Hive Enterprises CEO's End of 2024 Message to Employees

To The Hive,
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I am sitting at the refuge, watching a dive boat not that far offshore, watching another survivor process through her trauma on the balcony these past few days while yet another survivor has befriended us this holiday season.  It is a magical and beautiful space that has become safe for many of us in the hive.  Our mission, in part, is to emanate and grow that safe space as we grow the hive.  Growing and expanding from within as a sustainable ecosystem.
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It's hard to synthesize and frame the perspective from 2024.  So much can be said about it, and so many things have happened in our lives, country, and world. But I think the right place to start is always within ourselves and the lessons we learn from our own experiences, with the critical understanding that within each of those experiences is a ripple. As I seek to frame my perspective for the year, that is where I start—turning inward and reflective, feet solidly planted, with eyes focused on the future.  
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The first key insight of 2024 was listening to the universe saying to embrace the authentic self unapologetically and with accountability. The more I accept, speak my truth, appreciate, and embrace that person, including the parts that need to improve, the less I am the trigger-activated version of her. The more self-compassion I show while simultaneously holding myself accountable without reprieve (the buck stops here), the better my decisions and the outcomes for everyone improve.  The converse is also true.
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The second lesson of 2024 is to lean into gifts and protect them.  I've realized, primarily through the daggers that come in moments of growth and ascension, that our light can sometimes be too bright for others whose trauma reaction is to extinguish it.  Because so many of us in the hive have faced unbelievable situations, those daggers are razor-sharp and penetrate deep. Hurt people hurt people, sometimes viciously.  The very thing that toxic people often attack is your superpower.  
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Now that I know why that happens, I expect it. It still hurts, but now the ripple is different.  Instead of penetrating deep, there is protection that blunts back like a decisive blunt move in baseball—using the energy force of the ball, unexpectedly leveraging the bat, creating a different outcome.   Instead of destabilizing the foundation, it strengthens. Commitment becomes more resolute.  Pain turns into fuel that powers the hive.
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The third lesson from 2024 for me has been gratitude.  Immense gratitude for the people in the hive, the clients we serve, and our work. This particular journey of social entrepreneurialism has bumps, highs, and lows.  Along the way, there have been difficult situations that we've faced, moments we've questioned ourselves and each other and likely questioned what we were doing.  And in those moments, we leaned towards each other, not away from.  We listened and considered each other's perspectives; we debated, strategized, and came up with solutions. We manifested into the universe the outcomes we want to see. We held safe spaces for each other to do it, not holding onto or reacting to the processing that happens there.  When done well, our results were better, and the accomplishments we achieved together were far more significant.
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Let's take a moment to reflect on those collective accomplishments.  

1. In less than 120 days, we've built, launched, and continue to scale a growing business consulting practice that delivers tremendous value for our clients.

1. Amassed a cross-functional business, NPO consulting, and managed services agency of 22 people and growing.
2. Quickly evolved agency product offerings and diversified client base across private equity, venture capital, privately owned, and philanthropic organizations.
   
   • Built and operated an active non-profit organization serving multiple survivors
     
   • Supported global multi-site organization, ensuring successful acquisition and organizational redesign for next-phase growth and scale
   • Supported the transformation of a global travel, leisure, and hospitality company through an HR surge team delivering organizational redesign, talent strategy, and HRIS strategy, poised next for sales and finance team transformation.
   • Built and activated strategy for a national non-profit organization, activating the board and designing the organization for a grander scale
   • Supported the launch of Venture Capital entities, architecting strategy, proforma modeling, talent acquisition, compensation, and leadership structures
   • Provided intervention acquisition bridge services for staffing firm; retained, focused, and engaged talent to turn around sales to achieve proforma targets

2. Built the operating infrastructure for our social entrepreneurial organization, including:

• Partnerships with key financial, legal, compliance, and registration firms
• Partnerships with blue-chip marketing, creative, branding, IT, and PR firms
• Built out internal operating systems and scalable consulting processes leveraging technology and AI platforms
• Built out HiveStrong client portal for scale
• Established and organized NPO Board of Directors, bylaws, strategic plans, and committees

3. Developed HiveSmart and HiveStrong branding, positioning and assets

• Activated through omnichannel social media, marketing, and business development plans
• Developed HiveSmart website for January '25 launch

4. Successfully released book to Best-Seller status.

5. Closed the year with an Op-Ed publication in USA Today.
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As excited and grateful as I am for all of those consulting and LLC accomplishments, it is the next set of accomplishments that is what makes our professional work that much more rewarding:

• Served 26 abuse and trauma survivors through our various programs in 2024
• Reached over $32k in survivor loans, $8k in emergency grants
• We held multiple Hive Connects, 1 Retreat, and expanded our community in 2024
• We had strong success rates throughout the year, with the following result and relative comparison.
  • While it takes victims on average 7 times to leave an abuser, 1 in 100 trafficking victims escape (80% will return without restorative care); with HiveStrong, the average attempts of abuse victims to leave is 1.4, with 80% of survivors leaving and staying out, with their first attempt.
  • 99% of victims experience financial abuse, often coinciding with other types of abuse.  With support from HiveStrong grants, victims see a 6x – 15x return on the loan investment.
  • While each survivor is responsible and accountable for their journey, with the unique combination of HiveStrongs support programs, 83% of survivors navigate their journey to successful outcomes.

We've seen the broad ripple effect of each of these wins, and we feel the pain of each one that doesn't go that way. And we keep going because we know the importance of what we are doing together.
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While I'm humbled and grateful to have accomplished these things together, I am even more energized by what we are poised to do together in 2025.
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We are poised to take this next leap together. Our business development team has been coming together. The non-profit fundraising arm of the hive is kicking off in January, events are being planned, conversations with media are underway, and the first book / HiveStrong speaking opportunity has been booked. Business development, commission, and referral plans for the consulting arm are also activating. New clients continue in the pipeline. The upcoming launch of our new website will further activate our plans.  
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Our laser focus going into 2025 is on the execution of our plans.  To deliver results brilliantly for our consulting clients and compassionately for our non-profit ones. Each piece coming together inevitably has misfires or missteps, but we will work through that as we always do together.  Our focus on execution, grounded in our core values of possibility, sustainability, resiliency, trust, and empowerment, will build connections and create a more significant ripple of impact.
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Thank you for being on this journey with me. Thank you for putting your craft, your energy, and pointing your light towards it so that collectively, we do indeed brighten the universe.
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Happy New Year.

Rachael