can You Hear Me? podcast. I'm Eileen Rochford, CEO of the marketing and strategy firm, The Harbinger Group.
Rob Johnson: And I'm Rob Johnson, President of Rob Johnson Communications. You know, brands have been focused for years on being authentic, but with the advent of AI as a business problem solver, how authentic can your brand be? Eileen, you know, it seems like we spend about every other episode devoted to some angle of AI disrupting business and workflow, and here is yet another example of it.
Eileen Rochford: Absolutely. Um, I don't think there's anything in business that AI isn't impacting right now, so it's nearly impossible to have a show where we... where we don't bring it up in some way, but this show, we're going to be talking about it from a pretty interesting perspective. So, let's learn more about that. [clears throat] When communicators are required to ensure brand authenticity, that can be very, very hard to do when there are competing interests for your brand's relevance. And fortunately, today we have someone who has not just studied this field, she has helped to build it. Dr. Debbie Qaqish is an owner and partner at The Pedowitz Group, where she has spent decades helping some of the world's most respected brands—including, and I know you know some of these, Microsoft, American Express, HBO, GE, and more—transform the way marketing drives growth. Today, she is bringing that experience and passion into her newest company, The Growth Factor, a marketing performance company focused on helping leaders and teams perform, grow, and thrive. Debbie, thank you for being with us today!
Debbie Qaqish: Thank you so much for having me on the show.
Eileen Rochford: Okay, well, we've got a lot to talk about, so let's uh lay the foundation before we jump into the deep end. How about you give our listeners um a little bit about your origin story, um and how you got to where you are today in your career?
Debbie Qaqish: A great question, and I did give a lot of thought to the art... origin story, and it occurred to me that there were a couple of through-threads in my origin story that were just always true. Number one, it was my character strengths, which my top two character strengths are bravery and creativity. Bravery in terms of willing to go out on a limb and believe in myself, and creativity in terms of seeing patterns, right, and and and creating something from nothing. Plus, if you think about the different types of change agents there are, I'm what's called an inventor, right? So, I like to take... um, I like to do things that really can help alter the human capacity or systems to bring things to a higher level of performance. And when I take a look at my career path, that has been my through-lines with everything that I have done. From my first career in sales—yes, I was a commodities broker for Merrill Lynch. I did that for nine years. We'd have to be in a bar, two Martinis in, for me to tell you all the stories, right?
Eileen Rochford: [laughs]
Debbie Qaqish: Um, and so I've sold, I carried a bag, I have uh run national/international sales teams. And then I had this little transition over into marketing, which was absolutely and positively intriguing. And when I was... and when I... when I came into the marketing world with this sales background, um it just was very apparent to me that marketing needed to be doing something very, very, very different. And so that began, you know, my my latest career. And then finally, you know, my career where I am today is I've spent decades helping organizations transform marketing into revenue centers, and now I'm all about the transformation of the people so that they can thrive at work. So, that's pretty much my career in a nutshell.
Eileen Rochford: That's fantastic! You did a great job.
Debbie Qaqish: Thank you.
Rob Johnson: Yeah, and and I'm interested in the whole revenue uh discussion because for years marketers have grappled with the fact that they are considered a cost center, doing important work, but not generating revenue. But you were talking about revenue marketing, something you created. Please explain what it means and how it changes the reality for marketing professionals.
Debbie Qaqish: It all started with one question. I had been in sales for years. I went to work for a company—it was an equity play—and I was the CMO. And one day, the CEO walked into my office—that's back in the day when we had offices with doors, right?
Rob Johnson / Eileen Rochford: [laughter]
Debbie Qaqish: And uh his name was Rusty—Rusty Gordon—and he said, "Debbie, what are you going to do about revenue?" Well, I just started laughing, and I said, "Rusty, it says CMO on that door out there. You didn't hire me to run sales; you hired me to run marketing." He said, "I understand, but let's let's see what we can do." And it really was that that one question, and I began this journey. I found this thing called Eloqua, which is one of the very first marketing automation systems on the planet. I was customer number 12, and with my sales background, when I saw that technology, I said, "This will forever change the role of marketing." In 2011, I created the term "revenue marketing" because with the technology emerging that enabled marketers to have a credible impact on revenue, it just made sense. And I will share this with you: back in the day, [laughs] we would use the term "revenue marketing" and we would get one of two reactions. The first, I would say "revenue marketing," and they would look at me like I'd just grown a second head and I was speaking Sanskrit. Or they would say, "Oh, that's really, really interesting." I wrote the book on it in in 2013, and since then, my my passion has been helping organizations use people, process, and technology to transform the role of marketing in revenue to move it from being a cost center to a revenue center. So, and it it it it gives me such great pleasure when I see people who have titles like VP of Revenue Marketing, Revenue Marketing Agent, you know, whatever it is. And um and I still meet people who remember me back in the day. We did... I did a 14-city speaking tour with Marketo, and they remember seeing me speak about revenue marketing. So, it's been an incredible journey. And again, in the world of B2B, there is a, you know, 80 85% of CMOs have a number that they have to drive, that they absolutely have to deliver. And in high-tech, where I've spent a lot of time, it's probably closer to 100%.
Rob Johnson: Mm. So, how does it work, in particular, other than finding that number? Other than meeting your number, how how do you get there?
Debbie Qaqish: Well, there's a a lot of different ways. It truly is a combination of people, process, technology, and strategy. The very first thing, and I'll say that this is the key, is that whenever... First of all, this technology fully enables for this to happen. Let's be very clear about that. We used to have two pieces of technology; now we have thousands of pieces of technology. So, the technology fully enables it. What most often gets in the way, Rob, is the belief that marketing should be at the revenue table, should be having a conversation in this, and that collaboration with sales is always the number one indicator whether or not marketing can produce revenue with any level of credibility. So, it is it it's a function of many, many different things, but today every single B2B organization that we go into, they're trying to find better ways to create revenue, they're trying to find better ways to create that collaboration, they're trying to find better ways so that marketing has that seat and that voice at the revenue table.
Eileen Rochford: Hm, I can see Eileen's like, "Okay, I got..."
Rob Johnson: [chuckles] Go ahead, Eileen.
Eileen Rochford: You go next. Um, but Rob, I don't want to get in your way. It looked like you were about to ask something, or...
Rob Johnson: No, no, I'm just uh I'm I'm I'm just uh enthralled by everything she has to say because it's... she invented it, but a lot of people... And and and to your point, you said a lot of people are using it, but I think in general people are like, "Hey, moving from a cost center to a revenue center, that's uh that's an approach I might want to take." So, I'm just... I'm intrigued by what I'm hearing.
Eileen Rochford: Oh, yeah, for sure. You mentioned Marketo and that 14-city tour, I believe you said. Um, and then of course, you also mentioned there's tons of technologies that exist right now. In... in your view right now, what are the top technologies um that need to be involved when practicing revenue marketing?
Debbie Qaqish: Okay. Well, [clears throat] my second book was called um From Backroom to Boardroom, and it was all about strategic marketing operations, right? And so, I mention that because the types of technologies that you need, there there are some fundamental pieces, right? So, you need a marketing automation system, and today marketing automation systems do just about everything in one package. That's that's their goal, right? So, everything from the ability to clean your data, um the ability to do deep analysis using AI, for example, to see what does this prospect online behavior look like and what does it mean, and what you should be doing differently. So, you need to have technologies that allow you to interact with prospects and customers in real time, and you need to have those systems integrated across the customer-facing technologies. So, for example, if you have a MarTech stack—and the average B2B marketing company probably has, I don't know, 150 different pieces of technology in their stack now, and with AI that will change radically—but guess what? So does sales. And those sales and marketing systems have to connect with one another. And guess what? So does the customer success team, and those all those things also have to connect. So, it begins with, you know, the foundation of data, the foundations of connectivity, the foundation of understanding um how to respond in real time to the digital footprints and language that your customer is speaking. And again, marketing operations as an entity has grown immensely in the last 10 years because that this is the group that buys the technology, administers the technology, and if they are a strategic marketing ops team, they're constantly thinking about better ways to use that technology so that marketing can meet their goals. They're not just button pushers.
Eileen Rochford: Mhm. Yeah, and it's a whole new world of th- And that's exciting. So, that was 2013, your second book, is that right?
Debbie Qaqish: Uh, first book was 2013; second book I think was 2020.
Eileen Rochford: Okay. Okay, so, yeah, leap forward seven years. Awesome. Yeah, is there is there a book three that we haven't heard about yet?
Debbie Qaqish: Uh, there there is a book three. There is a book three, yeah.
Eileen Rochford: Okay! Well, what uh it may or may not be related to the, you know, the line of uh conversation...
Debbie Qaqish: Oh, no, no, no, no. It's it's uh it's it's very related, and the topic will be about uh positive uh psychology skills for an always-on, overwhelmed world at work.
Eileen Rochford: I see. Fascinating! Okay. Um, and it has not been published yet, is that right?
Debbie Qaqish: No, it has not. Chapters are outlined, yes.
Eileen Rochford: Okay. Oh, good! Well, then you'll have to come back on when that one's done.
Debbie Qaqish: I would love to. I would love to.
Eileen Rochford: Okay, so we'll just put... we'll pause on that, but that sounds fascinating as well. Um, how about, Debbie, you explain for us um maybe more in depth about the idea that the next revolution in marketing is not AI, it's actually performance. What do you what do you mean? That sounds super intriguing. You mentioned it a few minutes ago. Let's get into that.
Debbie Qaqish: Yeah. Again, I I think one of one of my skills has always been able to see patterns in the market, that comes from the creativity and also the the change agent type that I am. I'm not a status quo kind of girl, right? I'm not happy with status quo. I'm always I'm always looking for how can you make make things better? And um I have been involved with AI, gosh, a great deal. My company, The Pedowitz Group, we do a lot of stuff with AI. I was preaching about AI to my kids, you know, like 5 years ago. They were like, "Mom, I don't want to hear it." I'm like, "Yeah, you you'll want to hear this," right?
Eileen Rochford: [laughs]
Debbie Qaqish: And um the thing about AI, and and again, the B2B marketing world and the sales world, which are the two worlds that I serve, we find that in this first evolution of AI, it's all about doing something faster and doing something cheaper, and hopefully doing something better. And the thing about AI is that we were we were already in a world of overwhelm. If you think about the typical life of a salesperson and a marketing person, it is constant pressure, it is constant stress, and it is constant change. And Eileen, we are not biologically wired to live like that and to work like that, yet it is the job today. So, and AI is just like it's just like throwing fuel on the fire for that, you know, more things in motion, constant fears about, you know, "Will I lose my job?", constant fears about this happening, that happening. And AI is going to continue to be the biggest disruptor since the dinosaurs got obliterated. I I will say that. And because it is such a big disruptor, it's adding more to that constant change, constant stress environment. And um as a result of that, we have a workforce that is quiet quitting, overwhelmed, defeated. They are fatigued. And in that equation, very few companies are looking at, "Oh, my gosh, what am I going to do with my workforce? How can I help them navigate and be successful in this new world that's not going away, that's constantly changing?" So, AI is the accelerant, but the next revolution in marketing performance and in workplace performance really will be human performance that can navigate and thrive in an always-on, overwhelmed world. That's why I say this next the biggest revolution will be people. The more AI comes into the game, the more we must become human-centered in how we work with our employees and how we work with our workforce.
Rob Johnson: You know, I can hear... I can hear humans listening to this right now that are thinking, "Thank goodness. I'm not irrelevant. I'm going to have a place to be, a place to sit at this table." And I think you just highlighted that, you know, beautifully. And speaking of AI, because it has crept into so much about how businesses operate, that, coupled with the reality that brands are always trying to be authentic, would you say that there is authenticity fatigue? And if so, how do brands stay real in an AI world when AI is having such a great influence on how it's trying to shape that brand?
Debbie Qaqish: Great question. And here's what I'll say about authenticity fatigue: the companies that are fatigued are the companies that are faking authenticity, because here's what happens. The clients are saying, the market is saying, "We want authentic brands. We want to feel like you really, you know, understand us." So, guess what? You have all of this authentic language coming out, and what happens is that for those companies that are faking authenticity, they have the language that's coming out, but the lived experience is not there. What I mean by that: think about the poor sales and marketing team that has got to put all this stuff out about being authentic, when in reality, what the client experience is is not that authentic promise. I think what we're going to be seeing is authenticity fatigue. What customers are looking for now is not words about authenticity, but proof of authenticity. So, I think that the idea of authenticity, we have to stretch that definition to include the the brand performance, the lived experience. If you're being an authentic brand and your brand promise is actually true, and it is a lived experience of both your employees and your customers, you don't have a problem with authenticity fatigue. Now, AI can hurt that, and AI can help that. We are seeing things now where brands are creating avatars that are very realistic-looking influencers to promote their brands. That is not authenticity. And I think that moving forward, we have to think about AI as a way to help us with that authenticity, and the ability of AI to do things like to listen, to to take a look at huge amounts of customer data and crunch it in like 15 seconds and give you an idea of the direction, um to find friction points in your process and how you engage with customers, to spot customer buying patterns, right? There are a a million and one ways that we can be using the power of AI to listen to our customers, to see what our customers really want, and also to stay engaged with them in the way that they want to. However, I'll say this again: companies that are truly have brand authenticity, they are not experiencing fatigue because their their employees are passionate about who they are and and what they do. There's no fatigue there. The ones that are faking it, that's where the fatigue is coming in.
Eileen Rochford: Mhm. That makes perfect sense. I mean, we all know that it's a lot harder to to fake things and to perpetuate a lie [laughs] in our own existences. [clears throat] So, pardon me. So, that's that's absolutely true um when it comes to brands. And what you really had me thinking about was this has to be like 30 years ago uh for me, but uh inside of um one of one of my first jobs, um at Ketchum, the concept of, you know, the brand promise, that's central to everything, and delivering on your brand promise. So, we were just it was just hammered into us, myself and my colleagues as young marketers, that the objective is to, for a brand, is to deliver on its promise. And really the only way that you can do that is to have a a true and authentic um kind of representation of yourself in the marketplace and all the things, you know, that have to be removed so that, you know, from the friction points that you identified. It's funny, here we are talking about um the impact of AI and how it's going to change everything, but those fundamental concepts...
Debbie Qaqish: Have become more true! Yes! More true! And that's why this human aspect is more important than ever before in this AI crazy world. Yes, Eileen, absolutely!
Eileen Rochford: Absolutely.
Debbie Qaqish: And for years, all we have talked about is customer, customer, customer. I'll go into a marketing organization, and I'll ask the marketers, "When's the last time you talked to a customer? When's the last time you had..." And I don't mean scanning their badge at a damn trade show. I mean, really had a talk with a customer, listened to a customer call, and we're we're just way too far away from our customer. We need We need to be closer to our customer. It It is the answer to everything.
Eileen Rochford: It is, and and AI is making that distance even greater if you let it.
Debbie Qaqish: If you let it. Or, it it can be your best friend, right? So, it it's going...
Eileen Rochford: It totally can be. It's It's how you look at the problem and approach it. Yeah.
Debbie Qaqish: Exactly right.
Eileen Rochford: Yeah. Fascinating. Okay. Um gosh, you just got my head going. That's the thing about this show; it's so hard for me to like stay... [laughter] in the in the track that we're supposed to be moving in, because our guests are so smart and they bring all these amazing new ideas. So, um all right listeners, I hope I hope you're sticking with us because we're moving into another one here. And we're going to actually harken back to something that you alluded to in in your um pending publication book that, you know, I can't wait to read. Um so, that is, with marketers faced with this constant pressure that we just talked about, and the stress associated with the always-on living or experience that we now are in and will be, you know, very much so into the future, um as well as the the rapid acceleration of just change, and that also contributes to stress. All these things are going on. We we cited them. So, Debbie, how important do you believe it is um for marketing professionals to exhibit positive psychology, because that pressure, frankly, is just like as you said, it never existed before. The the the shift of the dinosaurs, you know, dying off is is probably the last or the biggest thing that's similar to what's going on right now and what's to come. But tell us, you know, you mentioned positive psychology, but it's it's super important, clearly, but how how do people bake that in to how they function?
Debbie Qaqish: Um, let's look at this a couple of ways. Positive psychology is not woo-woo, and a lot of times if I use that term, people are like, "Oh, my god, we're going to do like, you know, hold hands and and sing Kumbaya."
Eileen Rochford: Let's chant.
Debbie Qaqish: No. No. Positive psychology is the science of human performance, and moving into this new world that we are now engaged in for companies, I believe that employees who have a whole toolkit of positive psychology skills will outperform companies where their employees do not have these skills. It is the performance edge for today and the future. We talked a lot about how technology was a performance edge and how you use that technology. We've talked about how that focus on the customer is a performance edge. But the performance edge that truly is becoming critical right now is to help our employees better navigate constant stress, constant pressure, and the constant change. Positive psychology skills are very trainable. Positive psychology is becoming a huge market in corporate America, because everybody realizes that you can't keep doing the same thing over and over and expect a different result, right? And our employees are are truly suffering. And as I mentioned, we are not biologically wired to be working in this type of environment. That's a whole lizard brain story, you know, which is which is, you know, very, very, very different. And so, if you think about having a performance edge, if you think about a a simple set of skills that helps people really kind of like in two categories: number one, you know, navigate the crap that that they're going through, right? And there's a whole set of skills, easily taught, that'll help them there. And then number two is, not only do you help them navigate it, how do you actually help them thrive at work? When was the last time we had a whole team who was actually thriving at work? And there are a handful of companies that do that, and those are companies that have brand authenticity, by the way. Okay?
Eileen Rochford: Mhm.
Debbie Qaqish: Um so, I think that if you think about positive psychology in terms of a performance edge, it is a set of skills that are not widely taught, but is growing in interest and popularity. And in in times of stress, think about what happens to us. Our our thinking narrows, we become more reactive, our decision-making abilities are highly impacted, it weakens confidence, we get defeated and exhausted. And then with a set of of of positive psychology skills, you you can just turn that around, right? And again, what I've done in my company is I've applied this to the B2B marketing organizations and the sales organizations in B2B, primarily in in high-tech firms, right? And it is as simple as they are, they can just be life-changing on the job. Let me give you an example. I'll give you a quick example. How many times does a marketer show up to work and, "Oh, my god, it's another change." They haven't even finished the last change, and here comes another change, right? So, they're feeling overwhelmed, they're feeling defeated, and they just kind of like spiral spiral out. Well, a very simple thing that you can do is is to just uh call Epoché, just kind of sit back for a minute. "First of all, I I realize I am totally discombobulated here. I'm very unhappy. I'm very stressed out about this latest change, okay?" So, you just kind of step back, you take a pause, and you say, "Well, you know, what can I do? What can I control right now?" Because you will spiral into this downward thinking around things you can't do anything about.
Rob Johnson: That's wasted energy.
Debbie Qaqish: Take a look at the situation, and just say, "What can I control right now? What is the next action I need to take?" That gives you that sense of control back; it puts you back in the driver's seat. How simple is that?
Rob Johnson: It's perfect. It sounds so simple.
Eileen Rochford: It is, and so wise.
Rob Johnson: Very wise. Okay, not that you haven't imparted just reams of incredible information here, but as we wrap things up here, is there any particular piece of wisdom that you haven't shared yet that you'd like to share with our listeners about this whole journey that uh that these marketers are on?
Debbie Qaqish: Well, I'm a passion-led person, and one of my pieces of advice to people... I actually wear a bracelet every day, and there's a whole story around... It's It's It says uh... it says, "Lead with Lead with purpose," right? I'm a purpose and a and a passion-led person. I would say this, because we're talking to folks that have careers in marketing: um know your purpose and and follow your passions, no matter what they are. And from... because you are an individual, and if you're in a job where you are miserable, where where you can't use your character strengths, it's okay to say, "What do I need to do that's different?" We spend too many hours at work not to be as happy as we can. And again, find a place in a in a career that that works for you, and don't be afraid to try new things. That is the number one thing that I would share for the marketers, regardless of where they are in their career: follow your passions, lead with purpose, and find a place and a way that you can thrive.
Rob Johnson: Love it!
Eileen Rochford: Oh, that's excellent. Yeah! Um, and learn more about positive psychology while you're at it!
Debbie Qaqish: Absolutely! Oh, my god, it's all over TikTok! Just put "positive psychology" and it's tidbits everywhere!
Eileen Rochford: [laughs] Oh, absolutely, yeah. It is, it's everywhere. And I'm I'm going to make a prediction that we will be seeing Chief Positivity Officers uh not long from now being installed...
Debbie Qaqish: You could be. You could be. But again, that is not the same thing as having a wellness room, right? That is not the same...
Eileen Rochford: No. No, thirdly not. No, it's totally not. But like if there's someone on point to to teach, you know, the the positivity skills and to infuse that into the culture as a matter of practice, you know, like a Chief Positivity Officer, that could be, you know, tremendously...
Debbie Qaqish: I, Eileen, I love that idea. I'm going to I'm going to do a post on that. I'm going to give you credit for coming... I have not thought about that at all! But if you think about your workforce is your primary asset, and you want them to perform at the best levels, this is where you need to be investing in your workforce.
Rob Johnson: That's so true.
Eileen Rochford: I totally agree, 'cause if you do not have positivity, you cannot build resiliency. You cannot. And that is absolutely true. So, I totally get the connection.
Rob Johnson: You heard it here first: Chief Positivity Officer, CPO! All right!
Eileen Rochford: Yes! So, thank you! This is going to be fun to explore more. Um wow, Debbie! Debbie Qaqish, I I cannot thank you enough for joining us today. This has been um just one of those shows where I've got a billion light bulbs going off in my head, and I love it! So, um thank you.
Debbie Qaqish: Oh, that makes me so excited to hear that! I love that! Thank you, thank you for having me, Eileen and Rob. I enjoyed it so much, and I admire the work that you guys do, and uh yes, so thank you for having me.
Rob Johnson: And we've enjoyed having you, Debbie Qaqish. That's awesome. Keep keep up the great work!
Debbie Qaqish: Thank you.
Eileen Rochford: Yeah! Okay, everybody, thank you all for listening. I'm Eileen Rochford. If you would like to comment on our show, Can You Hear Me?, or suggest a topic, just contact us at our Can You Hear Me? um LinkedIn page, or um you can check out our newsletter, or you can uh give us ideas, you know, via our LinkedIn page for show topics that we should do in the future—all those kinds of things. But we'll leave um that information in the show notes, as well as mentions of Debbie's first two books, and you can expect to see her back on the show when her third is published! How about that?
Rob Johnson: Well, that's the least we can do. Debbie Debbie has been very kind and and got my book, and when we were talking uh recently, she showed me that it was all like, you know, marked up.
Debbie Qaqish: It was all marked up! I thought I had it right here! [laughter] I was going to hold it up in the show! Where is it? Ah, that bummer!
Eileen Rochford: Oh, I was going to show you mine, too! I have I have the same highlighted...
Rob Johnson: Thank you for doing that. At least it's not on your dartboards. That's that's all I care about.
Eileen Rochford / Debbie Qaqish: [laughter]
Rob Johnson: Um [clears throat] I'm Rob Johnson. If you liked what you heard, please consider giving Can You Hear Me? a positive review wherever you get your podcasts, such as Apple or Spotify. This helps other listeners find our podcast, and please check out our website at canyouhearmepod.beam.ly. Thank you so much for listening!