Episode Details

Experience isn't what happens to you. It's what you learn to see that others miss.

Returning guest Nicole Malcolm joins Jay Doran for another conversation on the Culture Matters Podcast, continuing a relationship that goes back to the earliest days of Culture Matters. Since her previous appearance in Episode 835, a lot has changed. Affinity Land Services has continued to grow, The Vault has become a place for education and community, her children have taken increasingly important roles in the family business, and Nicole herself has continued evolving as a founder and leader.

At the center of the conversation is a lesson many founders eventually have to confront: the business that got you here may need to operate differently to get you where you want to go next.

Nicole shares that Affinity Land Services has roughly tripled its business over the last three years. But that growth did not simply come from selling more. Internally, the company needed greater structure. What had once been a relatively flat organization needed clearer leadership, processes, responsibilities, and a chain of command capable of supporting a larger company.

Structure, Nicole learned, does not have to remove the humanity from a business. Done correctly, it can actually protect it.

That philosophy extends to The Vault, a nearly 2,000-square-foot learning and event space created to provide additional value to clients and the community. From continuing education and seminars to company meetings, events, and charitable initiatives, The Vault represents Nicole's desire to do something different in an industry where differentiation matters.

But some of Nicole's greatest leadership lessons have come from inside her own family.

As her children became more involved in the company, Nicole had to confront something difficult for many founders and parents: control. She had built the company. She knew how she wanted things done. Yet growth required recognizing that the next generation could bring different ideas, capabilities, perspectives, and energy to what she created.

Sometimes your children may even know how to do something better than you do.

Learning to step back has not meant caring less about the company. It has meant trusting more.

Nicole and Jay also explore empathy as a leadership responsibility. Nicole wants employees and customers to feel like people, not numbers. She believes leaders should know what is happening in the lives of the people around them, create opportunities to connect outside of work, listen, ask questions, and remember what it felt like to be an employee themselves.

That philosophy was shaped in part by watching her own mother lead. Nicole remembers a woman who became respected, relatable, and compassionate, and whose former employees still speak about her with admiration years later. Today, Nicole sees many of those same principles influencing the culture she is building with her own family.

In this episode, Jay and Nicole discuss:
• The evolution of Affinity Land Services since Nicole's last appearance
• Why The Vault was created and how it provides value beyond title services
• Differentiating yourself in a crowded industry
• Giving back through business and community
• How Nicole's leadership has changed over 15+ years
• Why rapid growth requires greater organizational structure
• How Affinity's business has roughly tripled over the last three years
• Leading with empathy without sacrificing accountability
• Why employees should never feel like numbers
• The challenge of relinquishing control in a family business
• Allowing the next generation to bring new ideas into something you built
• Learning to trust your children as leaders
• Why founders cannot control every circumstance or outcome
• Faith, gratitude, and moving forward despite fear
• Building trust with new employ