28 - Olivia Amyette

In this episode, we’re joined by Olivia Amyette, founder and CEO of Infinite Energy Advisors and the Solar Knowledge Institute. Olivia shares her remarkable journey: from launching a solar company at just 20 years old, to building Georgia’s only DOL-approved registered apprenticeship for solar construction and expanding access to affordable energy across the Southeast.

We talk workforce development, navigating solar in rural communities, mentorship, and why energy needn’t be political — it is practical. Whether you’re sustainability-curious, considering entrepreneurship, or passionate about expanding opportunity, this conversation is full of heart, honesty, and tangible ways to create impact.

Connect with Olivia on LinkedIn. 

Books: 

• Freeing Energy: How Innovators Are Using Local-scale Solar and Batteries to Disrupt the Global Energy Industry from the Outside In by Bill Nussey
• Clean Economy Now: Stories from the Frontlines of an American Business Revolution by Bob Keefe

Resources & Companies Mentioned:

• Young Urban Builders (YUB) program part of Athens Land Trust
• Bob Keefe's episode
• Infinite Energy Advisors
• Solar Knowledge Institute
• Habitat for Humanity
• E2
• UGA Small Business Development Center

Transcript

Kiersten: [00:00:00] Hello Pod people. We're joined today by Olivia Amyette. She is the founder and CEO of Infinite Energy Advisors and the Solar Knowledge Institute, where she not only provides solar products and installations across the Southeast, but also trains the future workforce by pioneering industry leading solar programs. Launching her company at the tender age of 20, she quickly propelled Infinite Energy Advisors to success, earning a spot in the Women's President's organization and the prestigious best of Georgia 2025 award. She is breaking barriers for low to moderate income families with affordable solar solutions, while her Solar Knowledge Institute offers Georgia's only DOL approved registered apprenticeship for solar construction. Woohoo! When she's not transforming the solar industry. Olivia enjoys developing video games and spending time with her family. Wow. Welcome Olivia.

Olivia Amyette: Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.

Kiersten: So excited to have you on. To get us started could you please tell us a little bit [00:01:00] more about your career, how it began, and what you're doing now?

Olivia Amyette: Yeah, absolutely. I've got what I'm told is an interesting story. So I'll strike the balance between giving you the long and the short version of it. So really I would say my career aspirations started when I was young. I used to hear my grandfather talk about so many different things.

He was my best friend. He was an immigrant from Ecuador, and he was like the world's coolest guy. When he came to the States, he had actually enlisted himself in the US military. So he was a veteran, fought in the Vietnam War. That's actually how he ended up meeting my grandmother. And so they had the cutest love story you know, making the best situation out of what cards they were dealt.

But anyway I knew that hearing his stories of resilience I knew since I was younger that I wanted to do something big in my career. As a young person, that kind of manifested itself into pushing myself academically and always trying to be the best version of myself. Flash forward to college.

I got accepted into Georgia Tech, which was a dream, [00:02:00] it was local, and at the time, actually since I was 15 in high school, I had been taking care of my grandfather who had his first stroke when I was 15. And of course some of the negative health effects that come with just the wear and tear of your body from being in the military. He was in delicate condition, but not quite as delicate as when he progressed, over time while I was in college. But anyway, me being local in Georgia Tech, I was able to work about three jobs on campus while also being a full-time student while also coming home every weekend to take care of him.

And that kind of helped me stay grounded. It was really during those times that he would share a lot more vulnerable stories with my sister and I. He used to share with me, how when he had first come to the States, he had a typical immigrant story comes with nothing, but the dreams that they have and their aspirations. He didn't actually speak the language. Of course he spoke Spanish. So when he first came here, he taught himself English with a dictionary and candlelight because he couldn't afford [00:03:00] electricity. He would really make sure that we had my sister and I had a really good understanding of the value of every single kilowatt hour that we used and of course as we grew up and he shared these things with us, we started to understand why. He instilled this idea within me that energy isn't something that we use. It's something that can shape the course of your life pretty drastically, and not everybody has it. And that was something that's so easy to take for granted. of, so. As I was taking care of him, these stories stuck in my head.

I was pursuing my career at the time developing my computer science skills. I wanted to make video games for a living. I thought that would be a cool career path. And just so happened that right when I graduated it was in the height of COVID, so December of 2020.

So there was another interesting life event. At the time my grandfather had progressed in his illnesses. He added kidney failure to his illnesses and he was on dialysis several times a week, and he was just in real, super delicate condition to where I knew that in the, craziness [00:04:00] that COVID brought, nobody really knew at the time, like the extent of which we all needed to be afraid or stay away from each other.

And at the time as medical professionals were recommending to us hey, like you're either with him. All the time or, limit your exposure because he's a very vulnerable person. He's a high risk person. I knew at the time I could either go out west and do those take advantage of those incredible job opportunities I had worked so hard to get while I was at Georgia Tech. Or I can stay home and take care of him and figure something out. And so, I'm very happy and very proud to this day to say that I did choose him I knew that I didn't wanna just, be hanging out on my parents' couch for forever. So I sat down and I had a couple heart to hearts with him and I was like, Hey, you know. think that I should do something in energy and he was like, you should start your own business. And I was like, I might just do that. So it was a kind of an interesting moment where we all discussed the possibility of me starting this business and I had a heart to heart with him [00:05:00] about why I wanted to go into solar. The reason why I ended up choosing solar in particular out of, the big umbrella of energy was actually during my time at Tech. It was my first time actually hearing about solar and hearing the benefits of solar, how, it can be easily and quickly, cheaply dispatched. It can really give people who don't typically have access to stable energy, more access to stable energy that's more affordable.

And so it always reminded me of his story and I always wondered in the back of my mind, "Hey, I wonder if his story might have changed a little bit, if he had access to energy when he first came here? Affordable energy even." So anyway I talked with him about that. We all decided that would be a great move.

And so really since December of 2020, same month that I graduated from Georgia Tech is when the business started. That was my first business. Infinite Energy Advisors and got to grow that by his side. And of course, one of the bits of being an entrepreneur is me having that freedom of schedule where I could choose to be with him and work my [00:06:00] schedule around him and his needs.

And one of the things that I had quite honestly prayed for so hard for years, was that I would be able to be with him during, his last moments here on Earth and that afforded me the ability to do so I was able to send 'em off and now it's interesting- I think the business has grown and flourished in ways that I couldn't even imagine. And I do think he has his hand on it.

So that's the story of my first business and soon after establishing Infinite Energy advisors, I had worked pretty considerably in a couple different territories. And I had seen a theme of really needing solar training. I have this love for teaching. It was some of the job roles that I did while I was at Georgia Tech is just teaching. And my grandfather was also quite the teacher himself. So I thought about it and I was like, it would be really nice if we can, get some more diversity in the industry.

Some younger people. 'cause of course we all know the problem of having an aged, skilled workforce and not having enough people young people going through to replenish that [00:07:00] workforce. So anyway I thought about that and I was like, I really do wanna bring opportunities to disadvantaged communities.

For them to access the training necessary to obtain these high paying, cutting edge, exciting, technologically advanced solar jobs. And so that's how the Solar Knowledge Institute came to be.

Really both in my companies, in all honesty, have very deep roots in sort of the resiliency and the love for technology and the love for people that my grandfather instilled in me.

So here we are today and now we do tons of different workforce training initiatives and opportunities. We're big fans of, the old saying of if you don't see the door that you wanna open for yourself, then make one. And so we we try to open doors not only for ourselves as a company but also for other people in our community.

So that's a little bit about us and how we got started.

Aparna: Wow. Thank you for sharing all of that. Honestly, as you started speaking, it was just like peeling back another layer, peeling back another layer, and then each layer gave so [00:08:00] much insight into what you've been doing today, like your grandfather sharing stories with you, you wanting to share knowledge with the world and really valuing the things that we take for granted right now.

Being able to flip a switch and get a light, that's not how it always was and that's the world we're trying to create for ourselves and for everyone around us. So honestly, thank you for sharing your story. I am so happy that you got to have that time with your grandfather and you guys were really able to see this adventure come off the ground.

That's really special. Olivia.

Olivia Amyette: Thank you. Yes. I'm glad that you see it too, because I tell everybody that I meet for the first time. I wish y'all all could have met him. He was just that cool of a guy. So thank you. I appreciate that.

Aparna: Of course. Yeah. It's the influential people in our life and you wanna carry them with you in whatever you're doing right now. And it seems like you 100% are, and I'm sure he's so proud of you.

So taking us to, right now, you run two companies, is that correct?

That's my understanding from what we were talking about.

Olivia Amyette: Yes. Two companies in a nonprofit that [00:09:00] actually backs my school, so yes.

Aparna: Incredible. I would love to know how you think about time management. So could you tell us about how you structure your days? What do you do in a day? What tasks could one expect from this life in entrepreneurship and balance in teaching and education?

Tell us about how you do it all.

Olivia Amyette: Yeah, absolutely. So while I was at Georgia Tech, I was a part of a living learning community called Grand Challenges. And it was absolutely, I think one of the reasons why I did have an entrepreneurial spirit and why I was comfortable exploring uncomfortable questions or situations that, life can bring. And within this living learning community. Just a quick background of that. Basically it was for first year students and we all lived in the same dorm and took the same class. It was one class that we all had to enroll in called Grand Challenges. And in that, what we ended up doing was choosing a sort of umbrella of a big world problem and trying to solve it.

So we would assemble ourselves in groups of, five to seven and then continue on our [00:10:00] project. It turned into a research project. In doing so between that and taking care of my grandfather and having a full-time schedule and also working throughout my college career, I actually ended up working for that program too. I had to learn some pretty intense time management skills and grand challenges was very formative in showing us, hey, this is a typical sort of entrepreneurial schedule. They did a great job of giving us that sort of real world taste where we could freely plan our milestones for our projects on our own and time manage that on our own.

So I would say that was one, one area where I definitely learned that a lot. But I will share with you the biggest life hack that I actually just recently discovered. I did not know that this existed, but on Amazon, there is actually a calendar that shows every single day of the year. It's a big one.

Of course, me being in sustainability, I got a reusable one that's undated, so I could just fill in the dates. But it has totally changed my life to see a [00:11:00] snapshot of the entire year in front of me, it is really incredible. That's one recommendation that I have.

Typically I do structure my days. They have to be pretty tight in nature. We're still a small team, so a lot of the tasks of entrepreneurship and nonprofit leadership do fall on me. In addition to my sort of regular. career I guess pursuit, you can call it. I do still have a mission to stay as well-rounded and involved in the community and giving back as possible.

So I'm on a number of different boards as well, about five to seven. It's really crucial to at these opportunities as they come to me and say, okay, are my Mondays fully loaded? Are my Tuesdays fully loaded? And allocate different activities depending on the day. And every week I do try my best to take the weekends off, but in all honesty, what I have found works best for me in creating this sort of time management, but also intentional time management is planning rest and also planning things t hat make me a little uncomfortable. When I first started the company sales was [00:12:00] definitely something that as a computer science major, I loved talking to computers, but not necessarily the best talking to humans, right? I knew that was something that made me uncomfortable. I had a heart to heart with myself and I was like, okay, if you're really gonna do this, you've gotta, set a goal and hopefully just be the old Japanese principle, 1% better every day. And that kinda gave me some measurable, tangible goals in how to improve on the daily. I would do cold calls. I would sit there and I'd be like, okay, today I'm gonna do five minutes of cold calls, which usually amounted to maybe a few calls. And then the next day I was like, maybe I'll do seven. So slowly but surely adding this iterative approach to planning things that make you uncomfortable so that you can grow around that and develop a new skill instead of identifying a vulnerability. That helps a lot and I am finding myself and feeling myself improve. It gives me the inspiration to take on more tasks, but also to refine my time on a weekly basis where hopefully I get better at certain tasks and it takes me a little bit less time.

Aparna: I love it. You're finding little [00:13:00] efficiencies in your day to day. Excellent tips for all the listeners for ourselves as well! One question about your large calendar. I have been getting targeted on Instagram and for the PG crowd, I'll say they're called big butt calendars, but is that the calendar you used?

Olivia Amyette: Actually, I got a color coded one. I'm looking at it right now. I got one that you have to assemble, so it has every single month individually,

Aparna: oh my God.

Olivia Amyette: 'em together on your walls.

Aparna: That's even more fun.

It's

like a puzzle.

Olivia Amyette: Yes. And it's color coded.

It's beautiful. And it even has a section for you to write your notes in it or like your monthly goals. So I love it. I just put it on a wall and it's just, that's the, it's home for the rest of eternity.

Aparna: You are talking to two people who love annual planning, monthly planning, and like goal setting. So I will ask you for that link and we will link it to all of you guys listeners, but mostly ourselves.

Olivia Amyette: Yes. Yes, it is the biggest life hack. I'm thrilled with the purchase.

Kiersten: we had a whole craft afternoon with many friends. We made punch cards, bingo cards. There were [00:14:00] spreadsheets. I think we had every variety of goal setting, encouragement. We did an achievement cake for looking back.

Olivia Amyette: Oh my gosh, yes! I wanna do that so bad, crafternoon, I've never heard that before. I'm writing that down. Love that!

Kiersten: I don't think I invented it, but I also don't remember where I heard it. So credit to an anonymous person.

But pivoting back to you, in addition to your grandfather who very clearly had quite an influence on your path in life and who you are, do you have any sustainability specific mentors that have maybe helped or inspired you in a business sense?

Olivia Amyette: Oh my goodness. Yes. So there's so many different people. Bob. Bob is one of them and what I love about Bob and what I love about E2 in general, and actually I'm the southeast director for E2 which is one of my most cherished roles, I must say. I just love E2 so much. Bob is a wealth of knowledge and he brings tangible data to the table.

I will share with you- one of the things that I love the most about Solar is that it doesn't have to be political, and it's a product that can help [00:15:00] everybody. And what I think Bob's data does show is the bridge between, any side of the political aisle and how solar can help everybody.

I truly do feel like it's beneficial for anybody. And the data that he brings, it's hard to argue with numbers. It's hard to argue with facts. And so he's always been one that I has really looked at everything in a very level-headed fashion.

Very data heavy and data centric. So huge shout out to Bob. He's been an incredible mentor in so many different ways. He's actually also done a significant amount of mentorship via E2 with me in terms of learning how to lobby, learning how to, speak on a political level and incite change that I deem to be important in the world especially in our line of work.

I also say another sustainability mentor of mine, is one of my professors from college actually. I didn't take his class while I was a student undergrad at Tech, but I did take his class after I had graduated my sort of CS program. When I had decided that I wanted to do solar, I [00:16:00] really wanted to make sure that I learned from the best and, this professor of mine, his name is Saul, he is a fantastic wealth of knowledge. You name it, he knows all about it. He's a very well-rounded person. He actually also has his MBA, so he has a fantastic business mind. And so any question that I have, i'm just so psychologically safe asking when it comes to him. It's such a life hack to befriend your teachers.

So if there's any young people out there who are still in school, definitely befriend your teachers because they are a wealth of knowledge and they will definitely answer all of your silly questions.

And I would say last but not least, this one's kind of, I guess a little more simple, but both of my grandmothers actually are so incredible and I'm very lucky to have such a long line of very strong women in my family. My dad's mom was a single mom to five kids, and her resilience was just absolutely insane. But she made such sustainable choices, sometimes out of necessity financially. For example, cloth diapering instead of using disposable diapers, she did that for all of [00:17:00] her children and she was working full-time and had five children. Very much something that was interesting to hear her talk about is simple, sustainable life swaps that actually save you money and helped her get through, having, all those kids in the house all at once.

She's been a, huge inspiration of mine with her story and her resilience and her dedication to leaving this world a better place in what she found it. And then, of course, my grandmother from my mother's side, she's Vietnamese, so she's always felt pretty connected with her land as she describes to us.

And just her green thumb is absolutely amazing. I would see her gardening and growing her own food and her backyard and doing these things, and it's incredible. 'cause I feel like every time I try to plant something it dies. But I'm trying to learn from her how to really honor the land.

And for her, I think it's a very spiritual thing as well. Seeing, both of those women in my life really honor the earth is always incredible and definitely keeps me on point with sustainability as a whole. 'cause sometimes it's interesting when you're in the solar industry to only focus [00:18:00] on solar, but they remind me that there is a whole world of sustainability outside of just energy.

So it's nice to see that.

Aparna: Yeah, some really fantastic mentors all around.

Kiersten and I were both just like nodding the entire time, which goes to show Olivia.

I think it's a very relatable message what you're sharing, just the importance of family connections, the importance of befriending your professors. I love my professors and I think that's such good advice for everybody listening.

Just learn from the people around you.

Olivia Amyette: Yes, absolutely. I love it. Yes.

Aparna: And we do have to give Bob a shout out. He was one of our earlier guests on the show. So episode 12, we will link it in these show notes. And it honestly was such a fascinating episode, especially. His job is just talking to people and breaking down barriers and having these nonpartisan discussions about things that are unfortunately becoming more and more partisan.

So some fantastic ideas on how to have these talks with anybody in your life. So I'm so happy that you guys are thick as thieves. My fingers are crossed for people listening to this.

Olivia Amyette: Yes. Yes, absolutely.

Aparna: [00:19:00] Awesome. So a fun question. All of them are fun, but a fun question. We've had two other solar professionals who've been on the show so far, and we've asked one of them this question, but very curious what take you're gonna have.

Olivia, imagine this, you are sustainable celestial being who has magical powers, and those magical powers allow you to implement one major policy change to accelerate energy and sustainability worldwide. What are you wanting to do with these powers?

Olivia Amyette: That's a really good question. My knee jerk reaction in full transparency goes to workforce development. It really truly does. And I think in part it's 'cause we just finished actually a cohort not too long ago over in Athens, Georgia. One of the most economically disadvantaged areas I believe, in the country.

But definitely in the state. And through grant funding, we were actually able. To partner with an organization called Athens Land Trust. And in that we were able [00:20:00] to train a group of students that they call the YUB. It's the most fun word ever to say. I've been saying YUB like ever since. But it stands for Young Urban Builders.

Essentially what this program did and does is they give local students, access to training for real world skills. And so what we ended up partnering with them for was to bring solar training into their repertoire. And being able to see what happens when you give people who ordinarily wouldn't have access to training like this, access to that training. It's magical in and of itself. And so I think that's why my brain naturally goes there. I will say that we are working on a documentary actually about the efficacy of the program, so stay tuned for that. But there is. An incredible story of one student in particular, and honestly we had such a great cohort that all of the students did great.

They graduated from the program, got certifications, like really had a great time. It was a [00:21:00] two week program where one week they did all of the backend intro, this is what you need to know about solar bookwork and also some simulated training for like that we ended up building a mock roof and trained them on that as well.

But week two they really hit it hard. We put them on some jobs and we threw them right into it to see how adaptable they were and oh my goodness, every single one of those students just ran with that opportunity. And one in particular just found his calling and that's what he says to this day.

He's I really found my calling. I didn't think that I would love this as much as I did. And I'm proud to say that now actually hired him in my company. And it's incredible to see how he's blossoming and flourishing. He's a young adult, he's 20 years old and he's a gem on our team and we consider ourselves so lucky to have him.

I would say if there was a policy change that I could make, it would be surrounding, duplicating and replicating that. Investing some more dollars into workforce development and encouraging parents to say," like, Hey, if your kid doesn't really wanna go to college. Get them into some sort of like [00:22:00] skills training for a blue collar industry or solar or something like that." And giving people sort of the ability and the power to reduce the stigma that does exist. With skills training outside of a higher education.

I will share this, I went back to a college. I will not name the college, but I went back to a college and I was volunteering in a student research group and they were giving a research presentation about this cool new learning device that they made for students between the ages of I think it was like five to 10 years old and they were like, oh, if we can gamify learning in a way that doesn't let you lose to your other peers is non-competitive, then we can increase the rates of people who end up going through school and also going to college. In their presentation, admittedly, it was interesting the mindset that they, they had when comparing, higher education to blue collar workers. They were trying to explain a horror story of somebody who didn't go to school and they had to accept the impending doom of going in the construction [00:23:00] industry.

And I was like, oh no, that's not it. That is not it. Like we've gotta reframe this here. And I think anything that we can do to. Empower people to realize, blue collar workers make the world go round too. And everybody in this life has a very unique and distinct role and everybody's here for a reason and everybody's got a purpose in how they can play their part in changing the world.

And I think any sort of policy that we can push that will enable us to give more people access to workforce development for a multitude of different skills, solar or any other type of blue collar skill I think is just such a good use of money. It's such a good use of time and the facts do actually back it.

That's probably what I would do. It's not as creative, but definitely 100% the type of person who loves giving back to schools and enriching our community from the ground up.

Kiersten: I love your point about, how that story is not it. I it was, yeah, a bit cringe inducing. I think we have to all recognize the fact that, like you said, we're part of a community and all parts of that community are important, which, [00:24:00] sustainability looks to nature. So in an ecosystem, we know ecosystem services are comprised from all the tiny parts and pieces from the smallest beetle up all the way to the giant sun that provides us energy.

If any one part is missing, you have chain reactions. And they're all very important. So I love that. I also think it's pretty cool that, even in an imaginary world where you have the power, even with the absence of magic, you've basically achieved that through your school. So wonderful! And listeners, take a moment and remember that magic while we go to break, we'll be right back.

Kiersten: Hopefully you had a minute to reflect on the magic of the everyday and the cool things that you can achieve with a community. Now that we're back, we're going to task Olivia with answering the question, how do you navigate being a solar provider in a rural area of a red state? We touched on it a little bit with Bob, but is this a non-issue for you, or have you found yourself really having to do a lot of work to get buy-in?

Olivia Amyette: Yeah, no, this is a great question and it's one that I always love answering. was very intentional about where exactly I wanted to build my first sort of business location. And for anybody curious, I have a business location in Cleveland, Georgia, which is a part of White County. You can look up all the stats and stuff that you want.

It's a small area, small city, small county, even but you can look up the stats on where people tend to vote and where they politically lie. It was really important to me to ensure that I can create the message that solar is for everybody because like I said, it's something I truly do believe, and I don't believe that solar [00:01:00] is political.

I don't believe it has to be political. I do believe in the efficacy of solar for everybody. And when I first got in the community admittedly one of the things that, that we do 'cause we actually never pay for leads or anything like that, it's against our standard operating procedures. We do a lot of like grassroots, like door knocking or speaking in, in just different community meetings and in door knocking, we have in the early days, gotten some interesting, perceptions about solar. I remember distinctly I knocked on a couple doors and the first person that opened the door was like, I don't want that made in China crap.

And I was like, okay, we've got some work to do. One thing that I would say that really helped me navigate that is figuring out what people actually believed about solar. There's a lot of preconceived notions about what solar is, what it isn't, what it doesn't do, and taking inventory of what we had to work with.

The lay of the land was really helpful in understanding all sides and all views. And so one of the things that I had found. That really made a lot of sense to me in my pitch, just [00:02:00] curating it. Especially when I pitched to people who you ordinarily wouldn't really believe would buy into the whole solar product as a whole. One of the things that I trialed in the beginning that turned out to be very effective was the dollars and cents behind solar. What does your ROI look like and how does it help you? One insight that I had when developing my pitch in that sort of rural area specifically for folks who live in areas like that is seeing if that was effective and it landed so well.

And one of the things that I learned in doing so was red and blue. But everybody loves green. That was the highlight there is, I was like, okay, if we focus on the hard facts, the dollars and cents, like they're very receptive to this. So I would always come with data. I would always come with sources backed that were straight down the middle. That helped a lot. But I will also say that, you do get a lot of farmers up in that area and an insight that I learned when pitching to lots of farmers was I remember distinctly in the sort of early days there was a farmer. And in, in our [00:03:00] slides in our proposals and our presentations what we always do is we always focus at least a couple minutes on the environmental impact that the system has, CO2 emissions that are avoided, number of trees planted, equivalency gallons of gas avoided, things like that. Fun stats. And I was making the environmental case for solar.

And this farmer stopped me and said, all right, listen here. He was like, " I'm a farmer. My dad was a farmer. My grandfather was a farmer. We've been taking care of this land for generations. Don't tell us how to take care of this land." And I was like, wow, that's actually a good point. And I didn't think of it like that.

It inspired me to alter our environmental pitch. And really what I like to try to focus on now is, hey, this is the stats, this is the data behind the equivalencies. I'll talk about all the fun things, all the ROIs stuff that you wanna hear first. If you give me just two minutes to say my, my piece on the environmental stuff and you can look it up in your own time.

And I felt part of the efficacy of that sort of alter in the pitch is [00:04:00] that we're not necessarily speaking to people who feel so connected already with the earth, who've had these generations of farming who live in a rural area who are used to living more inside of the land and with the land than maybe some urban people are. I really felt like it gave them the creative freedom to look at that on their own time instead of having me speak to them in a way that could honestly be seen as speaking down to them. Just meeting people where they are and being open-minded enough, especially in a sales role, where you're taking inventory of these sort of touch points or vulnerability points of different groups of people. If you identify that, I think you can tailor your pitch to making it palatable for everybody and definitely something that's not offensive.

All people from all walks of life are a lot better than what most people give them credit at sensing when somebody's genuine. And people know if you're trying to be a slimy salesperson versus if you're trying to say something that's like actually helpful for them. And so I think just making sure that whatever it is that you're doing it [00:05:00] with your heart backing you. That's number one in making sure that you get over those preconceived notions and you convey to somebody that you're really there to try to help them and try to present a good option for them.

Aparna: That's fantastic advice. Be genuine, be truthful, don't put on a mask, and people are gonna be more receptive to it. Thanks, Olivia.

Olivia Amyette: Yeah, of course. Thank you.

Aparna: I'm putting myself in the shoes of one of the listeners. I'm also putting myself in my own shoes, and I'm hearing so many cool things from you.

The thought coming through my mind now is what do I need to be able to do what it is you're doing. So we've heard some great through lines of speaking to different people, thinking about things from different points of view, but are there any other like skills or certifications that you think are important to be able to do this kind of work?

Olivia Amyette: Yeah, totally. I would say one of the things that really helped me in the sort of business growth side of things, was actually a free resource in my area. It was, it's taxpayer funded called the UGA, which is University of Georgia for all my fellow [00:06:00] Georgia Tech grads. I know it's enemy territory, but this was a good find. It's the UGA S BDC, which stands for Small Business Development Center. There may be other sort of similar chapters or similar flavors of that sprinkled around the country. I would look to see any sort of entrepreneurship center the Chamber of Commerce in your area. If you're interested in starting a business, they can point you towards all of the best. It does take a village and I'm so lucky that I had my family there really to lead me through this in a way and kind of create that emotional support of the ups and downs that kind of come as being a business owner. But as far as technical knowledge, I would definitely look through making sure that your business is set up properly and that you have a great mentor. I would also say just stay true to your heart and do what you love and do what makes you happy, and find fuel and resilience in the impact that you can have on other people and take these touch points. One thing that I always do with my clients is, it's, I'm always grateful for good feedback, but I always ask them instead of a five star [00:07:00] review on Google, i'm like, what can I do better roast me? And I think that keeps me humble, but it also keeps me onto the next and keeping that fire under me to constantly be better and take that iterative approach to personal improvement, but also business improvement.

And that kind of liven things up. It keeps it nice and spicy. I really do recommend to people really get involved in your community. Find resources that are out there for free. Find a mentor and always do what you love, because that's ultimately gonna be your fuel and which will come in handy even on the hardest of days.

Kiersten: It's amazing. I don't think I've ever heard someone use the roast meat. Framework for business improvement or self-improvement. But I love it.

Olivia Amyette: Thank you, thank you!

Kiersten: Yeah, that's another put yourself in a place of discomfort to learn and grow. But like, do we wanna put ourselves in that place?

Aparna: I will take the roast. I'll take the roast, you can get some practice roasting, and then we'll switch charges. This looks like a marshmallow, but we're people,

Olivia Amyette: There you go!

Aparna: Go easy on us, but give us chocolate too, and then we'll be fine.

Kiersten: Sandwich me and Grahams crackers and then I'll take the fire.

Olivia Amyette: Roasting [00:08:00] can be tasty.

Aparna: Down for it.

Alright, Olivia, we got some fun rapid fires for you next. All right, you ready?

Olivia Amyette: Yes.

Aparna: Alright, so it's a light question, we know that, but what kind of a legacy do you wanna leave behind through your work?

Olivia Amyette: Ooh. I would say, really just having, I would say the legacy that I really cherish the most is being able to change the trajectory of somebody's lives and their family's lives. And a lot of that is done through workforce, but sometimes it's also done just by installing the solar and giving people that energy resilience and avoiding blackouts or, energy resilience in terms of having cheaper energy and them able savings towards something else.

One of our, actually our biggest clients is Habitat for Humanity. And that's a legacy that I'm super proud of. I think being able to create, not just being involved in affordable housing, but affordable living is really the big thing that I really wanna, influence on the world.

So affordable living and career opportunities for sure.

Kiersten: Amazing. Next one. What is one piece of advice you would give to someone who's breaking into this space?

Olivia Amyette: I would say [00:09:00] befriend as many people as possible. Send out those LinkedIn messages. Don't be afraid. Follow up with people. Find somebody your age range, who if you're young and you're just getting involved, find somebody you know, like me who might be similar in age. I think that one of the best parts about our generation is that we're very open with each other and very apt to help each other.

And I think that's such a beautiful thing about life. It really does reveal in this industry the goodness of people. And I think that's, it's just invigorating. So I would say find a bunch of different people from a bunch of different age ranges, but definitely find one who's similar to your age range, maybe a couple years older, who can act as a mentor.

Aparna: Love it. Thanks. Your one favorite sustainability hack, or the one thing that you do in your personal life that you're like, everyone should do this.

Olivia Amyette: Oh I would say definitely to have a solar plus battery system, but other than that, which mind you actually did come in handy, even down here in Georgia, we had snow for the first time in my recollection, so that was interesting. And I got to use the battery for 30 minutes, so that was great. But I would say [00:10:00] sustainability tips can be. So simple and so easy. For me, one of my favorite ones actually is switching to a more sustainable like soap brand. So instead of the Bath and Body works, I actually swapped over to Dr. Bronner's soap quite some time ago.

For me it was 'cause I was allergic to some scented stuff and I couldn't figure out what it was. But slowly but surely I loved the sustainable aspect of being able to buy like liquid soap in bulk and saving so many plastic containers from just going into a landfill just by having a really simple but honestly refreshing routine in the house of just refilling all my containers.

So buying things in bulk is the biggest life hack ever. Oftentimes it's cheaper, it's better for you and it's fun and it gives you an excuse to step away from work and do something a little bit mindless that has such a big impact. So that would be mine.

Kiersten: Amazing. And then what one book you recommend in the sustainability space.

Olivia Amyette: Oh, of course. Bob's book. Of course. Bob's book. So

Kiersten: Wait. Another one. We love Bob. We definitely have shouted him out. So everybody go back and listen to his episode again. We'll link it in the [00:11:00] show notes, but Olivia gonna make you give me one more.

Olivia Amyette: Yes. So actually one that I'm in the process of reading right now is really good. It's called Freeing Energy by actually a friend of mine, Bill Nussey. It's a fantastic book, super data heavy as well. I believe the sort of subtitle is how innovators are using local scale solar and batteries to disrupt the global energy industry from the outside in. So it's very interesting. It's a good read. And he's a great guy, so I would definitely recommend reading that.

Aparna: Fantastic. I was just trying to scribe all of the subtext over there and I was like, this is a big one. It's gonna have a lot of good bites in it. I can already tell.

Olivia Amyette: Yes. Yes. I'll have to send you a link.

Aparna: Yeah, please do. And we will link it in our bookshop, which will be fun. Wow. Okay. That was a great rapid fire. I must say.

This is our first time going like bang, like that. And I think we might take it into the next episode. You never know. But Thank you so much for your time, Olivia. This has been a very fun episode. There's been so many cool nuggets that you've dropped.

It's really inspiring to see also the amount of impact that you've had [00:12:00] in such a short amount of time too. So thank you for coming on, sharing your story, sharing your time, and everybody. Try your best to get solar and battery storage at your house.

Olivia Amyette: Yes, yes. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. And for what it's worth, I do encourage anybody listening if you are interested in getting started in the sustainability space and you would like a mentor my messages are always open, so feel free to, to message me, connect with me on LinkedIn, whatever it might be.

I'm always happy to support wherever I can.

Aparna: Oh, thanks Olivia.

Olivia Amyette: Of course.