In this episode, we sit down with the incredible and dynamic Heidi Uhrig Guest, California/Davis, Tri Delta Woman of Achievement, beauty industry leader and now the Founder and CEO of Forte Advisers. From her early days as a Tri Delta to her impressive career, Heidi shares her journey and the importance of identifying and developing talent as the key to creating successful and happy employees and companies.
Tri Delta CEO Mindy Tucker, Southern Methodist, dives into Heidi’s fun and exciting beauty and TV hosting career. Join them to follow along in Heidi’s career pivots, learn about the power of strengths-based leadership and hear how Tri Delta played a key role in her latest transition to starting her own company—Forte Advisers. Heidi shares invaluable advice for women navigating change, embracing their strengths, leading with purpose and reinventing themselves. whether it’s in their first job or during what she calls “the third chapter.” If you're looking for inspiration, practical career wisdom or an important reminder of how Tri Delta’s values can shape a lifetime, this episode is for you!
[Heidi Uhrig Guest Transcript]
This transcript was created using automated technologies and may contain errors.
Welcome to our Let's Talk Tri Delta Podcast. I'm Mindy Tucker, Tri Delta CEO. And I
am so excited that you joined us today. One of the best parts of my job is I get
this opportunity to meet and talk with so many of our incredible sisters and hear
their stories. And today, I have the pleasure of welcoming Heidi Guest from our Beta
Pi Chapter at the University of California, Davis. And Heidi has generally, generously
given of her time and talent to Tri Delta and to St. Jude over the years.
She's a Tri Delta woman of achievement. She had this impressive 40-year career in
the beauty industry, having spent the majority of her time at the Clinique division of
the Estee Lauder companies. She was one of Philosophy's main QVC ambassadors. She's just an, she's just an impressive woman. I can't wait for you to meet her today
and hear more from her. Now she has started her own company. She's the founder and
CEO of a strength based advising company, Forte Advisers. And today we're going to
talk about this latest career of transition that she's made and the role that
Tri Delta played in that. And so I can't wait to introduce you to her and dive
into all this with her. Heidi, welcome to the podcast. Oh, thank you, Mindy. It's
great to be here. Thanks for having me. So I want to start at the very beginning
at Davis and Tridelta. What, how did you end up there?
And what did, what did it mean to you to join Tri Delta? Well, you know, Mindy,
it's funny. I was 17 when I went to Davis. And so I was a young freshman And I
was really looking for a home away from home. My parents, neither one had belonged
to a sorority or fraternity. But what was interesting is my senior year, a lot of
women who I'd known my entire life turned up and told me their stories of sorority.
And they offered to write letters of recommendation and they painted a picture that
kind of matched my vision, mission, values for my life. They talked about a
sisterhood that was beyond four years. And I remember people saying that they said
that it would help me with my academics because UC Davis was a pretty challenging
curriculum there. And they also talked about the fact that they were still involved
in philanthropies. And some were tri deltas, some were not. But I got this wonderful
feeling of panel and experience. And so I decided to take the plunge and go in and
thoroughly enjoyed my experience.
Tridelta really, I knew almost immediately that was the house I wanted to join
because again, it matched my values. That's super important to me. And what people
talked about no matter who I talked to, they really focused on the same things that
mattered to me. - I love that. In line with the values from the very beginning.
After college, you stayed on with Tri Delta as a field consultant. That's what we now
call our chapter development consultants. How did that experience prepare you for your
career? You know, I think more than anything else, I've always told people,
and you might have other Tridelta's might have heard this before, that being a
chapter consultant or a field consultant was like a leadership learning lab. I really
had the opportunity to see the United States at that time. Later, I would lead
North America and a global enterprise. But I got to see the United States.
I got to see that we are very different countries within a United country.
And I got to respect
You know, because of California and I thought the whole world was like Northern
California. Well, that's not true. What I also was able to do was I was learned I
learned how to focus on what was right with people and maximize the investment of
time usually four to five days I would get in one location to make a difference.
Usually there was a metric we were trying to reach one of my specialties at the
time was recruitment. So I really wanted to become, I almost felt like a cultural
anthropologist, you know, I went in among the natives, I learned,
you know, their their ways. And then I found a way to lead from where I stood
while respecting the way they did things. I learned that you could have the same
goal that people accomplish it many different ways. That couldn't have been a more
powerful start to a career, my career in beauty, and leading at a much larger
level. Well let's go there. So you finish with your term as a CDC, and then you
start making things happen for yourself. How did you end up in the beauty industry?
How did you get that started? Well, it's kind of funny the way I started, because
a lot of people don't know that. Tri Delta launched my professional career for sure.
And when I got out, there was a best practice that kind of happened where two
major global corporations, I won't name them today, they liked field consultants
because we had a certain maturity. We had a certain ability to pivot, to flex,
to be very successful in sales. And so one of them recruited me. And it was a
company that at the time wasn't in health and beauty, but they told me, "Hey kids,
someday we're going to be in the health and beauty space, beauty." They weren't at
the time. I sold more personal care items, but I got a great education there.
But you know what, Mindy? I didn't like it. I did really well at it, but I hated
it. And I remember I was in a seminar at the headquarters and says,
"Bear, it's a wonderful organization, but it wasn't the right fit for me." And they
said, "You've got to love the product you sell." And I thought, "Do I love this
one, this one, or this one?" No. And so, at 24,
25, I thought, "What products do I love?" And I opened up my medicine cabinet and
there was Clinique everywhere. And I thought, "I love Clinique." So, I had the
naivete at the time to call Estee Lauder Corporation, asked to speak to someone at
Clinique, and a gentleman picked up the phone, Herb, who later became my boss,
and he was a former representative of this particular company. He knew my training,
and he said, "I want to talk to you." And that's how my career with Clinique
began. He said, "Listen, kid." A lot of people called girls' kid at the time. He
said, "Listen, you're going to have to go behind the counter because you need to
learn about this business. My father and mother were not happy because I took a
major pay cut, I gave up the company car, I went and worked in the department
store, but that was the best thing that could have ever happened to me because I
learned how to be the spokesperson for an organization. I learned how to personify
the values of an organization. And I learned that the client comes first,
no matter what. And when I went to New York and was in the Ivory Tower working
and leading clinic North America, they called me Mikey,
if you remember that old life serial ad, because they would always ask me, Heidi,
does this idea work at the counter? Because I had the vision, but I had the
practicality to understand how things worked. And I developed a very strong
relationship with people at all levels of the organization because they saw that I
literally went from the mail room to use a commonly used idea to leadership
position. And that gave me a certain authority that I don't think any other
executive had up to that point. - So interesting to hear you talk about that 'cause
I've been having this conversation with my son about, you know, he knows there are
certain jobs that you go in and you're guaranteed to make money and that some of
the things he's interested in are not like that. And we've been having this
conversation about how in your 20s, when he's not there yet, but when you're
younger, you have the ability to make some of those decisions. You can fail a
little bit. You can take the pay cut and do the risky thing. - Totally. - I did
it. My dad thought I was insane for going to work on Capitol Hill for barely any
money, but it worked out. I had a great career out of it. And like you're saying
the same thing. You took the leap and you started out at the bottom, but you
worked your way up and it made you more successful working your way out because you
had done that. - Absolutely. I always say to people I mentor now, 'cause I've
mentored probably thousands of people at this point, is do what you love. If you
can just do what you love, you're going to be successful. And there's so many
people that go to what they think they should do like I did. People said, "Oh,
wow, you got a job with this company." And I could have stayed in it and tolerated
it, but I wouldn't have been a work alike like it. I would have dreaded Monday
mornings and that's no way to live. - Yeah. So I know in talking to you about your
roles in some of these companies,
strengths is a huge part of how you step into these roles and how you manage
people. I'd love for you to give just a minute or two for our audience that
doesn't understand Gallup strength, doesn't know what it is, like a, this is what
the concept is, But I'd also love to dig in a little bit about how you use that
and your roles, how you managed people, how you brought that to bear, where you
really saw success from bringing in people's strengths. Yeah. Well, that's my
specialty. So though the background is beauty, those 40 years, my specialty is human
development and developing executives within the corporate environment, and I did that
in a number of ways. About 30 years into my career, I learned formally about
identifying talent, innate talent. It is an experience, it is an education,
it's innate talent. And the leader of our organization, Mr. Leonard Lauder, said it's
not gonna be another lipstick that gets clinic to number one, it's not gonna be
another powder, It is primacy of person. And so as I studied, you know,
'cause I was charged to do this, studied different organizations that were strength
-based companies, quitting people in the right place on the bus so that they could
have outstanding performance. I said, well, this is gonna make a big difference for
us. We identified talent at every single level of the organization.
This is how you're born. Your full talent is baked when you're about 11. And we
put people in roles, actually created roles that worked with their talent because the
idea is in talent -based leadership that if you do what you're best at, you can
perform six times better than someone else and have three times more productivity.
Well, sure enough, we tested this concept at Clinique. We tripled sales by putting
people in the right place on the bus within months. And we drove over time,
over two years, a seven -time return on investment. So it isn't Kumbaya, what's your
Zodiac sign. It's scientifically identifying what makes you great and then linking it
to performance outcomes. So I've done that throughout the cosmetic industry in a
number of different ways. And then I brought it to at -risk youth because I thought
if kids that are trying to get to college could get this science that we paid
millions of dollars for, what would happen? How could we transform the world if kids
knew what they were good at? We got them through high school. They're living at
poverty. They don't even know if they have food when they get home or lights on
and get them to top colleges because they had academic potential. What will happen?
And those kids now are in their 30s and a lot of them I call doctor. They've
earned their PhDs, their lawyers, their innovators. So the science of talent is
transforming and that's why I want to do this for people the rest of the days of
my life. It's so interesting to hear you. I hadn't thought about that but what a
leveling of the playing field. Everybody's got strengths, everybody's got talents.
We've all got something we're good at. And so no matter how you grew up,
no matter what your background is, no matter how much money you have, you've got
talents. I have never thought about it in that way until this minute when you
talked about it. But wow, what a powerful concept to bring to them. And you think
what it is, Mindy, is knowing the talents is great. What I specialize in is looking
at each person uniquely. There's a one in 33 million chance that I will see the
same talent profile for a person. So it's always interesting to me.
But what's interesting, too, is you need to make people accountable to their talent.
It isn't just you have it, you got to use it. And that takes a discipline. But
when people use it, it releases endorphins that make them feel good. Like,
you're, you know,
runner's high. It gives that same feeling, and you want to use them more. So
there's a lot of scientific research about it. The American Psychological Association
validates this method. I'm a nerd. I like to know it's a science that leads to
results, but it's proved very positively in my career working with people in all
different walks of life. Well, Tri Delta uses the strengths -based approach. We use it
approach, using our staff, using it with our boards. And so last year, you and I
had a conversation about whether or not you could come alongside us and help us
with our onboarding. We had new boards coming in with three new board chairs and
new boards coming in and you and I started this conversation. And as we started the
conversation, I didn't realize that you were sort of at a career crossroads. Right.
And I'd love for this sort of a beautiful story that played out, and I'd love for
you to kind of share that like we're when I came into the picture and we started
have started this conversation where you were and what some of the decisions were in
front of you at the time. Yeah, I mean, Mindy, it was tri delta has been such a
happy coincidence in my life. I think that's the best way I can say it or a happy
collision. Because you approached me, you and Kimberly, probably about two weeks
before I made a decision about what I was going to do. You know, I at the time
was 62 years old, I was had experienced success, my career,
I've always chosen companies very carefully that are always in line with my values.
Tridelta got that foundation. I mean, it's always been who I am. And in the Last
13 years, I had done a number of things in strength -based work, but I ended up
helping the organization in the best way that drove profits for them, and that was,
and this is a philosophy, that was on -air spokesperson work for QVC,
representing a brand that represented the relationship between science and inspiration.
Two things I love more than anything. But over time in any relationship,
and as you think about yourself, you know, as you're listening to Mindy and me,
things change. You start out with certain goals and values and purpose together, and
then little changes, little pivots happen along the way. And about two years before
I departed in May, I began thinking, this doesn't match my purpose. It's getting
further and further away from my purpose, but it was convenient at almost 63 to
stay, two years away from retirement. There were so many reasons to stay that the
voice in my head kept saying Heidi, it's time to enter the third chapter of your
career. And now it isn't about you looking to somebody else, it's about you looking
to yourself. And that's when you called. And so Tridelta became my first client.
And that was such a wonderful thing. I am grateful for every single thing that's
happened in my career. And I never blame or say, oh, that company was bad. No, we
just evolve and change. And in my third chapter, my purpose is to uplift,
to encourage, to inspire, and to allow people to live in their full potential. I
need to do that more of the time. Can I do that through product sales and making
people feel connected to philosophy? Yes, but is that really the best expression?
If my time's more limited, which it is, I'm in the third chapter, what should it
look like? And so Tridelta's hand out to me made me say, I'm going to let go of
the trapeze I'm on, I'm going to fly through the air with the greatest of these,
and you guys were there on the other end to catch me. And as soon as I began
working with you, I knew this was what I was meant to do, so I launched Forte
Advisors. - I love it. - It's amazing. - You and I were talking at the time about
somebody had just told me that women typically reinvent themselves three times in
their career. And so it was so funny 'cause you were heading into that third, like
you called the third chapter. But I'm finding as you get older, that's a scarier
prospect. You know, I just big sort of job decision in my life. And as you get
older, there's scarier decisions to make, I think, because you don't know how much
time you have left to work. And is this my last hurrah? I mean, all these things
run through your head. And can I do it? Can I start something new? Can I do it?
You know, at this age, how did you feel about the change and what kind of helped
you sort of get there when you were faced with all that, all those questions and
the scary part of it? - Yeah, I think I really went from the power of purpose
which had guided me through the first two phases of my career to am I living my
life on purpose? purpose. And that seemed to me to be what tripped the light
fantastic to say, "What would you love to do until you're 80? What would you love
to do?" And then as I began, I reached out to sisters, I reached out to friends,
I talked to people that I thought would talk me out of it, and every single person
said, "Heidi, this is what you're meant to do. I believe in you." that affirmation
was just that last piece. So I tell people, are you living on purpose? Ask yourself
that, it's a tough question and it's not fun sometimes to ask. And then ask your
friends and family who know you best, what they really perceive you doing if you're
gonna leave a lasting legacy, what are you, and the word inspire came up so many
times I can't even tell you, and I'm gonna tell you something. On my desk, there
is a little Limoges piece. This was given to me by my pledge trainer at Tri Delta.
It's been on every desk I have had. She gave it to me because I was the most
inspiring pledge. It says M -I -P, M -I -P. And that's what's always reminded me.
As funny as that seems, I don't know if I totally got it when I was 17, 18, but
that's been my guidepost. How can I inspire, encourage, and lift people up for each
one of us? Think about the things you enjoy doing the most. And when I guide
people now, I have individual clients at Forte Advisers. What I say is, what would
you do for free? If you could do anything for free. What would it be?
What would you volunteer to do? And then we look at their strengths, and the trick
is linking their strengths, what they uniquely do that nobody else can do to their
intention. And that's where I see hearts ignite, and that's where I see people
walking into their purpose with joy, not dread. Now,
certainly you have to be practical about things too, But in general, you know,
you've got one life. You might as well embrace it and love it. And now I know,
you know, time's limited. I'm losing friends at this age to disease, to a number of
different things. Are you living your life as you intended? How do you want to
finish this third chapter? And I'm content. Is it as convenient as my life where a
paycheck was coming in every month and commissions were coming in? And, you I mean,
all the benefits that went with it, no. But do I wake up in the morning, happy
and enthused to do what I'm doing? Yes. And I find my theme today,
it used to always be beauty is as beauty does, was my guiding principle. Now my
guiding principle is faith never fear. I've told fear goodbye.
Thank you for reminding me of all the things that could go wrong. Thank you very
much. I really appreciate it. You care about it anymore? Yeah, it's part of
evolution. But I'm going to have faith and self -respect knowing what I am capable
of doing. And I truly believe that if you put that out there, what you really want
to do, all these happy coincidences start coming towards you. I've seen it over and
over again, and I'm the most practical of the most practical. But if you put out
there, I'm not going to succeed, I'm not going to be successful, well, then the
universe might give you more of what you want, what you just said.
Okay, now that everybody in the world out there listening wants to work with you,
what do you actually do for your clients? Once you talk through like you put the
right people in the right place on the bus, what does that look like for a client?
Well, it's funny. I have never wanted to be pigeonholed. And because I said earlier,
there are so many applications of strength -based psychology. I like to work with a
number of different people. So I'll give you an example. I work with individuals to
help them live into their full potential. After the age of 16, I work with a lot
of kids that are making college decisions or in college. I work with their parents.
I do something called collaborative coaching, where I look at the parent's talent and
the team's talent so they can communicate better. It's all about better collaboration
when you're working in teams. I work with organizations, Fortune 500 organizations,
usually in small work groups. Because I've lived every side of corporate life,
I know every single side of it. There isn't anything I really haven't seen. I've
seen great corporations, I've seen some really bad ones. So I know the realities of
people's situations and I think that's why I developed trust. I was also one of the
few working moms as an executive. So a lot of people understand that I've juggled
things. And so we talk about things beyond their career goals or their goals at the
moment. What I love about strengths is it talks about your life 'cause the whole
person comes to work, not a professional side, a personal side. So I love to work
with organizations, individuals, teams, bosses, and the people that report to them.
If you invest as a boss and you just know, you tell somebody, "I want to know
your strengths. I want to know how we can work better." You don't have to do much
more. You don't have to have a sales meeting where you do a, you know, rah -rah
session. If you just invest in that person and show interest, you'd be shocked what
people would do for you. It's amazing. And it also allows people to communicate more
clearly. So there are so many uses of this and I've been lucky or fortunate to get
to work with individuals and organizations and some organizations that are Tridelta
members, which has been lovely. I recently made a decision that if anyone is a
Tridelta customer, I've always connected it to philanthropy, anything I've done,
whether it was clinic, philosophy, et cetera. But I believe in the causes Tridelta
believes in and I support them, our foundation, St. Jude. The certain percentage,
and I'm working that out right now, of any client from Tridelta will go to those
one, one of those two places. 'Cause it's all about people supporting people and
allowing them to live their lives in a positive productive way. I love that.
I love how you've sort of continued the thread of Tri Delta throughout what you're
doing, even when it's not directly connected. I love that. What do you think the
skills are from Tri Delta that have stuck with you over time from the earliest days
as a pledge or as a consultant, what do you still feel like is there with you?
Some people might laugh, but I keep Tri Delta's purpose with me at all times.
I have it right here.
It's a foundation for how you live. I loved it when I first heard it,
to establish a perpetual bond of friendship among its members. So in any group,
I'm a member, whether it's Clinique, Philosophy, you know, PTO, anything like that,
anything I'm a member. How do I extend a perpetual bond of friendship to people?
You can be friends and business or friends and communities or organizations to
develop a stronger and more womanly character. How do I represent that to my
constituents? And how do I ask them to do the same? to broaden the moral and
intellectual life. I've done that at every single place I've been, encouraging others
to do it, and encouraging me to do the right thing even when people aren't looking.
Wouldn't Mark Twain say, "Do what's right." It will please some people and it will
astonish the rest. That's very Tri Delta. Then the idea of assisting members in
every possible way, that extends to me to
one in our community, and I mean a global community. So for me, it's always been
St. Jude. Recently, it's been the foundation. I love the idea that we are helping
our sisters when they need it with confidential assistance. I love that we're helping
children and families. So we should always be linked to helping somebody else and
lifting somebody up. If my purpose is to inspire, it must include include
philanthropy. So Tri Delta, to answer your question, has given me a template for how
I live my life. Yeah, I love that. You're the best spokesperson.
I should just sit here and talk. All right, now we're going to have a little fun.
We're going to move to this lightning round of questions. So I hope you're ready.
Okay, I hope I am too. Okay. What is a book that has changed your perspective?
There have been a lot because I'm a voracious reader. The one that is always on my
desk is "Gift from the Sea" by Ann Maro Lindberg. I open up a chapter almost every
day. And Ann Maro Lindberg was a woman who was ahead of her time. She was married
to the famous aviator. She lost her first child, the Lindberg kidnapping, raised five
children. In the '50s, a woman ahead of her time. She had a solid career. She was
an aviator. But she went to this little cabin on Captiva Island to recharge and
refuel. So she writes about being a woman and what it means to serve many purposes,
but that you always have to go inside first. She's such an inspiration to me.
Like the and mask gift to take care of yourself first before you can exactly
because that that has allowed me to realize you know when I went to college it was
you could have it all but there I didn't know any women that worked outside the
home you know that you could bring home the bacon fried up in a pan you know that
whole commercial yes the aviance night I met the aviance model once and it's it's
so funny in that I had no proof of that so to see a woman like Ann -Marie
Lindbergh that I saw so early do all those things was proof positive that I could
do it too. - I love that. All right, what's your favorite way to start your day?
- You're gonna laugh. It kind of has beauty and meditation together. I get up and
makes really strong coffee. And then I glugged down a good amount of water to make
my skin look good. And then I use a device that tones my muscles because it's the
only what my facial muscles, it's the only way I can meditate. So I go inside
first as I'm toning my muscles, like exercise for the skin. And then the next thing
I do, and if you know me well, you know I send birthday greetings, individualized
birthday greetings to every single person on my Facebook page. And I really think
about that person. I think why I'm grateful for them. I write something that I hope
is meaningful and I put it out in the universe. So it's an inside, outside, with
coffee and facial toning. I do it every day, no matter where I am. I love that.
And that's easy because you can do that wherever you are. Anywhere I am. Yep. I'll
take it with you. All right. What's the best career advice you've ever, career
advice you've ever received? From a conductor, Benjamin Zander, who told me to always
lead from wherever you stand, even when you're not the sanctioned leader. And he
always told me the conductor never makes a sound.
And those two things, you bring the best out in people, you know,
and he always said to me, look for shining eyes. If eyes are shining back at you,
it means you've connected. If the eyes are dull, it means that you're not connected.
But leading from where you stand has been the thing that has stuck with me.
And then for Mr. Lotter, he used to always say to me, "Hi, do you want to be
right or do you want to be successful?" And that's something that stuck with me
too. Do you want to be right or do you want to be successful? And now it's my
own faith over fear. - Yeah, okay. And what is your dream vacation destination?
You know, I got to go on it. My family is from Sweden and I got to go back to
my great -grandmother's hometown, stand in her church and see what she saw before she
left her family, never to see them again, and come here to give us the life that
we've been given. I just, I thought about her and about my heritage and when I we
were there at the church it was kind of starting to drizzle and as soon as I got
there the Sun came out and we both my husband and I both kind of looked at each
other I said Anna I'm here and I could just sense she knew at some level I was
there so my dream vacation was going back and exploring my heritage in Sweden and I
really recommend that as a dream vacation for a lot of us. It's so important as so
many of us are immigrants to know where we came from. Yeah, I love that. Okay, how
can our listeners keep up with you, follow you, learn more about you? Well, there
are a lot of ways. So, socially, Facebook, Heidi Guest, I have a page that I just
do for fun called Heidi Guest Inspired Living where I try to give about three to
five times a week, a source of inspiration. So Heidi Guest or Heidi Guest inspired
living. And then I will be opening my website officially at www.forteadvisers with an e
.com. And that will happen in Women's History Month next March because this is the
next part of my personal history. - Yeah, oh, I love that, that's sweet. - Or Heidi
@forteadvisers.com, you can email me too. - We'll put all of that in the notes so
people can gather that and connect with you if they'd like. Thank you so much for
joining us today. This was a great conversation. I love your inspiration and spirit
and how well you are just an ambassador for the Try Delta experience through all
the parts of your life. - Well, Mindy, thank you for everything you've done for me.
You never forget the people that really help you reach your intention, and you are
one of those people that did that for me, and I'll never forget it. That makes my
heart happy, so. Thanks to Heidi for being here today. I'm so glad she joined us.
One reminder for everybody, I hope you've paid your alumni dues. Now when you pay
your dues in Tridelta, you have the option to level up and get even more benefits
for the dues that you're paying. So go check it out at TriDelta.org /dues-and
-benefits. You can find that on our website. I hope you'll like, subscribe, and rate
the podcast. We have three stars in our crescent, but we love those five star
ratings. Thanks for being with us today, and until next time, Delta Love!