Rising with Intuition & Resilience

What an absolutely touching conversation with Yvonne Pyre, who is a USAF veteran, entrepreneur, and resilient leader, passionate about transforming the way we live, work, and lead. She founded Truffles Technologies Incorporated, scaling it into an eight figure award winning women owned security integration firm serving US government agencies worldwide, all while raising four children.

In 2023, she launched the Rising Zone, a co working wellness hub and home of the RZ Connect community, empowering professionals to thrive with clarity and connection. A sought after speaker, Yvonne inspires with candor and purpose, showing leaders how to rise with resilience, lead authentically, and build success that truly endures.

Welcome, Yvonne. Hi, everybody, and welcome to the Power Up Your Life podcast brought to you by GoBundance Women. I'm Kelly Resendez.

And I'm Mandy McAllister.

And we are so excited today to have our dear friend and GoBundance member, Yvonne Pyre, on with us. So welcome.

How are you? You. Thank you. I'm good. I'm so excited to be here with y'all. I've been watching your podcast, and I absolutely love it.

Yay. Well, just in your own words, just give us a little smidge of your story and where you are today.

Okay. Well, I'll start with the fact that I joined the Air Force for right while I was still a senior in high school. And so I joined the Air Force, as a senior in high school, and everybody around me thought I was absolutely crazy because I was in Texas, and women didn't join the air force very much back then. So I went right into the air force. I spent six years in air force. I was a security police specialist. I was actually fortunate enough to be able to serve in Germany, Desert Storm in Incirlik, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and then back to San Antonio, Texas after that and then cross training to become a paralegal.

So that really set my tone for my professional life because prior to joining the military, I share my story in other, realms, but, I mean, I came from a pretty, trauma type background and and childhood. We might talk about that a little bit today. But the military really gave me that discipline and the and the vision and and kind of a way forward. So that's really how I started my career.

After getting out of the air force, I finished up my degree and worked for a couple of technology businesses and then started my own company in 2001. Right about the time I thought I'd spent years trying to get pregnant and I couldn't get pregnant, I started my business in 2001, and six months later, I got pregnant. So so here I am. I started a brand new business over 20 over the last twenty three years. I've grown that business, as well as raised four kids. That was an started as an IT company, turned in we really now focus on security systems. So we do a lot of physical security systems for the Navy Seals and a lot of the DOD, Bureau of Reclamation. So we secure, sites from Rhode Island all the way to Guam, with my security business.

And then, back in 2015, I really went through my own kinda mental and emotional breakdown due to a lot of different circumstances that happened in my life. And I realized that I had built my financial dream, so I always knew that I wanted to, you know, have a company. I always knew I wanted to be a really great mom. And here I was in 2015, and I had this, you know, business was worth over $20,000,000 or, you know, revenue was over $20,000,000, so I'm sure we're worth a little bit more than that. But we had revenues over 20,000,000. I had four kids that I was raising and just, you know, thought we had the perfect life, and it kinda just all fell apart.

And after that, when it all, you know, it was, like, fell apart and things just really started to crumble, I realized that I need to get myself right, and I realized that I was falling apart from the inside out. And so I went on my own wellness journey and really devoted a lot of time and effort into healing my childhood traumas and and really healing those wounds as well as becoming a more grounded, you know, very purpose driven leader and a purpose driven mother. And through that journey, I eventually decided to start another business because I'm crazy like that. And I started the rising zone, and, we opened up in 2023. And now here I am today, starting to grow it and excited to talk about it.

Wow, Zaa. You do have quite the story. And I just I'm just gonna throw it out there, everybody listening. This is her first online podcast appearance. And, oh my god, girl, you are crushing it.

So for anyone looks like you did, like, a new bag of cool stuff or something. Anyone out there listing, that's the first actionable step, man. If you have a story and you have transcended the pain or trauma and you wanna share it with the world, like, this is the best way to do it is just start. You never know who's listening, who's gonna connect and and really see what's possible.

You know, I get the great honor of being super close to you and and being on this journey with you. And it has been so inspiring for me having come from, you know, a pretty stable environment, and I was set up. Right? I was set up for a lot of success, and what you've done is just amazing.

So, Yvonne, as you've gotten through some of these times in your life where you felt stuck, and I'm guessing, you know, you obviously had this big life turn, but then many times along the way, you felt stuck. What are some actionable things that you do to get unstuck so that you can continue to move forward?

So I've actually, over probably just last couple of years, really been able to look back and try to figure out what is it that got me unstuck. Because, you know, I mean, the last, you know, twenty some years of growing a business and also even way before then, I just naturally was super resilient. I'm naturally a very resilient person, and I just I always look at what is, really, what is it that if if I'm having a challenge, where can I find the good in it? And and so that's just been something that's been a little bit more natural to me.

Mhmm. But over the last couple of years, I've been reflecting and really looking at my whole journey from, like, childhood to now. And when I really look at, what's caused, what's caused me to really continue forward is when I really get true with myself, I always find that the times we get unstuck is typically whenever we are getting pulled away from who we truly are at our core, and we're not feeling we don't have those aligned connections, and we're not focused on the vision for the future. And so that's, you know, what I really focus on those things more.

Yeah. But I would say if I was to sum it up into one thing, that, you know, really helps with resilience, it really is looking at, your whole surroundings and just saying, okay. What how can I turn this challenge into an opportunity, and how can I turn my failure, you know, into a success? And, you know, I just that's kind of the way I've viewed things over the time.

Love it. I I love that. And I I completely agree. When you start to get out of alignment, that's when stuff feels hard. That's when stuff feels heavy and stressful.

Let's talk for a minute to the woman who, you know, that's neat, Yvonne. Like, you know who you are at your core. I don't know where to start.

When you need to you know, when you're questioning what what is my lane? What is it that I stand for? What are some kinda actionable strategies that you've taken on to to get to that core of yourself?

I love that question. I love the fact that that's where you wanted to start because that really is where it starts. Yeah. Knowing who you are is where everything starts. And I would say that who we think we are is typically the titles we're carrying. It's who we are as a mom. It's who we are in our career. It's who our parents told us to be. It's everything that's external. It's our ego.

And so when if you really don't really know at your core who you are and are able to be truthful with who you are at your core, it's because you're living a life of what everybody around you expects of you. And so the very first thing that I would suggest to anybody that is really trying to figure out, okay, who am I? Like, I don't really even know who I am or where I'm going or what I wanna do. I always say, take a step back and just spend some time by yourself. Spend it's it's it sounds like you're isolating yourself, but it really is important to spend time with yourself without everybody else's opinions and in you know, their input, and realize that you are not the titles that you hold. There's something inside of you that is your calling. And so that's what I would say would be the first step is spend time with yourself so that you can really connect with who you are at your core.

And then as you move forward after that to really become who you know, how am I gonna be true to myself? In order to be true to myself, I have to figure out what's the most important things to me. And a lot of people talk about purpose, and I'm a big believer in purpose. However, I do believe that your purpose can change over time or at different times different stages of your life. Your purpose can change. So I think it's more important to look back and say, when I think about everything in my life, what is the most important to me, and where do I feel like I can bring the most value to somebody?

And I think once you start answering those questions, journaling I say journal like crazy. I mean, I have spent so much time when I'm alone and journaling, and I have that's how you figure out who you are. And and don't expect the last thing I would say is don't expect to figure out who you are overnight. Like, it's not something you sit down. There's lots of workshops that I think are great that you could go to that will get you started. But it's getting back home, spending that time alone, and journaling.

Oh, absolutely amazing information because I think, you know, finding our authentic voice and our authentic truth Yeah. Is for a lot of people, they think, like, we were just born this way. Most of us had an awakening of some sort where we started to realize, like, I have embodied an identity that was created by other people. And and when we really get radically truthful with ourself and then we use that as our north star, it allows us to make much better decisions for ourself.

So what would you say is, like, one unconventional way that you approach life or business that a lot of people might just be like, oh, wow. That's interesting.

Well, something that's quite unconventional is, you know, I've been in a male dominated industry my entire adult life. Mhmm. And so in that, you know, male dominated industry, I was when I was operating in what everybody else expected of me. I was always in my masculine, very much in my masculine. I you know? And we all need we all need that in us to be it's what drives us.

But the probably the most, unusual thing that I do is I do a lot of breath work. Mhmm. I really focus on breath work. It's an unconventional thing in the business world and a and a lot it's becoming more accepted today than it used to be, with, you know, men in the those groups.

But I do breath work to either calm myself. I do it to release stress and trauma. And I've gone so far as to even get certified in breath work. It's not what what makes me money. It's just a passion that I absolutely love and believe in. But, yeah, I would say doing the breath work is definitely one of those more unconventional things that I do.

I love it. That brings you right back to yourself. It's this to the whole full circle again. Like, it starts at the knowing you and what your passion is and and what matters to you.

And I I think, you know, we say sometimes that you can't scale your net worth past your self worth. So working on that matters so incredibly much.

And homegirl, getting to $20,000,000 top line revenue is no joke. I'm sure that there were a bunch of bumps in the road along the way, and you got a bunch of advice that was either good, bad, ugly. You know, what's what's maybe some conventional, advice that you got in business on your path to this 20,000,000 top line revenue that was the that maybe the worst and the best advice that you got along the way?

So I gotta say we did it the hard way. So when I originally was scaling the business, when I was originally scaling the business up until that 2015 time frame, we did it on our own. You know, I wasn't seeking out advice. And so I would say my first piece of advice to anybody else is get advice sooner because we did it the hard way.

You know, we, you know, we asked you know, we had a lot of biz we had a lot of different people in our industry that we would work with, and, we really we knew that we had to get systems in place. So I would say out of the advice, that I got collectively, it wasn't really any one person. But in the initial scaling of it, it was figure out how to get your systems in place and figure out how to delegate.

So you have to put the systems in place in order to delegate, and you have to be willing to delegate. And that's the a lot of times the hard part for us entrepreneurs and business owners because we don't want to give up the control. But the only way to grow your business or even your life is to let go of control and empower others to help you grow your business.

Yeah. Absolutely amazing. And I think I think there is so much noise out there, especially in today's day and age when you started your business, right, you probably just used Google and you could disseminate a little bit of information. Literally, it was just all out. Yeah.

Now it's like, holy moly. On every street corner, we've got somebody talking about scaling your business and and chat GPT and other things.

Where does intuition play into your decision making process, and how does it help you navigate life decisions?

Oh, intuition. Intuition, I would say, has been my Achilles' heel, because I have fought listening to my own intuition over the years. Mhmm. And so it's actually I would say I could probably be a $100,000,000 a year business if I would've listened to my intuition.

Because I struggled with really listening to my intuition, kind of going back to that figuring out who you are piece, and and really knowing what matters to you and your truth, your core is listening to your intuition is your truth. Mhmm. And that's a piece that I have learned a lot more over the last couple of years.

And and being a part of GoBennett has actually helped me and honestly being a friend of Kelly's, but really tapping into my own intuition, it's I'm just now coming into that full version of my Yeah. Being able to trust my intuition.

I love that. Mandy, I just wanna comment on this super quickly. For those of you that are watching on video, Yvonne was putting her hand on her heart as she spoke of intuition.

So many of us have used thinking. Like, we confuse thinking with intuition. Well, our thinking mind is really just a survival mechanism. It's old technology. It's gonna probably go to the worst case scenario and try to protect you from being hurt.

There's a deeper level of feeling that we have to get to. And for those of you that this is something that you might need to learn how to develop because it really is from a from a deeper guided place that's gonna pave the way for for you to live in your purpose. So thank you for that, Yvonne.

Back to you, Mandy. Sorry. No. I I think I would to add on to that too, as someone who has,

worked on developing her own intuition, the figuring out that fine line between, you know, what is fear, something keeping me away from something because I I don't wanna go do it because I'm scared, versus my intuition helping me, you know, figure out to stay away because it's bad. Like, that is a very interesting fine line. Do you have any comment on that?

I do wanna say. So that fear, you don't feel fear in your heart.

So so back to what Kelly just said, I'm really happy she picked up on that on what I was doing there because that is what I have learned over the last couple of years is that we let fear and we let our minds take over.

And when we a lot when we really just, like, kinda settle in and going back to what I said in the beginning, just get quiet with yourself. And when we lead from our hearts Yeah. Instead of our brains, that's our intuition Mhmm. Leading thing leading us forward.

Beautiful. And it's it leads into the right back to that breath work stuff too. This all fits together, this entire thing.

You You know, one thing I wanna spend a couple minutes talking about too is, raising four kids and getting to this tremendous business that you've scaled. I you know, mom guilt is its own flavor. You know, working parent flavor of it but mom guilt's its own its own thing.

Talk to me about, yeah, how you set boundaries and maybe conversations you had with yourself to give the business the time that it took and also do what what felt right to you with your kids? Tell me tell me about those years.

K. I will answer that. I love that. I will answer that question the same way I think I've been answering all of them is that there was the old me, and then there was the new me version. So the the previous version that was scaling the business, that did work is I really set boundaries. I set clear boundaries. So when I was at work, I had a an in home, an in home nanny that watched the kids during the day, and their sole job was to be the stay at home mom taking care of the kids and taking care of the cleaning and the cooking and the laundry, and they did all those things. Because then when I came home, I was an all in mom. And the nanny went home, and I got to be mom, and I got to be in the place with my kids. And I was not, you know, being distracted by the other things.

Now, of course, I couldn't afford a nanny in the beginning, but even in the very beginning, I tried my best to do that time blocking where I was either you know, the kids are sleeping, so you have to do it smaller increments, like, when they were babies. They're sleeping. Payless 100% all in focus on work. But then when I when the kids were awake, I was all in mom. So that worked really well for me when the kids were went from, you know, babies to toddlers to growing up through the years is whatever it was that I was at that time, I was either in business mode or mom mode. And I tried not to mix them up too much.

Mhmm. Now the way that it is now, my kids are all adults now. And now that they're all adults, they kinda think they could just pick up the phone and call you whatever they want and all of that. And and plus, you throw in COVID, things got a lot more in intermingled, and it wasn't as easy to separate. And and I do like the idea of integrating it a little bit more, but still in my mind, I try to be present when I'm in my work mode, and I try to be present in my mom mode. Yeah. And I try my best, definitely not perfect, but I do try my best to try to keep those boundaries.

My kids all work for me now. Three of my four kids work for me. So now I have to get them to learn boundaries because they always wanna learn more work.

Yeah. We could have a whole conversation just on family run businesses too and bringing the kids in with my son working for me. So I love that. I think I think really just to sum that up is just be present wherever you are. Yes. You know, our kids, you know, being a a working executive while I was raising kids, you know, I just wanted to be present. I wanted them to know that they were a priority, so I really focused on on, you know, quality over quantity.

And then Totally. For anyone listening, like, take out the guilt. Take out the comparison part. Like, I mean, trust me. My kids threw me some. How come all the other moms don't, you know, pick up their kids? And I'm like, well, you picked me. That was one of the things I told my kids. Like, you're you picked me in heaven, and this is what you get. So Yeah. You don't pick me at McDonald's.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's the guilt question. Let me just really quickly. The new me, the only was always felt guilty. I always felt like I was failing somewhere because I used to be big on balance. Now I'm big on integration. So Mhmm.

Now with with the way I look at it now, the way I tell my kids now is, like, when it comes I know I wasn't the mom that you that other moms were in the neighborhood. I wasn't the one picking you up from school, but I'm I am the mom taking you on massive, you know, amazing trips and take you courtside as a means. And, like, I do have other things. So you just have to Mhmm. You know? You have to know who you are as a mom.

Yeah. I think balance is BS. And I a reframe that I had that really helped me was, I'm also showing my kids that mom's dreams are worth it. Because they're not gonna do what I tell them to do. They're gonna do what I show them to do. You know? So I yep. I absolutely love that.

Yvonne, you have said some stuff that I have written down and underlined, and I'm gonna say later tonight at dinner. I know that for sure. This idea that you are not the titles you hold. I think so many successful people, like, they they internalize and they they become, quote, unquote, the their titles and their LinkedIn profile.

And I also love this. It's first systems, then delegate, and be willing to delegate. That is how you keep from becoming the bottleneck in your company and where you got to where you were. Kelly, what did you, take away?

Oh, so many things. Number one, you just embody this level of energy and resilience, and I just really honor you for that. But, like, the two big things because you have had to go through a lot of healing. Right? And the journaling to really find that place of truth for yourself is super impactful for anyone listening. And then the power of breath.

People take for granted breath. Right? We don't thank our lungs every day. I do. We don't think about how deeply we're breathing or how long we're exhaling. And our nervous system, which is on high alert, you know, to to try to repel danger from our lives, you know, can be calmed just through breathing.

And I've had the privilege of doing breath work with you before and being able to experience just the amazingness that it creates. So thank you for that. And one thing that we always do on the show, Yvonne, is just make sure that we connect you with one life changing resource or or share with our audience a way that they can support you as well. So how can we do that for you today?

So I am in the mode of, looking at scaling my new business and also continue to scale my, current security business. So I have just recently, launched a website. It's just super easy, yvonne.pyre or yvonnepyre.com. So if you just wanna go to my website, yvonneyvonnepyre.com. And then I just started a new Instagram that's just as simple. And so if you could go to one of those, that's just Yvonne, Pyre as well. So look me up on Instagram and and on my website.

What you'll find there is if you're interested in the security work, it sends you to a link to go to my security business. If you're because it's so polar opposite. If you're interested in my security business, you can go there. If you're interested in the rising zone, you can go there.

I am looking to scale the rising zone, and so I'm gonna be anybody you know that is wanting to, invest in future locations, we're here in Rockland, right now, Rockland, California. We're looking at opening up a couple more here in this area, as well as my next goals are Austin and Phoenix, and then we'll see where after that.

Amazing. Well, thank you so much for sharing your time with us. And, you know, again, for your first podcast appearance, like, seriously, you knocked it out of the park, girlfriend. That's what I was online. Was. But Yeah. Take care. Absolutely. Absolutely.

So thank you so much for joining us. And if you are scaling your business, head over to Power Up Your Life Now where we have an abundance of resources that are designed to make things easier for you in doing it. And, of course, check out goabundancewomen.com where we help you scale your business without sacrifice.

So thank you again, Yvonne. Remandy and I, please share this. Leave us a review. It helps us to stay at the top of the charts, and we'll see you on the next episode.