Leaving Room to Learn

In the sec­ond of a six-part series of blogs about the growth of The Lit­tle Pota­to Com­pa­ny (LPC), and the lead­er­ship of CEO/­co-founder Angela San­ti­a­go, we talk about how her love of learn­ing has been instru­men­tal in her success.

Angela Santiago’s life is a learn­ing curve. In fact, ​“inces­sant curios­i­ty” is an approach that’s served her well — espe­cial­ly when plans for her life took a detour.

That path was opened by her co-founder/­fa­ther Jacob who had an idea to start a busi­ness grow­ing the deli­cious lit­tle pota­toes from his home­land. Angela, who was then study­ing polit­i­cal sci­ence, his­to­ry, and busi­ness at uni­ver­si­ty, agreed to help – but just for a lit­tle while.

Need­less to say, she nev­er left and today, as CEO of LPC, she has also earned her self-described PhD in Hard Knocks. In this clip, learn how the course of her life and her edu­ca­tion changed.

A Love of Learning

In fact, Angela cred­its her love of learn­ing as the most impact­ful thing that has enabled her to con­tin­ue to grow. In this clip, Angela talks about how much time she spends on con­tin­u­al studies.

“I Iove to learn,” she says. ​“I’ve always been curi­ous and com­fort­able with not know­ing some­thing. It’s kind of a Catch 22 that has allowed me to room to learn — and I give (that) room for oth­er peo­ple.” Here she talks about how she keeps get­ting to the next lev­el of her growth.

“I’m com­fort­able with being uncomfortable…and I’m def­i­nite­ly okay with what I don’t know.

I’m either going to learn myself or go find some­one that knows how to do it.”

Per­sis­tent Resilience

Angela doesn’t shy away from chal­lenges. When some­thing doesn’t work, she keeps try­ing dif­fer­ent approach­es until she fig­ures it out.

This kind of deter­mi­na­tion has been a big part of her company’s success.

What’s real­ly strik­ing is how at ease she is with not hav­ing all the answers. She tack­les prob­lems with an open mind, know­ing there’s more than one way to get where she wants to go.

She’s not afraid to reach out to lots of dif­fer­ent peo­ple — con­sul­tants, oth­er CEOs, her Advi­so­ry Board, and peers — to gath­er ideas and piece togeth­er the right solution.

I think many CEOs could ben­e­fit from that approach. Lis­ten to Angela talk about her per­sis­tence and how she relies on her network.

Dou­ble Your Capacity

Angela embod­ies the prin­ci­ples I cov­er in Chap­ter 8, Learn Like Your Life Depends on It, from Your Oxy­gen Mask First. To tru­ly earn the title of leader, you need to dou­ble your capa­bil­i­ties every three to five years. It’s the only way to stay at the top of your game, be your best, and take your com­pa­ny to new heights.

What­ev­er path you choose, make invest­ing in your future abil­i­ties as a leader a top priority.

For more, here is the link to our recent LPC Case Study and you can watch the full inter­view with Angela below.

Oth­er Blogs

• Think You Know It All?
• Knowl­edge is Power
• Lis­ten to Learn

Old­er Podcasts

• Jim Collins’ Lev­el 5 Leaders
• Coach vs Con­sul­tant? What’s Right for You?