Unmessable Podcast

If there is one skill to master in life, it is selling.

Why?

Because no matter what you do, whether you are a product designer, an executive, an entrepreneur, or a preacher, if you develop the ability to sell your idea, your vision, your strategy, or your product/service, the sky is the limit.

And more than merely selling, ultimately, mastery of selling comes when you develop the ability to be of service while selling.

What does it mean to be of service while selling? It means that you authentically listen for people’s concerns (whether in the foreground or background) and align on resolving it (if possible) within the context of your work/offering.

That’s what John O’Leary — #1 National best selling author, inspirational speaker, and top podcast host — does and as he puts it, his job is to serve.  John’s life journey has been everything but easy though.  At the age of 9 years old, 100 percent of his body was burned in a terrible fire. John was given a 1 percent chance to live but after a 5-month hospital stay, dozens of surgeries, and the amputation of all of his fingers, he pulled through.

Today, John is the best-selling author of On Fire: The 7 choices to ignite a radically inspired life that sold upwards of 120,000 copies and was translated into more than 12 languages, as well as most recently In Awe: Rediscover your childlike wonder to unleash inspiration, meaning and joy. Live Inspired, John’s podcast ranks top #10 in iTunes and has over several million downloads. Having spoken at more than 1,600 events, and for more than a half a million people, in 48 states and in 11 Countries, John has found his true calling: Inspire and uplift people. 

Tune in to the full episode to learn about:

Connect with John O’Leary:

Full Transcripts:

John O’Leary:  I don’t care if you’ve been burned, or through a divorce or a bankruptcy, or a lousy upbringing, or whatever the thing is. Everybody’s got a story. Until you can fully embrace it, you remain a victim to it. You are tethered and tied to what happened to you in the past.

Tanya:  That’s John O’Leary, #1 national best-selling author, inspirational speaker, and top podcast host that above all is a no-kidding survivor. At the age of 9 years old, 100% of his body was burned in a terrible fire. John was given a one percent chance to live, but after a five-month hospital stay, dozens of surgeries, and the amputation of all of his fingers, he pulled through. Today John is the best-selling author of On Fire: The 7 Choices to Ignite a Radically Inspired Life, which sold upwards of 120,000 copies and was translated into more than 12 languages, as well as his most recent book, In Awe: Rediscover Your Childlike Wonder to Unleash Inspiration, Meaning, and Joy. Live Inspired, John’s podcast, ranks top ten in iTunes and has several million downloads. Having spoken at more than 1600 events and for more than a half a million people in 48 states and 11 countries, John has found his true calling: inspire and uplift people.

John, I would love to hear – can you talk about your story? Before we started recording here, I confessed that I am in just in awe, no pun intended, with you and what you stand for. Can you just talk about that, your journey?

John O’Leary:  I will, but let me begin by saying, first, thank you for that sweet introduction and then, secondly, for the way you even began that question. When I write books, normally they come back to me, the very first version. They will do the cover art with a picture of me on the front of it. I’ll have my arms crossed, and I’ll be giving the reader a look like look at me. I am really that good. You need to listen.

Then I’ll write back to our friends. I’ll be like did you guys read the book before you designed the cover?  My work is not about me. My books are not about me. My speeches are not about me. My podcast is not about me, and ultimately, my life is not about me. It’s an odd truth to realize then, well, the majority of the work you do, though, leverages the story, the turning points in your life.

At age 9, I was burned on 100% of my body. I was given no chance of surviving and, Tanya, eventually would spend five months in the hospital and years of surgery and therapy. That’s just the starting point of this journey to recognize that difficulty is part of all of our stories but so is opportunity, so is togetherness, so is accountability and taking the next step forward. That’s the very first step of my journey after being burned.

John O’Leary:  You talk about accountability. What does that mean to you? That’s a powerful word.

John O’Leary:  It means the ability to decide what happens next. You can’t always choose the path that you walk in life. You can always choose the manner in which you move into it, the way you step forward, the dreams you cast, the way you build up the teams around you and, ultimately, the impact that you have on those that you serve, including the picture of the guy and the lady staring back at you in the mirror. I learned the power of accountability, probably more than from anybody else, from my mother. We all have teachers in our life, whether they’re rabbis, or pastors, or coaches, and for me, the greatest teacher was my mom.

Maybe the best story of her forcing me to be accountable was when I came home from the hospital. I had spent five months in the hospital. Now I’m home. I’m 9 years old. I’m in a wheelchair. I’m wrapped still in bandages. I don’t have fingers because they were amputated a few months earlier, and I’m struggling.

She makes my favorite meal that night, so there’s this incredible meal in front of me. My siblings are around this table. My father’s on one side. My mother’s on the other. My sister, Amy, sees that I can’t hold a fork, sees that I can’t feed myself, so she grabs a fork. She scoops up potatoes, moves the fork with the goods toward my mouth. Then my mom, this great leader, says, “Amy, drop the fork. If John is hungry, he’s going to feed himself.”

I don’t have fingers. I can’t get out of the wheelchair yet. I’m struggling in life. My dreams have been stolen from me, and all I want is a bit of cheesy goodness. That’s my mindset back then. The short of it is this, my sister listened to my mom, and I flipped the plate after about 30 minutes of trying. They made me another plate. It happened again, and by the very end of the evening, a couple hours in, I have tears coming down my cheeks. I have anger looking toward my mother, and I have a forked wedged between my two hands with potatoes on the end of it moving toward my mouth, chewing.

What my mom taught me that date – and it wasn’t a lesson I understood then. That night I thought she was just trying to make my evening horrible. What she taught me is that we can do things we don’t think yet we can. We can do things that we think are absolutely utterly impossible. You have to believe that it is indeed possible, that you are the owner of this thing, and you can take the next step forward.

Tanya:  My God! God bless your mother. I’m a mother of three. I know you’re a father of four. If I have the grace in life to distill that lesson to my children, I could die a happy woman. Oh, what a gift, your mother.

John O’Leary:  That’s one of dozens of stories similar. We could go through – we could spend the entire time just bragging on mom, and you would run out of tape before the podcast was finished. That’s the way she patrolled the house, and through one lens, it’s pretty rough. It’s pretty heavy handed to make a little boy with no fingers feed himself. Couldn’t you feed him the first night, mom, or maybe the first month? At some point, doesn’t it begin to say when do I stop? When do I tell this boy he does not have to be a victim anymore? When do I have that conversation? If it’s going to happen in the future, then why not now?

It is such a powerful story of leadership in action. That’s why when you asked me the original question I said my picture’s not on the books, and it’s not on my webcast and everything. I’m an observer in this story. I’ve received grace, and I’ve received love, and I’ve seen leadership. I’m mostly just watching it take place. I’m usually the poor victim on the other side of it, but I’m receiving these incredible examples.

Tanya:  What was the journey like from that night where your mother really empowered you but, at the time, looked like was making your life miserable? What was the journey like from that moment where you said, oh, wow, my circumstances are not going to get in the way of me living to you actually embodying that philosophy full in?

John O’Leary:  That’s a journey to get there. It begins with eventually three days later my mother had a piano teacher come out, so just to take it even farther downhill, a little dude in a wheelchair on a morphine drip with no fingers who hated piano even before he lost his fingers due to the fire is now taking piano class and then again and again and again. Eventually, he steps out of that wheelchair and returns to school and rejoins the soccer team and is accepted by friends and goes on to graduate high school and college and start his own business and become successful in doing real estate development here in St. Louis. The reason I go through that story so quickly is because even though all that was happening I wasn’t fully able yet to embrace my story and the blessing within it. For all of us, I don’t care if you’ve been burned, or through a divorce or a bankruptcy, or lousy upbringing, or whatever the thing is, everybody’s got a story. Until you can fully embrace it, you remain a victim to it. You are tethered and tied to what happened to you in the past.

Tanya, I was. I was faking it to make it. I had a mask of success on my face, but it wasn’t fully authentic. It wasn’t fully me. My dream as a child, as a young man, and even as a business owner was not to excel and be extraordinary. It was to be ordinary. When you look different than everybody else, your dream is not to set yourself apart. It’s to disappear, and so I dreamt of disappearing and being gray matter for the majority of my life.

Then at age 28, that’s pretty deep into the story. At age 28, a Girl Scout, a third grade Girl Scout in St. Louis County asked me if I would share what I went through as a little boy with her troop, and I never told anybody, not people I ran the business with, my coworkers, really, not even spouse at that time. I hadn’t really told anybody the full story, and here’s a little girl asking me to go tell a story to the troop, three girls. There was no payment. They paid me not even with a box of Samoas. I get nothing out of this thing but the opportunity to have a little self-help session where I look in the mirror, figure out my story, give a 12-minute motivational message, leave thinking I failed terribly. Get a call a couple days later from one of the dads saying, “Man, that blew me away. Would you share in front of my group?” I did.

Tanya:  Oh, wow!

John O’Leary:  Then in one of his groups, another guy said, “Hey, will you speak to my organization?” Then one of the ladies there said, “Would you speak to this association?” Over the 15 years that followed, I had the pleasure of sharing 2,000 times in front of 2,000 different organizations and associations to a couple million people at live events around the world a story about life. Not John being burned. That’s a horrible story. We’re talking about a story about redemptive life and the possibility that remains alive and well with [11:28]. Hopefully, you hear it in my voice. It turns me on still to think what I get to do, and I would not have been able to do this had we not been through that fire at age 9.

Tanya:  It sounds serendipitously you rolled into this thing. You’re like, wow, you know what? Actually, my story, my life is inspiring, and it’s touching people. At what point did you realize, mm, I can actually make this a career, build a business around it? I could write about this. What was the catalyst, that moment?

John O’Leary:  Probably two years in, I’m running my own real estate development business, so that’s my business. For fun, I’m a part-time chaplain at a hospital, if you can imagine, and I’m an active Big Brother. I’m trying to get my fix and making a difference in all these places, but I’m also spending a lot of time speaking. Tanya, this is a true story. One time, they not only gave me a free cold chicken lunch for my speech, which they seemed to do quite a bit back in those days, but they also gave me a $20 gas card, I think to Shell. I think Shell was still in business.

I remember leaving with a full belly. My mind was just full. My heart was full because I got to encourage and love people during that session, and I got $20. It was really the first time I realized, wow, I wonder if my time’s worth $20 for an hour. Maybe it is. I don’t know. I did a little bit research to see what speakers get paid, and I was shocked. I knew I would never get that, of course.

What if I could make a little bit more? What if they could be spending money to give back into the community? Then that happened, and then it kept growing, and it kept expanding. We were fielding so many calls that it became clear to me I have to make a decision here. I started to actually look to hire an employee to help me manage this, and her name is Deanna. She’s an amazing woman, but she required more income than I had made in the previous 12 months. I knew that was going to work, obviously.

Two days later I get a handwritten note in the mail. It’s from her, and she says, “John, I believe you.” Then below that was a quote card from Abraham Lincoln. The quote was “Let us determine that the thing can and should be done, and together we shall find the way.” These are words we need to hear in America and around the world today. I’m going to say it one more time. “Let us determine that the thing can and should be done, and together we shall find the way.” I read this 30 times. I show it to my wife and say, “I think she’s right. We got to figure out how to make this happen.”

We took a little reverse mortgage out to borrow collateral against the home that we’ve been investing into, hire Deanna. She’s my first employee. That first year, we more than compensated her for her efforts. That second year, we tripled revenue, and we’ve gone up in revenue every single year since. The way we’ve done it is by serving the one in front of us, which not only allows us to show up authentically for whoever we’re in front of. Whether it’s 3 Girl Scouts, or 12 executives who run Fortune 100 business, or a stadium of 30,000, whoever’s there, we’re going to show up fully for the one in front of us.

The second piece is every single night my team and I ask the question what more can I do? What more can I do to get a little bit better every single day? As a speaker first, as a husband, as dad, as a guy who’s on a spiritual journey, what more can I do to get a little bit better every day? That continual growth is profound, but it also leads you to realize things that you had not thought possible. I struggled in academia, to be honest. I know you had some great minds on. I believe today you’ve got a great heart on, but I struggled in academia. I have ADHD. I barely got through school, if I’m being honest with you.

Yet, I believe that maybe we can turn this into a story and more than just having a pamphlet in the back of the room where you sell books. What if it was a best-selling book that went around the world? What if it really taught people around the world how to live their lives better, that they were gifts, and their best days are in front of them still? I wrote a book called On Fire. It went to #1. It was a national bestseller. It’s been translated into 15 languages.

One of the times I was signing books in a Barnes & Noble down in Tennessee, you’re only looking at the guy in front of you. Then this lady left, and the guy right behind her was a gentleman named Mr. [Kirchoff]. He was my English teacher in high school.

Tanya:  Oh, wow!

John O’Leary:  We cried together because he didn’t see that in me. He saw a little boy without fingers, and he saw a little boy with scars. He saw a little boy lacking confidence. Even with that, he poured himself into this boy back in English, in high school, and now he’s in a book sales line in Nashville, Tennessee to have the best-selling author of it sign a book for him. What a moment.

Then we said, well, what if we had a podcast like Tanya’s? What if we could touch lives when I’m sleeping? What if people could tune in, and I could interview people that I respect, people that I look up to, people I wish I was more like? We launched a podcast, and it’s been top ten on iTunes, and it’s been downloaded several million times. We just keep asking the question what more can I do to influence, impact positively the one in front of us? In doing so, it leads to great impact, but then quietly, business leaders in the room, it leads to revenue. It leads [16:41]. It leads to being recognized in the global marketplace of look-alikes.

We don’t try to set ourselves apart. We just do so by loving the one who is right in front of us at that time. People know the difference between that and being sold.

Tanya:  Oh, absolutely. This is what I was saying. People fall in love with you for the message for who you are. You’re right. There’s a lot of people, a lot of look-alikes that are doing it. However, my experience of you is you are the real – and I think that what it comes down to and you spoke about it is being of service. You’re not there selling something. What does it mean – I really want to get into this because this is so powerful and this being of service is what actually leads to revenue. What does that mean to you? How do you actually serve people? How do you show up for people?

John O’Leary:  I’ll answer in two ways, one as a child receiving and one as a man giving. We could spend 17 of your podcasts bragging on people who showed up in the life of a little boy that had no chance. From Ronald Reagan and Nancy, to Pope John Paul II, to people planting trees in Israel, it was a global movement of well-known people showing up for a little boy that was not on caringbridge.com or anywhere else. It was just grassroots effort got the word out, which is amazing, so there’s cool stories around that. My favorite, actually, is not someone you would’ve known or someone who was paid handsomely. The man who made the greatest difference for my life physically during that recovery was our custodial member, a game named [Lovell]. Lovell was my janitor, and he got probably about minimum wage back in the 80s for carrying that mop into my room.

What he would do that just set him apart every day is he would turn on this little Walkman. He would put it on my pillow, and he would let me listen to whatever music I wanted. For the nine minutes he was in the room, my experience turned from being one filled with pain and limitations to one of just being in the moment, and when you are in the moment, pain dissipates. When you are fully there, now, all the anxiety of tomorrow or what went wrong yesterday is gone. I would just listen to music, and I would watch this guy clean. He took his job so seriously.

As we know through the spread of COVID-19, man, viruses kill. Bacteria kills. The number one killer of burn victims by far is virus. It’s bacteria. The most important person to combat that is not the President of the United States. It’s actually “the least among us” who are in fact always, always the most important among us. It’s beautiful right now to see the signs on my way to work every day that say, hey, thank you, healthcare providers, yeah, me too, but I was thinking that back in 1987. They had been heroes for our family for the last 33 years, and I’m glad they’re being recognized as such. That’s one story of recognizing what heroism looks like.

How does John O’Leary serve the one in front of him? I think, for me, what I’m most proud of in my business is not the size, audiences, or top line revenue, or how many books we have on some New York Times list. The thing I’m by far the most proud of is that we booked five different presentations, and I’m one of the speakers now, man. We travel the world doing this message, and so we’re compensated for the time on the road handsomely. Five different times, though, we’ve had people book us because of one of two sources. They were in the back of a town car after John O’Leary got out of it. When they got into it after I left, the guy in the front said, “Man, you’ve got to hear this story,” and they tell them the story.

The reason they know the story is not because I told them. I never talk about myself in the back of those cars. All I do is I love the guy, love the lady, and I find out where they’re from. I find out why’d you come to the US? Tell me more about that. The entire 40-minute ride, I just learn everything I can about the guy driving me. It’s, for me, an incredibly inspirational way to spend a drive. I’m not looking at my phone doing email. I can do that when I’m stuck in a hotel room. I’m meeting the one who’s right in front of me.

Then afterwards, I give them a little check, or I give them a tip. I said, “Man, listen, if you give me a card, I want to send you my book. I just want to thank you for driving me. It was so good.” I send that to them, and then after they’re done reading it, that’s when they pass this message forward. It’s not a branding tool. I’m not doing this to book events or sell books. I’m doing it to love the one in front of me, so we’ve had guys driving town cars who have booked O’Leary to speak at events. I think that’s really cool.

My second favorite group to book O’Leary are the guys who wear black pants and black shirts in the back of the room. When I walk in, I think a lot of folks who do what I do are there to impress the C-suite. Now, I may get in trouble, and I may never book another gig. The C-suite doesn’t usually impress me. I’m there to love whoever that is, the staff, the ones bringing out the coffee, and man, I love the guys at the AV table. I just love these – they’re usually men, some ladies mixed in. I love their hearts.

I do a sound check usually at 6 in the morning for an event that might be at 4 that afternoon. Those guys are there. When I’m back from my event at 4 in the afternoon, those guys are there, and when I’m done signing books and hugging everybody in line, those guys are there. They’re the hardest working guys. They’re usually overlooked, and so every time I go up I shake their hands. I hug them. I thank them. I give them my card.

I give them my cellphone, and I say, “Guys, if you ever need anything, I’m in.” Then I say, “One more thing, most of the time, when you guys do your job, you’re just doing your job. You’re making sure the slides are working and the sounds are coming through. Today, take an hour off. I’ll take care of the slides. Trust me, I’ll do that part. You guys just enjoy this message because it’s not only for this room. It’s for you.”

We book several events from AV guys bragging on a guy that they had seen years earlier, and again, I don’t do it to book work. We do it to love the one in front of us. For those of you who want to serve and you want to grow a top line revenue and bottom line profitability, you need a strategy. You need tactics. You need branding, but the most important thing I think you need is love.

Tanya:  Really showing up for people and getting their being, not the wrapping, the being, the essence of who they are and connecting with that. It sounds like that’s what you do, and that’s what touches people.

John O’Leary:  That’s exactly right.

Tanya:  Amazing! I follow you on Instagram. The other day, I think earlier this week or maybe my feed was just showing me that you posted something that was so raw and so powerful about how COVID-19 was affecting you and your family and your business. Can you talk about that?

John O’Leary:  I mean, profoundly, absolutely, like everyone else who’s tuning into your voice. I’ve lost 94% of my speaking revenue for the year as of March 3, which has dire consequences on the overall top line revenue of our organization and, of course, the bottom line profitability. I have not been able to hop on a flight. Tanya, like you, I have not been able to go anywhere, but I am able to pivot into this new storm. We are being way more proactive in webcasting and coaching, growing our podcast following, doing the things that we can through a digital lens, so that’s been healthy.

Two other things, though, are happening right now during this season. One is a guy that used to spend a lot of time on the road is home now as you and I are chatting 65 consecutive days, which provides the opportunity to serve the ones in front of me there. They’re why I work, but frequently, I lose sight of that when I’m doing the work. It’s been great to reconnect with my wife, great to reconnect with these kids, great to love them during the storm, great to have tea parties, and make them breakfast and lunch and dinner every single day. Homeschool, it’s not easy, but man, I’m grateful for it. That’s been really cool.

The other piece of this is I want them to see – during a time where dad is struggling financially and struggling professionally, to see a guy who remains purposeful, remains joyful, remains grateful, and remains generous. As you know, we had a book come out just this week, and it’s called In Awe. Gosh, we’re going to sell the majority of our copies in the presales and during that first week, but we’re giving away 100% of the profits, all of it, to Big Brothers Big Sisters. I want my kids to see a dad who not only gives when he’s on top of the world but gives when he feels like he’s buried by it.

Tanya:  One of my mentors, Lynne Twist, she runs a nonprofit and has worked with Mother Teresa and Mr. Fuller and just some off the charts people. She says that you can always see what people are really committed to when you follow the money. I love that you give when things are great and that you’re now allocating funds, profits from your book sales to an amazing cause when things are not so great. That’s off the charts, John.

John O’Leary:  Your friend is right on. My grandfather, I had to clear out his desk, unfortunately, when he passed away years ago, and one of the things I found was his checkbook. There weren’t many commas in his checkbook. What there was was a ledger of a man who until the end of his life kept writing checks. I was going to use some names, but I won’t even throw any organizations under the bus. In fact, none of the checks were for things he got. They were all checks to not-for-profits that he was pouring into even until the end. Your friend’s absolutely right. You can indeed detect a person’s true character by following the money and looking at their schedule.

Tanya:  Yeah, and so for somebody that spends their life and their whole purpose in life is really to engage people and connect with their being and inspire them, what do you do when you’re uninspired? This whole COVID-19 thing happened, and then at some point you realized, Jesus Christ, 94% of my revenue has just evaporated. What does your process look like to really getting your hands around that and working yourself through that process?

John O’Leary:  The very first thing in any process as you are grieving any loss is to be okay with the anger. If you are coming through this thing Pollyannaish just dancing in the rain saying COVID-19 be damned; I’m fine, I wonder about your mental sanity, and I’d like to know the medicine that you’re currently taking for COVID-19. When a recession occurs when no one expected it, when people are losing their lives, when healthcare workers are dealing now with PTSD, when families are being jarred apart, when you’re unable to hug the one that you love most in your life – for me, I can’t hug my mom and my dad. My dad’s got Parkinson’s disease. It’s such a tragic time. We lost my grandmother last Friday. To bury her and not to be able to hug one another funeral side, to not have a party of larger than eight people, it is a hard time, so I’m okay with the anger. What I’m not okay with is living there.

This is fairly vulnerable, I hope. I have a wonderful office that I own and that I – all the colleagues work with me typically worked here. About nine days into this as no one is no longer working here, all the offices are dark. I looked around, and I realized my heart was dark too and that all the plants – I love plants, that I had not watered them in eight days. I realized, man, I’m not going to allow this season to kill my freaking plants, okay? That’s like a metaphor for our lives. I watered the plants that day, brushed my hair back in the bathroom mirror, and said let’s do this thing. Let’s do this thing.

I’ve challenged my team to say, gosh, listen. This revenue that we lost is not coming back this month, next month, or maybe this year. I want you to imagine that you are going reinvent ourselves, that we’re going to double revenue, and that we’re going to do it by the end of 2021. What does our business look like? Let’s go! Let’s go! They had to huddle up. They had to dream. We did this all digitally, but they began to dream of what the business – not what it was. Not what we lost, all this other garbage. It’s so easy to spend time in the weeds looking backward.

I think what children teach us is the ability to embrace where we are, and then glance forward at what is still possible. I begged them to do that. We are doing that. We are already growing, and we’re touching far more lives than we would have in the old model. That’s one thing we’re doing. We’re pivoting forward. I think that’s a very healthy thing.

Then as a family, I want them to recognize what they’ve lost, and so we grieve this. My son loved his class. He’s not going to graduate with them. It’s a sad time, but there’s also things he’s picked up. Every day around the dinner table we talk about the day. We also talk about, hey, guys, what are you grateful for because of this experience? It sounds kind of soft, but I want them to remember this season what they’re grateful for so that we can apply it when the season fades. Life will indeed turn to normal at some point, but I don’t want to return to normal with it. I want to return so much better, so much fresher, so much clearer on what matters and able to pursue it with everything I have. I also want my kids to do likewise.

Tanya:  Absolutely, oh, well, you know what? The people on your team are lucky to have you as a leader, I got to say. Thank God to your brain patterns. You know that you can survive almost death or near death, literally, almost dying. You have these cemented brain patterns in your head that nothing is going to kill you, and the fact that you were able to pivot so quickly and really make sure that you do what you are meant to do just in a different format and maybe even a bigger scale is pretty off the charts.

John O’Leary:  And home for dinner. I just think that’s…

Tanya:  Home for dinner, yeah, father of four. I’m a consultant, so I spend a lot of time on the road. It’s a double-edged sword. It’s nice to be on the road. It’s tough to be on the road. My kids also have enjoyed that I’m – I’m sure yours have too, which is amazing. In Awe, can you talk about that? First of all, love the title. Your new book, In Awe: Rediscover Your Childlike Wonder to Unleash Inspiration, Meaning, and Joy, boy, do we need that now.

John O’Leary:  Not only now but always. It’s important we all recognize as I unpack a little bit of the story that I wrote this book when the economy was at a historic high. Stock markets by far were the best they’ve ever been, unemployment at historic lows. This is the key piece. Yet, 94% of news stories according to our friends in Harvard Business Review were negative. Even though the world was on fire with optimism, moving forth, 94+% of news stories were negative in 2018. In addition to that, according to Cigna that did a national study of individuals and how we’re connecting with those around us, they found that 56% of us felt as if we were isolated. This is not after COVID-19 reared its ugly head, uh-uh. This is when we had the freedom to move and to connect and hug and shake hands and smile and do whatever we want, and unemployment was low. Even then, 54% of us felt as if we’re by ourselves.

Then one more stat to throw out there, Millennials, who I love, by the way, I think they’re going to – they are going to be our next greatest generation. More than 60% of them feel as if they have no one that they can truly rely on, that they can trust, that they can lay truth on that will be received without judgement, and so they don’t feel like they have a true companion to do life with. With all of this being the headwind, that’s why I wrote the book In Awe. I would watch, Tanya, in my journey, as we adults would go through life beat down by life, we would look at markets even though they were high, and we say it could be better. We could look at airplanes even though we’re going from New York to L.A. in four hours and say, well, the headwinds are going to make us eight minutes late, and we’d be upset about that. We are easily bothered. We are easily burdened, and we endure the mundane of each day as adults frequently.

Then you would walk in and see kids. As a speaker, I like doing the big conferences, but I always when I’m on the road speak to kids for fun. I would watch these kids skip into the classroom. Literally, they would dance into the classroom. They would do something really peculiar for a human being. They would smile, frequently. The whole time I’m talking, they’re smiling, and their eyes are packed with joy. When I ask them questions, every hand goes up, and they love to ask questions back. I would see this unbridled optimism and this ferocious joy in their little hearts.

I ask myself what is it that they have that we have lost? Why was that, and how do we return to it? If we did return to it, what might happen? That’s the idea of the book In Awe.

Tanya:  How do you return to your childhood inspiration and joy, and at what point do we lose it? What have your found?

John O’Leary:  Tragically, it happens early, and there’s a whole lot of reasons for why. About the age of 5, it begins to fade. I’m not saying people – we’re all doomed. I love life. I love leadership. I love business. We’re doing great, but I think we could do far better if we renewed that sense of awe. What does awe really recognize? It’s the sense of astonishment at everything, everything. You’re not bored by anything. I think you have three kids, right, Tanya?

Tanya:  Mm-hmm, I do.

John O’Leary:  When they are little, when you take them outside on a walk around the block, that should take four minutes if they do what they are supposed to do, left foot in front of right. That walk takes four hours because every leaf blows them away, every earthworm. Oh, my Lord! Then if you look just to the right, “Dad, I think it’s a rainbow, and over there, that cloud, I think it looks like a unicorn, Dad.” Everything is wow! It’s called first time living, and it’s not only reserved for children.

For those of us who’ve ever been married or in a partnership, when you said the words I do, you meant it. Then after the honeymoon and after a week or two, or a month or two, or a year or two, it begins to fade from I do to I have to. When you get that first job and you are on fire for it, you’re going to kill it. We’re going to turn the world around with my job. You’re on the ground floor of this 112 story business. Then after the second day, the third, when you see how political things are, when you see how weak your manager is, it begins to fade. When you graduate, you believe that the best days are in front of you, but then your realize maybe not.

I believe that what children have exposes us to not only what we had, what we lost but how we can return to it. We can indeed reclaim this. Part of it is gratitude. No longer take for granted what is in front of us, whether that’s a human being, where you live. How about the sunrise? Man, if that doesn’t blow you away, it’s only because you’re not looking east. You’re on your smartphone looking down. Look east and watch the sun. Watch the light cut through the darkness, and realize you’re here to watch it.

Read about eyes. Read about the cones and rods and how they operate and how unbelievably complicated your eyeball is. Learn the stats around the likelihood of you being alive. It’s less than 1 in 400 trillion. You should not be here, and yet, you’re here. You’re bored on your smartphone? Please! I think there’s an opportunity for us to step into first grade again. Skip into the classroom wide eyed and wildly optimistic believing that our best days are in fact in front of us starting now.

Tanya:  Because you say so. It’s amazing how tranquilized we become. As you’re talking, one of the things that – one of my colleagues actually in a meeting last week said that our founding partner and him were at a conference together. He just rolled into the conference, sat in the empty chair next to our founding partner, and just started to scroll on the phone or do whatever he’s going to do. The founding partner looked at him, and he said, “Hi, do I know you?” I mean, they’ve been working together for 18 years. He says, “Oh, I’m sorry.” I did whatever I needed to do, and he says, “Yeah, don’t ever take me for granted.” I just was so touched by that, and that’s what you’re talking about is don’t take life for granted.

John O’Leary:  That’s right.

Tanya:  How can somebody do that authentically without really – without being in this Fufu land, this idealistic positive spinning land, but really authentically just be in the moment to moment and experience things newly as kids do?

John O’Leary:  That’s such a vitally important question, and I don’t live in Fufu land. I’m managing revenue and profitability and expenses and the triple bottom line and a family of six and a father with Parkinson’s disease who’s got major needs. I’m not in Fufu land, so it’s important for your listeners to recognize this is applicable. This is practical. It’s pragmatic, actually, and it’s transformative.

Maybe the most important – there’s a lot of ways we could step into this, but maybe the most important thing I think we can recognize is that what we seek we find. That also sounds a little flighty, so let me give you a practical example of what I’m referring to. As I was growing my business in 2016 and it was our best year by far ever, I was also realizing that I was losing sight of the things that mattered most, including a woman that 12 years or 13 years earlier I said the words I do to, the woman who was doing the real work when I was on the road getting standing ovations, and so I made a commitment that year to not take her for granted, not to take Beth for granted. On January 1, 2017, I began this new thick leather-bound journal with the words Jan 1, ’17 and then right below that Dear Beth. Then I explained to her what I was going to seek this year. I was going to look not for what she wasn’t doing or what we did not have but for what she was doing and how she was doing that well.

I began this thing, and on January 2, I took the second entry of something I saw her do for our kids and, on January 3, something I saw her do in the community. Jan 4, we got ready for a Friday night. I saw her come down the steps in this dress, and it blew me away. I lost my breath. I wanted her to realize I’m seeing this, but I never told her. I just kept the journal for 360 days, and then I gave it to her on Christmas.

Tanya: Oh, my God, you’re kidding.

John O’Leary:  Tanya, when I give Christmas presents, I give overly tight red dresses, or lawnmowers, or toaster. I never do the right thing ever, ever. This year she opened this, and she wept. She says, “Why’d you do this?” I told her, “Yeah, I realized I was taking you for granted, and I was missing what we had together. I didn’t want to.” A couple cool things happened. One is I still will walk by our bedroom at night, and she’ll be reading that book. It’s not every night. We don’t have that kind of marriage. Once a month, I’ll walk by that room, and she’s in the bed reading, laughing, smiling, packed with joy with me sharing these experiences that we were a part of together, which is really cool.

Maybe even more important, for one year, all day long I was looking for evidence of good. I was looking for evidence of her beauty. I was looking for her impact in the community, and for 360 days, I found it. Some days were a struggle. For those of you in relationships, you know what I’m talking about. For 360 days, man, I found the good in my wife, and it wasn’t that hard. It made me a better spouse. It made me more attentive, a better noticer, and eventually, shared that joy not only with her on Christmas Day. I think I was a better spouse through that whole year.

Imagine how this could play into your business. Imagine writing letters to one of your team members every single day saying I got to let you know. Yesterday that was a tough meeting. I felt it too, but I saw you raise your hand. I saw you speak up. I saw the boldness. I see the vision, and I’m thankful for you. Then just drop that on their desk with a $20 gift card to Starbucks. You do that kind of thing for 360 days, and I promise you, your organization, your community, your church, your synagogue will be in a far different, far better place than it is right now.

Tanya:  Oh, man, I think everybody needs a copy of In Awe ASAP. Somehow we got to de-tranquilize ourselves to what we have. It’s like we’re walking around like zombies. I have my kids, three kids. One’s going to be 4 tomorrow, and when you said it stops at 5, I’m like, no, we’re one year out.

John O’Leary:  You should know 4 is my favorite age, so if you tire of her, call me. Put her in a box and send her to St. Louis. I will single-handedly joyfully raise a 4-year-old. It’s such a fun age.

Tanya:  Oh, it is so fun. Yeah, it’s just seeing the way that they experience things is just powerful. To know that we have the opportunity to rediscover that for ourselves moment by moment and day by day really opened something up for me.

John O’Leary:  Could I share a story about a guy who lived this?

Tanya:  Yeah.

John O’Leary:  I just want to make sure people who are listening don’t think you need to be a 4-year-old picking dandelions to be happy, to be joyful, or to be effective. One of the guys I write about in the book, his name was Pat [Henman]. Pat ran a business where 26 people paid him monthly a handsome dollar amount to be coached by him, which good for Pat Henman. The other wild thing about Pat Henman is he was 98 years old when I met him. I flew out to be a consultant for this organization that Pat was leading and spoke for three hours with Pat Henman in the first row, 26 business owners around him. The most active note taker that day was not some young business owner but actually Pat Henman himself, age 98. This guy was actively growing until the end. He smiled at all the right times. He laughed out loud at the right jokes. He was moved to tears at various times during the program. He got it.

At the end, it was his birthday. It was his 98th birthday that day, Tanya, and we surprised him with a cake. We sang to him, typical thing. He blew out nine candles or whatever they had on the candle. Then he did something where he went around the room to the 26 business owners and to his new friend, John O’Leary, and he shared with each person one thing that he admired about them. It’s his birthday, but he’s turning the mirror immediately, the spotlight right back onto us. He’s not tranquilized by age, by weather, by years, by cake, by anything else. He’s on fire. He’s in awe of everything and reflecting that.

He’s praised everybody else. We then have a little dinner celebration. He leaves that night. He grabs his top hat and his little overcoat, gets up to the front door. I stop him, and I say, “Pat, where are you going, man?” “I got to leave. My wife’s going to think I’m running around on her again.” Pat has been married at that point for 76 years. Pat made a commitment to his wife that he would be with her until the end.

That was the commitment he made, and he was guiding for business owners. He was loving me. He was singing happy birthday to everybody else, and he was going to guide her forward until the end. The story ends with Pat died 6 weeks later after he and I met at age 98, but he died 10 days after his wife passed away. This was a man who when I met him was going through stage 4 cancer at 98 with a joyful skip in his step, and so if you think you need to be a 4-year-old kid pulling dandelions to experience what it means to be in awe, wrong. There is a business application to this. There’s a life application to this. It will make you more effective in your relationships. It will make you more grateful for your lives.

Tanya:  Wow! Moving is the word that comes to mind. I think you created this IN AWE 21-Day Challenge to really help people recalibrate during the coronavirus pandemic. Can you talk about that?

John O’Leary:  Yeah, what happens when bad things happen is we typically ask the question why me? Then we have the pity party. Then we stir. Then we grab the nearest bottle of wine, and then we find the movie Tiger King. Then six months later when COVID goes away, we step back into the day. When life got hard for us, we also asked the question why me? Then in about the next breath, we said, okay, why not us? What are we going to do during this season?

How are we going to turn this thing into something good? How are we going to encourage people that we know are going to be losing loved ones? How are we going to encourage medical team members who are dealing with PTSD? How are we going to encourage a society? Tanya, this one’s on my heart, 1.5 million Americans last year attempted suicide. In 2019, when there was no COVID-19, when there was no recession, when you had freedom to move around, 1.5 million of us no longer saw value in taking the next step. We realize, man, this is going to be hard time, so we wanted to give people encouragement. We wanted to provide hope, a clear next step, and to remind them every day that they’re not alone.

My team and I came up with a 21-Day IN AWE Challenge, and it’s a reminder day after day for 21 days to put the left foot in front of the right, to seek joy and you’ll find it, to do something for someone else and you’ll be paid back for it. You give expecting nothing in return, and you watch what happens. For, what, three weeks or so people journeyed down this little path. We rolled it out there. Thousands and thousands have graduated through this program. Many of them have gone right back in and started again just to be reminded that the little things in life aren’t. They’re not.

I find and maybe you do too, Tanya, that we frequently take the things that are closest to us for granted, and that could be three little ones pulling on your knees right now. It could be hot coffee. It could be delicious red wine. It could be cold beer, or sunrises, or sunsets. It could be your passport. We take these things for granted, and this season provides us an unexpected but maybe a perfect opportunity to rediscover what matters. Then when life returns to normal, we can return even better because of this. The 21-day challenge helps people do exactly that.

Tanya:  What a gift, John. What a gift. Just as we wrap up here, is there anything that we haven’t talked about that we should?

John O’Leary:  You could learn more about the 21-day challenge if you visit me at readinawe.com. That’s at readinawe.com. When you hit respond on those emails, that will go to my marketing team, and if it’s personal, they pass it right through to me. If you want to continue the conversation, I’m in. We’re on social media, as you mentioned. On Instagram, I post every day things that I see happening that are life giving. I think there’s enough stuff that steals our joy. We try to celebrate the heroes and the helpers, and there’s a lot of evidence out there for it.

Outside of that, gosh, I’m here to serve. I think we all are. I think the more effectively we can do that, in particular during the season, the more not only successful but significant we will be in the seasons to come.

Tanya:  Lesson of the day, serve, however that shows up in your life. I love that, amazing, John. Thank you so much for being on Unmessable and just ridiculously, generously sharing your story, your life, your message, and your journey.

John O’Leary:  You’re the one that did the heavy lifting. You did your research. I appreciate you inviting me on, and I thank your listeners for choosing to be unmessable. In a marketplace that everybody is messy, for us to step into this day with a little bit of courage, a little bit of ambition, a little bit of selflessness, and a lot of confidence, man, that’s awesome. It is called for, and it will set you apart.

Announcement: Unmessable is recorded in the heart of New York City, and a special thanks to all the team involved in producing the show. Visit tanyaprive.com/unmessable to find a transcript of this episode and be sure to subscribe to our newsletter.

What will it take to lead effectively over the next decade? How can you prepare yourself for what will likely be called for as we navigate times ahead?

Well, according to the author of Future Leader Jacob Morgan, who interviewed 140 global CEOs (of companies like Audi, Mastercard, Unilever, Oracle, and SAP) and surveyed over 14,000 employees, there are four mindsets and five skills that our current business leaders believe will be needed in our future leaders.

Curious what they are?

Tune in to the full episode to learn about:

Connect with Jacob Morgan:

After graduating with honors in business management economics and psychology from the University of California Santa Cruz, Jacob was excited to join the corporate world.

At his first job he was told that he’d be traveling the country, meeting with executives and entrepreneurs, and doing all sorts of exciting work. A few months in, he was stuck doing data entry, cold calling, and PowerPoint presentations. One day the CEO came out of his nice corner office, handed Jacob a $10 bill, and said, “I’m late for a meeting, go grab me a cup of coffee, and get something for yourself as well.” That was the last corporate job he ever had.

Today, Jacob Morgan is a trained futurist and one of the world’s leading authorities on leadership, the future of work, employee experience, and leadership. He speaks in front of tens of thousands of people each year and his content is seen over a million times a year. Jacob is the best-selling author of four books: The Future Leader (Wiley 2020) The Employee Experience Advantage (Wiley, 2017), The Future of Work (Wiley, 2014), and The Collaborative Organization (McGraw Hill, 2012). He speaks at over 50 conferences a year including TED Academy which is one of the largest TED events in the world. In addition, Jacob provides advisory and thought leadership services to various organizations around the world.

He is the founder of The Future of Work University at FutureOfWorkUniversity.com, an online education and training platform that helps individuals and organizations thrive in the rapidly changing world of work. Courses explore topics such as employee experience, the future of work, and leadership skills. Jacob also created “The Future If,” a global community of business leaders, authors and futurists who explore what our future can look like IF certain technologies, ideas, approaches and trends actually happen. The community looks at everything from AI and automation to leadership and management practices to augmented reality and virtual reality, the 4th industrial revolution and everything in between.

* * *

Full Transcription:

Jacob Morgan:  For leaders who are constantly being pulled in different directions where we constantly have notifications and things buzzing and binging all over the place, being able to listen is going to be very, very crucial, and it’s becoming very, very hard to do.

Tanya:  That’s Jacob Morgan, four-time best-selling author, TED speaker, and Founder of The Future of Work University whose research explores what it takes to be an effective leader and what employees care most about in terms of their work. After interviewing more than 140 CEOs and 14,000 employees, Jacob Morgan shares critical learnings about what the next generation of leaders will look like and what leading organizations will do to attract, retain, and motivate their troops. He is also a guest writer for Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Inc. Magazine, the Harvard Business Review, and CNN, just to name a few. Jacob Morgan, you have a very interesting story, so you went from being a bad student to a four-time author, a speaker, and a thought leader. How exactly did that happen? What was your journey? 

Jacob Morgan:  It was a pretty nonlinear journey. Originally, I assumed my career path would be like what most students think their career path is going to be. You go to school. You go work for an organization after school. You maybe go back and get your MBA, and then you ascend the ranks of whatever organization you’re at and become a manager, SVP. For me, I had this dream of becoming the chief marketing officer of a big company, like a Coca-Cola or an IBM, and so mentally, when I graduated college from UC Santa Cruz, that’s where my mind was at. Okay, I was on climb the corporate ladder, do well, work hard, and everything will be okay.

My first job out of college, I went to interview for this organization in downtown Los Angeles, and anybody who is familiar with the L.A. area knows how terrible the traffic is. I had a three-hour daily commute, an hour and a half to work and an hour and a half back from work every day. When I interviewed for this organization, they basically told me that I’m going to be doing these great things. I’ll be traveling, meeting with entrepreneurs and executives. It’ll be exciting and fun. I thought, all right, this is perfect. This is why I worked so hard in school.

I take the job. A couple months into my job I’m doing data entry and cold calling and PowerPoint presentations. Then the last straw was when this executive came out of his office, and he says, “I’m late for a meeting. I need you to go run and get me a cup of coffee, and by the way, get yourself a latte as well.” In my mind, I lost it. That was the last fulltime job I ever had working for anybody else or one of. I had one more after that, and funny enough, a couple of weeks ago I actually saw this person at the airport. 

Tanya:  Oh, my God, how did you – did you say hi?

Jacob Morgan:  He came up to – I didn’t recognize him, and he was sitting there with his son. He’s like, “Jacob Morgan Morgan?” I was like, “Yes.” I immediately saw him, and he’s like, “I saw your talk online where you mentioned this coffee story.”

Tanya:  No 

Jacob Morgan:  Yeah, I’m like, “What are you talking about? What coffee story?” Yeah, I don’t why – I didn’t want to get into this whole thing with him talking about it. That story’s propelled me, and I’ve used it in all my talks. I didn’t want to get into that whole thing because we’re sitting in an airport terminal. I was just like, “Oh, yeah, maybe I mentioned that once or twice. I’ll have to go back and check it out,” just played it off. I think he’s still doing the same thing that he’s doing. He’s working at a pharma company doing – managing ad spend and stuff like that, but it was just a very funny, awkward encounter.

Tanya:  That’s so funny.

Jacob Morgan:  He was with his son’s baseball team, and I can tell that – he turned to his friends. A group of guys are standing there. I could tell he was whispering to them. He’s like, “You see that guy behind me? I fired him. He used to work for me 15 years ago.” I could tell there was something like that going on. I got a kick out of it.

Tanya:  Oh, my God, actually, okay, this is really funny. When I graduated college and I got my first job at Forbes, I was so excited and very similar experience. One of my bosses kept asking me every day for a coffee. I was like I can’t believe I went to school for this. Every time she’d say, “You’re such a rock star, Tanya.” I’m like really? Thank you so much.

Jacob Morgan:  You’re a coffee rock star.

Tanya:  Yeah, exactly. I get it. I totally get it. Okay, so from that decision, where – how did you get to being really a four-time author, speaker, thought leader on everything, employee experience, leadership related, company culture environments? How did you get there?

Jacob Morgan:  After that, I ended up moving to the Bay Area. I had one more job out here in the Bay Area; long story short, similar experience, bad job working for somebody, and I quit. I actually started doing search engine optimization consulting work. That was the job that I had in the Bay Area, I don’t know, 15 years ago. I was doing a lot of search engine optimization stuff. At the time, social media was becoming popular, so I pivoted a little bit and did social media consulting. Then, shortly after that, using these tools internally became pretty popular, like getting employees to communicate and collaborate on things like Salesforce Chatter and Jive and Lithium. Those were the platforms of the day. That morphed a little bit into enterprise collaboration and social business, Enterprise 2.0, and then that evolved a little bit into the broader theme of the future of work. Then that became employee experience, and then that became the future leader. These were just natural evolutions from one topic to the other. 

As I was participating in more conversations and as I was able to grow my personal brand and started to speak at conferences and events, I just started to think about what is missing? What are people talking about? When I wrote my first book in 2012, The Collaborative Organization, there was no guide for how to use these technologies internally, and when I wrote the book, The Future of Work, there was no book out there that talked about how employees and organizations and leaders are changing. When I wrote The Employee Experience Advantage, there was no book based on research that looks at what employee experience is and how to design it. Similarly, with this new book The Future Leader, there’s no book out there that looks at leadership over the next 10 years, which actually brings in the insights from 140 CEOs and 14,000 employees. I try to look at what’s missing, and then I try to create what – basically, what I would find interesting and what people are asking me for that I don’t always have answers to. 

Tanya:  Love the progression, very, very interesting. Where do you spend most of your time on? Is it writing, or what do you mostly do?

Jacob Morgan:  A mix of a few things. I do quite a bit of speaking, so traveling is definitely a big part of what I do. I’d say that’s one aspect.

Tanya:  Hopefully, not to Asia lately.

Jacob Morgan:  No, yeah, I mean, I have traveled a lot to Asia. Not recently because what’s going on there, but I do travel a fair amount. During the summer, it slows down a bit. I mean, we’ll see what happens with the virus that’s out there now, but a lot of my time is spent traveling and speaking at conferences and events. I also create a lot of content in the form of videos, podcasts, courses, so a lot of time goes to that and then just planning for stuff. I have a course that’s coming out based on this book in a month or two so planning how to launch that. There’s a lot of content and creation stuff, but there’s also a lot of the behind the scenes of just running stuff and getting ready for things to go out.

For example, when this book came out – a lot of people don’t realize unless you’ve written a book, but most of the work actually goes into launching the book, not writing it, so reaching out to people. How do you get it on best-seller list, getting people to share it, promoting the book, running different ad campaigns in various places, reaching out to various communities? There’s a lot that goes into just the logistics of building the brand that I spend a lot of time on. 

Tanya:  Mm-hmm, absolutely. Yeah, somebody told me that the distribution is 30% writing, 70% marketing of whatever you write.

Jacob Morgan:  Exactly, and it’s like that not just for the book but for the course. I find that building a personal brand is also a lot of work, just being out there, so to speak. I do spend a fair amount of time on that too.

Tanya:  I actually would love to spend a little time on the recent book that you just launched as of two days ago, which is amazing, and I highly recommend everybody to go and get a copy. It’s called The Future Leader where you have interviewed 140 different CEOs of companies like Audi, Mastercard, Unilever, Oracle, SAP, some of the other big ones and then, like you mentioned, 14,000 employees. What did you learn?

Jacob Morgan:  Yes, one shameless plug in case anyone is interested. We created a URL for it at getfutureleaderbook if anybody’s interested in grabbing one. We learned a couple of things, actually. First, the big thing that I wanted to figure out is what are the most important skills and mindsets that future leaders need to have? That’s one thing that I learned from the book is what are those skills and mindsets? I can share some of them with you here. I won’t go through all of them.

I created something called “the notable nine.” The notable nine are four mindsets and five skills. For each one of these mindsets and skills, I created clever names for them like the Explorer, the Chef, Yoda, the Futurist, but I’ll just talk maybe about some of the components of those. Some of the important mindsets are things like being able to think big picture, being able to surround yourself and be comfortable leading those who are not like you and being a part of teams, people of different cultures, backgrounds, geographies, etc. Another important mindset is learning to serve and also learning to serve yourself, like taking care of yourself. If you don’t take care of yourself, you can’t take care of others. Another crucial mindset is around balancing the humanity and the technology aspect of work and life.

I talk about the importance of curiosity; how to think like a Futurist, which means thinking in terms of scenarios and possibilities; being tech savvy and digitally fluent; listening and communication, which have always been around but are also two things that are changing more than anything else; emotional intelligence, specifically empathy and self-awareness; having a growth mindset and being able to help make other people more successful than you. Those are some of the things that I talk about in the book, just very high level, and of course, there’s a lot more in there than that.

Tanya:  Okay, then you say – so two questions, let me start with one. Listening and communicating are key and have been around for a long time, but you said they’re changing. How so?

Jacob Morgan:  In a lot of different ways. It’s very hard for us to listen nowadays. If you think about it, we’re so distracted. We have all these things going on all over the place. People want things from us. We have notifications popping up everywhere. It’s fricking hard to listen today, and what happens is inside of our organizations I found – and this is very true for our leaders as well. We do a very good job of hearing each other but not listening, and I’m sure a lot of people who are listening or reading this will be able to relate. We’ve all had that encounter where you are having a conversation with somebody, and somebody’s actually physically present. They’re looking at you, but you can tell that they’re not there. That’s a very good example of hearing but not listening.

Listening is when you put away the technology. You focus on your body language. You make the conversation feel collaborative. It’s conscious effort. It’s work. It’s time. It’s energy, whereas hearing – I hear an airplane flying overhead right now. It’s the unconscious act of letting sound enter your ear. For leaders who are constantly being pulled in different directions where we constantly have notifications and things buzzing and binging all over the place, being able to listen is going to be very, very crucial, and it’s becoming very, very hard to do. We also have these different platforms on which to listen to.

Communication is the same. One CEO I interviewed, he said, on average, an employee will maybe hear me speak 20 times – or 20 minutes a year. This was Nick Nagano. He’s the CEO of a company called Tokio Main. I believe based in Japan. He has 32,000 people who work for him, and he said that, if an employee is only maybe going to hear from me 20 minutes a year, I better make sure that what I say get across, regardless of what the channel is. If I’m texting, if I’m Skyping, if I’m writing an email, if I’m in person, whatever it is, we need to learn how to get our message across regardless of what the channel is that we’re using.

I’ll give you an example. If you’re going to have a serious conversation with somebody about let’s say letting them go, don’t send them a text message with frowny face. If you’re trying to get a project update from your team, don’t send them a text message because now they have to respond to you with their thumbs while they have to write 2,000 words. We’ve all gotten those emails from people that look like they are letters that should be written to a therapist where they just unload. It’s 5,000 words of who know what. Those are very clear examples of people who don’t understand the channel they’re using on how to get their point across. Listening and communication have always been important, but again, they are changing more than ever.

I mentioned that these were the skills and mindsets, the notable nine. You asked me earlier what I learned, and the most shocking thing that I learned is that leaders around the world think they are doing a fairly good job of practicing these skills and mindsets. If you want, I can send you the exact numbers afterwards. These are midlevel leaders and senior executives around the world think they’re doing either a reasonably well or a very good job of practicing these skills and mindsets. The crazy thing is that people who work for these leaders say that their leaders are doing a terrible job of practicing these skills and mindsets. The more senior you are, the bigger that gap is, the more disconnected you get from the company, and this I thought was very scary. Leaders don’t see anything wrong with how they’re leading, but the people who work for these leaders are saying, oh, my God, my leader’s a disaster. That to me is the worrisome part that we need to fix.

Tanya:  Mm-hmm. As you’re talking, I’m thinking about all the sessions that we’ve had with clients that actually addresses exactly what you’re talking about, the gap. Everything from the CEO bubble where literally, by virtue of that position, if they’re not extremely conscious to breakdown that barrier, they live in a bubble. They are completely disconnected with the pulse of what’s happening in their organization, and I have a very clear example of this that happened. It’s not somebody that we worked with, but yeah, it didn’t end so well for him. He got pushed out. Yeah, so I agree, there’s a gap between where people think they’re leading versus the actual effectiveness on the ground of how they are leading.

Jacob Morgan, I’d love to – you said you have four mindsets, five skills, and that was at the core of what you learned. How did you come up with that framework? 

Jacob Morgan:  It’s from interviewing all these CEOs, and I would ask them – I asked all of them a series of 12 questions. One of the questions I asked them – well, two of them, I should say, are what are the most important mindsets that leaders over the next ten years are going to need to have? In other words, how should leaders of the future think? Then I also asked them what are the skills that future leaders need to have, meaning what should future leaders actually need to know how to do? I’d say most of these conversations were – some were done in person. Some were done via phone calls, and a couple of them were done via email. Most were either in person, or via phone, or Skype.

I asked all these CEOs these things, and then I took the 140 transcripts. We had to read through all 140 of them, and I had a team I worked with. We looked at what are the most common skills and mindsets that keep coming up, and which ones can be grouped together that basically mean the same thing but CEOs call them different things? That’s where we came up with this notable nine. It’s the insights directly from these 140 CEOs. 

Tanya:  Do you have any guidance on how to access that mindset? If people know that they really have to think big picture and be able to lead those that are not like them or develop this ability to serve, serve themselves, if they don’t currently have that mindset or access to that, how do they get access to it and train themselves.

Jacob Morgan:  Yeah, I mean, that’s a big, big question. The way that I structure it in the book is that, for each mindset that I talk about, I give techniques for how to practice and embrace that particular mindset. In the case of embracing diversity, the way you practice that is you surround yourself with people who are not like you. You ask to be a part of teams, or you have friends, or networks, or communities of people who are not like you, meaning that they don’t look like you. They don’t have the same cultural background, attitudes, values. Basically, they’re not like you, and so if you look around and you find that, hey, wait a minute, everybody’s a white person with the same religious background, same upbringing that I have, chances are you’re going to have a very hard time embracing people who are different than you.

It’s really important, whether you are an entrepreneur, part of a small team or a big team, that you make the effort. I say make the effort because it’s not just about being okay being a part of diverse teams. You need to actually seek these things out. If you get put on a team, for example, where everyone is like you, raise your hand and say, hey, you know what? This is a great team. Everyone here is super smart, but it’s not very diverse. Do you think we can bring in some more diverse people here just to get some various perspectives? You need to really make a conscious effort to do these types of things, so that’s an example for how to practice the diversity piece. 

For thinking something like big picture, that one also doesn’t take a ton of work, but if you’re part of an organization or part of an – or if you’re an entrepreneur, you just pay attention to what’s happening in the world. If you’re part of a team, for example, don’t just focus on your product, your geography, the day-to-day stuff that you’re working on. Try to understand the business as a whole. Try to talk to some of your coworkers and peers and other teams in maybe different part of the world and say, hey, what are you seeing? What are you thinking? Build these relationships with others so you can get a sense of what’s happening on a big picture level. 

Those are, at least for that aspect, things that you can do. Again, I mean, it depends which one you want to talk about. I have emotional intelligence in there, the futurist, the technology stuff, but if there are any others you want to explore, I’m happy to give some techniques or tactics on how to practice them.

Tanya:  Yeah. You know what? It’s very, very interesting, and I think, ultimately, what it comes down to is just be conscious and work your way into practicing whatever is the mess, right?

Jacob Morgan:  Yes.

Tanya:  Yeah, I get that. That’s great. Okay, so I’d like to talk about your – not your most recent book, The Future Leader, but the one right before that, The Employee Experience Advantage. In that book, you come up with – you did a lot of research, and you came up with three things that were really important to people in intentionally designing the experience that employees have. What are those?

Jacob Morgan:  There are three environments that shape every single employee experience for every employee around the world and those three environments are culture, technology and physical space. Culture is, basically, how employees feel working for you. The technology aspect is about the tools and resources that employees have access to to do their jobs, and the space is exactly what it sounds like. It’s the spaces in which employees work. Those are really the three things that organizations, that leaders of organizations can control to create great experiences for their people: culture, technology, and space. 

Tanya:  This actually comes from a previous conversation that you and I had. I was writing up something about culture, and I was actually quoting you on one of my articles. You talked about having ten elements for culture, four for space, and three for technology. What is that? Can you go into a little bit more depth?

Jacob Morgan:  Sure, oh, my goodness, you’re going to test me on this now, aren’t you? Yeah, so there are 17 things in total, and I’ll give you examples of some of them. For culture, as an example, health and wellness programs was one aspect, employees feeling valued, having learning and growth and development opportunities. Even things like compensation went into there, coaching and mentoring, leaders who are coaches and mentors. All of those things went into the cultural aspect. Like you said, there’s ten of them.

For the physical space, there were things in there like leveraging multiple workspace options, so not just having one option but having multiple workspace options. Another thing that I found is does your organization have this practice of allowing friends and family members to visit the space, kind of show it off? Do you have that ability to show the space to others? That speaks to how the leaders view their space. Are you comfortable having people coming in and seeing your space? A lot of companies where it’s all gray cubicles and brown walls, they’re like, no, we don’t want anybody coming in here, and so leveraging multiple workspace options I think is important. Offers workspace flexibility was another one. Do employees have the opportunity to, basically, work when and where and how they want?

When we look at technology, there were three things such as having consumer grade technology and having platforms that are based on the needs of employees, not just the requirements of the business. Those were a few of them in there, but there are 17 in total. Oh, and by the way, I forgot one more for physical space. The most important one probably is the values of the organization are reflected in the spaces in which employees work.

Tanya:  Ultimately, the big learning of the need to create employee experiences is what? Why now? Why is that important? Why should business leaders really keep their eye on that?

Jacob Morgan:  We’re starting to see how hard it is becoming to attract and retain top talent, and the power has shifted from the organizations to employees. Years ago, when your organization had a job that it wanted to fill, the employees would show up, and they would try to convince the organization why they should work there. Today, what we’re starting to see is that now it’s the organizations who are trying to convince the employees why they should work there, and this shift means that we have to move from creating an organization where we assume people need to be there to create an environment where people genuinely want to be there. How do you create an environment where people want to be there? You design experiences for them where they actually want to show up, and this is what allows them to bring in their full selves to work, bring in their passions, do their best for you, unlock opportunities, identify potential threats that might be coming your way. This is ultimately what you need to do to attract and retain the best people and to, I think, really succeed and thrive in the future.

Tanya:  Absolutely, no, I love the idea of intentionally designing an experience for people to come and work in. It’s brilliant. In terms of creating and sustaining a company culture that really attracts and empowers people, how do you do that? Forget the theory. What have you seen people actually do that really works, or what have you seen people do that really doesn’t work?

Jacob Morgan:  There are a lot of different aspects of this because there are some organizations who do well in some of these aspects and not so well in others. I can give you just a few examples of companies that I like. When it comes to physical space as an example, I love what Airbnb does because Airbnb brings the values of their organization to life. They have conference rooms and spaces that are actually designed like Airbnb listings so that you can actually feel like you belong anywhere, which is part of their mission, their values. They actually let a lot of their employees design their workspaces, and they treat their physical space like something that they test and experiment.

They’re constantly tinkering and seeing what spaces work? What spaces don’t work? What makes employees productive and efficient? They do a very good job of bringing those values to life, giving employees that flexibility as far as where they want to work, leveraging multiple workspace options. I think they do a good job. I’m trying to remember when I visited their offices. It was probably a few years ago now. I don’t know if anything has changed since then, but from what I recall, they were doing quite well.

Looking at the culture piece, organizations like a Cisco, or Facebook, or a Google do tremendous work just in terms of the investment they make in diversity and inclusion programs, in their leadership development and training programs, their ability to coach and mentor others. I think they do a phenomenal job there. They do unconscious bias training. They really make employees feel like they belong, and they create these diverse teams, and they let employees feel valued. Everybody has a voice there, so I think they do tremendous work there.

A lot of these companies also do a good job with technology. Accenture is a good example that comes to mind. PwC comes to mind where they really use technologies that emulate the experiences that you would want to have in your personal life. PwC, for example, has an app called Digital Fitness that helps employees get more tech savvy. It’s an app that you download. It looks like just any consumer grade app that you might find, and it gives you access to articles and talks and podcasts so that employees at the company can learn about these different technologies that are out there. It doesn’t feel like a corporate learning management system. It feels like some modern tech startup that just launched an app.

These are some of the examples that pop into mind. Adobe I think does a good job across the board at all three of these environments, and in the book, I think I have a couple pages devoted to what they’re doing for all of these things. There are a lot of wonderful organizations out there that I think are really starting to make progress. In fact, in 2020, the top talent identified by LinkedIn is employee experience, so when I wrote the book, I think it was still very much early. The book is actually selling better now than when it did two, three years ago. It just goes to show that I think it’s still – or it was early. Now I think it’s becoming much more mainstream and people are talking about it and really make change happen, so I’m excited.

Tanya:  In terms of culture, do you know much about Bridgewater & Associates?

Jacob Morgan:  A little bit.

Tanya:  What are your thoughts on having raw transparency, everybody rating each other, having a score associated to whether or not you did good in meetings, and that brutal feedback? How do you think that contributes to culture?

Jacob Morgan:  That is what works for them. I don’t think that that would work for a lot of people. That’s the thing. It doesn’t need to work for a lot of people as long as it works for you. When employees interview there, they know what they’re getting into, and so if you’re not comfortable with that, then simply don’t apply there. Don’t work there. Don’t do that sort of stuff. At the same time, if I were running a company, I wouldn’t look at what Bridgewater does and say, oh, we should do that because they’re doing it.

Every company culture I think is a little bit different. They all have practices that are unique to them, and I know that Ray Dalio is a big believer of radical transparency. Like you said, everybody sees everything. Not everybody’s going to be comfortable with that. It works for them, which is great. Do I think everybody should be doing it (absolutely not)? 

Tanya:  Yeah, so one size definitely does not fit all.

Jacob Morgan:  No.

Tanya:  A takeaway.

Jacob Morgan:  Yeah, absolutely not. I mean, like I said, you have to do what works for you. 

Tanya:  What feels right, yeah. Each company has a personality in a way.

Jacob Morgan:  Yeah, I think I also read something like 30% of the new hires there leave within 18 months of working at the company.

Tanya:  Yeah, the turn is unbelievably high. 

Jacob Morgan:  Yeah. It’s like is that good? Is that bad? His turnover is higher than most organization out there, so maybe that’s not the greatest thing. I think he also had, if you talked behind an employee’s back for three times, then you get fired. If they think it works for them, that’s great, but as we can see with the turnover, maybe it’s not the best. It’s a little bit of a Big Brother. Maybe a little bit of a creepy vibe going on there. Like I said, if it works for the employees there and they like it, more power to them, but I don’t think other people should just blatantly be copying that.

Tanya:  Right, and is there anything that you think is important that we should talk about that we haven’t? 

Jacob Morgan:  Oh, my goodness, anything important to talk about that we haven’t. I think a lot of what we talked about has to start with the leaders inside of organizations. I think it’s really, really crucial. Whether you are someone who wants to be a leader, a new potential leader, or somebody who has been a leader for many, many years, it’s important to understand and embrace the fact that the world is changing. Leadership is changing. Our businesses are going to change, and therefore, as leaders, you are going to have to change as well. Don’t assume that what worked in the past is necessarily going to work in the future, and invest in yourself. Nobody is going to look out for you but you. If you keep investing in yourself and learning and growing, then I think you will do fine in whatever the future brings. 

Tanya:  I’m just bringing this up because it recently came up with one of our clients is this idea that sometimes you might not be in a position to lead, in other words, be appointed or have the authority to lead, but you need to lead. One of that is, for example, leading your boss. Sometimes bosses actually need leading, and that’s very powerful too. People don’t necessarily think of that. What’s your stance on that?

Jacob Morgan:  Oh, absolutely, I mean, I have somebody I work with who does this to me all the time. I shared this story a couple weeks ago with somebody. One of the ways that she leads me – she’s somebody who helps me with a lot of content and research, stuff around writing, and what happened was a little while ago I was giving her a bunch of projects and things to do. It was clearly overwhelming, and in most cases, somebody will just say, yeah, it’s too much work. I can’t do it. Then you get tension. Then you’re like what do you mean you can’t do it? I’m telling you to do it. You got to do it. It just causes this tension between employees at the company.

What she started to do is she would respond to me and say, okay, you gave me all these different things. How do you want me to prioritize this? What would you like me to work on first? What was doing was she was leading me to understand that, (A), this was a lot of work, and (B), not all the things I was giving her are the same priority. It forced me to figure out what is top priority and what isn’t? That’s at least how somebody who’s done that to me on my team. I think that it’s – there are, of course, ways that you should be able to lead your leaders because sometimes they can be a little stupid. Sometimes they can be a little oblivious, right? I mean, I was a little stupid.

It’s very easy to just assign things and say, okay, here are 40 things I need you to do without actually sitting down and thinking through how much work is this? What should be done first and why? Leaders can make mistakes all the time. I think if you work for leader or if you are a leader, you should encourage employees to challenge you, to question you, to ask you things, and if you work for a leader, I think you can do these things in a non-confrontational way. Don’t just say no, or I can’t, or anything like that. Try to come up with solutions, and I think that’s probably the best way that you can lead your leader. 

Tanya:  That’s brilliant. First of all, you sound like a joy to work with, and she’s for sure a keeper. 

Jacob Morgan:  Yes, she is. I hope I’m a joy to work with. I don’t know. Hopefully, everybody says that about me. 

Tanya:  You know what? Just the fact that you are able to really admit when you’re being a little stupid and when you need to be led, that’s very powerful.

Jacob Morgan:  Oh, yeah, I’ve been stupid plenty of times.

Tanya:  Haven’t we all? Okay, so how do we get – how do people get a copy of The Future Leader?

Jacob Morgan:  There are actually a few resources that are available depending on what people are interested in. Just the book itself, you can go to getfutureleaderbook.com. It’s super easy to go there, but there are some cool resources that we also created for the book. You can also take an assessment if you want to see how well you’re practicing these skills and mindsets, and to do that, you can go to futureleadersurvey.com. The other cool resource that I created was I asked all these CEOs what is your top leadership hack? This was stuff that unfortunately I wasn’t able to fit in the book, but I decided to put together a series of 31 videos where each video shares a leadership hack from one of the CEOs that I interviewed, my favorite 31. If you want those leadership hacks, you can go to leadershipreset.com, and you’ll be able to grab all those videos there too.

Tanya:  Amazing! Jacob Morgan, thank you so much for being on the Unmessable podcast today. Really appreciate you sharing your knowledge, and congratulations on The Future Leader. I mean, it’s a really, really well done, thought out, insightful book.

Jacob Morgan:  Oh, my pleasure. Thank you very much for having me, and I appreciate the kind words.

Tanya:  Unmessable is recorded in the heart of New York City, and a special thanks to all the team involved in producing the show. Visit tanyaprive.com/unmessable to find a transcript of this episode, and be sure to subscribe to our newsletter.  

What role does trust play, within your company, when it comes to your individual and team performance? 

Well, it turns out a lot.

As Joel Peterson  — Chairman of JetBlue, Consulting Stanford Professor, Author, and Founder of Peterson Partners which is part Private Equity and Venture Capital firm with over $1 billion under management– puts it: “Trust is the most powerful operating system you can have. A lot of people think of it as this fuzzy feel-good thing; I like somebody, therefore, I trust them. In the book I wrote The Ten Laws of Trust, the fundamental thesis was that you can factor analyze trust, and if a leader will follow these laws, they can actually build a high trust culture. A high trust culture is really a more powerful one because it can deliver on promises. A high trust leader can delegate more easily because the people under him or her are able to predict what they are going to do. People who are low trust, everybody is afraid of them and they’re afraid to make decisions. They’re unable to really empower others.”

In the absence of a high trust culture, what’s possible for the company gets negatively impacted as trust is the foundation upon which relationships are built. In its most basic form, companies are made up of people working together and the quality of the interactions is correlated to the degree of trust.

Also, Joel not only has pioneered and led some of the most forward-thinking companies but has also financed them. As a 2X author, Joel is uniquely positioned to understand what fundamentally successful companies do and has gracefully shared these operating principles in his latest book: Entrepreneurial Leadership: The Art of Launching New Ventures, Inspiring Others and Running Stuff?

Tune in to the full episode to learn about:

Connect with Joel Peterson:

Joel Peterson is the chairman of JetBlue Airways and the founding partner of Peterson Partners, a Salt Lake City-based investment management firm.

Joel has a long history of successful growth capital investments in a variety of industries. He currently teaches Entrepreneurial Management at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, is the Chairman of the Board of Overseers at the Hoover Institution at Stanford as well as the Chairman of the Board at JetBlue Airways, and serves as a Director of Franklin Covey. He served formerly as Managing Partner of Trammell Crow Company. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. Joel is the author of The 10 Laws of Trust: Building the Bonds that Make a Business Great and Entrepreneurial Leadership: The Art of Launching New Ventures, Inspiring Others and Running Stuff.

* * *

Full Transcription:

Joel Peterson: I think a lot of people confuse honesty. They think integrity just means honesty, and they see it as a virtue. I think of it more like structural integrity. There’s no gap between what I say and what I do. People can rely on my promises. They can predict my responses. This is the way to empower your team, to have them know that what you’ll say and do are the same.

Tanya: That’s Joel Peterson, Chairman of JetBlue, consulting professor of Stanford, author and founder of Peterson Partners, which is part private equity and part venture capital firm, with over a billion dollars under management. Joel has not only pioneered and led some of the most forward-thinking companies, but he’s also financed them. As a two-time author, Joel is uniquely positioned to understand what fundamentally successful companies do and has graciously shared these operating principles in his book, Entrepreneurial Leadership: The Art of Launching New Ventures, Inspiring Others and Running Stuff.

Okay, great. Joel, you have had a fascinating career to say the least. I mean, how you navigated where you are is just spectacular. Can you share just a little bit about that journey and what you do.

Joel Peterson: Well, I’d love to be able to take credit for having navigated this journey, but really what happens is you’re in the rapids and you just navigate your way around the rocks and you end up where you end up. Very briefly, I was born in the Midwest, born in Iowa, grew up in Michigan. I was really quite enterprising as a youth, but not entrepreneurial necessarily by nature. I was enterprising out of necessity. My father was a college professor and there were five kids in our family and we really didn’t have much money.

When I was 11 years old, I started my first business and then I’ve worked as a dishwasher for 75 cents an hour, had a lawnmowing business, newspaper routes. I’ve been a biochem lab assistant, a French teacher. I’ve [cleaned] sugar beets. I’ve just done all these kinds of fascinating – I mention that only to say that I think I’ve learned as much from doing that as I did at Harvard Business School. They were really valuable experiences. That’s really the path, and I don’t think you can plan it. You just drive forward, and if you do a good job and you keep hustling and persevering over the tough times, good things tend to happen.

Tanya: Yeah. Well, certainly, being on the ground at 11 you said, your first job.

Joel Peterson: Yeah, well, it’s funny because my dad grew up on a farm and he thought that I should learn how to work and support myself. He lent me a hoe and a little plot of land and I grew vegetables. Then I hired my little brother, who was six years old at the time, we had a red Radio Flyer wagon and he would take these fresh vegetables around the neighborhood and sell them. We made a profit.

Tanya: He must have been quite the seller. I’m sure his sales were record high.

Joel Peterson: He was fantastic. A cute little six year old bringing you fresh vegetables around, that was great marketing. I had no idea how [00:04:39] that was in marketing but it really worked well.

Tanya: Yeah, I can imagine. How did you venture into the world of venture capital, private equity and now the chairman of JetBlue, and also a consulting professor at Stanford, an author?

Joel Peterson: It was, again, by an indirect route. I started out right out of Harvard Business School; I went to work for a fellow by the name of Trammell Crow, who was quite a well-known real estate developer. Still, even at that time he only had 163 people working for him, so it was a small company. My first assignment was to go to the French Riviera to build buildings, so that was a pretty exciting assignment. I ended up figuring out some financings and escaped some others and so they decided that I was good at finance. They brought me back to be the treasurer of the company. By back, I mean back to Dallas, Texas. Then the CFO left after about six months and I was the most senior financial executive, so I became the chief financial officer of this big real estate company when I was, maybe, 29 or 30 years old, something like that. I was there for about 18 years in total.

Tanya: How did you make the leap in really creating your own private equity and venture capital firm?

Joel Peterson: Well, I got fired and sued. There’s a little bit longer story there. For 15 years I was with Crow, I was the chief financial officer, and then I became the CEO of Trammell Crow Residential, which at the time was the largest residential developer in the United States. Then I decided to leave the company. I moved to the west coast and I was going to do something else. About that time, the company started to run into trouble. Several of the partners left and everything, and I was unanimously asked to come back. I flew out from San Francisco to Dallas, Texas every Sunday night at midnight, took the redeye and worked there all week and then flew back for the weekends. I did that for two and a half years. I ended up, effectively working a turnaround and developing a fee business that was profitable.

Then I resisted doing what they call a roll-up, which was, basically, the three most senior of us would roll up the junior partners’ equities to our own accounts at, kind of, the bottom of the market. I just didn’t want to do that; I didn’t think it was right. I didn’t think it was ethical and I didn’t want to make money that way. Anyway, long story short, I was fired and sued in county court, state court, and federal court. I was a couple of years in litigation. Then, eventually, really had to start over. I was probably in my early 40s at that point in time, and I had to figure out what am I good at, what do I like, what’s my network, and reboot myself, which turned out to have been the best thing that ever happened to me.

Joel Peterson: It was stressful at the time. I really felt like I’d made the right decision, but that didn’t make it easy. It was challenging, to say the least! I spent 13 days in video-taped deposition and 5 days on the witness stand. It was a challenge, but as I look back on my life, I think I’m as proud of that as any other thing that’s ever happened to me. You take a stand. I was just reading a biography by Churchill, where he said that all of the bad things that happened to him in his life, largely when he was in, what he called, the wilderness, turned out to have been the very best things for him. That many of what he thought were the best things turned out to have been the worst for him. I really recognized the truth in that. At the moment, I thought, this is the worst thing that could ever happen to a young executive. I was really on the rise. I was at the top of the real estate industry and I thought, this is a terrible thing. As I’ve looked back on it, I thought, this was actually the very best turning point in my life.

Tanya: You know that’s very interesting. How did you pick yourself back up, and is it at that point that you created your PE firm?

Joel Peterson: Yeah. Well, I had started to buy companies a little bit while I was still with Crow, so I owned a couple of companies. One day, somebody said, “Hey, you’re in the private equity business” because I was making these – I didn’t even know the term. I was just buying companies and investing in people and coaching CEOs or whatever. Stanford came to me – I was on the Advisory Board at the business school, and they came to me and said, “We lost the guy who’s teaching real estate. Would you mind teaching it for a year?” I thought, well that’ll be fun and interesting, and so I did that; that was 28 years ago. One thing led to another and I’ve ended up teaching several different courses. At the time, I started investing, in some cases, I was backing former students. In other cases, people they knew. Pretty soon, I just ended up with a portfolio of companies and a network and one thing led to another.

Tanya: Serendipitously, you really created your venture capital arm, your PE firm. How did you land as a chairman of JetBlue?

Joel Peterson: That’s another interesting story. One of my former students worked for George Soros. Soros was one of the early investors in JetBlue and they realized that in their business plan, they had, kind of, a bet-the-company development ahead of them, which was to build out a terminal at JFK. They looked around the Board and realized they were all private equity and venture investors; nobody had ever built a building. My former student said, “I had a real estate professor who actually ran a big real estate company, maybe we could get him to join the Board.” I made an investment, joined the Board. I got the building built, on time, on budget and then ended up becoming chairman of the company. For the last 12 years, I’ve been chairman.

Tanya: What has that experience been like?

Tanya: In terms of the airline business now, and not just the airline business, but just service businesses, travel businesses, anything that’s event-based, face to face, in-person businesses, are having tremendous difficulty with what’s happening globally right now, just the coronavirus epidemic. What are your thoughts on how some of these businesses are really going to weather the disruption, both socially and economically, as we pass through this epidemic?

Joel Peterson: Yeah, so it’s very serious. There’s no way to survive it without help. These are capital intensive businesses that really depend on travelers and people just aren’t traveling. The government will have to step in and basically make accommodations to save the industry. It’s not that anybody in management has done a bad job. In fact, managements of the airlines have been quite successful; they’ve done a really good job. I told people not to worry about it. If you just keep doing – make sure everybody is safe. Keep your culture together. If everybody is doing a good job and is honest and transparent, these things tend to come back, so I’m really not worried about it, other than we’re just all generally worried about getting through this. I think a lot of good things happen from crises too.

Tanya: Oh, absolutely! In some of the toughest economic situations that we’ve had, amazing companies were born. Speaking about entrepreneurial events, you wrote an incredible book called Entrepreneurial Leadership: The Art of Launching New Ventures, Inspiring Others and Running Stuff, which I thought was so good. Anybody that’s listening, I highly recommend that they go check it out. What was the inspiration behind writing it? Why now, or what was the catalyst?

Joel Peterson: I think a lot of it was just spending time with all of these young entrepreneurs at Stanford, which is full of entrepreneurial young people. Then I think the triggering event for me was my wife going on a hike in the mountains and getting lost and having to spend the night alone on the mountain. Realizing that she knew about cell phones, she knew about wearing down jackets, she knew about hiking with others, she knew about having a compass, she knew about staying on the trails, she knew everything. We teach entrepreneurs all these do’s and don’ts and yet many entrepreneurial ventures fail.

I thought maybe there’s a way to get really practical in a book that gives people a recipe, a cookbook, a to-do list, checklist, things to think about, a map. That really is the metaphor that I use. I want to give would-be entrepreneurial leaders, and I’ve expanded that term to mean more than just people who want to be entrepreneurs, people who want to have an entrepreneurial approach to leadership, give them maps that they can refer to. That’s really what provoked it.

Tanya: You said your wife was on a mountain and had to sleep on the top of a mountain for a whole night, how did that happen?

Joel Peterson: We were going to take a trip as a family to all hike around Mont Blanc, and she wanted to get into shape. She was 65 years old at the time, and she was worried that she wouldn’t be able to keep up, so she was sneaking out and doing these hikes on her own. One Saturday she slipped out and did this hike, and she fortunately dropped a pin at the top of the mountain and then I didn’t hear from her. It was starting to get dark and so I called around my kids and one of them said, “Yeah, I haven’t seen her and I don’t know where she is.” She did drop this pin so one of my sons in law drove up to Trail Head and, sure enough, her car was parked all alone in the parking lot. We ended up calling search and rescue. They flew the mountain. They ended up getting the helicopters with the flare technology, heat-sensing stuff. They ended up sending up the cadaver dogs and by early that morning, she wandered into camp with a shattered wrist and all beat up and cold.

Tanya: Oh, no!

Joel Peterson: Yeah, she ended up in surgery a day or so later. Had a titanium plate put in her wrist and seven titanium screws and then three days later, she was on the mountain in Europe, so it all turned out well. I just thought, here’s a person who knows all the rules. Just like our young entrepreneurs and our great students at Stanford, they know the rules, they’re smart people but they run into events on the mountain they didn’t expect. She didn’t expect to get lost on the trail. She didn’t expect dusk to come. Same thing happens to entrepreneurs. What I wanted to do is say, let me give you a set of maps, compasses, rules, checklists. Things that will help you in moments of crises that you can rely on and think about and have a better way of getting down off the mountain.

Tanya: When you say, ‘entrepreneurial leader’ and you say that you’ve expanded that term to not just refer to entrepreneurs, what exactly does it mean to be an entrepreneurial leader? How does that actually show up?

Joel Peterson: I really thought a lot about that. Entrepreneurs are not necessarily entrepreneurial leaders. There are many entrepreneurs who just light fires but they can’t really keep them burning. I wanted to distinguish – I wanted to make the case that entrepreneurial leaders can exist in large organizations, they can exist in not for profits, they can run families, they could do all kinds of things. Really, I try to say, entrepreneurial leaders create durable change. They manage innovation. They lead teams to summits they’d not otherwise achieve. They really, typically, have some skills of the entrepreneur only. They have some skills of people who are presiders, who are able to maintain the status quo of institutions. They have some political skills: people who legislate, make compromises, manage power. They have some skills of managers who, typically, are really good at managing complexity. Then administrators who, principally, deal with policy. The entrepreneurial leader is really the agglomeration of all of these.

I try to think about it in terms of the five-tool players. I don’t know if you know about baseball at all, but there’s what they call the five-tool player who can run, throw, field, hit for power, and hit for average. The five-tool player is the unique player that every baseball scout is looking for. I think the entrepreneurial leader is what every corporate scout should be looking for because they have elements of all of these things that are needed through the lifecycles of an industry. Problems are complex, I think even more so in today’s information-dense society, where employees are volunteers. How do you knit together all these things? I think you need an entrepreneurial leader, not just a politician, not just a presider, not just an entrepreneur. That was the idea of defining this new term.

A funny story, Tanya, I started out call it Running Stuff. Harper Collins came back to me and said, well, we market-tested the name and it attracted joggers!

Tanya: Oh, my God that’s so funny!

Joel Peterson: I loved that name, I just thought that’s just so great. How do you run stuff in this world? In any event, it’s now called Entrepreneurial Leadership. The running stuff made it into the subtitle, as you notice.

Tanya: As you’re talking, I’m thinking, is an entrepreneurial leader like a unicorn in start-ups, like a billion-plus valuation, or are you seeing more of these true entrepreneurial leaders.

Joel Peterson: I see them across industry. I see some people – a couple of the examples I use are of early stage entrepreneurial leaders, but a couple are Alan Mulally, who ran Boeing and Ford, huge companies, and he was quite entrepreneurial. Stan McChrystal, the four-star general who ran joint special operations command, where he had to knit together the navy seals, the force recon marines and army rangers into a unified force. He had to be quite entrepreneurial in a set of circumstances you wouldn’t think there was any room for entrepreneurial activity. He had to innovate, he had to manage, he had to think about policy, he had to think second and third order effects, he had to think about the future, and knit all these things together in complexity, into something that is durable, that would last. Pure entrepreneurs are, typically, really good at lighting a fire, getting something

Tanya: I’ve actually seen a lot of people like that. Some people know their place in the world, they love to start things and they know the correct hand-off point. If you have that awareness, amazing, otherwise it goes against you.

In your book, you talk about trust as being foundational. Why is that and what happens in the absence of trust in a team or in an organization?

Joel Peterson: Well, trust I think is the most powerful operating system you can have. A lot of people think of it as this fuzzy feel good thing; I like somebody therefore I trust them. I did write a book before this one called The Ten Laws of Trust, where the fundamental thesis was that there are – you factor analyze trust, and if a leader will follow these laws, they can actually build a high trust culture. High trust culture is really a more powerful one because it can deliver on promises. A high trust leader can delegate more easily because the people under him or her are able to predict what they are going to do. People who are low trust, everybody is afraid of them and they’re afraid to make decisions. They’re unable to really empower others.

I think a high trust organization tends to, again, be more flexible, more innovative, a happier place to work. I actually make building trust the number one thing that an entrepreneur needs. If you think, you’ve been an entrepreneur, so you know, suppliers have to trust you, creditors have to trust you, investors have to trust you, your employees have to trust you. It really becomes, kind of, the operating system for getting a business started, and I think a lot of people forget that as organizations grow and become hierarchical.

Tanya: Yes, and actually we’re often brought into executive teams, and even Boards, to restore trust and that is not a lot of teams – at least that we’ve seen, not to say that they don’t exist – but there’s not a lot of teams that operate with that principle as the foundation of their team. It might start off like that but then something happens, an event occurs, and trust is broken. Have you thought about how to restore trust?

Joel Peterson: Yeah, it’s interesting, when I first published this book, it was by AMA, American Management Association, who was bought by Harper Collins. Harper Collins looked at all the titles they bought and they said, “This one is actually an interesting one but we will have to have you increase the content by about 30%.” I said, well I haven’t thought much about it, how do you do that? They said, “Well, think about the questions that people bring up when they read the book.” I said, well, there really are two of them. One is people want to know how I know the trust level in my organization currently. People tend not to tell leaders when trust levels are low. They say, how do we figure that out?

The second one was how do you overcome betrayal, which is really the question you’re asking. How do you overcome that? I thought a lot about that and said, fundamentally, betrayal is not delivering on promises. If you tell me you’re going to do something and then don’t do it, that’s a form of betrayal. Now, it maybe because you didn’t understand what we were talking about, it maybe because there was an intervening variable, and the answer to that kind of betrayal is to fix it immediately. To clarify it, to have an understanding for you and me to have a conversation so we can move on again with trust. I think a lot of organizations don’t fix immediate betrayals, disappointments. People just go quiet and they don’t have the automatic feedback and transparency. The number one thing, with these kinds of minor betrayals, which are broken promises, failed delivery dates, failed on time efforts, is to just talk about, fix it. Figure out what happened and move on.

There’s the other kind of betrayal, which typically comes from lying, cheating, stealing, being sneaky, lacking transparency whatever. My answer to that is get out of business with that person asap, but the second step to that is to forgive; not to relive it. To start living in the future not in the past, and that is really hard. People who go back to the burning ship and keep reliving it actually have a hard time moving on. The two kinds of betrayal and that’s how I would say to deal with them.

Tanya: That’s great. What do you think is behind people not addressing those minor betrayals, like you said? What’s getting in the way of people recognizing the importance of addressing them? It’s like a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, and eventually it becomes a lot and it’s unworkable.

Joel Peterson: Well, I think a lot of it is people don’t know how to give and receive feedback, and they don’t like any level of conflict. People feel like they have to sugarcoat everything and they just don’t have this honest way of talking. I think that’s a norm you have to establish early on. I think if you wait too long that’s a hard norm to establish, after there have been these minor betrayals. I have an entrepreneur who comes to class, pretty much every quarter, and she says that the problem that she had was that her approach to employees is I love you, I love you, I love you, get out of here! She just wouldn’t take on the – she just wanted to give positive feedback until she just couldn’t stand anymore and then it was fire them and move on. I think a lot of people behave that way.

Tanya: Can you think of an example where there was a minor betrayal, that something wasn’t delivered on time, an effective way that you addressed it, or somebody in your circle.

Joel Peterson: I think one of the best ways to think about that is when you have blown it. To actually have a feedback session where you are the object of the criticism. I remember having deal meetings and calling the team together afterwards and saying something like, I think I blew it in that I was continuing to sell and to push on this after the sale was already made. What do you guys think? They would say, yeah, you did, kind of, do that, I think I did whatever, and so it becomes a fun thing. If you can start out by critiquing yourself and saying here’s what I think I did, here’s what I’m going to do to improve on it, what do you think? Then you’ve initiated a feedback loop; a way for people to talk about stuff like that.

Tanya: That’s interesting, and it gives people permission to speak openly.

Joel Peterson: Absolutely and it’s okay. Alan Mulally, who I mentioned a little bit ago, he said when he first went to Ford, he had this checklist, the green, yellow, red thing, and he said every report was green. Everything was green. Finally one day, somebody reported a red and he just stopped the meeting and applauded. To say, this is great; somebody is saying something is not going right. Pretty soon, people started reporting red and yellow, and they were having more complete discussions. That way, you can address it. If there’s no communication and people hide it and they’re afraid, you can’t address it and the betrayals keep going.

Tanya: Yeah, absolutely. What we’ve seen is if you don’t address the little things, the things that you think don’t matter, the things that you think is going to be disruptive to business, then that very thing becomes a disruption.

Joel Peterson: Absolutely!

Tanya: In the book, you speak about integrity as also being of high importance. How is integrity connected to trust and how do you define integrity?

Joel Peterson: Well, I think if absent integrity, you don’t trust. If you think somebody doesn’t have integrity, you’re not going to trust them, so it is foundational. I think a lot of people confuse as honesty; they think integrity just means honesty and they see it as a virtue. I think of it more like structural integrity. There’s no gap between what I say and what I do. People can rely on my promises. They can predict my responses. This is the way to empower your team, to have them know what you’ll say and do are the same because you have such integrity between what you say and do. You’re consistent. Getting that kind of integrity is the essence of building trust.

Tanya: A super strong, undeniable correlation between trust and integrity. I actually just got that for myself this year. That in the absence of integrity, trust is not possible, even small things. Yeah, I never got that before, and when I did, it’s brilliant. In terms of really thinking about your operating system and this is something you write about in the book, which I thought was really interesting and genius, you said that there’s a need to rewrite your operating system. What do you mean by operating system, and what did you have to do in order to really elevate yourself as a leader, like rewire your neural networks?

Joel Peterson: Yes, it’s funny. Everybody knows what an operating system is today because we all work with computers. We know that that’s the foundation for how it receives information, processes, and gives it back to us, so we each have a way that we go about understanding the world and reacting to the world. If we can get feedback on how effective our operating system is, we can then start to think about adjusting it. In my own case, I realized that I was failing in certain things because I had a tendency – I really have three tendencies that were getting in my way. One was that I tended to see myself at the center of the universe, and I think it was maybe because I was the oldest of five children. My parents thought I was great, and I just had this positive feedback. In any event, I just felt I was at the center of the universe.

The second thing was I felt like I had to react emotionally to things. That’s how I feel. I can’t react any other way because that’s how I feel. The emotions really became a center. Then the third thing that was – that I found that I was doing was I was blaming others. In other words, if a project didn’t get done on time, it was somebody else’s fault. I always did what I was supposed to do. I was very dutiful, and so that had to be somebody else’s fault.

I came up with mantras to address these, and the three for me were – for the first one is it’s not about me. It’s about the mission, and I’m not the center of the universe. The second one was I am not my emotions. My emotions aren’t requiring me to – I can determine how I’m going to respond to a stimulus. Then the third one, rather than blame others was just to tell myself this calming phrase I have all I need. Somehow or another that just calmed me down, and I stopped blaming. I started just giving credit to others, absorbing blame, and just not being on that treadmill.

I think it probably took me a couple of years, but over time I had to say them less and less to myself. My natural reaction was not emotional, not egocentric, not blaming others. I really had developed a new way of seeing the world. I think that’s a really powerful way to establishing trust with others. Once they know they can trust you to be that stable, everything else can start to develop, but it’s foundational.

Tanya: What did this rewiring of your operating system do? What did it allow you to do better?

Joel Peterson: It allowed me to be a more effective leader. People respected me. I always say don’t solve for being liked. I think a lot of people want to be loved more than anything, and they’ll end up not being respected and then not being loved. If they start out solving for respect, being predictable, having integrity, doing all these things, that eventually they really will be loved. It turned out that people started to turn to me when times were tough. I ended up doing a lot of kinds of turnarounds, a lot of coaching, a lot of board work, a lot of teaching because people found those true. I had reworked my operating system enough that they actually were true.

Tanya: As you are talking about this, integrity as a virtue as opposed to a practice, do you ever think that somebody ever reaches the peak of integrity like they’ve made it?

Joel Peterson: Probably not. I think you get to a point where it’s more reliable, but I think, ultimately, we’re pretty – we avoid pain. We seek pleasure. We look for easy ways out. I mean, I think our natural instincts are for the path of least resistance, so I think you have to keep coaching yourself. You have to keep working at it and thinking about it. It starts out with thinking about what am I really solving for? There’s something really powerful about being a lavish communicator, and that means communicating bad news as well as good news. It means communicating more than less. It means communicating directly. It means listening as well as talking.

I think a lot of people think communications being this one-way announcement kind of communication. As your leaders, we speak from the corner office ex cathedra, and I don’t think that works. Communications are two-way. You listen. You adjust. I think if you keep doing that, you don’t lose integrity with your audience.

Tanya: In terms of entrepreneurs, you’ve invested in a number of different entrepreneurial ventures and have been – either come across some of your students at Stanford, lots of entrepreneurs coming out of Stanford. What are some of the patterns if any that you’ve been able to recognize that really give birth to some of the effective leaders?

Joel Peterson: I think it starts with a clear understanding of meeting a need, which is kind of this market test. Some people are attuned to the market, and I just think if you think about what is the problem that people – the greatest salespeople are problem solvers. They listen. I think the greatest entrepreneurs recognize a need in the marketplace, and they design a product or service that provides for meeting that need in a way that’s more valuable to the customer than it costs them to achieve it. That’s the fundamental equation, and I just find that some people are just really attuned to that. They have this real sense of cost benefit and of customers, so I think that’s the beginning. That’s the beginning of entrepreneurial activity.

The next thing, though, is that you really do have to be clear about what it is you’re trying to achieve. In other words, what I ask my students is to imagine winning. What would winning look like? Describe it. Flush it out. Is it in terms of financial win? Is it in terms of market shares? Is it terms of innovation? Really define winning in a clear way.

The third thing that the more successful ones do is they attract others. They are able to source great people effectively, sift through resumes, interview, discern who’s the best fit. They onboard them effectively. They coach. They give feedback. They promote. They demote and they fire. They make sure that they have the best team on the field.

Then there’s a whole series of things that I describe in the book, which are really the execution steps. They really know the maps for doing the eight or ten things that every entrepreneur runs into in building a business. I think there are better and worse ways to do those, and so I try to help people. In fact, that’s really what my classes are about is try to help people with the skills that they need to deal with the problems they’re sure to face.

Tanya: What is one of the toughest problems that you have to – that you’ve had to solve in your professional career?

Joel Peterson: I think the toughest ones for me come typically around people in organization. I think the hardest thing is how do you organize people? How do you get reporting relationships right? A lot of organizations, they’re cross-marketing. They have a national market, and they have a local market. They have products types, and they have services. Getting the organization to hit on all cylinders is really hard. I think turnarounds are hard because everything’s in crisis. It does tend to simplify things, but the emotions that come with and the uncertainty that comes with turnarounds – which we’re going to see a lot of with the coronavirus.

Tanya: Yeah, we will.

Joel Peterson: A lot of businesses are going to face just that.

Tanya: Speaking of that, what is your typical approach to dealing with the turnaround? I’m sure emotions run high. There’s really tough decisions that you have to make, huge uncertainty. How do you approach that systematically in a most effective way?

Joel Peterson: Yeah, so I have a number of rules. Again, this is a book of maps, and the first thing I say is that you got to confront reality. I think a lot of people deny that they need to turnaround before it’s really serious. Great managers, great entrepreneurial leaders are doing minor turnarounds every month. They’re adjusting. They’re tweaking. They don’t let things get to the crisis state. I think the first thing is you confront reality.

The second thing is you have to bring the team into the tent. You got to then focus on the core. Most businesses as they grow develop hobbies and pilots and things that are really not essential to the business. You’ve got to say what is – what must we do to survive? Then focus on that. Then I think they have to set metrics around that. They have to really understand the numbers that are going to allow them to succeed or fail.

In every case that I’ve worked on, they have to extend the runway, and that always means cash. It means that you delay outgo and you increase in-flows. You give yourself more time. It takes more time than you think, so you need to not dither. You have to take swift actions. You make changes sooner than later. Then, finally, I think one of the important things that a lot of people forget is to think about the recovery, to anticipate success, anticipate growth. Think about the opportunities that come from it and not to fear. There’s so many good things can come out of these challenges that I think fear is really your enemy, so I think if you do those things the odds are pretty high that you’ll emerge a stronger company and a better team than you entered.

Tanya: Do you have an example of a specific turnaround that you were involved in and how you actually lead it through?

Joel Peterson: The one at Crow I was really involved in. We were losing money regularly, and I basically said we’ve got to do three things in order. The first thing we have to do is become shipshape. I developed a set of metrics, five metrics that said this is what it means to be shipshape. We had 92 divisions, and then I just said, okay, so far 14 of you are shipshape. I just set the metric, and every week I reported back on who was becoming shipshape.

The second thing is we need to become profitable, and that meant in the current term. A lot of our businesses were losing money currently but making – creating value over time, and I said, no, we’ve got to be profitable in the current. Then once we’re shipshape, in other words our balance sheet is fixed, profitable, in other words our income statement is fixed, we’re going to become well run, and well run means we have a great strategy. We have a great team, etc. We ended up selling Trammell Crow Company to Coldwell Banker, and I think a lot of the value that – and the whole reason Coldwell Banker was interested in buying Crow really related to the work that was done during that period of time.

Tanya: How do you manage the culture during a turnaround? Obviously, the culture is at the foundation. It’s the context upon which people operate. If there’s a culture of fear, uncertainty, you don’t know if you’re going to have your job. You don’t know if you’re going to have your business unit in a month’s time. How do you manage that?

Joel Peterson: Yeah, that’s a great question. I think that’s the right focus. I think we’re involved in that right now at JetBlue. You have to say what do we care about? We care about the safety of our customers, and we care about the wellbeing of our crew members. That’s really what we’re solving for, and so we keep talking about it. We keep checking the temperature of people.

We just do everything we can to manage that so that it’s not just about the finances in the moment. No yelling. No throwing things. No demonstrations of exacerbation. You can feel all those things, but people magnify them in times of stress.

Tanya: Yeah, and there was actually – on Twitter, I’ve been veraciously reading everything that I can over the last week, as have many other people. There is a dialogue around businesses that are going to really stand for their people in tough times, even if that means taking a hit from a share price or from a profitability price, versus some of the businesses that opt to let people go because they just have too much expenses for what’s coming in. That dialogue, no question, impacts culture. How do you manage that? What if you really do care about your employees, but you really just have an incredible overhead with very little revenue coming in when everybody’s parked at home? How would you navigate that as a leader?

Joel Peterson: It’s a balancing act. Neither of the extremes is right. At JetBlue, I know the board is taking big cuts in their compensation, lead the way. Certain people are taking early retirement. Others are furloughing, self-furloughing and so if you can ever get the idea that we’re all in this together. There’s no preferred class. We’re all doing our utmost to protect this brand, this company that means so much to us and each other as members of the community. It goes a long way.

Tanya: Okay, so I read this, a father of seven. Is that right?

Joel Peterson: Yeah, I always kid with the students. If they think I don’t know anything about management, just think about that for a minute.

Tanya: Yeah, I can’t even – you must have a super wife.

Joel Peterson: I do, yeah.

Tanya: Wow! What has been your biggest lesson as a father?

Joel Peterson: I would say it is to be a cheerleader and not a policeman. People respond to coaching, to positive reinforcement, to praise, to love. I think love is the most powerful force in the universe. My view is just love your kids to death. Sometimes that means correcting them and helping them, but I think it’s really very powerful. They sense it. They may not feel it in the moment. I realize that some of my teenagers took a vacation from that feeling for a while, but they always come back.

Tanya: That’s interesting. My father just said that. He said that to me. I have three kids under 3, well, 3½, 2½, and 2½.

Joel Peterson: Oh, wow! You are [45:42]

Tanya: Yeah, it’s a lot right now, and I do feel like a policeman a lot of the times. This one’s banging on the wall. That one’s throwing stuff on the floor. That one’s putting stuff in the toilet. It’s like ahh!

Joel Peterson: It gets better.

Tanya: Yeah, that’s what my father said. He’s like, “You know what? This is a rough period. Then they’re going to want to hang out with you. Then they’re going to leave you, and then they’ll come back eventually.”

Joel Peterson: Yeah, exactly. He’s got the drill.

Tanya: Yeah, so is there anything, Joel, that we haven’t talked about that you think is important to talk about?

Joel Peterson: Oh, gosh, I think one of the main lessons that I always give – I like you do a bunch of coaching. I think, this idea that leaders can be developed, they’re not to the manner born, the idea that there are skills and maps and principles and laws, as it were. Now, some of these are easier for some, of course, than they are for others, and many of us have limitations when we get so far in it. The idea that there is a kit of tools, there’s a way to approach things that works better than our natural instincts. I think that’s a hopeful message.

Tanya: You talk about it in your book so brilliantly, Entrepreneurial Leadership. Where could people get a copy of this incredible book?

Joel Peterson: It is released on April 21. It’s on Amazon, I know, and there’s an audible version that’ll be available the same day. Then if anybody wants to follow me, there’s a joelcpeterson.com account and also a Twitter. I’m @JoelCPeterson. Some people follow that and can keep a – the best social media I found for me at least is LinkedIn. I have maybe 400,000 or more followers on LinkedIn.

Tanya: Wonderful! Joel, this has been an absolute pleasure. First of all, you are a gift to society, really. It’s been a real joy sharing this time with you. Thank you.

Joel Peterson: Thank you, Tanya, and good luck with those little ones.

Tanya: Thank you. I need it.

Announcement: Unmessable is recorded in the heart of New York City, and a special thanks to all the team involved in producing the show. Visit tanyaprive.com/unmessable to find a transcript of this episode, and be sure to subscribe to our newsletter.

How many women do you know want it all and try their best to have it? Work full-time, be there for the kids, volunteer for Parent Association at the kids’ school, run the household (which is a full-time job in itself) and have somewhat of a life?

There’s a lot, right?

As Romi Neustadt — author, entrepreneur and mom — puts it: You Can Have It All: Just Not At The Same Damn Time (which is also the title of her book).

As a former corporate chick who traded in the billable hour to become an entrepreneur, she’s figured out how to juggle being a wife, a mom, a professional success, and a healthy human without losing her mind. And she’s on a mission to help other women Have It All too. Romi’s first book, Get Over Your Damn Self: The No-BS Blueprint to Building a Life-Changing Business, was selected as a Forbes Best Business Book for Women and sold over 200K copies. Her second book You Can Have It All: Just Not At The Same Damn Time makes a distinction between doing it all (which is where most of us go wrong) and having it all. Romi provides a framework to get your life on track and in line with what really matters to you.

Tune in to the full episode to learn about:

Connect with Romi Neustadt:

It’s possible to have all the things that are really important to us. How do I know? Because I’ve done it, and I’ve made it my mission to help other women Have It All too.

Like you, I’m a lot of things. I’m John Neustadt’s wife. He’s a naturopathic doctor, an entrepreneur and an insanely incredible husband and dad who makes us laugh on the daily. I’m Nate and Bebe’s mom, and it’s the most important job and biggest honor I’ll ever have. These two precocious, vivacious, hilarious humans are growing up way too fast and teaching me as much (or more) than I’m teaching them. My family is by far my greatest achievement and the most important part of my All.

I’m a yoga-loving flexitarian who lives for big adventures and everyday magical moments. I’m a world traveler and a total sucker for a gorgeous coastline. As much as I love serving people, I crave quiet time with John and the kids and sacred alone time to recharge. I’m a lover of good movies, good books, a good night’s sleep and sometimes a good long cry.

I’m also an entrepreneur who’s built an enormously successful direct sales business. It allowed this former lawyer-turned-PR-exec to leave my billable-hour career and design a life where I call the shots—when and where I work and who I want to work with. I’m a best-selling author who wrote a book to teach others in direct sales, network marketing and other sales professions (real estate, insurance, fundraising and more) to build a life-changing business too. I’m a speaker and life and business coach who loves to share my hard-earned wisdom on stage in front of thousands, streaming in virtually to hundreds or having coffee talk or a glass of wine with big handfuls of the most driven women who are ready to dream their wildest dreams and are committed to achieving them.

* * *

Full Transcription:

Romi Neustadt: You write down an H next to the things that you think you have to be doing and an S next to the things you think you should be doing. It’s in the things marked with an H or an S that I help people find more time, and it’s in those two categories often times that, really, you should be delegating or deleting them.

Tanya: That’s Romi Neustadt, former corporate chick who traded in the billable hours to become a successful entrepreneur. She’s figured out how to juggle being a wife, a mom, a professional success, and a healthy human without losing her mind, and she’s on a mission to help other women have it all too. Romi’s first book, Get Over Your Damn Self: The No-BS Blueprint to Building a Life-Changing Business, was selected as a Forbes best business book for women and sold over 200,000 copies. Her second book, You Can Have It All, Just Not at the Same Damn Time, makes a key distinction between doing it all, which is where most of us go wrong, and having it all. Romi provides a framework to get your life on track and in line with what matters most to you.

Romi, your story is super interesting, actually, and Romi, I don’t think I’ve ever heard that name before. I would love to know where you grew up and a little bit about your professional journey as you’ve entered into law, into PR, consulting, author, speaker, you name it.

Romi Neustadt: I grew up in the thriving metropolis of Butte, Montana, which is a small town. It used to be a vibrant mining town. As I was growing up, it had dwindled in size, and it gave me an incredible upbringing full of heart and soul and scrappy resilience. Then I went to USC in Los Angeles for journalism school for undergrad, and I was too afraid to pursue journalism because I didn’t think I had what it took to make it out of the small markets. I did the safe route, and I went to law school. I went to the University of Virginia School of Law, and even in law school, I had a sense that this wasn’t the right career for me. I ended up being a business litigator, and it turns out I’m not meant to fight for a living. I’m meant to bring people together and build people up and promote things.

After less than three years, I escaped the practice of law and talked my way into a PR job in New York. I figured, given my background, I would be able to at least get something in PR and always wanted to live in New York City. I just never wanted to be a New York lawyer. That kicked off a very successful career over the next dozen years where I was in PR in New York and Seattle. Then when my husband John and I had two little kids and I was looking for more flexibility, I really loved the idea of being my own boss. I wanted to escape from the billable hour. I started my own business and became a very successful entrepreneur and then started writing books. My first book was about how I built my business, and I do speaking. I’m raising these two incredible humans, and I have my marriage and a very full, vibrant life that has been and continues to be an evolution.

Tanya: Isn’t it always? The moment it stops, we’ll be dead.

Romi Neustadt: That’s right.

Tanya: You said you were an entrepreneur. What was your business about?

Romi Neustadt: I started a direct sales business in skincare. I never in a million years thought that that would be my passion, my career, but what it has done for me is it’s combined my love for people and promoting things that I love and building people up. It now spans across the US, Canada, and Australia. It allowed me to design the professional life I wanted, increase my earnings dramatically. I busted my ass for years doing it, and I really fall in love with mentoring other people and helping them design businesses that they want to serve their goals.

Tanya: Isn’t that the best teacher, by the way, is when you actually get to mentor, or even guide, or coach? You’re going through the learnings as you’re going through the coaching or the guidance, except it’s landing in a super profound way. At least that’s what I found.

Romi Neustadt: I found that to be the case as well. It has helped me evolve not only in a more effective professional and entrepreneur and leader, but it also has infused all parts of my life, including my writing and speaking and, frankly, parenting.

Tanya: Yeah, which is a big job, one that doesn’t necessarily come with a guidebook and is all-consuming.

Romi Neustadt Yeah, it is the hardest job, and I’m constantly grabbing from my professional toolkit for use in parenting and even sometimes vice versa.

Tanya: Yeah, absolutely, and so you just launched a book that I find absolutely brilliant and directly speaks to me, which is a mom, Type A, super ambitious, and fulltime in the workforce. Your book is called You Can Have It All, Just Not at the Same Damn Time. What was the inspiration and motivation behind writing this book?

Romi Neustadt: I have people come to me all the time saying how do you do everything you do? I could never do what you do, and I wanted to dispel that myth, this notion about having it all. It’s such a bad rap, and it’s because we’re having the wrong conversation. We are confusing having it all with doing it all, and we most certainly can’t do it all. I wanted to share very candidly, authentically, about my journey from a working mom who was drowning in her own to-do list and having a breakdown into how I found and developed the tools to figure out what it was that I really wanted my life to look like and how to let go of everything else. I wanted to put it all together in this road map for people. I wrote the book for women, but men are finding it and absolutely loving it as well. I wanted to give everyone permission to learn how to say no, to stop should-ing all over the place. Let go of all the shoulds that we fill our lives with and to figure out what they uniquely want their lives to look like and go back to that.

Tanya: You were mentioning this really came out of a breakdown that you were having in your life. What happened, and what was your journey to pull yourself out of it?

Romi Neustadt: Seven years ago, I had a fast-growing business, these two little fast-growing kids. I had a marriage that needed nurturing. I needed nurturing. I had an aging mom that needed more and more time, and I was involved in a whole host of extracurricular activities. I was drowning. My life was whizzing by. I didn’t feel like I was present in my life. I knew that there simply weren’t enough hours in a day to do what I was doing. I felt stressed. I felt exhausted. I had constant feelings of inadequacy, and I was bitchy as hell.

Tanya: Yeah, I’m right there.

Romi Neustadt: Right? I didn’t like who I was. One day, I went to my husband, John, and I said, “Sweetheart, I need to run away from home for a few days and figure this out.” He said, “Absolutely, go.” He had been watching what had been happening with me, and he had even been trying to help in his own way. I didn’t want to hear any of it. We have to get to that point ourselves where we just have had enough, and off I went. I checked myself into a hotel for a few days and gave myself the greatest gift, which was time and space and quiet to do the introspection to figure out, okay, how am I going to recalibrate this gift of life? This isn’t how I want to live.

I was armed with some books and a journal and my laptop, and I was reading and searching and thinking, things that I never ever gave myself permission to do. It dawned on me that, at 42, not once, not ever my entire life had I stopped to figure out what my priorities were, and in fact, I had always confused priorities and goals. My mom jokes that I came out of the womb setting goals. I would set goals, and I would slay them. I just figured, okay, that’s the important stuff. Those are my priorities. I thought they were synonyms, but it turns out, as I found in my reading, that priorities are the things that are so important to us right now in the present tense that not serving them is nonnegotiable and that our goals are the things that haven’t yet happened. Those are the things in the future that are important enough to us that we want to work toward them.

Here’s the important part. If your goals don’t serve your priorities, if your goals aren’t serving the things you say are the most important in your life right now, that’s when we feel scattered and unfulfilled. That’s when we can’t find the time to do the things that are truly important to us, and that was the life I had been living.

Tanya: As you’re talking through this, I’m trying to pull this into my own life. Goals, I have big goals for myself, for my family, for my community, for my work, and my priorities in the present tense is keep my kids alive and try to raise them half decently. How do you reconcile those two and, obviously, enjoy them? Time is something that you’ll never get back. How do you align – when this train is going so fast and there’s so many things to handle and do and, for the most part, not that it’s like this in every family but women somehow – it was like this in my family, my immediate family, and my mom and my dad. The women, in addition to working fulltime, actually take on the brunt of the work at home, like scheduling everything and the kids and the doctors and the health and the schools and all that stuff. How do you align your priorities and your goals when they seemingly are at odds with each other?

Romi Neustadt: The reason why for many people they seem to be at odds is because they truly haven’t spent the time to give themselves the permission to figure out what the priorities are without any external influence, without carrying in any of these notions of what people expect or what they think they should be doing because of what society tells them. I mean, out of the tens of thousands of women I’ve coached, a sliver have ever stopped to figure out what it is that’s really important to them. When you do give yourself the time and space to do that, it tends to become pretty clear what is truly important. First of all, even for those of us who are overachievers, it’s important to understand we can only serve two to three priorities at any one time. More than that is simply not possible for us mere mortal humans. Now, for me, it became really clear that, when I stripped everything away and thought about what is the most important in my life right now, there were three areas, first and foremost, my health. A perennial priority of mine, Tanya, is I make healthy choices every day. I know if I’m not doing that I can’t get to anything else. If my health and body and mind isn’t there, everything else goes to pot.

Then it also became very clear to me and you alluded to this in referencing your kids, another priority of mine had to do with the people I love most, and even though the wording may change a little, every single year one of my priorities centers around being present in the lives of the people I love, which are my husband, my kids, and my close friends and my mother. Then the third priority for me always centers around the professional realm. For example, the priority I have and have had for the last few years is about helping women design the lives they really want, and so when I am setting goals, those goals have to serve one of those priorities, or it’s the wrong goal. Let’s talk about health for a moment. For years and years, I had a goal of fitting into a certain size of clothing. Yet, my true priority revolves around health. A number on a tag in your pants has nothing to do with health. When I instead started focusing on goals that would serve that priority like eating mostly plants, getting eight hours of sleep finally, I was actually serving that priority, and it was a lot easier to attain those goals because there was a direct connection.

Tanya: Okay, I see that. I could see that by switching a pant size, like a Target pant size to a directional goal, which is like being healthy, that allows you to not just look at how to get down to a size whatever. Now you look at sleep. You look at exercise. You look at eating. Eating becomes a component of that. You look at the dynamics of your relationships. It’s really directional, and it’s the heading upon which you begin to operate in or the context upon which you begin to operate in, which is powerful.

Romi Neustadt Exactly,

Tanya: Mm-hmm. Okay, so how do you – let’s say, for people out there – and I just had a friend that came over this weekend, and her job is a means to an end for her. She’s actually brilliant at it turns out, interior designer, and really, really talented, but right now, it’s a means to an end for her. Her real passion is writing, very similar to you, but she’s not sure. Actually, she knows that she wouldn’t be able to support herself. Whether that’s true or not, in her mind, there’s no path to being able to support herself through writing. How do you bridge those two when you have an actual obligation of people that depend on you to live and survive versus what really moves you?

Romi Neustadt: First off, I have a lot of experience with this. Not only myself but tens of thousands of women I work with have created their Plan Bs, their exit strategies from careers that they no longer want or no longer serve them while doing both concurrently, so I know it’s possible. The other thing that I would immediately say to your friend is stop telling yourself BS stories that this can never happen. Instead, let’s figure out how to make it happen, how to create more time in your life for the things that light you up while still supporting your family so that you can figure out if in fact this is something you can incorporate as either an additional career that you pursue, or it could one day become a replacement. Now, a huge part of that is by doing an exercise that I call relentlessly editing your life. When I say that, when I’m giving talks or coaching, I love watching the women. Their eyes light up and their shoulders come down from their ears because this prospect of being able to relentlessly edit their life is so exciting.

How it works and I walk folks through this in the book, you figure out everything you’re doing in the course of a week, and I mean everything. Write it down and how long you’re spending doing it. Then you get to categorize it. You get to mark a P for the things that are serving your priorities, a G for the things that are serving your goals. M for the things you must do like personal hygiene and going to the bathroom. I said you got to write down everything. Then you write down an H next to the things that you think you have to be doing, and an S next to the things you think you should be doing. It’s in the things marked with an H or an S that I help people find more time, and it’s in those two categories often times that, really, you should be delegating or deleting them. For example, especially for working moms, if one thing on your plate is serving as the fundraising chair for the school fundraiser, if that’s not serving one of your priorities or goals, guess what? You shouldn’t be doing it, but often times, we say yes to things because we are afraid to disappoint others or to be judged.

When I was building my business, Tanya, I could not make a home-cooked meal every night. There was no way in hell I could do the PR business and build my other business and be present for my kid and do this, but I had this voice in my head that said, well, my mom always made dinner every night. It’s what a good mother does. Now, that’s a should, and I got really adept at doing meal assembly. This was before we had this fabulous meal in a kit things or these food delivery services.

Tanya: Plated, yes, or like that.

Romi Neustadt: Right, or the great deli sections at grocery stores, right? We have no excuse now. What I’m on a mission to help especially women do because we’re so good at this is to stop should-ing all over the place.

Tanya: Yes, you know what’s so powerful about what you just said is we have these unexamined, unconscious outlooks on life, our world views that guide us to do things that just don’t work for us. For example, cook a home-cooked meal every night because that’s what a good mother should do. It’s like inherited patterns that we get from one generation to the next. Until you actually stop to disrupt that cycle or that pattern, it just runs your life, and it’s at odds with perhaps your goals and what your priorities are so really brilliant. Why do you think this is mostly a woman problem?

Romi Neustadt: Now, please understand that men are not figuring out their priorities. They’re not figuring out their goals that serve them. I have many men finding this book and loving it, even though I wrote it for women, but we women more than men have a very hard time saying no. We are, I believe, genetically predisposed to want to be people pleasers. We want everyone to like us, and in general, men don’t fall prey to that same predicament. We put unrealistic expectations on ourselves, and yes, it is in part, as you previously mentioned, societal pressures. Women are supposed to go to work, and then they’re supposed to be superhuman supermoms. I think this is exacerbated by this carefully curated, instant perfection world that we live in of who we’re supposed to be, how much we’re supposed to do, what we’re supposed to look like while we’re doing it. I think all of that leads us to think we have to do it all, and we absolutely can’t.

What I’m so passionate about and what I’ve seen recently in traveling around the country on my book tour is that, when we women give ourselves the time and the space and permission to figure out what we really want to do in life, what our all looks like and when we let go of all the other stuff and live our truth, what happens is we’re secure in our choices. We’re living lives that light us up and use our talents and our time, and we’re more likely to do the things we were meant to do, what we were put here to do. Then the woman next to us, she’s no longer competition. She’s inspiration, and we champion one another. If all of us women were living this way with this kind of intention and authentic purpose, we would be lifting each other up, and imagine the kids we could raise.

Tanya: Yes, and I think that the best way to teach your kid to really live their best life is to do that with yours. Lead by example. This is really amazing. Just to close off here, what is the best piece of advice you ever got and from whom?

Romi Neustadt: I’ve been very lucky to have a lot of mentors and wise people. One piece of advice just resonates with me and always will and has dictated a lot of the choices and, ultimately, I think led me to these epiphanies and relentlessly added in my life. When I was a PR consultant, I had a client, Nell Merlino. Nell was the mastermind behind Take Our Daughters to Work Day, which became Take Our Children to Work Day. I was working with her on her later project, which was Count Me In for Women’s Economic Independence. We were driving to – I believe it was a press conference.

Nell said to me, “Romi, do you know why there aren’t more women millionaires?” I said, “Why, Nell?” She said, “Women refuse to delegate. If every woman stopped doing the things that she could hire or give to somebody else and only focus on those things that she should uniquely be doing, it would make a world of difference.” I took that with me through my entrepreneurial ascension, and that ultimately led to me coming up with the calculation that I have in the book about figuring out what our time is worth per hour so that we would have an unemotional, mathematical proof of the things we should be delegating. Nell changed my life with that.

Tanya: That’s a very sound piece of advice, I have to say. I can think of a handful of women off the top of my head that actually suffer from this exact problem, so I totally get it. Listen, thank you so much for being on the Unmessable podcast. I think that what the message that you’re ultimately broadcasting, which is you can have it all, just not at the same damn time, also all in your book, is brilliant. I encourage everybody to go and get your book. Where can they get a copy of it?

Romi Neustadt: At all retailers, Amazon. Independent bookstores, let’s hear it for those babies, as well as visiting my website, romineustadt.com.

Tanya: Okay, awesome. Thank you so much. How do people get in touch with you? Do you have a Twitter, or a LinkedIn, or Instagram that you want to share?

Romi Neustadt: I’m on all of the above. Romi Neustadt is a pretty unique name, so it’s R-O-M-I-N-E-U-S-T-A-D-T. Find me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, whatever your social channel of choice is.

Tanya: Awesome. Thank you so much for being on the podcast today, and keep spreading that message. It’s a powerful one.

Romi Neustadt: Thank you so much, and keep doing what you’re doing. It’s great stuff.

Tanya: Unmessable is recorded in the heart of New York City, and a special thanks to all the team involved in producing the show. Visit tanyaprive.com/unmessable to find a transcript of this episode, and be sure to subscribe to our newsletter.

To put this female versus male diversity deficiency into perspective at senior levels in Corporate America, among chief executives of S&P. 1500 firms, for each woman, there are four men named John, Robert, William or James according to the New York Times.

There’s been a lot of talk these past years about the need to have more women in leadership roles, yet progress is slow.

Why is that?

I believe it is because we haven’t gotten to the source of what’s really getting in the way: our inherited bias on gender. And I’m not just talking about the perception of women in the workforce, but the one we women have about ourselves, which stops us from taking on things we are not highly certain we can deliver on. 

And here’s someone that is doing something about this (hint: you can too)…

In speaking with Dr. Amel Karboul, who was the Former Minister of Tourism in Tunisia, is an Author, Speaker, Philanthropist, and non-profit Business Leader (who was one of few women to hold a top government position and took on extraordinary responsibilities in her career), she explains how she would often push the women on her team to take on roles that they didn’t know how to do, which would, ultimately, lead to their growth.

Not only does Dr. Amel Karboul stand for more female leadership but is focused on nurturing and empowering the next generation of leaders towards a sustainable future. In partnership with the Education Commission team, Dr. Karboul has played a leading role in a major global initiative engaging world leaders, policymakers and researchers, and she has developed a brilliant and compelling investment plan for achieving equal educational opportunity for children and young people, which you will hear more about in this episode. (The financing model is fascinating and is also impact investing!!)

Tune in to the full episode to learn about:

Connect with Dr. Amel Karboul:

Amel Karboul nurtures and inspires a new generation of responsible leaders, teams and organizations to create breakthroughs in their thinking, to transform themselves and to work towards a just and sustainable future.

Together with the Education Commission team, she has played a leading role in a major global initiative engaging world leaders, policymakers and researchers, and she has developed a renewed and compelling investment case and financing pathway for achieving equal educational opportunity for children and young people.

Karboul has also built The Maghreb Economic Forum (MEF) as a non-partisan think- and do-tank, and with her team she has engaged a new type of conversation between public and private audiences and nurtured new solutions for education (including de-radicalisation), employment, leadership and gender equality. She also co-lead the establishment of first democratic society in Arab nation, began economic reform and created and deployed effective pioneering digital media engagement between government and citizen on very limited budget as cabinet minister.

Karboul published her book, Coffin Corner, outlining a new leadership culture suited to the complexity and dynamics of the 21st century. Nominated as one of ten leading young African politicians, her professional brand is first and foremost that of a highly intelligent, well connected, creative and inspirational go-getter with a track record of making things happen.

Karboul received a Master’s degree with honors in mechanical engineering from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany and holds a Doctorate in Coaching and Mentoring from Oxford Brookes University in the United Kingdom. She has held leadership roles at numerous firms including Mercedes-Benz, DaimlerChrysler and worked in senior consultant roles at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Beratergruppe Neuwaldegg as well as visiting faculty at DukeCE. Her two daughters, meditation and yoga keep her sane.

As seen on TED.com

* * *

Full Transcription:

Dr. Amel Karboul: More money doesn’t always lead to more learning. That’s why we really need more money in education. As I used to say, pouring more money in a broken system does only fund more inefficiencies, because often, we don’t think and act in results and learning outcomes are results.

Tanya: That’s Dr. Amel Karboul, Foreign Minister of Tourism in Tunisia, TED speaker, nonprofit founder, and author that is focused on nurturing and empowering the next generation of leaders towards a sustainable future. In partnership with the Education Commission Team, Dr. Karboul has played a leading role in a major global initiative engaging world leaders, policymakers, and researchers, and my personal favorite, she’s developed a brilliant and compelling investment plan for achieving equal educational opportunities for children and young people, which you’ll hear about shortly.

Often as the only woman sitting at the table among other male senior leadership, Dr. Karboul stands for women empowerment and is fiercely committed to evening out the playing fields.

Though, Amel, your career path has been interesting, to say the least, management consulting, executive leadership coach, Minister of Tourism in Tunisia, and now leading in the nonprofit sector. Can you bring us through your journey just so people can get a sense for who you are and what you’ve done?

Dr. Amel Karboul: It’s interesting. Sometimes you see the red threads backward and never forward. I think reflecting, there is one common pattern that is both transformation and both taking an idea that exists only on paper and make it happen. It actually started with my first job. I engineer by training, and started in Germany and started working in Mercedes-Benz. One of my first big projects there was that there was a big management consulting firm that was there and talked about supply chain management. I’m talking about ’96 now; no one talked about that at that time. Basically the time was that the world is getting more complex; it’s not any more that the Mercedes engineering created those amazing cars and just throw the plans over the fence to the suppliers who then just implement and create the parts but that it’s going to be more about co-creation and co-development and working in a larger network to develop the future innovations, which today sounds so normal.

That was called innovation management. It was on a piece of paper, and then I had my first boss who asked me, “Would you be interested to do this, to take this role? We have this PowerPoint presentation and basically, we don’t know what’s going to happen. Would you like to take this role?” Funnily enough, he offered me another role of something much more established. I was like yeah, let’s do that. I don’t seem to be the person – actually if you do fast-forward 22, 23 years farther now in my currency role, it is the same. There was a piece of paper, two pages written about the idea about paying for results in education and using innovative finance and doing something really game-changing. Then Gordon Brown and Sir Arnold Cohen and [0:05:09] asked me would you like to take this and make it real?

I don’t seem to be the super creator who comes up with the idea and neither the person who then runs the thousand – that company but in between that phase, and it’s funny. I just reflected on this recently and I felt like yeah, this seems to be my sweet spot. There is an idea somehow on paper and then to take it for a few years until it becomes real.

Tanya: That’s really amazing. Can you talk about what you’re most recently up to in the nonprofit sector?

Dr. Amel Karboul: Yes, so actually this is my dream job, to be honest with you. After Mercedes, I had really this long career mainly in the private sector even in my consulting career as an entrepreneur focused on transformation. Then I had this, let’s say – you know the movie The Matrix when you have this red or blue pill moment? I had such a moment. It was 2013. Egypt was just this surge of people. Syria and Libya were going down chaos. We had in Tunisia two politic [0:06:22], which was the first ever in our history, probably. The Prime Minister called me and said, “You want to come and build the first democracy in the Arab world? You have two hours for your decision.” He suggested the Portfolio of Tourism, which is depending on how you count, 8 to 12% of Tunisia’s GDP. I was the first woman and the youngest cabinet member to lead an economic sector.

In those two hours, I knew that I will do it. It was a calling, more or less. It was an amazing mission. It was a bit mission impossible, mission impossible, and the whole world was watching us. It looked – wasn’t always sure we’re going to manage. I think having then succeeded to finalize the transition and to have elections, and now recently we had the second free elections, and to have a moment – I still remember in February 2015 where our government gave power to the next democratic and free elected government, which may sound normal in many Western countries but in the Arab world, still actually today, quite rare. It was a very emotional moment.

To be honest with you, when I came out there, everyone told me, be careful. It was like a 24/7 crazy 18 months, and everyone said be careful because you’re going to find yourself in some dark hole. I was like oh, not me. I meditate for 20 years. I’m very self-conscious and self-reflective. I use the code. I’m going to be fine, and I wasn’t.

Tanya: Isn’t that always the case? When you think you’re there, that actually is now my cue to know wait, I actually don’t have it all together. It’s the funniest thing, yeah.

Dr. Amel Karboul: The good thing is I met afterwards – in conversation with my Prime Minister, who was in a similar situation, and I met other minister, heads of states, especially in very intensive – like when they leave and we talked about what happens. I found myself really in a mid-life crisis, spiritual awakening, whatever. In a way, it was that intensity. I mean, there were moments, to be honest. I would walk in the street in Tunisia, and people would just come to touch me. I was like okay, I’m not Jesus. I always was telling myself, this is not about me. These are their projections about power, whatever. I was trying to psychologically keep myself sane despite being so extremely into the public eye.

To be honest, I entered two type crisis. One was from that intensity to being home. I came to London because my children were here in their schooling, entering a home where they continued their normal life. Then you come back and you’re like, what I’m going to do now? The second piece beyond the intensity is in a way, I felt like – I know it sounds very arrogant today but I felt like at that moment I ticked all the boxes and I was 41. I’ve done it all; I’ve been an entrepreneur and saw my company. I’ve been minister and the spokesperson of the government internationally and we managed this, the Nobel Peace Prize in 2015 for the transition, and I felt like oh, my God, but I’m only 41. What I’m going to do with the next half of my life?

At that time, I lacked that vision, and I had to go through some really dark moments, to be honest to find out what to do. I’m very, very grateful to Gordon Brown, the previous UK Prime Minister who was the UN envoy for Global Education who invited me a few months into it to be part of the Education Commission, which is 27 world leaders from many previous heads of state like Julia Gillard, former Prime Minister of Australia, or Felipe Calderon, former President of Mexico, many other Peace Prize winners, Kailash Satyarthi from India to civil society leaders, etc., and then the idea was that okay, education has been really the often worldwide climate change and [0:10:52] much more on the international agenda. There is a huge learning crisis out there and can we support; can we do something?

That was the lifesaver in a way. I started as a commissioner, which was more a board role, and two years later in summer, 2017, I took on this role, which is about implementing parts of what we recommended. It’s a long answer, but in a way it’s also a dream job because parallel to – so part of those dark moments when I was thinking okay, then I have a [0:11:29], so one was working on the commission and the other one I said yes to was an NGO, a think-and-do tank in Tunisia which called the Maghreb Economic Forum and the idea was to take it for two years to bring it more into – bring new funders, strategize and high-risk SEOs. I said yes to these two years. On one side, the commission work and this work with the Maghreb Economic Forum – and I always thought my cabinet minister role during a transition was the most difficult role, but I found out it wasn’t. Leading an NGO or a nonprofit is.

Everything I’ve learned in my whatever, almost 20 years currently up to that point about what makes an organization successful I couldn’t implement You get restricted funding to do activities for projects and if, in the middle of the thing, you find out these girls you ant to support in education don’t need actually coaching but they need menstrual hygiene. You find out you can’t do it because you’d have to go back to your funders and do a lot of bureaucratic hoops to change the activities. You get 7% over – you can’t – you don’t get money to invest in HR and finance and IT. When I think back of my first job at Mercedes and I felt like why did Mercedes build this most amazing innovative cars in the world is not just because of the engineers. When you enter the company, there is a culture like we had the best canteen. We had the most healthy food. Even the plants we ordered for the offices – the offices looked nice and comfortable. It’s everything. Even the HR systems, the training we did – so this culture of innovation and excellence went through everything we did. You were embedded in it.

I discovered that the nonprofit sector was funded in a way that undermines its impact and that actually no surprise that none grow, even in the biggest country like the US, none grow beyond tens of millions and you’ll very rarely hear about merger and acquisition between NGOs, so they’re kept poor and unprofessional. Sorry to be so maybe [0:13:40], and they live from this amazing personal power of many of their founds and people. This has also limitation if you want to get systemic and structural change.

In a way, those two years where I felt like I muddled a bit through and muddled even more through because I felt like I was failing every day in this NGO in Tunisia but having this light bulb of working with – going round in the commission but actually today looking back was really important because in 2017 after I – the commission work in terms of the research we’ve done and advocacy was done was more finalized, my two years’ commitment for that NGO was finalized, and it was in the summer of 2017 thinking okay, so two years ago, I pushed away that question, what I’m going to do with the next half of my life. Now I have to ask myself again.

Actually, I even hired a firm in London who helps leaders through transition phases, and they told me give us 15 names of people who’ve worked with you in the last three years and we’re going to talk with each of them. We’re going to build something which they call the leadership brand, so to understand who you are and what you stand for and what are you areas of strengths and where can you be also happy. I thought hm, let’s do this. They said the process takes six months, and I felt it would take me a while to find something. I thought maybe to combine my private sector/public sector and NGO experience and knowing that most of the global challenges we have today can only be solved in – across these sectors and honestly, Tanya, I felt like it’s going to take me a year to find something.

Then the company sends those emails out saying we want to interview you about Amel, and then someone answers and says yeah, I’m happy to give the interview but I don’t want to lose you to another job. Go and meet Sir Arnold Cohen [0:15:40] and his – the godfather of impact investing. He has this amazing idea to bring together impact investor, private sector, NGO sector, governments to solve the education crisis. I was like, oh my God. This was one week into my one year search.

Tanya: That’s so funny.

Dr. Amel Karboul: I go to the south of France in the summer where he lives and meet him. Yeah, two days later, I said yes.

Tanya: Wow.

Dr. Amel Karboul: Yeah, in a way it’s – be careful what you ask for. You may get it. It was, again, one of those ideas. It was almost an empty piece of paper, just an idea, paper, and the last few years have felt like building the plane we’re flying, yeah.

Tanya: I really want to drill into the premise of what you do now, which is the education crisis globally. In one of your talks – I believe it was a TED Talk – you said, “By 2030, nearly half of the world’s young people will be failing to learn,” which is an outrageous statement. I mean, not what you say’s outrageous but if that actually is true, which I’m sure you’ve done a lot of research on, how is it even possible in today’s world, in the information age? Can you talk a little bit about what’s behind that statement? How was that calculated? From what perspective are you looking at when you say people will be failing to learn?

Dr. Amel Karboul: Actually, it is probably more than half, sadly, because it’s – the number we counted is you have around 250 million who are out of school completely.

Tanya: What age group is that? Do you know?

Dr. Amel Karboul: This is – we count until, let’s say, end of – not secondary but the first part of secondary; let’s say basic education which is around 14 years of schooling – not 14 years. It’s six years – wait, six years primary plus four years so it’s ten years.

Tanya: Ten years old, so by ten years –

Dr. Amel Karboul: Ten years of schooling, so it depends when you see – first of all, there are 250 million children who are out of school completely who’ve never been to school or let’s say been to school one or two years and dropped out. These are – they get zero education, zero learning because they’re working in farms or mostly they are in rural areas. Many of them are refugee children. Many of them are girls. Many of them are children with disabilities. These are children who basically have not been in school at all, which is quite a lot. Then if you add to 250, you have probably around 500-something, so you get to the 800 million of children who either won’t finish primary, who won’t finish junior/secondary schooling.

I pulled the email out in preparation that had all those numbers but because I closed my email – not for it to be [0:18:54] we having our podcast. I’ll have to find it again, but I have the numbers both for primary and secondary. The thing is failing to learn means also that our children – I mean, the numbers are really shocking. If you look at the World Bank last numbers, in south Southern Africa, 93% of children leave primary school without minimum proficiency levels. In some country means that up to 93% of the children, for example, at the end of primary school can’t read a paragraph for meaning. Probably over half of them can’t even read a word.

It’s been ignored. The learning crisis was not out there at all. When it goes to numeracy-ism, it’s similar. This is really a sad story because it devalues also the value of education. Some we’re working on one project now and one project in northern North Ghana, and some parents take their children out of school because they’re basically not learning anything. They’re asking themselves why should they be in school. While I agree that 21st Century skills and critical thinking and all of these things are really important, I do believe if a child – reading is such a basic skill. You have to be able to read something to critically think about it. You have to – it helps you to read a prescription. It helps you to read the description on a seed packet. Everything in life is to be able to have some form of future starts with literacy and numeracy. Obviously it goes with life skills and 21st Century skills.

Sadly, the research is now five years old. It rather become worse than better. Whilst we have done a lot of progress in access means bringing children to schools on the learning outcomes, it’s very dismal. Today, the good news, if you want to say good news, is this is shared. This is shared also by education ministers and presidents all over the world that countries know that they’re not achieving learning, that the kids are going to school and they’re not learning and that they know this is one of the priority to tackle now. I think the Education Commission and the learning generation report has been very influential in getting those numbers out and bringing the learning crisis to the G20 and the G7 and giving it actually an international voice.

Tanya: One of the things you mentioned in your TED Talk, which I couldn’t agree more with and I thought was very well-stated, is that our biggest asset is an educated mind. Within this context of a declining or growing failure to learn globally, I’d love to know your thoughts on what is driving this. What’s fundamentally broken about this system?

Dr. Amel Karboul: Yeah, I mean, a few things. One is – I think the first one is the performance of the system. In a way, more money doesn’t always lead to more learning. That’s why while we really need more money in education, as I used to say, pouring more money in a broken system does only fund more inefficiencies. Often, we don’t think and act in results, and learning outcomes are results. I give you two very concrete examples. We were as a team in Ghana two weeks ago, in the northern Ghana, and Ghana is an amazing country where the President and the Education Minister and actually the whole government are investing in education extremely strongly, and they’ve been innovative and they’ve been pushing. We have a lot of what’s been our first partner, and we are extremely grateful and humbled, actually, by their efforts.

I did not – now we go in northern Ghana into a school where there is no furniture, so the children are sitting on the hard floor. There is no door, so which means overnight, animals can come in and actually destroy quite a bit of things. There isn’t an NGO that comes and says yeah, we have some funding. They were like great, we need a door and we need furniture. They said yeah, but our funding is only for toilet blocks. Because hygiene and menstrual hygiene and ability for girls to go to toilet, we all know this is important. They said we have already two toilet blocks. The NGO says sorry, we cannot – the money we have from our funders is only for toilet blocks. Now this school has three toilet blocks but no door and no furniture.

This is how education has been working while it’s input and like oh, you have a country to introduce textbooks, $70 million textbooks. Check the box they have been delivered to these schools. Then you go into the schools two years later and you find most of them are in the cupboards of the head teacher offices and have never been used.

The way we pay for education is maybe – I don’t know, Bill Gates, I think, said in a recent speech, “Education is today where [0:24:14] was in the beginning of the ’90s is that we haven’t really looked at the results and are we achieving them and what it takes to achieve them.” We’ve been paying for school buildings, paying teachers’ salaries, which is most of the budget of all education of the world, but we haven’t really looked closely at results. You have to understand, more than half of the world’s countries don’t even have standardized assessment to measure children’s learning. If you don’t know if they’r elearning, how are you supposed to do the right things to get them to learn? These are performance management, even if it sounds like a technical word, but knowing are we actually achieving the results we want to achieve. We don’t even know most of the time, so we are working in the dark. That’s one of the reasons.

I think the other reasons are that also – that we spend more money at the upper end of education than lower end. We spend more money for students to get to universities and higher secondary school and we spend too little for early childhood, for example, education where we know up to the age of five, actually their brains’ development are the most important and the return on investment, if you want to call it like that, is the highest.

Tanya: Yeah, bang for the buck, absolutely.

Dr. Amel Karboul: The bang for the bucks is ten times for a child up to year five and much lower in the later, but we still spend – and then the children who make it to higher secondary and university are more from better off families. We actually spend more on the better off children than on the others who would need it more. That’s actually not just in developing country; also in high-income countries, so all over the world, we spend in the wrong way for children.

Maybe the third and alls important thing is we really lack a lot of innovation. I think education is the least reformed institution of the world. If you take a doctor from a hundred years ago and put him in a hospital today, they’re probably able to do nothing. Think a hundred years ago, no antibiotics, no sterilization, no radiologists, nothing. If you take a teacher from hundred years ago and put them in a classroom today, guess they’ll be able to do up to 80, 90%, and that tells you a lot, that actually we haven’t reformed education. You go in the middle of town in a concrete building divided into classroom that all are same size and you enter – at the ring of a bell, you enter with 30 other kids, or 40, or in some countries, 80, who are born the same year than you, and then every other hour, an adult comes in and tells you about photosynthesis or the human body if you’re lucky that a teacher comes in. When you hear this, you feel like laughter, isn’t it? It sounds like industrial revolution, cookie-cutter approach while we today know that actually every child learns differently. Every child has different growth sparks.

There are some innovations out there. There is this amazing NGO in India called Pratam who – NGO teaching at the right level. For example, the future will be that you are with children who are not the same year than you, age than you, but who have similar learning needs than you. That’s actually make that more or you’ll have artificial intelligence that gives you the access to content while your teacher will have much more time to guide and coach you to make sense of this new information because the future jobs, at least the highly skilled and well-paid ones, will be not about repetition or knowing but [0:28:09] about creating new solutions. Each roles will change immensely, but we’ve been really slow. For me, the education sector is – I mean, I entered this adventure September, 2015 with the Education Commission, so it’s four years, but I’m still in – sometimes shocked how little innovation do we have in this sector.

Tanya: This actually brings up something where even now, a lot of leaders in Silicon Valley, prominent figures, are really questioning whether a college education is something to be invested in. MBA applications have decreased 7% this year. I know what – you’re talking about globally and the primary education and so forth, but there’s also the repercussions of what you’re talking about of having a really antiquated system even in high-income countries like the United States. It’s this idea of cramming and remembering, memorizing is just not sufficient for the challenges of today.

Dr. Amel Karboul: No, definitely. I think the innovation may there not even come from the US. I don’t know. I was invited to [0:29:35] foundation on an event where there were a few leading universities thinking about what is the future university. I felt like some of these big university are so entrenched in the way they work, so maybe some – in a similar way struggle with reform. I think sometimes innovation could come from elsewhere, for example, from Africa. I don’t know if you’ve heard about the African Leadership University which is founded by a friend of mine, actually, Fred Swaniker, and he’s an amazing leader in the world of education.

He told me this very interesting story. When they take students in the first year, they don’t do the subjects, like engineering or business. What they do with them is a lot of project work, collaboration work. They do a lot of soft skills. They do some analytical skills, like data analytics, to understand something. The first year is basically really more a generalist into the 21st Century skills, if you want to say like that, mixed between soft and project management – soft skills, project management, and analytical skills. He said that these young people, after the first year, they go on internships to the Unilevers and McKinseys, some very amazing also top companies.

They found out that some of them don’t come back. They got offered a job because they were so amazing. The company says like, no, you’re great. Whatever contents you need, you learn on the job. You know how to present. You know how to work in a team. You know how to deal with conflict. You know how to do basic analytical stuff. Then he was surprised, and then it inspired him. He’s like, “We have so many young people in Africa and elsewhere who finish university and can’t find jobs. What if we take that first year of the African Leadership University, make it from nine months to six months, and then offer it to people who have been unemployed for a while despite having college degrees?” They started the first pilot with, I think, hundred young people, and all of them are now employed.

Tanya: Wow.

Dr. Amel Karboul: Some of them have been seven years looking for a job. It’s really like – and this is really not [0:31:55] because it was like almost an unintended consequence of the program they’ve started. In conversation with Fred, because in the project I’m leading right now, we’re looking not only in primary. We’re looking now in the Middle East at – again, when we say pay for results, mean we don’t pay for the college or just the skill training. We want to pay when people are employed and make it more demand-based.

Really this conversation is if we really want to scale and innovate, it’s not about building more campuses. We felt like is building campuses the right thing now? It’s like investing in a landline when people bring the iPhone. Is there a completely new form for university or life-long learning? Because in Africa we have such a lack of universities and we have such a big demographic change, I mean, in the next 6,000 days or 5,000 days probably, like we have 1 billion young Africans entering the job market, yeah? Are these going to be innovators, leaders of the future, or roaming unemployed citizen becoming a security and migration crisis?

We really have a – we, I mean globally, because this is definitely not an African problem, a role to play here. Maybe because we sometimes don’t have those established universities also, the way to be able to innovate, like mobile payment in Kenya or other ways. Sometimes we can innovate. We are really looking how to build the university of the future. Maybe it will come from Africa and not from the US.

Tanya: Mm-hmm, yeah, possibly. You know what? Frankly, I hope so. Just in speaking about all of these sort of issues that you’ve identified, how is that being addressed? How do you actually change that?

Dr. Amel Karboul: In the work we’re doing now, I’m leading the Education Outcomes Fund for Africa and the Middle East. It’s basically putting philanthropy and aid on its head. What we’re doing is saying, look, we have this huge learning crisis, which we’ve talked about. Secondly, many governments know they can’t solve it by themselves. They need the private sector, and they need the civil society and the NGOs to support them. While we still believe that governments have accountability to offer great basic education for everyone, many of them know they won’t be able to do it themselves. However, they don’t really know how to cooperate with private sector and civil society when it comes to human capital. It’s easy to do a PPP, public-private partnership, to build a bridge or roads for infrastructure projects, that people know how to do it but not really for like [0:34:47] or how, it’s more tricky.

The question was for us, how can we achieve learning outcomes? We don’t want to start another project or initiative that ends up paying for a toilet block where you need more. How can we do it in a way that involves these government, private sector, and civil society in a way that they can work well together and everyone incentivized to reach the outcomes? These two take together, we’ve created the Education Outcomes Fund, which builds on the premise that we pay for outcomes. For example, in Ghana, we’re taking the Northern Ghana, and it will impact 200,000 children where around half of them are out of school today, so they will be going into remedial training, which is piloted and have shown it works. I give you an example. Amira at 12 years old, never been to school, and then went into this remedial training for nine months, integrated at public school and state school, and actually outperformed her peers, went into technical training for textile, and now has a job and is economically independent, which is fascinating. It shows it’s never too late to give the child a future, even if they’ve been for 12 years old and never been to school.

This is what we’re doing. We’re giving them a second chance in life to go through remedial learning and then integrate schools. We make sure that it’s not just they integrate to drop out the year after but to stay there. What we’re doing is the five-year program, and then we say we’re going to pay you at the end of the five years when the outcomes are achieved. Now, Tanya, if you were leading an NGO, and you say, yeah, I mean, I have experience maybe, and I’m willing to come and work with these children, and integrate them, then I’ll say, Tanya, see you in five years; I’ll pay you when the outcomes are achieved, and these will be verified by a third evaluator. You’re going to probably have a slight problem, which is like, how are you going to pay for the next five years? How are you going to pre-finance this program?

This is where the genius idea comes where the private investors or impact investors comes in, and they will give you, Tanya, the money. They will also performance measure. It’s almost like a copy of a private equity or venture capital deal. In a way, they invest in you and in your organization, help you achieve the outcomes. Once in five years – I’m simplifying this – the outcomes are achieved, and the third-party evaluator says, yes, those 200,000 children have been through remedial training and have learned. We say we pay you and the investor the money back plus a certain return.

What is life-changing for you, Tanya, as the leader of this NGO, is that if I as the donor was giving you the money, we go back to my experience after my government’s model where you have to bill every coffee cup you drink. You have to tell me today what are the activities you’re going to do over the next five years. If those activities don’t work, it’s going to be very challenging for you to change completely. If you feel you have to invest in a finance tool, then it’s going to be a nightmare. Actually the investors give you money like they gave Facebook or Twitter on the first day they invested them. They give you the money, and if you need a new IT system, and they think that will make you able to achieve better those outcomes, then you’ll invest in a new IT system. If you think those girls need menstrual hygiene rather than coaching, then you’ll do that. If this school needs a door and not a toilet block, then you’ll do a door.

In a way, the funding you get is super flexible. It’s also long-term, because most funding for nonprofits in our region are for one year. If you want to hire 12 people – I mean, I could have hired amazing Tunisians, Algerians, Moroccans to come from London, Paris, New York, to come to the Maghreb Economic Forum and work. Because most of my funding was always for a year, who’s going to leave his job in London and come for such a short contract? We also want to invest in these people, say okay, you have a five-year contract. You have a long-term contract. You have flexible money. You have an investor on your side who’s going to work, maybe challenge you, but in a way empower you and hold you accountable for the results versus what’s happening today is holding you accountable for activities that may or may not reach the results. That’s actually quite a big game-changer for everyone.

Tanya: That’s a huge game-changer. I love it because now you’re bringing the rigor, the business savvy and the rigor of the private sector into the social not NGO sector. Instead of having that rigid sort of tunnel vision of delivering toilets or building new schools, you have the outcome right in front of you, that ultimately it’s whatever the outcome is, learn, or be employed, or whatever. There’s a thousand different roads that you can take to get there.

Tanya: That’s amazing.

Dr. Amel Karboul: Yeah, not only different from region to region, it can be different from village to village, yeah.

Tanya: Absolutely.

Dr. Amel Karboul: In education, there is one example in India which is with an NGO called Educate Girls. Safeena Husain, the CEO, has been amazing. They started doing it there, and they’ve been very successful. They’ve just won the Audacious prize for that. I think she just has a TED Talk and trying exactly this system. Their project at that time was a $250,000 pilot. What we’re doing now in Ghana is we’re doing a $30 million project, and then hopefully increase this in South Africa, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, but also Jordan. These are some of the countries where we’re starting to work now.

You would find it interesting because actually this would be the most attractive for the side which we outcome-funded, for the people who pay for the results. Actually they only pay if the results are achieved. If you look, UBS did just a survey with ultra-high-net-worth individuals, and 80% said they do philanthropic work, but only 20% are happy with the impact they’re achieving. We’re going to them and telling them, and telling government, and telling big aid agency, look, if you do this, you only pay for outcomes. You have a 100% result guarantee, because if the outcomes are not achieved, it’s the investor actually who loses their money. They still find it risky. It’s really interesting. Actually it’s zero risk, but it’s risky because it’s a way of doing it completely differently. They have to give up a bit of power, because now they give to those organization money, or they build a school, and they can follow up every stone. To tell people who live locally, who we feel know the best – because sitting in London or New York and deciding what’s best for a village in rural Ghana is kind of quite an arrogant standard of things. Rather to trust these people, empower them, and to tell okay, you will find out, you will know it’s the best. We will hold you accountable for the results but not for the activities. We take a step back after we define with you the outcomes and let you actually do is a huge change. I discover probably much more than I expected it two years ago when I started this journey.

Tanya: Well, it’s interesting. I mean, this concept of if you give somebody fish versus teach them how to fish, you have very different long-term outcomes. By really investing in them and sort of trusting them, you allow them to step into that gap of where they are and where they need to be in a really supportive and powerful way. I love this. What about the impact investors that you were mentioning, the people that go in and actually put the money – sort of like the venture capital model – put the money in to fill that gap between year zero and year five before you guys come in and really deliver that actual funding? Where are these people coming from? Is there liquidity, actual significant investment going into this sector?

Dr. Amel Karboul: I mean, there is a huge change among investors. First of all, there are a lot of Millennials now inheriting, and there are a lot of women inheriting wealth and coming into wealth. They have a different ethos when they invest. They don’t want to invest just for financial returns but also for social returns. There are some policy changes, like big pension funds in Japan and Netherlands, where they have to invest a certain percentage, even if it’s small, even if it’s 0.5% or so, into social and financial impact. That’s kind of substantial amount of money as well. There are also foundations which with their endowments want also to invest.

Really now we’re seeing more and more commercial. Munich Re, for example, is a big reinsurance. They’ve reached out to us and say, we would be interested in investing there. There are more and more commercial investor. There is a huge move really for this around UNGA, the UN General Assembly, now. In September, I was invited by a dinner organized by the FT. They have a new newsletter, I think it’s called Moral Money. The woman who edits it, she said that a year ago she struggled to get it through with her board. Now it’s there, and it’s I think one of the most successful starts of a newsletter. I sat in a room with 10 or 12 of the biggest asset managers in the world. I mean, the guy next to me, they were managing $1.3 trillion, just crazy money. I think that that dinner wouldn’t have happened a year ago – two years ago, definitely not, but not even a year ago. There is a huge movement now. There’s a huge pressure on all the Australians out there. They have to make change, from climate change to health education, so there is the pressure.

Now, on the other side, when it comes to reality, will this money flow from commercial investor? I mean, what we’re seeing now is from our investor – for example, at UBS, Optimist Foundation is one of our supporters but who are also interested to invest, have been at the forefront of this in terms of innovation, but others are following. I think it’s still kind of a stretch for them. I’d say the ask from investor for this product is bigger than what we can offer. I think that there are a lot of investor out there, but they will have to learn also how to work in certain regions or with those providers that we work with. I think there is a still learning curve ahead of us.

Tanya: Just out of curiosity, from a pure financial standpoint, do you have any idea of – and maybe this is too early – what kind of returns the impact investors that are going in and filling that gap between zero to five years are seeing?

Dr. Amel Karboul: Yeah, I mean, depends on – I think, in the India example, they got I think 10 to 15% ROI, which is not bad at all, to be honest.

Tanya: That’s great. That’s really good.

Dr. Amel Karboul: The UK, we’ve seen between 3 and 7 or between 3 and 10% annual. In a way, there have been different ways to look at this. In the UK, sometimes to make a [0:46:50] link to say they can’t have more because it’s always a political question. The problem is here some people don’t really understand this. They say, oh, you’re taking public or aid money, philanthropy money, to pay returns to investors. Actually, that capital has a cost. It’s clear.

Tanya: Exactly.

Dr. Amel Karboul: I mean, they are actually taking also the risk of non-delivery. It’s almost like if you paid for an insurance. Plus if you achieve more and better outcomes, we show that actually at the end, your cost, including those returns, are still lower than if you input-funded the project.

Tanya: You also now have partners who are vested in seeing your success and achieving those outcomes.

Dr. Amel Karboul: Oh, yeah.

Tanya: The accountabilities and the conversations during those five years are very different than if somebody just hands you the money.

Dr. Amel Karboul: Yeah, and I mean, I’ve talked with CEOs of those NGOs who’ve been on the receiving end of this type of contract of results-based finance, and some of them have been really good, and they moved from very good to great. They all say being part of this transformed the way my own organization worked, transformed the way we look at results, transformed the way we measure, transformed the way we work with our beneficiaries. Just to give an example, like in the India example, for example, they were seeing that what the investor and the performance managers’ results were less good than what they actually as NGOs were measuring. They were like, why is this discrepancy? We don’t understand this.

Then they found out, actually they were testing the girls, so in this case it was about adults and girls. They were only testing the girls who came to the school. The control group was all girls. They found out actually the girls who didn’t come to school, they weren’t testing them, weren’t looking at them; they weren’t having them learn. In a previous, let’s say, normal program, they would say this is an externality and we just – yeah, we just write it off. Because they are paid for the outcomes and they wanted the outcomes to be achieved, they started doing home visits, understanding why these girls are not coming, making some learning assessments at home, changing the program, etc. This is really one of the really good NGOs.

In a way, they found out – and another example from the UK which is amazing, when working with foster children who is especially more, let’s say, children with more needs, they tend not to stay long in a foster family and change. They found out, for example, if you give the child the possibility to be both in an institution and in the foster family, like going for sleepovers or for weekends and back, having a transitional few months where the child is in both, it increases dramatically the chance for this child to thrive in that foster family and stay longer. The state so far wouldn’t pay for this. Why should we pay for institution and for the family on the same time? Doing this different type of contract result based on anything, the investor said, yeah, sure if this really increases the way that we achieve outcomes, yeah, why not? I’m willing to invest and to pay for both and because they achieve the outcomes.

There is a systemic therapy that helps with it. In London, you only have it every six months, this training for therapists. In the US and Florida, it continues all over the year. Fly to Florida and a hotel costs probably even less or the same than taking a hotel in London but sending public therapists to Florida for a training would have been a scandal on the Daily Mail or whatever newspaper. Because it’s done differently, the investor said yeah, sure. I mean, I don’t want to wait six months. Let’s get them to Florida and get them – so you become really pragmatically solution-focused or there are amazing families who can deal with children with a lot of difficulties who comes from abusive and drug-addicted parents, etc. There are very few of those. There are very few of those family who can deal with the most – let’s say – I [0:50:58] difficult but children.

Then for example, you could pay them independently if they have a child or not because either you can pay them for a month or two because they don’t have a child because you know that in two months, they can take that child Today, you can’t do that in the normal space, so those family get easy children, which is such a waste because actually for those other children, you won’t find that family. Being able to pay them all the time and giving them ad hoc because you know when you need them – so this is a total different type of working. It’s that result based on this, and I talked with the NGOs. Social services were working with this and they said this transformed totally the way it worked and moved success rate from 20 to 80%.

Tanya: Honestly, I absolutely love this conversation because you’re right; it changes the way people approach a problem which fundamentally impacts the outcome, period. This is really powerful. Just to conclude here, having gone through what you’ve gone through and seen what you’ve seen, what has been one of the most important leadership lessons that you’ve learned in your life?

Dr. Amel Karboul: The human side of leadership is really the most important one. In a way that – for me, honestly, I think I’m in a different place right now. I feel much more comfortable maybe being a leader. People give their heart and energy to work with you because they know you care and that making yourself vulnerable as a leader and being humane is one of the key strengths, and it’s actually a lot of courage. It’s been something that I’ve been thriving to do, and I think I probably will learn much, much more over the next years, but I feel like I’ve reached a nice place where I can live it.

I think it’s been the feedback from my team. Yesterday, we had a – I invited the whole team to my home here in London and cooked for them lunch. We worked the whole day from home, my senior team of six, seven people. One of them came from a hedge fund and earned three times what he’s earning right now. We were asking how do you feel, and he was like, “Great,” and he’s like, “It’s much better when I worry.” I was like, “What do you mean? How is it?” I’m surprised there are still organizations like that, to be honest, but he’s like yeah, “No one asks you how you are.” Even sitting together around a lunch table and saying everyone talks about what they appreciate working here or what they appreciate within the senior leadership team and what could be different. He says it’s not a conversation he would have ever had. In a way, I think this – yeah, making yourself vulnerable because it is tough to get feedback.

I’ve been 12 years before I was in government and after my private sector industry experience, I was an entrepreneur company that was helping organization through transformation and change. I had a lot of leaders go through 360 feedbacks, etc. Then doing it for yourself is a different game than coaching someone doing it. Putting yourself out there and asking your people to give anonymous feedback on what they see your strength, weakness, and what you could do better and then entering those conversations. From a senior leadership level, it’s very rare. I think as a cabinet minister, I was the only one who did it. I’m not boasting about it. I’ve been supporting people doing this, so I would have been very hypocritical not to do it myself.

I think this is for me the biggest lesson, the human side of leadership. The other one is also life happens while we are making plans. I see it more and more and more in a way that those nice PowerPoints we do with those nice arrows and the nice milestones – politically, things are changing so fast and society-wise that it needs a total different type of leadership there to where we are almost awake and connected and allow our people to be also in those local areas and listen and take decisions under a lot of uncertainty again and again and again. Keeping that vision, what we want to go, but knowing actually that we don’t know and knowing that tomorrow will be completely different is a totally different type of leadership than I saw and did in the ’90s when I started my career.

Tanya: Yeah, absolutely, keeping that inquiry open all the time to see what needs to happen in order to effectively deliver on the outcome every day as a renewed inquiry would really help keep you connected to the speed of change as opposed to, like you say, come up with this great strategy and railroad right into the middle of nowhere with no result or diminished result. I get that.

Dr. Amel Karboul: It means a lot of maturity on both sides, not only on the leaders’ side but on the other side because as a leader, if you say I don’t know, which we actually all don’t know if we’re honest, it needs on the other side colleagues, followers, whatever – who can live with that who wants to be – take also their decision and take risks and can live with such a leader. There is this big movement now towards populism and autocratic leadership because I think the world is changing so fast, so people feeling unsecure and unstable and project their wish for stability and taking autocrat of someone who tells them that they know and actually they don’t. Some people just prefer to have someone tell them they know.

I think about Germany when this refugee crisis happened, and there was a moment when they didn’t know how many people entered Germany. I lived for a while in Germany, so when you live in Germany, you have always to register so they know exactly who in Germany is where and whatever, who lives in the exact numbers. There was a moment where they didn’t know, and this was – everyone was freaking out. It was like, my God, for three months you don’t know how many people are in the country. It’s not the end of the world. When I think in Tunisia when the Libya crisis was, we had over a million refugees, which for a country of 12 million, it would have been 16 million refugees entering Germany, 16 times as much as actually happened in Germany, and we still didn’t call it a crisis. In a way, maybe this is also another strength of Africans is that we lived so – we didn’t have that phase of stability/uncertainty and so maybe we are more adept to live with uncertainty, which is actually for today’s world a great skill.

Tanya: Yeah, absolutely. Is there anything that you think would be important to talk about that we haven’t?

Dr. Amel Karboul: I’m frustrated by the under-representation of women in leadership positions. That’s something that I really personally think is a disaster.

Tanya: Oh, yes, absolutely.

Dr. Amel Karboul: It is something that for a long time in my career, I didn’t even want to talk about or do because I felt like I’m living it. I have two wonderful girls and I said I have children. I take on leadership roles. I live it; I don’t want to talk about it. The last years, there were two incidents that pushed me to take a more active role. You will laugh. One was when I was running my consulting firm. Was a client who called me and said – pharmaceutical company. “We’re trying to get more women in leadership roles and we’re not succeeding. Can you help us?” It was like, come on. I can tell you another colleague who’s working on this topic. I’m not a gender expert. He’s like, “No, please, please. I know you ask the right questions sometimes to come and find out with us why we are not achieving this result.” I said okay, give me the weekend to think about it.

Exactly that weekend, my daughter was playing in a Hansel and Gretel. She was, I don’t know, maybe five or so, fairy tale. Then in that Hansel and Gretel fairy tale, they took the blond girl to play Gretel and then they took a darker-skinned girl to play the stepmother, the mean stepmother. Already in that sense – and then if you look at – I discovered in those fairy tales that women are always mean. There is a stepmother or witch in there, and if they’re good, like the good mother, they’re dead. I don’t know. I sat in this fairy tale and felt sicker by the moment. I thought my God, this is like the stories we’re telling our children. These are the stories we’re telling our girls, that there is a Prince Charming that’s going to come and save you and whatever.

I don’t know. It never happened to be before, but that weekend, I don’t know. I sat there and was like, I’m in the wrong movie. This is a wrong story. This isn’t it. That actually made me make the decision. Monday I called Michael [Eiden] and I say I’m doing this. He’s like, “What changed your mind?” I said, “A fairy tale from my five year old, but I won’t tell you more.” I said, “Where do you make your decisions about the position?” He’s like, “Yeah, there is a bi-yearly, every six months, we do a meeting where we go through CVs of our top potentials and discuss.” I was like, I’m going to go and sit on that meeting.

I sit in this meeting, and it’s women and men, top executives, who go through the CVs of their high potentials. It goes this way: “Peter is leading marketing for Germany, did it really well, so I think he can become leader of marketing Europe of worldwide.” Then half an hour later, you have, “Tanya is leading marketing in Malaysia, and she’s doing great work. We think she could do marketing in China.”

Tanya: Oh, no.

Dr. Amel Karboul: After sitting there for six hours, I stood up and told them, “You know what I discovered this year – this day is that you promote men according to potential and women according to performance.” They said no, it’s not true. I was like, there you go, and I brought them all the examples. Actually in that meeting, they were a mixture of ashamed and shocked that they’ve been living this pattern and that was the start of a longer project. This was actually for me transformational, so I started really looking at this. I ran pro bono three-hour workshops that I called Fighting Dragons and Monsters where I work with younger girls but also sexist [1:02:29] about what are the inner but outer barrier. This is a topic I’m really passionate about. When I was minister, I had the first cabinet that was equal and 50/50%.

Because I’ve learned this with my client, it’s funny that I could do things that I would not have done differently because imagine, I was minister, the youngest, the first woman. I had a lot of pressure for me to succeed. When I wanted to hire people in my cabinet, I would tell them okay, this is the challenge and we want to do it. All the men said great, yes, we were waiting for someone to ask. All the women I asked said no to start with. It would have been ten years ago in my career I would have not taken them because I would have said oh, my God, Amel, you’re under so much success pressure. You want people to join your senior team who are super think they can do it. You won’t take people who have doubts.

Because I went through that process, I knew that actually you have to force women into jobs because women think – performance [1:03:34] they think they have to have done it to be able to do it. You know what? No, you can’t do a job until you have done it. I’ve never met anyone in my life who could do a job before they have done it. You can only do it after you’ve done it. I’ve learned something, that you have to force women to take roles if you believe they have the right potential, obviously, and the right competencies. Those women I interviewed, they were the final interviewee. They had the potential and they had the competencies. I had to force them. I said, “I don’t care. You can do it. You can’t do it today, but no one can do it because you haven’t done it. You will be able to do it in two years when you’ve done the job.” I literally forced most of them into the job, and it was, with one exception, all amazingly successful. That’s something that I’ve told my prime minister because when we were in government, we were only two [1:04:24] minister and he told me yeah, all the others didn’t want to. They said no. I said, “We have to train more leaders understanding this, that we carry a 5,000 history on our back that we think we can only do things after we’ve done them, and that’s why we need people to force us to do things.” That’s why I believe it’s sometimes a clue to other things. When you have the right competencies and potential, it’s a totally different way to lead women than to lead men today.

Tanya: You know what? What you’re saying is so relevant. I remember – and I might fudge the numbers a little bit, so don’t quote me on it, but something around when men and women are going for a new job opportunity, if men look at the responsibilities required, if they can fulfill 10 or something, 10% of it, they feel like they can totally nail it and take on that responsibility, that job. Women so long as they know that they can fulfill 80, 90% of it, they’ll go for it. It’s like these inherited biases that we have ingrained in our brains and in the practice of our society that we have to dismantle with practice. I love your suggestion of empowering and even, frankly, forcing girls to get out of their own way. It’s not even like we’re bad or it’s a bad thing. It’s just that’s one of the things that we don’t even know that we don’t even know that’s influencing our behavior and really getting in the way of us being on an even playing field.

Dr. Amel Karboul: But all the same time also being honest with them, telling them it’s going to be hard because you’re going to be judged also in a different way. I’ve used this – there is – I think Columbia Business School, there’s this case study about venture capitalists and they use the same case study. She’s a woman and they changed – they called it Howard, put a man, but actually it’s the same case study, exactly the same words. They give it to students and then half of the students get the real one and half the students get it with Howard. Then they ask them about what do you think about this leader. Then you get the Howard people say amazing leader, would love to work with him, would love to go to golf with him. The students who get the exact same case study with a real name of the woman, they say yeah, amazing, very competent but not sure I would be friends with her. Not sure I would do – I feel like she’s tough or she’s something.

In a way that the more successful women are, the less liked they are. Success and likability are positively correlated for men and negatively correlated for women. You have to know that. You have to know that you’ll be less liked. I think you have to know that you’ll have your friends and your family to count on and that you will encounter a lot of – from media showing your shoes that are not clean after a meeting to comment on your clothing at the time or judging you based on total different things or finding you’re too tough if you’re result-oriented or too soft if you’re – you’re always something wrong It’s just success and likability are so negatively correlated for women. In a way forcing them but telling them that truth and telling them that we women tend to be liked, there is another ways. To say don’t – you won’t maybe get your most biggest emotional support there. You will get it – create yourself a closed circle of friends, women friends and family that will support you through that. We really make it very tough for women who are in big positions. I’ve experienced it on my own skin. It’s really [1:08:29]. Yeah, I guess it is what it is, and I hope we suffer and the next generation will suffer a little less.

Tanya: Yes, especially since you have daughters. I also have three daughters, and that is top of mind. I’d rather be the generation of being the force of change so that my daughters have a little less fight to do.

Dr. Amel Karboul: They don’t have to choose between being successful and being liked.

Tanya: Yes, exactly. Well, Amel, honestly this has been a really, really eye-opening conversation for me and I so want to acknowledge you for the stand that you are in the world for education and for women. Thank you for your time.

Dr. Amel Karboul: Well, thank you very much, Tanya. I enjoyed very much our conversation, and let’s hope our five daughters together will all be amazing leaders for change in this world.

Tanya: Absolutely.

Dr. Amel Karboul: Okay, all the best.

Tanya: Bye.

If there is one organization that is highly effective in aligning their troops, it’s the army.

But ever wonder how they do it? Or if their strategy is replicable in business or with your team?

Rach Ranton is a TED speaker, corporate leader, author, and motivational consultant who served in the Australian Army for 11 years. Her TED Talk titled “Where are we trying to end up?” and book DAUNTLESS: Leadership lessons from the front line draw parallels between leadership concepts the military is especially brilliant in executing and how those concepts can be leveraged in business.

In particular, Rach calls out one tactic: Commander’s Intent.

Commander’s intent is a technical term used in the army to get aligned and initiate coordinated actions. When alignment and coordinated action are present, can you guess what becomes possible?

High performance. It’s a thing of beauty. I’ve seen it in teams we coach but Rach breaks it down to a 3 step process.

Tune in to the full episode to learn about:

Connect with Rach Ranton:

Rach Ranton spent a decade in the Australian Army including deployments to East Timor and Afghanistan. Serving as an Electronic Warfare Operator, she conducted intercept and analysis of enemy communications whilst embedded with frontline troops, providing advice to commanders on the battlefield. 

Rach took what she learned in the military about leadership, teams, culture and courage and applied it to her post-military career, leading broad and varied teams across corporate Australia in service, sales, inclusion and organizational development. She is now a sought-after keynote speaker and facilitator working internationally with governments, large corporates and businesses to help them consider leadership, inclusion, change and organizational culture through the lens of the leadership lessons she learned in the military.

Rach is a TED speaker and award-winning leader, receiving a commendation for the role she played in Afghanistan and in 2018 being named ‘Prime Minister’s Veteran Employee of the Year’ at the Prime Minister’s Veteran Employment Awards and Professional Alumnus of the Year at her Alma Mater the University of Southern Queensland for her veteran’s advocacy work.

Along with her partner, their son and their ‘mates who are family’, Rach loves wakeboarding, fishing, the beach and camping adventures across the wild and remote parts of Australia

DAUNTLESS: Leadership lessons from the front line

* * *

Full Transcription:

Rach Ranton: Trust and empowerment and that culture in your team, if that’s not right, it doesn’t matter how good the mission is, or how good the strategy is, or how much people know about it. If they don’t feel like they have the power to be able to get stuff done and to make great decisions, then it holds you back, absolutely.

Tanya: That’s Rach Ranton, TED speaker, corporate leader, author, and now motivational consultant who served in the Australian Army for 11 years. Her TED Talk titled “Where are we trying to end up?” draws parallels between leadership concepts the military is especially brilliant in executing and how those concepts can be leveraged in business. Rach, you really had an interesting career where you decided to take a quite unconventional path. Can you tell us about it?

Rach Ranton: Yeah, absolutely. I grew up in a small town in the country here in Australia so way out in the bush, only about 1200 people that lived there. As I got towards the end of my high school, I really started to think about what do I want to do next? I was desperate to escape that small town, and so I think that’s a big part of why I ended up joining the military. The military for me was a way to be able to see the world, to go on adventures, to meet people that were from completely different places and completely different backgrounds to me. It was a really attractive proposition to pick up from home and join the Army and let them tell me where I was going to live and where I was going to go.

Tanya: How long were you part of the Army?

Rach Ranton: I was in the Army for nearly 11 years, all sorts of, yeah, different places that you live over times like that. Yeah, it was great.

Tanya: When you think about your time in the Army, what’s one of the one or two top things that stand out immediately as top experiences?

Rach Ranton: The opportunity to deploy to Afghanistan with the first Regular Army deployment in 2006 was absolutely a career highlight for me, being able to do my job in real time on the battlefield. Earlier in my career, I’d been to East Timor as well and, again, was lucky to be on the first deployment to East Timor. Then it’s also the people that you meet. I know that’s not a specific what’s a one thing. I look back now at the leaders that I worked with and the people that were my teammates, and that’s what absolutely made it such a positive experience for me.

Tanya: It always comes down to the people now, very much so. Whether it’s military, or your job, or your community, or your neighborhood, it’s always about the people. I completely get that. Have you found that connecting with people from the military or at least having those experiences you actually formed really special bonds as opposed to maybe other people that you meet, civilians outside of the military, or no?

Rach Ranton: I’ve absolutely got really strong bonds with a lot of my mates from the military, and they’re our closest friends and, really, our family in lots of ways, the way you lean on each other. Your families grow up together, and it’s a really intense sort of friendship. You might be posted to the same location, and you’ll be around at each other’s house a couple of times a week and hanging out with everyone. You know everything about what’s going on with their relationship and their lives and their kids, and then you post away from each other for five years. You might not even share a phone call or anything during that time, but when you land back in the same place again, it’s all just on. It never stopped, so they’re really intense friendships. A lot of the experiences that you have are pretty extreme, and so they are really enduring friendships.

Tanya: Ah, yes, I could definitely imagine. What were you accountable for throughout your time, throughout those 11 years?

Rach Ranton: I worked in a trade in communications which was electronic warfare, which is to intercept and analyze enemy communication and give advice on the battlefield, so you’re responsible for time-sensitive collection of intelligence.

Tanya: Can you give us an experience or when you – what’s one time that you remember specifically doing that job that stands out?

Rach Ranton: I tell you, Afghanistan was really where we got to do that the most. I was embedded with our bush masters, our mounted infantry and armored. We’d gone out to the local hospitals, so this is the first patrol when we got over there. My job is to try and get ears on the enemy so find out how they’re communicating. What are they saying? Then give advice to the commander on the ground about what I think the intention of the enemy is, and so on that very first patrol, of course, there was lots of chat on the radio about our movements, what we were doing, where we were going. We were outside the base. Where were we headed?

You’re outside the gate for the very first time, so your heart’s pumping as well. Having to try and figure out exactly what are the enemy saying about us? What are they going to do? Are they going to take any action? Then, from that, giving advice and saying this is what I think they’re doing. This is what I think we should do. This is what I think the threat level is. Doing that for the very first time was terrifying and exhilarating, and you realize the responsibility you have. When you get that call right, you can really make a difference to our safety, but if you get that call wrong, there are some really significant consequences.

Tanya: Yes, I mean, the level of stress that you must have built up, your tolerance must be enormous. What are some of the techniques or trainings that you went through to be able to perform peak performance during top moments of stress?

Rach Ranton: The military is really great at this, and there’s a range of different techniques that they use to help people perform at their peak when you are under extreme duress or really high stress. One of those techniques is simply repetition, so you go through things like with your weapon. What’s your immediate action drill if you get a stoppage? What are the actions that you take out to clear that stoppage in your weapon and to get the weapon firing again as quickly as possible? It’s one of those things you just practice it and practice it and practice it until the muscle memory is so strong that you react without needing to – your brain to think about what’s happening. You simply do the action. If I get a stoppage, I do the action, and I go through those motions. For things that are really physical, that repetition to the point where you don’t need to think about it is a technique that the military uses a lot.

For my job, that repetition factor wasn’t so much how do you overcome the stress? You really need to be understanding the situation yourself. You need to be really considered about what’s our overall mission and to keep that in the front of your mind overall. That will help you with all the decisions and all of the analytical thinking you’re trying to do and then, also, being able to know that your decision will make a big impact. Although that puts extra responsibility on you, it forces you to be really clear on how to communicate and what you think we should do. You don’t speculate. You take that in and make the decision with all that weight behind it.

Tanya: Yeah, that’s interesting. Your word and your input has a direct impact and, potentially, amazing results or devastating results. I guess the level of responsibility that you have for every word that you communicate is tremendously high.

Rach Ranton: There’s only four of us that did that job in Afghanistan on that mission. There’d be two of us on every single patrol making sure that 24/7 operations we had ears on to be able to give that advice. It really makes you realize that everyone had a role at that that’s so critical to the mission. It makes you realize that, when everybody’s performing at their peak and when everybody’s really switched on to just how critical their role is in the team succeeding, that’s when you really are at your best.

Tanya: Yeah, ownership, it really comes down to the team members that own and the leaders that also own everything that happens in their team. Even the people that are – there’s an expression: You’re as strong as your weakest link. I love that. It’s like, well, you can perform well, but if the people behind you are not doing their jobs and, in your case, that could be a life and death situation, there’s a problem. I love that idea of really just being so – owning it and having responsibility for the whole and not just your part, which leads us into something that you talked about as one of the strongest leadership lessons that you’ve learned from the Army in your brilliant TED Talk which I highly recommend people go and listen to. Can you talk about Commander’s Intent?

Rach Ranton: Yeah, absolutely. It was only maybe, I don’t know, five or six years after I got out of the Army and I’d been working in corporate that whole time that I realized just how powerful Commander’s Intent was and just how much I was using it all the time without ever really putting a label on it. It was only once I started thinking about it I went, oh, that’s what I’m doing. Every time I’m confronted with a new situation, or every time I’m working with my team, or looking for their buy-in, I’m actually using Commander’s Intent all the time. It’s a concept that pretty much works on three elements. It’s that everyone understands the mission so what we touched on briefly before. When every single person in your team knows that really big goal that you’re working towards, then they can make really great decisions along the way to be able to make sure that everything about what you’re doing is getting you towards that. Like most organizations you talk to, yeah, yeah, they’ve got a mission. They’re like, oh, yeah, we’re here to help people or whatever. That’s great, but it’s about your team members really deeply understanding what does help mean in that example.

Does it mean making it fast? Does it mean making it easy? Does it mean the customer doing it? Does it mean me doing it for the customer? What does helping really mean in that scenario? Once people have that knowledge of what those words mean, then also making sure that everybody knows so what – where is that big goal? What does it look like, and how do we keep moving towards it? That mission part is a really first critical part of Commander’s Intent. It’s clearly and concisely being able to describe the end stage. What does good look like?

The second part of that is around – the second part of Commander’s Intent is around understanding your own role. Again, what we were speaking about before, really, what is it that I do that helps the team achieve that mission? Not just owning my space but how does my space integrate with all the other players in my team? How can I make what I do be even better for them? What will happen if I fail? What will happen if I succeed to the rest of my team? Each individual having that ownership and really knowing what their role is is that individual part of Commander’s Intent.

Then the third part that brings it all together is around trust and empowerment. For Commander’s Intent to really work, it’s not enough to just know the end stage or to know what I need to do. I actually need to trust my teammates around me or the people that work for me. I need to be able to trust them to get the job done, and I need to be able to give them enough power to make really great decisions along the way without me micromanaging every element of what happens.

Tanya: Do you have a situation in your corporate life where you actually utilize this framework, and it really moved the conversation and aided and had a tremendous impact?

Rach Ranton: Yeah, definitely. A lot of my work in corporate – I’ve worked in the finance sector and in banks, big banks here in Australia. Obviously, the banking industry overall has gone through a lot of change, and we really started to think about the future of banking. That’s when I started to think about what our commander’s intentions are, and actually, this is what I’m using to try and bring my team along and to help us get a better result. We talk about the future of banking. We talk about how do customers want to access their money, their financials, and things they want to do? A lot of the change that was coming through the system was really uncomfortable. It really felt to people like it was change that was being done to them rather than change that they were a part of or could control.

When I took a step back from that, I realized that I could actually give my team a lot more control than I was. We could talk about the future of banking at our level of the organization, and although there’d be things that would come down the line to us, we could actually control a lot of what we were doing. If rather than hide what was happening from them, I just told them all the absolute truth, and we all explored what we thought would happen to banking in the future based on what our customers wanted and how the business would work. Once we started that really open and genuine conversation – so it almost started from that third element of trust to say I trust you guys to be able to tell you all the stuff that I’m hearing or for us to be able to explore all the possible outcomes that there could be with changes to the banking industry. Then my team actually came up with heaps of really creative solutions to how we could shape our business to be a better fit for when they were changes that came down the line or to be able to change our service offering to be better for customers right now. How could we test things for the organization? That attitude really moved from this is being done to me to how can I lead this change? Getting the team onboard with a lot of trust to start with and then us identifying that we wanted to do was – our mission effectively became we want to be the place where the bank tests this. That really helped.

Tanya: That’s amazing. When you’re leading your team like that, do you – how do you dissect these different sections? You actually started with trust as opposed to really the mission. Is trust the foundation above even getting clear on what the mission is and, like you said, drilling down to every word and getting very, very grounded on what does that mean, helping? Is that us doing it? Is it them doing it? Is trust the foundational component to this framework, even above and beyond mission?

Rach Ranton: I’ve been thinking a lot about it. I’m writing a book at the same time and thinking about all these different elements that come into Commander’s Intent, I mean, leadership in general. I think you’re right. That trust and empowerment and that culture in your team, if that’s not right, it doesn’t matter how good the mission is, or how good the strategy is, or how much people know about it. If they don’t feel like they have the power to be able to get stuff done and to make great decisions, then it holds you back, absolutely.

Tanya: Yeah, no. Trust is one of those fundamental things, and actually, I was on – I was speaking with a neuroscientist about the default brain state as being distrustful. That was useful when we were back in caves and the very early days where we needed to continuously assess our environment and the people to ensure our physical survival, but since our society has evolved, those very hardwired – and they hate when I use this, the neuroscientist, hardwired, because of brain plasticity. Anyways, because of that default wiring, I’ll say, people typically start in distrust. Here you are in a company where the default way of operating, unless you intentionally disrupt it, is distrust, and the foundation upon which Commander’s Intent or any type of effective leadership for that matter is trust. How do we really address trust in the corporate setting?

Rach Ranton: Yeah, I think that you’ve got to give it, right? As a leader, you can’t expect your people to trust you if you are demonstrating all the time that you don’t trust them, and it’s not enough to just say it. You’ve got to really do it. You’ve got to give them the power to make the decisions. You’ve got to get decision-making happening at the lowest level you possibly can because they’re the people that are closest to your customers. They’re the people that are going to be able to have all the current information about making decisions. So often, we strip that power away, and when we strip that power away from our people, we’re saying I don’t really trust you. I want oversight of this. I want signoff of this.

When you think about whether people do the right or wrong thing in general, what happens is most people do the right thing, but unfortunately, what we do is we build our world as if people are going to do the wrong thing. We write all these terms and conditions. We have pages and pages of legal documentation behind things. What if someone does the wrong thing? When, actually, I think it’s the flip of that. Where we need to get to is we assume that everybody does the right thing because most people do do the right thing. Then we can use all those spare reams of paper, or lawyers, or words to actually go and deal with the people that aren’t doing the right thing rather than making all these assumptions about – or rather than administering and putting all this governance and ridiculous red tape around everyday people who are going to do the right thing.

I think that’s the same whether it’s your customers or your people. As a leader, you’ve got to realize you’ve got that bias as well towards distrust, and that, actually, rather than putting a bunch of policies in place to make sure people can’t do the right thing – can’t do the wrong thing, you should come from a place where people are going to do the right thing, and I’ll worry about following up with anyone who doesn’t in the future.

Tanya: Yeah, it’s this default way of being. That’s the way our society is organized, and that’s what you’re pointing to where we tend to lean on mitigating against what could be possibly done wrong versus empowering what can be done right. That totally resonates. You mentioned that you’re writing a book. Can you tell us a little preview of what that is or what you’re working on?

Rach Ranton: Yeah, absolutely. I’m definitely still in drafting phase. It’s been an amazing experience. The process of writing itself has absolutely made me really reflect on things that I probably hadn’t dug deeply into before, those few moments in my life where I felt, well, wow, that decision that that person made really shifted my career. I’ve always thought that, but writing about it has made me realize, wow, it didn’t just shift my career. It shifted how I thought about myself. It shifted how others thought about me. Actually, that moment where that person helped me out or lifted my up potentially has changed the trajectory of everything about what I’ve done from that moment. Anyone out there, definitely go and write. I highly recommend it.

What I’m writing about is leadership and the lessons that I’ve learned in the Army and the lessons that I learned on the frontline that I found have actually been really applicable to all sorts of other leadership as well both in my corporate job but also in the community and in general life. Lots of people say I’m not a leader. I don’t have team, or I’m not in charge of anyone. That’s really not what leadership’s about. Every day you have an impact on all the people you interact with and all the people around you in your life and in your family, and how you choose to behave is absolutely part of your leadership and the impact you have on others. Everyone’s a leader in my view, and it’s about the things that I’ve learnt from the Army that I think can really help us to be great leaders for everyone around us.

Tanya: I can’t wait to see it and read it. There is one saying that we say at my firm, Legacy. It’s to support your point. “Leaders are ordinary people up to extraordinary things.” A lot of people mistake a title or a position of power for leadership. If you take a look at history, some of the most unbelievable leaders, Mother Teresa, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, I mean, go down that list. Nobody appointed them until people rallied behind them, and they’re like, oh, okay, yes. Ordinary people up to extraordinary things is really the foundation of leadership. I love that. Okay, great, is there anything, Rach, that we haven’t talked about that we should?

Rach Ranton: I guess probably the only thing that I’d encourage people to think about when they’re thinking about their own leadership is around authenticity. I mean, I think we’re hearing this more and more all the time about people being genuine or people being authentic leaders. I think it’s a really critical thing for you to understand who you are, to be really honest about who you are. You’re absolutely going to get the best out of your team when you can do that, and I didn’t. When I first started at the bank, I had – I was really terrified. I’d come from the Army, and I didn’t have any banking experience. I really tried to pretend to be what I thought a bank manager was so lots of formal speech. I took all the edge off my ocker accent, and I tried to be this picture of what I thought a bank manager should be.

On reflection, I could see what a barrier that put between me and my people and me and my customers. I wasn’t being me. It was only once I put that down and was much more of myself. I was way more flawed, but people were so much more willing to help me out, or forgive me for that, or to be a part of that when I wasn’t trying to pretend to be someone else.

Tanya: It’s hard work to try to pretend to be someone else.

Rach Ranton: Yes, it’s the truth.

Tanya: It’s fulltime job. Forget doing your job. Yeah, I get that. Actually, I wrote about this not too long ago that, to your point, authenticity is real. People have these things called mirror neurons in their brain that register, that mirror the same emotions that you would be feeling but in their body at maybe a lower level or a lower intensity. If you ever have that feeling where you’re in conversation with somebody and what they’re saying just something’s off; it doesn’t register, that could potentially be your mirror neurons picking up on the baloney that somebody’s trying to feed you. I mean, it’s a real thing. This idea of having two yous, one work and one personal, is also BS. That’s going out the door.

Rach, thank you so much for being on. First of all, I have a tremendous amount of respect for your life’s career and who you are in the world and, really, the power in women that you represent, and your energy comes through very, very clearly. Thank you so much for just taking the time and being on the show, and I feel very honored.

Rach Ranton: Thank you so much, Tanya. It’s been so fun talking to you, and I’ve absolutely loved it.

Tanya: Unmessable is recorded in the heart of New York City and a special thanks to all the team involved in producing the show. Visit tanyaprive.com/unmessable to find a transcript of this episode, and be sure to subscribe to our newsletter.

Leadership as a keyword has over 4.4 billion search results on Google. The corporate leadership training industry is big too. Organizations in the US alone spend upwards of $14 billion annually on training their employees to be leaders and leadership development is ranked as one of the top three things senior executives (and business leaders) are most interested in. Yet, somehow, most of these leadership programs fail to deliver on their promise: access to being a leader.

Why on earth would that be the case?

In a remarkable conversation with Lynne Twist — a pro-activist and acclaimed author who raised hundreds of millions for philanthropic causes (standing in the vision of a world that works for everyone, with no one and nothing left out) — who had the opportunity to work alongside iconic world leaders like Mother Teresa, Buckminster Fuller, Maya Angelou and the Dalai Lama (to name a few), points to something very important on the access of leadership.

Here’s the tip of the iceberg in terms of our conversation together on this episode:

“When you make that kind of commitment, when you take a stand with your life, what comes through you is a level of effectiveness, inspiration, and I’ll call it guidance that one doesn’t even know is possible. You stop living your life, your little life starring you, and you live your stand. When you take a stand, you let go of any position you have. You take a stand that gives you incredible access. Archimedes said, “Give me a place to stand and I’ll move the world.” You can and you do.” – Lynne Twist

Tune in to learn about:

Connect with Lynne Twist:

For more than 40 years, Lynne Twist has been a recognized global visionary committed to alleviating poverty, ending world hunger and supporting social justice and environmental sustainability.

From working with Mother Teresa in Calcutta to the refugee camps in Ethiopia and the threatened rainforests of the Amazon, as well as guiding the philanthropy of some of the world’s wealthiest families, Lynne’s on-the-ground work has brought her a deep understanding of people’s relationship with money. Her breadth of knowledge and experience has led her to profound insights about the social tapestry of the world and the historical landscape of the times we are living in.

Her compelling stories and life experiences inspired Lynne to write her best-selling, award-winning book “The Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Life” (W.W. Norton, 2003) which has been translated into nine languages including Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese, French, Spanish, German, Japanese, Bulgarian and Portuguese.

In addition, Lynne has contributed chapters to more than ten books including:

Ms. Twist has written numerous articles for RSF Quarterly, Fetzer Institute, Noetic Sciences Quarterly, and YES! Magazine and Balance.

Keynote Speaker

In addition, she has co-presented and shared the stage with some of today’s most influential thought leaders including:

A teacher by training, Lynne’s desire to contribute to others moved beyond the classroom and onto the world stage when she became the chief fundraising officer for The Hunger Project, raising hundreds of millions of dollars in the course of her tenure.

In 1996, Lynne and her husband, Bill, co-founded The Pachamama Alliance — a social profit (nonprofit) organization whose mission is to empower indigenous people of the Amazon rainforest to preserve their lands and culture and, using insights gained from that work, to educate and inspire individuals everywhere to bring forth a thriving, just and sustainable world.

Lynne’s work as a global citizen encompasses membership in a prestigious group of social profit (nonprofit) boards including the Fetzer Institute, The Institute of Noetic Sciences, Bioneers, Conscious Capitalism Inc., Educating Girls Globally, Youth for Environmental Sanity, and Partnerships in Youth Empowerment.

Lynne also serves as an advisory board member for the California Institute of Integral Studies, Women’s Earth Alliance, Global Youth Action Network, The International Museum of Women and The Center for Partnership Studies, among others. She is a member in good standing of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, The Social Venture Network, The National Society of Fundraising Executives, The Transformational Leadership Council, Evolutionary Leaders Coalition, The Turning Tide Coalition, Women Donors Network.

As a result of her work as a global citizen, Lynne has been featured in over 10 films including: “The Shift” (Michael Goorjian, 2010), “Crude Impact” (James Jandak Wood, 2006) and “Women of Wisdom and Power” (Lili Fournier, 2000) and “Money & Life (Katie Teague).

In addition, she has been interviewed by dozens of media including The Huffington Post, “Mehmet Oz Radio,” Oprah and Friends Radio, NPR, The Chicago Tribune, The San Francisco Chronicle, and PBS.

Honoree

Most recently, Ms. Twist was awarded the Conscious Visionary Award from Sedona, Arizona’s Illuminate Film Festival in May 2018, as well as the Service Award from the American India Foundation in March 2018.

Lynne and her husband, Bill, live in San Francisco, California, and take delight in their three adult children and five grandchildren.

* * *

Full Transcription:

Lynne Twist: Rather than getting into that number too much, I’ll just say 44,000 people were dying a day approximately of hunger and hunger-related causes and disease on a planet of 4.3 billion. Today, as we speak on this podcast, it’s 2019. Although it’s not gone down to zero – we have 7.6 billion people on this planet now; way more people, almost getting close to twice as many people. The number of deaths have gone from 44,000 down to a little bit under 15,000 a day. That is a magnificent, unpredictable, stunning drop. No one could have predicted that. Because the numbers were going up, not down

Tanya: That’s Lynne Twist, a global visionary that has worked alongside game-changing leaders like Mother Teresa, Oprah, Maya Angelou, The Dalai Lama, and Jane Goodall just to name a few. Having raised hundreds of millions of dollars for philanthropic causes, Lynne has dedicated her life to alleviating poverty and hunger and supporting social justice and environmental sustainability. As the author of The Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Life, Lynne shows that, for the most part, our relationship with money is bankrupt. It’s a trap and it’s toxic.

As we awaken, Lynne sees the possibility of living in sufficiency and gratefulness. In addition to co-founding the Pachamama Alliance and founding The Soul of Money Institute, Lynne is an award-winning speaker, consultant, executive coach, global activist, and sought-after global influencer. She brilliantly asks us to consider what if you were known for what you allocate rather than what you accumulate? Lynne, you’ve had a really actually unbelievably interesting career and life journey. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Lynne Twist: I call myself a proactivist, not an activist because I want to distinguish that I’m an activist for, not against. I stand and have for pretty much my whole life in the vision of a world that works for everyone. As Buckminster Fuller said was, “No one or nothing left out.” I see what’s in the way. I’m not afraid to tackle it, or dismantle it, or address it, but I’m not against it.

That energy doesn’t really work for me. I don’t fight against, but I fight for. In fighting for – or not fighting, that’s even the wrong word, standing for. I’m willing to hospice the deaths of the natural systems and structures, not that they’re natural, but the systems and structures that normally would serve us that are unsustainable, that are inappropriate, that are dysfunctional, helping them dissolve while I midwife the birth of the new structures and systems that I see are appropriate and more authentically accurate to the times we’re living in. This is the way to describe myself now when I look back.

I’ve been involved with global issues or issues that I cared about since I was very small. I did a fundraising event in kindergarten when I was five years old because the school that I went to, the public school, Lincoln School in Evanston, Illinois, had a budget crisis. They told my older sister who was the star of the school play that there could be no costumes or sets for the school play. They were going to do some abstract interpretation of whatever it is they were doing. She was just in sobs of tears when she came home from school and told my mother that she was the star of the school play, but there would be no costumes and no sets because there wasn’t enough money.

I overheard this tragic conversation. My older sister was quite a prima donna then. That was her MO. I just went back to school the next day. I enrolled my teacher, Ms. Edna, and all the kids in the class to have chocolate chip cookies and lemonade and have lemonade and chocolate chip cookies stands on all four corners of our school block every day after school and all weekend until we raised enough money for costumes and sets for the school play. It’s a funny thing to start with, but I sometimes realize that’s where it all began. That I become a fundraiser when I was five and realized that you can generate money out of your commitment to someone that you love or something that you love.

For my whole life, I’ve been involved in issues of quality, social justice. I got very deeply inspired when I took the ES Training in 1974 in January when I learned I could make a difference with my life. I really didn’t know that until then. Then from that transformational really extraordinary portal that the ES Training provided for me and millions of people really, I walked through a door where I started to define myself as someone who was destined and committed to making a difference.

That’s when I started studying with Buckminster Fuller. I introduced Buckminster Fuller to Werner Erhard. The Hunger Project was born out of that relationship, a commitment to end world hunger. It hadn’t even occurred to me that hunger could end, but I remember as a child learning that there were hungry people, hungry children. It was almost unbearable to me. When Werner Erhard who founded The Hunger Project announced that he was committing to ending world hunger, I had a transformational experience like a kundalini experience that overtook my entire life.

I became I’ll say dedicated, committed, unyieldingly focused, and declared as someone who would devote my life to ending world hunger; some of the people from outside of my community would say obsessed with ending world hunger. For me, it was – it gave me the purpose and power that I was craving in life. I had little kids just like you do, little ones that I – so I didn’t have the bandwidth or the time or the – it was completely inconvenient to become involved in ending world hunger in a global issue that large, that confronting that seemingly intractable that – and that inspiring, but I could not help myself.

That really began to define my life, that commitment I made to end world hunger, which was really an ontological commitment, a commitment to the transformation of a human condition that looked insurmountable, intractable, impossible to resolve that had become – we’d become resigned to. To transform that resignation into conscious committed action really reshaped everything I ever knew to be true and gave me a life that I could never have planned, never have designed, never have even hoped for with the privilege of working Mother Teresa, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, The Dalai Lama, people that I couldn’t even imagine I would ever meet in a lifetime. To work with men and women in, particularly women, with my hands in the dirt in Ethiopia after the famine or working to empower women in Bangladesh or Dharmapuri, India. These activities, these opportunities, the privileges, these spaces, I became a key player in a world that I was given as a result of that commitment.

There’s a lot more to say than I became very involved in many things as a result because when you make that kind of commitment, when you take a stand with your life, what comes through you is a level of effectiveness, inspiration, and I’ll call it guidance that one doesn’t even know is possible. You stop living your life, your little life starring you, and you live your stand. When you take a stand, you let go of any position you have. You take a stand that is – gives you incredible access. Archimedes said, “Give me a place to stand and I’ll move the world.” You can and you do.

The Hunger Project, the ES Training, working with Buckminster Fuller, understanding that as he said, “One little individual can make a difference that alters the course of humanity,” just knowing that or hearing that or understanding that might even be possible really altered the course of my life. I’ve been living in that recognition, in that realization, in that commitment ever since. Now, I do many things that are – that flow from that commitment.

Tanya: I can tell you, having been involved in The Hunger Project, that is something. Actually, having gone to India with The Hunger Projects when I was 13, it fundamentally changed the way I saw the world. I so appreciate the stand that you took, that you’re taking, and the dedication that you dedicated your life to really ending world hunger. The Hunger Project has been in place for some time. What has happened since you have really – you, and The Hunger Project, and everybody involved have taken a stand against ending world hunger?

Lynne Twist: When we began, we began in 1977. I was very involved in the pre-Hunger Project days when Werner was really creating The Hunger Project with Bucky Fuller and others. I was right there in the designing the enrollment card and really looking at and beginning to learn the about the statistics, etc. In the very beginning, we learned that the number of deaths, this is when we wrote the first documents that defined The Hunger Projects, the source document, and then other really important documents like the Ending Hunger Book.

At that time, we had 4.3 billion people on planet Earth in 1977. At that time, the number of deaths per day were 44,000 a day, 44,000, mostly children under five on a planet that had 4.3 billion people. The infant mortality rates around the world we very high. Infant mortality rate I think you know measures the number of babies who die before their first birthday out of every 1,000 live births. Infant mortality rate measures in a gross way but an important way the health and well-being of a society. Because if a baby cannot make it to Year One at a certain number out of 1,000 live births don’t make it to Year One, the chronic persistent hunger is part of this scenario of that country.

Rather than get into that number too much, I’ll just say 44,000 people were dying a day approximately of hunger and hunger-related causes and disease on a planet of 4.3 billion. Today, as we speak on this podcast, it’s 2019. Although it’s not gone down to zero, we have 7.6 billion people on this planet now; way more people, almost getting close to twice as many people. The number of deaths have gone from 44,000 down to a little bit under 15,000 a day.

That is a magnificent, unpredictable, stunning drop. No one could have predicted that. Because the numbers were going up, not down. We being the human family are on the trajectory to end chronic persistent society-wide hunger that cripples a country by 2030 which is one of the Millennium Development Goals measured by infant mortality rate, which I’ll go back to now.

Our commitment was to have infant mortality rates drop to 50 or below in every country in the world which says in the United Nation statistical studies that society-wide hunger has been completed in that country. There is no country on Earth that after the infant mortality rate drops to 50 or below has gone back up. It is a stability number in statistical analysis that means society-wide hunger has been handled, or completed, or is no longer the basic issue of the population.

When we started The Hunger Project, infant mortality rates around the world were in some cases as high as 238 per babies dying per 1,000 live births in a country like Afghanistan or Ethiopia. Those infant mortality rates have dropped dramatically even with the AIDS crisis which was a huge break in the – a breakdown in the work of ending hunger. The global infant mortality rate dropped to way down of not 50 but 56 I believe or 54 by the end of the 20th Century which was completely unpredictable. That’s the average infant mortality rate.

Now, many countries still have high infant mortality rates. There’s a lot of work to do, so we’re not done with ending world hunger. That work has made a gigantic difference; I want to say the work of everyone working on ending hunger. What The Hunger Project really did was distinguish the commitment to end it from what was going on at the time by the hunger response community which was alleviating the suffering at the periphery of the problem but with no hope of ending hunger. No one had even spoken those words. In fact, thought that was an almost impossible task.

The Hunger Project shifted the game from hunger being an inevitable, hopeless tragedy that we could never resolve, but we could alleviate some of the suffering to – that was the world community’s narrative and point of view and the way the work was evolving to we can end world hunger. Now, CARE, UNICEF, Oxfam, Save the Children, Christen Children’s Fund, all big giant organizations way bigger than The Hunger Project are committed to ending world hunger, which is a very different way to work. All of the activities, the government grants, the countries all over the world through the Sustainable Development Goals and through the Millennium Development Goals made commitments to end world hunger which were unthinkable before The Hunger Project. We ontologically shifted the entire issue from a hopeless, inevitable tragedy to something that we are now eradicating off the face of the earth.

That is one of the greatest contributions The Hunger Project made. Now, The Hunger Project has really established some of the pathways to that, one of the most clear, and powerful, and famous pathways that we established is the empowerment of women and girls being the key factor in ending hunger and poverty. The Hunger Projects made a gigantic contribution.

The statistics today are – they were unpredictable. Every organization on the planet of – the planet has played a role in having those number goes down the way they have. There’s a long way to go, but we’re on the trajectory to end it. We were not.

Tanya: My God, those numbers from 44,000 people dying every day to 15,000 globally is among the population not quite doubling but almost is enormous. That’s amazing. One of the things that you mentioned in I think it was maybe a microdocumentary, which I was deeply inspired by the way.

Lynne Twist: Thank you.

Tanya: You know what; maybe it could have been the interview with Oprah that the poor people – or I know you don’t like to call them poor people, people in poor circumstances taught you something, something very important. What is that?

Lynne Twist: First of all, just distinguish that most of my life, I used the term poor people until I meet them, until I started working with them, until I started knowing their names, and breaking bread with their families, and sitting in the desert with them in a circle and in a drought. I realized these people are not poor and that label demeans them and those of us that would call them that way. They are some of the strongest, most courageous, most innovative, most intelligent even though they can’t in many cases read and write, people on this planet. One of the phrases Werner used that I use all the time is, “They exhibit more courage to live through one day than most of us are going to need in our lifetime.” To call them poor people is a label that is – just doesn’t fit.

What’s poor is their circumstances, not them. They’re whole and complete people living in sometimes horrendous, oppressive, violent, and completely really resource-poor circumstances. What comes out of that for people I think is it almost forces one to rely on their inner life. If you have no outer resources, often, and this is what I’ve learned from them, the sense of your own sufficiency, your own resilience, your own inner depth, your own inner resources is where you go. That’s your treasure and your relationship with other people.

The family systems in Sub-Saharan Africa, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Menevia, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, places where I’ve worked, are so strong. The sisterhood among women, the inner resources that a woman needs to draw in when – you’re a mother; I’m a mother. I’m a grandmother now. Just imagining not being able to feed your children for days on end what you would need to draw in yourself to stay – to keep your kids filled with the possibility of life. That strength, that resilience, that human spirit as we say in The Hunger Project, that capacity to find a way through when there’s no way, as Martin Luther King said, “Find a way when there’s no way,” is who human beings ultimately are.

That’s where I learned about sufficiency, the central theme of The Soul of Money Book. That our enough-ness does not come from money or what is normally termed success, but rather from our sense of self and inner strength, the human spirit, the capacity we have to endure that no matter what, we have a well of being that is the source of our well-being rather than outer resources. The world wealth actually, the etymology of it is well-being. The etymology of well-being is the well of being that’s almost infinite that’s available to every human being.

When you have nothing on the outside, and the government doesn’t recognize you’re even a person, or your husband treats you like a possession or cattle, where people go, and these are the people that I’m thinking of right now that I’ve worked with over these years, you go to that well of being which is an infinite source of strength, and power, and vision, and inspiration. That’s what people living in resource-poor circumstances, living in war – I was in Mozambique after the war. I’ve been in Libera after the war. Women who’ve been raped by soldiers 20, 30 times have children that they have no idea who the father is. Just the strength of these people, these women. In particular, I’m thinking of, the courage of Leymah Gbowee who won the Nobel Prize for stopping the war in Liberia, or women in Ethiopia after the 1984-1985 famine who lost every single child to starvation, hadn’t learned to read or write, had no livelihood, no money, no hope, and got – and ended up going all the way through school and getting a PhD and serving in the government to make sure that never happened to another mother again.

These are people like you and me, like anyone. Those circumstances, those resource-poor circumstances can be the environment, the ecology that really has people turn to that infinite source and the source of their relationship with let’s say the other dimensions, the spirit world, their relationship with God, their relationship with the natural world where they find – like my partners in the Amazon now: extraordinary relationship with the spirit world. Just unbelievable power that they draw from what you and I would call the spirit world, but for them is a daily life. It’s not prayer; it’s not a belief system; it is a source.

I think people living in resource-poor circumstances have a direct experience often because they must in order to survive of true source. That gives them infinite power. They’re whole and complete people. When we call them poor, we demean them and we demean ourselves. That label, it just doesn’t fit them. It fits their circumstances yes, but not them.

Tanya: What you are speaking of – so much to unpack there. Have you ever been in a situation where it’s just you’re standing for something and obviously you’ve dedicated your whole life to it but isn’t it also heartbreaking at the same time? How do you keep going and keep standing for all of these women and families and people in the face of what is so in some cases atrocious, and ugly, and fundamentally disturbing to see and deal with?

Lynne Twist: Sometimes it’s hard; often it’s hard. I don’t mean to stop over that. Somehow for me, I’m always able to find that source of inspiration. I just know that people’s circumstances that they live in, and the way they’re raised, and what happens to them as children often is the soil that produces a monster for example.

There was a man named Mobutu, who was the Dictator of Zaire. Zaire was a country; it’s now been broken up into several countries in Africa. When I was working there, he – this particular man, Mobutu, he wore a leopard skin hat if you maybe remember. He was in the news all the time because he would massacre people right and left. It was like a horrific rain of terror in Zaire. He murdered hundreds of thousands of people, probably millions and then had billions in a Swiss bank account. He was just a – most people would call him a monster.

Eventually, he was overthrown. He fled. I don’t know where he is now. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that I – we didn’t work in Zaire because it was too dangerous for us. We knew what was going on there. The Hunger Project would deal with refugees who had gotten out of Zaire who’d been tortured or who’d been horribly suppressed.

One time, I was in Japan raising money for The Hunger Project. There was one of my big donors, multimillion-dollar donors, one of our big donors, not mine, but I was very close to him, invited me to go to a reception at the American Embassy; unfortunately, that’s the kind of dictator we’ve cropped up, for a reception. I didn’t realize that the reception was for Mobutu, the President of Zaire, this horrendous guy. I remember thinking when I saw him – and there was this long receiving line of dignitaries waiting to shake his hand at the American Embassy. This makes my blood curl.

My Japanese donor wanted to stand in line and meet him. I was thinking do I want to shake the hand of this man who’s literally murdered, raped, pillaged, destroyed his people? I remember standing in line and watching him as he greeted each person and thinking about whatever happened to him that made him, that turned him into that kind of a – turned him so far away from his soul that if I’m really true to myself, I need to see that inside of that man just like inside of every human being is a divine spark.

It got dimmed; it got crushed; it got covered over; it got manipulated. He was probably beaten bloody as a child. He was probably called names. Something happened to him to turn him into the kind of person that would do what he did to his own people.

As I got closer and closer – you can picture this receiving line. I’m getting closer and closer thinking I’m going to actually shake this guy’s hand. I began to see in watching him, there was a little boy in there who was hurt, who was damaged, who was crushed, who had to turn mean to survive. Something horrible had happened to him.

By the time I got to him, I remember looking him in the eye with tears in my eyes. I said to him, “Whatever happened to you that made you be cruel to your own people, I’m sorry for you. I know you can find that place in yourself again.” Then I moved on. There was the next person to shake the hand of and the next person to shake the hand of. I didn’t even know if he heard me.

I don’t know if I need – I can’t even remember your question. I know that there isn’t a person on this planet who doesn’t want to love and be loved. When that is shut off, or shut down, or unrecognized, or unseen, or unacknowledged, or not received, it’s like turning off a switch that can always be turned back on.

Let’s see; I think your question was I’ve been in situations where I’ve seen people be unbelievably treated in a kind of cruelty. I work with the Nobel Women Peace Price Prize Laureates now. We’ve done delegations to Liberia, and Sudan, and the Congo, and places, the Rohingya people in who are no in Bangladesh in exile. What’s happened to primarily women is almost unspeakable. I know that inside of each one of us is a Mother Teresa, is a Hitler. We all have that capacity

What we choose is always there for us. Sorry to go into this so long. I also know from being in the company of women in the Congo who’ve been raped and sexually tortured in such a way that they can barely walk that kind of deep sorrow, and grief, and tragedy, and crushing cruelty, being the recipient of that and even being with people witnessing people being the recipient of that has given me the capacity, that depth of pain and suffering to be with them, sharing what they’ve been through, has given them and me the capacity for almost unbelievable joy.

The other thing – sorry to go into this so long – I also know from being in the company of women in the Congo who’ve been raped and sexually tortured in such a way that they can barely walk, that kind of deep sorry and grief and tragedy and crushing cruelty, being the recipient of that and even being with people, witnessing people who have been the recipient of that has given me the capacity, that depth of pain and suffering to be with them. Sharing what they’ve been through has given them and me the capacity for almost unbelievable joy. What I mean is there’s a spectrum. I move toward suffering in my life. I always have. Not for myself, but the suffering of other people.

I have seen it, particularly in Africa I’m thinking of now, women who have been through that. When it’s time to dance and celebrate and sing and share and love, their capacity for the other end of that spectrum, if I can draw it as a continuum almost, is greater than anyone I’ve ever seen on earth. I learned all this from my experience with Mother Teresa, that the capacity to endure suffering and witness suffering deepens your soul so powerfully and gives you the enormous capacity for forgiveness and an enormous capacity for celebration and joy and to really express the human spirit. I don’t know, did I answer your question? What did you ask me?

Tanya: It so is beyond the question. I’m here bawling. I’m so moved by what you’re saying, and I totally get it. The degree to which you can be with suffering and hurt is the degree in which you can feel the other side, joy and life.

It’s funny because as you were talking before I asked the question, I said I can feel a resistance in me. I’m not sure that I can even experience some of the stuff that you’ve seen because it brings me to tears. Even you just speaking about it brings me to tears. It makes sense, the ability to be with the hurt and the fear and the upset is access to the other side of the spectrum of living.

Lynne: I once had a women’s magazine call me and ask me if I would do an article for them. They wanted to put me on the cover. I had just written The Soul of Money. It was a big opportunity to get the book out there. I said, “Of course. What’s the magazine called?” The woman said, “Our magazine is called Balance.”

I said, “I don’t think you have the right person. I don’t think I can do that.” She said, “What do you mean? Don’t you want balance?” I said, “Actually, no. I don’t seek balance in my life. I know that’s what many women are looking for, balancing their career with their kids.

I know what you mean, but I’ve just got to say what my life is about is integrity. Integrity is very different than balance to me. If I need to stay up all night to keep my word, if I need to fly from Ethiopia to Japan to be at the Japanese Diet to present a proposal to resolve something in Africa, if I need to go into the minds of South Africa to find a woman and rescue her, I’ll do it. I don’t have a thing about balance.” I said this to this lady.

It’s like being on a teeter-totter in life and wanting it to never go up or down but just to be balanced. You want the person on the other end to be the same weight as you. How unexciting is that? I want plain, full-out life all the way. Everybody doesn’t need to do it this way, but that’s just my path. I can’t not do it. Now I’m crying.

Tanya: My God, completely unplanned here. I am moved by who you are, full stop, what you stand for, who you are. It’s just really beautiful. Let me switch gears here a little bit. You wrote this incredible book called The Soul of Money, which I read years ago. It’s called The Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Life. In that you cover a lot of things, but mainly the theme is our relationship with money. Can you talk about it a little bit?

Lynne: When we started The Hunger Project, I was assigned the job of enrollment and fundraising. It was kind of what the whole Hunger budget was at that time. We didn’t know how to balance our checkbooks, Joan Holmes and I. We couldn’t even add and subtract. I don’t mean to demean her. She’s brilliant and continues to be one of my greatest teachers.

When we first started The Hunger Project, we really were fairly clueless. We knew that one thing we would not do is we would not use the pornography of poverty and hunger to raise money. We would not create a narrative where people pitied hungry people or felt sorry for them. We would end that kind of fundraising. We wouldn’t do that.

We would raise money in a way that elevated the power and courage of people living in conditions of hunger and poverty. There’s still a little bit of this, but not much anymore, starving babies with bloated bellies and flies in their eyes on ads on the television all the time. Help little Maria or little Muhammad with skinny legs and big bloated bellies. People felt so terrible that they would send $50 in the middle of the night to whatever agency was advertising that way. We vowed we would not do that.

We would not only not do it ourselves, but we would create a fundraising that was consistent with the end of hunger, rather than its persistence. It was challenging because people were used to charity and pity and feeling sorry for, and we just weren’t going to go there. That wasn’t transformation. That didn’t elevate the image of these courageous men and women who are on the front lines of ending world hunger. We started a different narrative.

We talked about the billion people living in conditions of hunger and poverty and standing on the front lines of ending this scourge that none us want on this planet. You and I have the privilege to join them rather than feel sorry for them. We have the privilege to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with these unbelievably courageous women, men, and children. We start creating a different narrative.

I had the insight that you read about In the Soul of Money book of sufficiency, the wholeness, the completeness in every human being. I started to really see that that’s how we wanted to talk about the people living in conditions of hunger and poverty. The sufficiency message and addressing the mindset of scarcity became the central tenant of our fundraising. We developed a fundraising methodology that really spoke about the front and the backside of the hand of hunger.

If you hold up your hand right now, the front side of the hand of hunger is the physical hunger of children, women, and men, malnutrition, malabsorption, seasonal hunger, famine. That’s the physical hunger of humanity. The backside of that same hand related in completely the same hand is the hunger from meaning, the hunger to make a difference with our lives, the hunger to matter in the affluent world. The affluent world and the people living in conditions of hunger and poverty, it’s all one hunger. It’s the same hunger with two different faces, the front of the hand and the back of the hand.

We started to address the hunger in the affluent world, the hunger to matter, the hunger to make a difference with our lives, the hunger to do something meaningful, the hunger to have purpose, the hunger to see that we can make a difference. Our fundraising became almost like seminars about making a difference with your life, about knowing that money flows through your life, and you have the privilege of sending it to where it will make the most difference for the most people. It doesn’t really belong to you. It belongs to all of us or none of us. It just moves around the planet.

Those of us who are awake and transformed and committed can have money be an expression of our commitment and love for the world. We developed a fundraising methodology that was about the work of ending hunger, but it was consistence with the end of hunger rather than its persistence. It was about the world community coming together, recognizing the health and well-being of ourselves, of each other. Hungry people don’t live somewhere far away. They live in the space of our own humanity. A billion people would go to bed hungry every night is not a seed or a food issue. It was an integrity issue in our relationship with ourselves and one another in the human family.

Our narrative, our conversation, our methodology, you could say our ontology about fundraising was very unique. That was the source of these principles and my relationship with Bucky Fuller of starting a new relationship with money. We started to talk really directly to people about their relationship with money, their hurts, their wounds, their baggage, their anxieties, their constant fear that they can’t have enough even if they were in the million and multi-million dollar category. We start addressing the lie, the scarcity, which is in the source document. We took the lie of scarcity and applied it to fundraising and the world of people’s relationship with money.

That became the signature of The Hunger Project fundraising, which I was the person responsible for it. I trained 50,000 fundraisers around the world in 50 countries. I trained people in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau to raise money from each other, not from the World Bank or from big giant monster agencies, but from each other so that they would realize that the resources were right there in their own country. Money coming from the Mozambicans for the healing of the war in Mozambique, even though it was smaller on spreadsheet and accounting total, it had power, a different kind of power that money was a carrier, a currency of people’s love for their own country. It had a power that a World Bank grant would never have.

We through The Hunger Project developed a whole new way of seeing people’s relationship with money. That was the source of The Soul of Money book. I must say that before I wrote the book, I also had the encounter with the Amazonian Achuar people, the uncontacted Achuar people who we had earlier had first contact with. They didn’t even know money existed. Money was a new concept for them.

They said if you can’t hunt for it, you can’t eat it. Why do people want it? We explained to them if we’re going to have contact with the outside world, you need to understand this thing called money. Why your rainforest is in danger is because there’s oil underneath the forest, and it’s worth a fortune. People will do anything for money. They’ll do horrendous things for money. They’re obsessed with money.

It’s an addiction. It’s a narcotic in our consumer culture. All of that became the foundational thinking for The Soul of Money book, which is not about finance or investments or about financial literacy. It’s about our relationship as a human family, as individuals with this thing called money, our dysfunctional, distorted relationship with money, a mindset that comes from our current economic system and our current commercialization of everything, and the mindset that if we can see it as false, we will discover our own sufficiency, our own wholeness, our own completeness, our own integrity. The Soul of Money book just sort of came out of me like a fountain as a result of all of these experiences.

I don’t want to not mention Mother Teresa because working with her, she raised millions of dollars and nobody even thinks about money and Mother Teresa in the same sentence. I watched her. She was awesome. If she saw that there was a building in Guatemala that would house all the people that she wanted to serve, she would go talk to the person who owned the building and ask them to give it to her. They would say yes.

She would take out the carpeting, no hot water or anything so that the Missionaries of Charity could live like the poor, but she would have her building. They would just give it to her. I watched her. She started 406 missions in 103 countries.

Tanya: Lynne, that is just spectacular. Thank you for the stand that you are in the world and the difference that you’re making, the leadership that you are for so many of us to wake up and feel life and live. Thank you.

Lynne: Thank you; great to meet you by phone. I hope we meet live in person someday. Send me your cellphone and when I’m in New York, I’ll call you.

Most of us like to think that we use data to inform our decision-making process and path forward, but there’s one challenge. It’s possible and quite common that we seek out data to validate what we already believe. That’s called confirmation bias.

In speaking with Alex Edmans, a TED and Davos speaker, rigorous academic researcher and Professor of Finance at the London Business School, he argues that confirmation bias can lead us down the wrong path in business and in life, and provides ways to counteract this automatic human tendency. Alex’s research has been covered by the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and The Economist, among others and he was interviewed by some of the most respected television channels like Bloomberg, BBC, CNBC, and CNN just to name a few.

In addition, as the author of Grow The Pie: How Great Companies Deliver Both Purpose and Profit, Alex outlines actionable and evidenced-based ways for organizations to upgrade their leadership and drive the company into an empowering growth paradigm where everyone wins.

Tune in to learn about:

Connect with Alex Edmans:

Alex Edmans is Professor of Finance at London Business School and Academic Director of the Centre for Corporate Governance. Alex graduated from Oxford University and then worked for Morgan Stanley in investment banking (London) and fixed income sales and trading (New York). After a PhD in Finance from MIT Sloan as a Fulbright Scholar, he joined Wharton in 2007 and was tenured in 2013 shortly before moving to LBS.

Alex’s research interests are in corporate finance (corporate governance, executive compensation, investment/growth/innovation, and M&A), behavioural finance, corporate social responsibility, and practical investment strategies. He has published in the American Economic Review, Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, and Journal of Economic Literature. He is Managing Editor of the Review of Finance, Associate Editor of the Journal of Financial Economics, a Research Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research, and a Fellow of the European Corporate Governance Institute. He was previously Associate Editor of the Review of Financial Studies and a Faculty Research Fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He won the Moskowitz Prize for Socially Responsible Investing, the FIR-PRI prize for Finance and Sustainability, the Investor Responsibility Research Centre prize, and the WRDS Award for Best Empirical Finance Paper at the WFA; was a finalist for the Smith-Breeden Prize for best paper in the Journal of Finance; and was named a Rising Star of Corporate Governance by Yale University and a Rising Star of Finance by NYU/Fordham/RPI.

Alex’s research has been covered by the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Times, The Economist, and The Times; and interviewed by Bloomberg, BBC, CNBC, CNN, ESPN, Fox, ITV, NPR, Reuters, Sky News, and Sky Sports. Alex has spoken at the World Economic Forum in Davos, testified in the UK Parliament, presented to the World Bank Board of Directors as part of the Distinguished Speaker Series, and given the TED talk What to Trust in a Post-Truth World and the TEDx talk The Social Responsibility of Business. He has written op-eds for the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times, writes regularly for Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, World Economic Forum, and CityAM, and runs a blog, Access to Finance, that aims to make complex finance topics accessible to a general audience.

Alex serves on the Steering Group of The Purposeful Company, which proposes policy reforms to encourage companies to pursue long-run purpose over short-run profit, on Royal London Asset Management’s Responsible Investment Advisory Committee, and as an Advisor to Research Affiliates. The UK government appointed him (jointly with PwC) to conduct a study on the effect of share buybacks on executive pay and investment. Alex also serves as Mercers’ School Memorial Professor of Business at Gresham College, giving free lectures to the public. His 2019/20 lecture series is on Business Skills for the 21st Century and his 2018/19 series was on How Business Can Better Serve Society. His book, Grow the Pie: How Great Companies Deliver Both Purpose and Profit, will be published in early 2020.

At Wharton, Alex won 14 teaching awards in six years. At LBS, he won Best Teacher awards for both the MBA and Masters in Financial Analysis programmes and the Excellence in Teaching award for best professor across all programmes. He has served as Orientation Speaker and Graduation Speaker to the MBA, MFA, and Masters in Management classes.

* * *

Full Transcription:

Alex Edmans: One of my passions is to use rigorous academic research to influence the practice of business, and at the moment, on both sides of the Atlantic, there are calls to radically revolutionize business because there’s concerns that business is only focused on making the rich richer rather than serving society more broadly. I was brought into some of these debates to bring evidence to bear, and if I presented evidence that the people agreed with, they would say you’re the world’s top academic on this. You have such rigorous evidence. This is really compelling. If I brought something that people disagreed with, they would say you’re just an academic with no practical experience, or this study really is not relevant for the real world. I’m the same person, but depending on whether what I said was something they liked or they wouldn’t, they would just have completely different reactions to it.

Tanya: That’s Alex Edmans, TED speaker, Davos speaker, rigorous academic researcher, and Professor of Finance at the London Business School. Alex’s research has been covered by the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and The Economist, among others, and he was interviewed by some of the most well-respected television channels like Bloomberg, BBC, CNBC, and CNN, just to name a few. In an eye-opening TED talk he gave titled “What to Trust in a Post-Truth World,” Alex argues that confirmation bias can lead us down the wrong path in business and in life. Additionally, he provides ways to counteract this automatic human tendency. As the author of Grow the Pie: How Great Companies Deliver Both Purpose and Profit, Alex outlines actionable and evidence-based ways for organizations to upgrade their leadership and drive the company into an empowering growth paradigm where everyone wins. Recognized for his outstanding impact, Alex won 14 teaching awards while at Wharton and several at the London Business School where he currently teaches. Alex, what attracted you towards finance teaching and doing rigorous research?

Alex Edmans: Let me first start by talking about why I chose finance as a career. What I like about it is it’s a combination of both arts and sciences. On the one hand, you have evidence, but on the other hand, unlike the hard sciences, you can still have different opinions. People can still see the same data on the economy, but some people might argue that you can increase interest rates. Others might argue that you should reduce them. I like the fact that you could have a debate around that, but the debate could be grounded in evidence rather than purely based on something subjective.

You might think, well, if I’m interested in finance, well, why don’t I go to become a finance practitioner? Indeed, that’s what I did. Straight out of college I went to work for Morgan Stanley in investment banking in London, and there I used a number of the skills that really attracted me to finance as a career. You could have different opinions on a company’s problems and how best to address them. Should this company merge with another company, or raise equity, or raise debt? However, what I found less satisfying about it is that you would work on just one company’s problems at one time. I spent seven months planning my life into one particular deal for my client. The next day it hit The Financial Times, and that was really exciting. Then I looked back, and I realized I had spent seven months just looking at one company’s problems at that one time.

What’s nice about teaching and research is that, if you find a research discovery, that can be timeless. That could apply to multiple companies in different industries across different countries, and so the bandwidth of the contribution that you can make is much greater than in investment banking where you’re focusing on a small number of clients.

Tanya: That makes a lot of sense, so really, what attracted you is the – teaching anyways, is the level of impact that you can really have.

Alex Edmans: Yes, I think if you think about the purpose. What is the purpose of a professor? It’s the creation and dissemination of knowledge. That knowledge can be disseminated very widely, and that’s why I love doing things like this podcast. That can reach some people that I never end up meeting, whereas, as an investment banker, you really work with a couple of trusted clients. You do great stuff for that client, but it’s only a small number of companies rather than outreaching a broad audience.

Tanya: When you were young, were you always inclined to math and science and numbers, or is this something that you discovered later on?

Alex Edmans: No, when I was young, I was a bit of a jack-of-all-trades. I liked both maths, but also English literature. In England, you actually have to specialize quite early. When you do your A levels, which is the exams when you graduate high school, you only choose three or four subjects, and some people will choose math, physics, chemistry. Others might choose English, history, and German. I unusually did both maths and English, which shows the fact that I like both arts and sciences. That’s what attracted me to a social science such as economics, whereas, as I mentioned earlier, you have both the evidence and the theories, but they’re not set in stone. You can’t be dogmatic about them. Reasonable people can disagree, even if they agree on the evidence, and that debate is what really attracts me to this field.

Tanya: That’s great, and so now you’ve been teaching for quite a long time. You taught at Wharton for six years and now are teaching at the London Business School for almost seven years now, 6.5 years. I’m curious. Out of all the students that you’ve had, is there one particular student or thing that happened that stands out in your mind as being extraordinary?

Alex Edmans: It’s been a real privilege to teach at both places, and indeed, I also drew my PhD at MIT. I served as a teaching assistant and taught in the MBA program there. Out of all of those years, I think it’d be really unfair for me to single out one student, but I’ll single out a common theme that I’ve seen among the hundreds of students who particularly blow me away, which is courage. What I mean by that is there’s – my class is known for being pretty difficult. I involve things such as a public speaking component where I ask some students to present trade ideas, and students will just volunteer to do that. Public speaking is something which is challenging. Out of people’s greatest fears, most people will rank public speaking at the top of it. Even though it’s something that I don’t grade so there’s no instrumental motivation to do it, they’ll choose to get up in front of others and present a trade idea, including students who have no knowledge at all of finance before but are willing to give it a go to improve their skills.

Interestingly, I see this also outside the classroom, so what’s been a privilege for me is not just to interact with students within the classroom but also outside. When I was a professor at Wharton, I captained one of the student ice hockey teams for three years. Just to see somebody who’d never played ice hockey before be willing to play a pretty brutal and damaging sport and give it his or her all was fantastic, and that’s something I think translates into many other skills within the business world, which is to be innovative and to try something new. This is why many of my students now go into startup companies, even though they could get a very lucrative job at a conventional management consultancy or an investment bank.

Tanya: That’s interesting. You say that you really almost groom or teach your students what – is what you’re referring to is soft skills. You and I actually had a discussion before recording this about this, which I thought was very interesting. Why do you think it is important to teach your students soft skills? You include that as part of your offering when it’s really not something that’s required but you see as important.

Alex Edmans: Indeed, soft skills is something I got particularly passionate about teaching my students, and to give you the background, what I teach at London Business School and what I used to teach at Wharton and MIT was the core finance class. My job description is to just teach how to plug numbers into a spreadsheet, how to calculate the cost of capital and so on. While these are useful skills, I don’t think these are going to transform my students into future leaders, whereas I do think soft skills will do that, and this is based on a lot of vigorous research around them, for example, The Growth Mindset, by Carol Dweck, and Grit, by Angela Duckworth. I myself knew, realized about ten years ago that I was deficient in the soft skills. I decided to start learning them myself by studying what the research has to say about them and then starting to incorporate them in my lectures.

Now, when I first did this at Wharton, I was really nervous. I thought, well, is this something that students would react negatively to because it’s not as, I guess, hard as the Excel spreadsheet, probably not as [10:56], but they really found this interesting and quite transformational in some ways. Now I give this as part of a public lecture series. In addition to my position at LBS, I’m also a Professor of Business at Gresham College in London. Now, Gresham College is an interesting institution because it doesn’t offer degrees. It only offers a free public lecture series similar to how Michael Faraday used to give free lectures to the public on science.

My last year’s series was called How Business Can Better Serve Society, a standard finance topic based on my research. My current emphasis is called Business Skills for the 21st Century on these soft skills which I think to be really, really important, and indeed, they cover topics such as critical thinking, time management, mental and physical wellness, and the growth mindset. If it’s of interest to some of the listeners, you can see the talks and the transcripts surrounding them on the Gresham College website under the title Business Skills for the 21st Century.

Tanya: That’s amazing, and I think that you’re right on. These things, certainly, I did not quite acquire in school, and yet, they’re so important in life and in business. Do you have any thoughts on why this is not really mainstream and rigorously taught in school?

Alex Edmans: I think it could be a couple of reasons. If I think about, say, the finance or economic field, an analogy is behavioral economics and behavioral finance, the fact that people are not rational, psychological factors matter. Now, that was a field which took quite a long time to get into mainstream economics and finance because people thought it’s fluffy. It’s not something that you can model mathematically as easily, so people who were in the traditional economics and finance mold would not embrace them so much. Similarly, there might be view among standard academics in business that these skills – soft is often used as a [13:06] term. They’ll say, well, you’re teaching fluffy stuff rather than how to plug numbers into a spreadsheet. That’s why I’m pretty unusual in trying to teach this.

Also, I think there might be the view that this is not backed up. There’s not much research around this. It’s often people who go where they got – and there indeed are some popular best-selling books which you can buy at the airports by people who are trying to get into soft skills where it’s based on hunches, not so much on research. That might put off some people from thinking, well, we don’t want to teach this because anything goes. People can just say what sounds good, even if it’s not backed up by research. As I say, there’s some really great scholars out there who have done some really rigorous research on this topic, and that’s why, when I try to speak about this, I try to speak based on research and be very upfront that it’s not my own research. I’m standing on the shoulders of giants and learning from others who are dedicated to those fields.

Tanya: That’s actually a great segue into talking about your really compelling TED talk that you gave, which is titled “What to Trust in Post-Truth World,” where you talk about a flaw that we have as humans called confirmation bias. I thought it was fascinating so, for anybody listening, highly recommend watching it. Two questions, can you tell us what, for those that don’t know what it is, confirmation bias is, and I’m very interested in knowing at what point did you realize how much confirmation bias distorts our view of reality?

Alex Edmans: Thanks. Yes, a confirmation bias is the tendency to accept a story if it confirms what we would like to be true, even if the story might not be true or even if it’s a fact not backed up by evidence. Conversely, we will reject something if it contradicts our prior of view point, so we’re willing to accept new news that confirms what we think to be true. For example, it might be that you’re somebody who’s a climate change denier, and if some new evidence is put out suggesting that climate change is real, you might immediately think, oh, well, this must be just funded by some unscrupulous body, not actually looking at the research and seeing whether it’s rigorous. If you see some evidence suggesting, well, climate change is a hoax, then you immediately accept it without actually scrutinizing whether those claims are true. What led me to deciding to give a TED talk on this is seeing how serious this is in politics and in business in many fields. We’ve had the Brexit referendum within the UK, and we’ve had the Action Campaign between Trump and Clinton in the US. What was really surprising was just how people would only listen to points of views which they agreed with, which leads to the echo chambers, and this is true for both the Brexit campaign but also the Remain campaign. You’d only like to look at posts which you thought you’d agreed with, and you’d reject even sensible evidence which is against that.

Then I have some first-hand of confirmation bias in my own work. One of my passions is to use rigorous academic research to influence the practice of business, and at the moment, on both sides of the Atlantic, there are calls to radically revolutionize business because there’s concerns that business is only focused on making the rich richer rather than serving society more broadly. I was brought in to some of these debates to bring evidence to bear, and if I presented evidence that people agreed with, they would say, oh, you’re the world’s top academic on this. You have such rigorous evidence. This is really compelling. If I brought something that people disagreed with, they would say you’re just an academic with no practical experience. This study really is not relevant for the real world. I’m the same person, but depending on whether what I said was something they liked or they wouldn’t, they would just have completely different reactions to it.

One particularly extreme example of this was I was testifying in the House of Commons in a parliamentary inquiry on executive pay and corporate governance, and the witness before me presented a paper which argued that the higher the pay ratio between the CEO and workers the worse the performance of the company. Now, actually, what they had done is they had handpicked a half finished version of the paper when, actually, the finished version was published. It was published a few years later, and after going through peer review and correcting its mistakes, it found completely the opposite results. This shows how you can just always find any study that you want to to support your point of view, even if the finished version of the story shows the opposite. What was even more of a concern is, even though I brought this to the attention of the House of Commons and they said, oh, this is really bad; yeah, you must – you should submit something to highlight this mistake. Their final report referred to the tainted evidence. Why? Political climate at that time was one in which people believe that high executive pay was unfair and damaging to morale.

Tanya: My God, that should be unacceptable.

Alex Edmans: I think so. If you think about – let’s go to the title of my TED talk, “What to Trust in a Post-Truth World.” You might think there are certain websites and blogs are not trustworthy. You think a government report. That should be trustworthy, but unfortunate, we can’t even trust that.

Tanya: Wow! It seems like human beings have a tendency towards confirmation bias. In some cases and not all human beings but we tend to want to be right over doing what’s right.

Alex Edmans: That’s right, and there is a neurological basis for confirmation bias, which is why it is indeed so strong and led to some of the outcomes that I just discussed. There was a great study by some scientists at the University of Southern California where they did MRI scans of the brains of people and they saw what happened if you were presented with some arguments which disagreed with your political viewpoint. The part of the brain that lit up when you heard a contradictory opinion was the amygdala. That is the same part of the brain that lights up if a tiger attacks you and induces a fight or flight response, and so literally, hearing something that contradicts your viewpoint on, say, gun control, or legalization of cannabis, or climate change, you feel like you’re being slapped in the face, or you’re being attacked, which is why there are these quite extreme reactions that you see.

Tanya: My God, so this is very interesting. It’s not just an ego thing. There’s actually neurological wiring that makes us the way that we are.

Alex Edmans: Yes, and it’s particularly on the views on these thorny political issues. What they also did is they gave some other statements such as Thomas Edison invented the lightbulb, and then they provided some contradictory evidence to that. The amygdala didn’t light up because those were statements where there’s no real personal or political viewpoint. It’s the one where there is strong political debate where contradiction is one that really leads to this extreme reaction.

Tanya: In other words, no politics, religion, and talks about money or personal finances at a dinner party stands to be true. Especially knowing what we know now from a neurological standpoint, it is like you’re being attacked if whatever’s being presented defers from what you personally believe. That’s so interesting. Let me ask you this. If we’re not technically trained as you are to really dismantle these confirmation biases by going through tremendously rigorous research, how can a normal person like me really address this problem?

Alex Edmans: I think there are two things that we can look at. The first is to try to actively seek other viewpoints and find viewpoints that you disagree with. In many issues, there are two sides to both of the – to the issue, and it’s important to try and consider the other side. For example, in the Brexit referendum, I was a very strong supporter of Remain, and I would’ve loved to believe that all of the Brexit supporters were ignorant and racist. I thought, well, let me try to look at, well, what is the case with Brexit? I tried to look at what I found to be the strongest and most informed arguments for Brexit. I actually wrote in my blog, “The Case for Brexit.” I had a post called “The Case for Brexit,” as well as one called “The Case for Remain,” and I thought that that was consistent with my mission as a professor. As I mentioned earlier, the creation and dissemination of knowledge that involved disseminating knowledge on both sides of an argument, even if I personally own what was more aligned to one side.

I think, secondly, the second thing that I would recommend is to try to put your trust particularly in papers published in the top peer-reviewed journals. Now, there’s a lot of research out there, some by companies, and I really respect companies. I spend a lot of my time engaging with practitioners, but if you’re a company doing a study, there’s a couple of concerns. Number one, it might be that there’s a potential bias towards something which would be supportive of your clients, but number two is that, with companies, you might only have a year to complete a survey, whereas with an academic study you have maybe five years to finish it. You can really nail down a result, separate correlation from causation, and importantly, academic papers need to go through rigorous peer review to check that’s it right.

Now, peer review is not just a rubber stamp. In fact, some of the very best journals, they reject 95% of papers such as their standard for stringency, but it’s important to note that there’s a huge range of journals and the stringency of peer review. Just to say, oh, there was a published paper showing that X doesn’t convince anybody, but there are lists. For example, The Financial Times has a list of the top 50 journals, and that’s publically available. You don’t need to be an academic insider to look at that list. You can just check where was this paper published, and potentially, who are the – or who were the authors? Instead, what happens is that we latch onto a study because we like the findings or dislike the findings without considering who wrote it and whether it was published.

Tanya: Yeah, so just to sum up what you said, for non-research academic people, the best thing to do to really tackle your own confirmation biases is first ask what is the other side of the argument and really explore that as a possibility to and having it be valid. Not necessarily that you agree with it but just as a possibility, and then somehow you could figure out which way you want to fall on the issue. Then the other thing is to go to peer-reviewed journals, which the New York Times has a really nice list of them. The one thing that comes up for me is nowadays people read titles, mostly, like on Twitter and on social media, and really don’t have that habit on most issues to go and really rigorously view whatever the findings are behind what’s being claimed. How can we deal with that?

Alex Edmans: I wish I had the silver bullet for this, Tanya, but I don’t have any better answer than just to try to develop that habit. This is why one of the lectures I’m giving in the Business Skills for the 21st Century series is called Critical Thinking. It is so much of a temptation to believe a short tweet, and indeed, this is another psychological bias which is known as black or white thinking or splitting, which is that something is either always good or always bad. Exercise is always good for you. Red one is always bad or something like that when they’re actually nuances. Some things could be good in moderation and so on. Just the habit to recognize that there are two sides to most issues and to be questioning and to not automatically believe something which even if the headline is very strong but to try to investigate what’s behind it. Even a headline itself could be misleading.

Let me give you another government example. There was a more recent government study which said the evidence is that CEOs have hardly any effect on firm value. They were trying to make the point that CEOs don’t deserve their pay, and they referenced some evidence in the study. Who do they reference? They referenced a submission by Professor Alex Edmans, which is me. Now, if you actually look at the evidence that I submitted, it said completely the opposite of what they quoted, but it would be tempting for somebody just to read the report and say, well, there’s a reference here. Yes, they’re quoting that report quite faithfully when in fact they weren’t. Unfortunately, we do need to go that extra level and check out the references. Does that reference actually say what the person quoting it is claiming that it says?

Tanya: Wow! That’s really disconcerting that they completely misquoted you on your research. What did you do about that?

Alex Edmans: I’m writing a transcript which goes with my Critical Thinking lecture to highlight an issue. That lecture won’t be given until spring 2020, but you can certainly find both the Critical Thinking lecture and also the transcript behind it, which is to highlight the issue. Again, why I’m talking about this, it’s not to call out the government or to shame anybody, but this is just a manifestation of a general issue of a bias which is pervasive. This was just one situation where I thought it was particularly important because it could be driving policy.

Tanya: Yes, no, absolutely. I want to shift gears a little bit and talk about the incredible book that you’re publishing that is radical and thought provoking called Grow the Pie: How Great Companies Deliver Both Purpose and Profits. What inspired you to write the book?

Alex Edmans: There were two things which were – which are quite interrelated. The first is the huge polarization that we see about business. There are some people out there who believe that businesses are completely evil. What they try to do is they try to price gouge customers, treat workers as badly as possible, and they don’t care about polluting the environment. There’s others who might be on the business side who say, well, that’s absolutely not true at all. Businesses should only focus on generating profits. Indeed, there was a famous article published in 1970 by Milton Friedman who argued the social responsibility of business is to increase profit. Businesses should just focus as much as possible on making money and leave the environment to the government. Why do we have that same extremism? It’s based on this idea of confirmation bias that I refer to earlier is that, if you’re somebody who believes that business is evil, you’re going to latch onto certain studies just like the same way that you hear government was portraying research in the government inquiries.

This polarization leads to what I call the pie-splitting mentality. This is the idea that what a company produces is a fixed pie. Now, that pie can either go to investors as profits, or it can go to society as, for example, workers, customers, and the environment. With this polarization and the view that there’s a fixed pie, you fight against each other. If you’re a CEO, you think the best way to increase your profits is to take slices of the pie from workers by reducing their wages. Similarly, if you are trade union, you might think the best way to increase worker slice of the pie is to heavily regulate business in order to try to reduce their profits. Indeed, you see this battle being played out, and it’s not just played out ow in the 21st century, but you’ve seen this from, say, the robber barons of the 19th century and then the trade unions and so on. I was thinking, well, there must be a different way to run business from this adversarial approach. That’s why I called the book Grow the Pie, the idea that actually business and society can work together to provide outcomes of mutual benefit.

That’s linked to the second motivation to writing the book, which is a look at the careful evidence. A non-evidence-based view is one that only considers one side. If you’re a business person, you’re only going to consider the evidence for profit being great. Similarly, if you’re on the other side, you might only consider the evidence for companies being exploitative. If you look at the highest quality evidence, it actually is not an us or them mentality. It does show that companies that treat their stakeholders well are not sacrificing profit but actually delivering more profit in the long term. This idea that you can grow the pie and lead to outcomes that are mutually beneficial, that’s not just wishful thinking. It’s not just a too good to be true pipe dream. It’s backed up by evidence.

Tanya: That’s interesting. What do you think has been getting in the way for us to realize what you call pie-growing mentality?

Alex Edmans: Two things, so first is the pie-splitting mentality seems to be just pervasive. I think while there may be a psychological bias for it, but there might certainly be a historical bias for it. Historically, most of the wealth was in the form of lands where, if I have some land, then you have less land because there’s only a finite amount of land to go around. Nowadays, things are different because much wealth is in the form of human capital. If I’m smarter or because I’m getting a – my employee was developing and training me, that doesn’t hurt you. Things are different now because wealth can be created, but because many people have this idea that things – or there are some, that mentality has persisted.

The second reason is that, while it is indeed true that the pie can be grown in the long term, it does take a long time, and many of the structures that we have in business nowadays are focused on the short term. For example, companies in the US, they need to report their profit every three months. Now, if you are to train your workers, just to continue the last example, that costs you money. Now, in the long term it’s true that a better trained workforce is more productive and increases your profits, but if you’re a CEO and you’re trying to hit the next quarters earnings target, you might not bother training your workers because the immediate cost is something which is going to be negative to profits.

Tanya: How should leaders really take these two, short term versus long term, and deal with this? I mean, the short-term pressures are real. There’s expectations, and they’re benchmarked against, like you were mentioning, the earnings. How should people deal with this? What are some of the mental shifts that leaders, business leaders today need to do in order to really realize this long-term value and embody this pie-growing opportunity, business opportunity?

Alex Edmans: I think the first is to look at the evidence and to find that this pie-growing idea is not a pipe dream, and it’s a not a too good to be true idea. Historically, people have thought about this idea of corporate social responsibility being some optional extra, being something which is fluffy. They thought that it’s at the expense of profits, so let’s just do the minimum possible in order for us to preserve our public reputation. When, actually, what the evidence suggests is that it’s not an optional extra. It should be fundamental to how a company does business for them to see purpose and value creation to society as being central.

The second is, once you have that mindset, how do you actually put it into practice? I’d say that there’s a couple of things. The book talks about many, but let me just talk about two for the sake of time. The one is the incentive structures that you give throughout the organization. Now, when people think about reforming CEO pay, they will focus on the level of pay. The idea is the pie-splitting mentality. The CEO is being paid so much. If she wasn’t so greedy, you could redistribute her pie to everybody else, but that actually isn’t right.

Let’s say a top CEO in the US gets paid $10 million. Now, that sounds a lot, but compared to the average firm size in the Fortune 500, that’s $20 billion. Ten million is only 0.05%, so how much of the pie you can redistribute is actually really, really small. When, in fact, evidence shows that if you was to change the horizon of the CEO, for example, pay him according to the stock price in seven years’ time rather in three years’ time, that encourages her to do things such as invest in workers, which have effects of, say, two to three percent per year on her value. How much value you can create by growing the pie is much higher than how much you can create by splitting the pie differently. That’s the first point is incentive structures.

The second point is on reporting. Why is it that some investors may only focus on short-term profits? There’s the pressures that you were referring to, Tanya. It’s because traditional reporting is on the profit and loss statement, but there are many measures that companies can do to report their contribution to society, for example, their environmental records, what they’re doing with their workers, and so on. The extent to which we have this other model of reporting which is often called integrated reporting where you’re supplementing short-term quantitative measures with longer term qualitative measures, then investors will get a much bigger picture of what the company is doing.

Tanya: Oh, you know what? That makes a lot of sense. Realigning the incentives will certainly get people moving towards the long term. I like that. For the people that would like to get access to your book, how can they get a hold of a copy?

Alex Edmans: It’s available on Amazon and most other retail outlets, and also, if you’d like to just see what the book might be about and what other people are saying about it before buying it, it has a website growthepie.net, which has a chapter outline and some of the related work that is built off it and some reviews by people who have read it.

Tanya: I read the reviews. By the way, you have some incredible people that have weighed in really supporting your book and your findings so congratulations. That’s pretty incredible.

Alex Edmans: Thanks very much. What I was really grateful for was that the reviews were from a broad diversity of people, so there’s some vectors there, some investors, some academics, and some on more the societal side of the spectrum. What I hope my book to be is unifying. As I said at the start, what motivated me was this polarization between us and them, but what the book hopes to show is it’s not us and them. We’re in this together. We’re trying to make capitalism deliver profits because that’s important to investors but also serve society, and so I was really humbled by the fact that people from different companies were willing to get behind and endorse the book.

Tanya: Yes, I especially love that the book comes from someone in the finance background where this idea of us or them mentality is really an old paradigm. I believe and, actually, part of what we do in my day job at our consulting firm is really a we mentality. The idea of teams and really having everybody’s interest makes for the outcome so much more powerful than if you’re really fighting each other along the way.

Alex Edmans: It’s funny you say that. Often, when I speak about the importance of business to companies, I’m introduced as a professor of finance, and the audience thinks they’ve misheard. [39:04] is the enemy of a lot of these, perhaps, initiatives because they think, well, this is going to hit the bottom line. What I have to show and the [39:14] with my research more generally is that any finance professional with that mindset is actually failing at his or her job.

Tanya: That’s so powerful. I love that. Your students are very lucky to have you. I’ll say that. Just before we finish here, I would like to know is there anything that we haven’t talked about that you think we should?

Alex Edmans: I’d just like to reiterate the discussion we had earlier about Business Skills for the 21st Century. I think what I wanted to do with this lecture series is to make accessible the important business skills which are not traditionally taught at business school. To the extent to which any of the listeners find this of interest, they can view the series of the Gresham College website. It’s called Business Skills for the 21st Century, and the talks are livestream. Even if you can’t attend them in person, you can see them wherever you are in the world, and you can also see them on playback later, even if you are not free in that particular point in time. Also, as I mentioned, there are transcripts of lectures. The transcripts are not word for word, but instead, they’re meant to be a succinct summary of the main points. For somebody who’s constrained and can’t watch the entire talk, hopefully, the transcripts are of interest to you. This is consistent with my passion about trying to disseminate knowledge to a wide audience, so hopefully, that will be of interest to some people.

Tanya: Awesome. Alex, thank you so much for taking the time today and, also, for putting out a brilliant piece of work, your book, Grow the Pie. That really stands on what I believe to be the next business paradigm, which is really an awesome mentality. I love the message, and I fully support it. I just love that you took the time to provide rigorous evidence and a case for why it actually is possible, so thank you.

Alex Edmans: Thanks very much, Tanya, for having me on.

Tanya: Unmessable is recorded in the heart of New York City and a special thanks to all the team involved in producing the show. Visit tanyaprive.com/unmessable to find a transcript of this episode and be sure to subscribe to our newsletter.

Innovation and critical thinking are key skillsets in business, but have you ever wondered what makes them possible?

The answer is creativity.

In speaking with the co-founder of acclaimed off-broadway show Blue Man Group, which was acquired in 2017 by one of the most renowned entertainment companies out there — Cirque du Soleil — whose shows have been seen by over 160 million people, Matt Goldman shared how a horrific school experience inspired him to co-founder the Blue School, a progressive independent school in New York City with over 300 students that explores creative ways to educate the leaders of the future.

Tune in to learn about Matt’s fascinating entrepreneurial journey and:

Connect with Matt Goldman:

Matt Goldman’s biography:

A few of Matt Goldman’s titles include award-winning writer and performer, Grammy-nominated musician and composer, co-founder of the international theatrical sensation Blue Man Group, CEO of its parent organization Blue Man Productions, and co-founder of the NYC-based Blue School.

Goldman spent his boyhood in New York City, with parents who encouraged him to learn about a diverse range of interests. After earning an MBA degree, he began a career in software development, only to step away from the growing industry to follow where the Blue Man path would lead. His business knowledge assisted the friends early on, guiding them to make decisions in regard to the longevity and ownership of their creative work.

After nearly twenty years at the Blue Man helm with Chris Wink and Phil Stanton, Goldman made the decision to follow his passion for learning and education. The threesome teamed up with other artists and educators to form Blue School in New York City. With over 300 students enrolled in Pre-K through 8th grade, the school is designed to reimagine a more complete, balanced and exuberant approach to education. Goldman serves as Board Vice-Chair and co-Founder of the school.

* * *

Full Transcription:

Matt Goldman: It was thrilling. We were trying to create a movement, so to speak, and that we were trying to inspire creativity in ourselves and our audiences.

Tanya: That’s Mike Goldman, co-founder of Blue Man Group, an off-Broadway production that has become a sensation known for its humor, blue body paint, and wild stunts. The show Blue Man has been viewed by millions in New York, Boston, Chicago, Las Vegas, Orlando and Berlin. In 2017, Cirque du Soleil, the internationally renowned entertainment company, whose shows have been seen by upwards of 160 million around the world, acquired Blue Man Group. Additionally, Matt founded the Blue School, a progressive independent school for kids aged two through eighth grade, based in Lower Manhattan.

As a seasoned executive and creative innovator, Matt’s TED talk titled the Search for A-ha Moments has been viewed by millions and touches a very important subject and that is how traditional school systems can mislabel people and limit true learning.

You co-founded Blue Man Group 31 years ago, which seems like an eternity and Blue Man Group is famously known for the Blue Man Show in New York particularly, where I know you’re based and I’m based. What was your journey like leading up to co-founding the business? What were you doing before then?

Matt Goldman: One of my two partners, Chris Wink and I, had gone to school together since we were 12 years old. It was always so interesting because both our families always said, oh you guys are going to do something together when you get out of college. We never really put any stock to that and then lo and behold that’s exactly what happened. I was personally doing – I was in the software space in the very earliest days of personal computer software, where we were actually doing Apple IIE on 3.5” floppy disks. It was crazy.

One of the reasons I got into that in the first place is because I didn’t have the metabolism to be an apprentice or a decade or two in more traditional industries. What I love about software, even though I myself didn’t even really use a computer, is that you could be on an even playing field at 22 years old with someone who is 52 years old because we all had the exact same historical background in the industry. What I was doing was more like a record producer. I wasn’t writing any of the code, I wasn’t writing the documentation, but I was getting all of those people together and getting the product out on to the marketplace.

At that time, I had created a personal mission statement of making ideas real, or making ideas happen. We would sit around, we would brainstorm with a group of really smart people and 16 to 28 weeks later, there would be new software, first-time ever out on the shelves. When Chris Wink and my partner Phil Stanton and I started to meet and have these fun salons in New York City in the mid-‘80s, the idea of Blue Man started to germinate. That personal mission statement of making ideas happen applied perfectly to starting Blue Man as it did making software.

Tanya: That’s so interesting. You said you had a fun salon. Is that what you called it?

Matt Goldman: Well, we had these salons in our apartment, where the only rule was to bring something fun and/or interesting to the table. It was the ‘80s, it was a crazy time. There seemed to be a dearth of music in New York City and there was a lot of – it was the Reagan era; it was supply side economics and it was like a whole cultural – it wasn’t fitting who we were hoping to – the time we were hoping to enter into as young people. I had seen the ‘60s. Coincidentally, we had all had older siblings, so even though we were all born in the very beginning of the decade, we saw the ‘60s through very young eyes, through older siblings and through our activist parents.

Then the ‘70s. We were still only in high school but it was Studio 54 and the sexual revolution and the gay revolution. It was just an explosive time. We went to college and go out and we go, okay, now it’s our time. It was Reagan and dual-income-no-children and yuppie, and all the music scene seemed to be happening in England or in Seattle. Rather than sit around and complain about it, what we wanted to do was have these salons where the only rule was just bring something that was interesting, fun, exciting. It doesn’t matter what it was. I could be something you wrote, something you read, a conversation overheard, something you saw, a photograph. It doesn’t matter because we felt like we were creative people but we just weren’t trained in any specific artform, other than Chris who was a very accomplished drummer, but still maybe not even accomplished enough to perform in a philharmonic or in a society recognized context.

Tanya: What is one of the things that you remember that was brought to the fun table, which, by the way, I think is so much fun. I might actually have to steal that for my fun salon one night.

Matt Goldman: Well, it’s open architecture, so we have no corner on the market. It wouldn’t even be stealing, it would be just generative, creative – we certainly feel like the more creativity out in the world, the more people tapping into their own personal creativity, the more innovation, that’s really what it’s all about. If you’re going to call it stealing, steal away because we have no proprietary rights to any of it.

There was a lot of storytelling. There was a lot of ideas about our feelings about music or performance. It was interesting, almost anyone was invited, meaning we didn’t really – it was like, bring friends, bring people we don’t know but somehow through it all, myself and Chris and Phil were the through lines. We were there almost always and then one thing went to another went to another. We also had this super unique skill of Chris and Phil could catch things in their mouths really well and I was really good at throwing things super accurately.

Tanya: What a match!

Matt Goldman: Yeah. It was crazy. You never realized that all those hours of darts in college –

Tanya: Amounted to something, yes.

Matt Goldman: Right, right, there you are. For them, they worked for a catering company together and because they could catch in their mouths, they had this game that whenever they came through the doors into the kitchen of the catering company, the chefs would throw food at them to catch in their mouths. They were constantly practicing and I was constantly practicing and then we just brought it all together. In some ways, that was one of the earliest things that Blue Men ever did, was catch things in their mouths.

Later, as we started to realize that we were as much nouvelle Vaudeville as anything because it was hard to label what we were doing, someone who was smarter and wiser than us explained to us that the thing that made Vaudevillians was they could do these skills and start a show with something that no one else could do, whether it was plate spinning or sword swallowing or fire eating. That’s how that tradition came out. For us, opening the show with drumming with paint coming off the – and then catching stuff in our mouths, we learned about it after the fact but it made sense and resonated and helped to guide us as we went forward.

Tanya: That’s amazing that you used that as inspiration for Blue Man. Just to get into Blue Man a little bit. What you have accomplished in the performing arts field by co-founding Blue Man is pretty unbelievable. Just for those that don’t know, as a background you built this unbelievable performing arts company. The show that has been viewed by millions. You exited the business, or you transitioned out, and we’ll get into that, in 2010, but in 2017, the business that you co-founded was acquired by one of the largest multibillion dollar circus companies, or performance companies out there called Cirque du Soleil.

Cirque du Soleil is actually quite – I have a very sweet spot for it because I’m from Montreal where it originally is from so have a lot of respect for Guy Laliberté, who’s the founder, and really built this world-class company. What was your journey, as you started Blue Man Group and scaled that up and ran it for a number of years, up until you transitioned out in 2010?

Matt Goldman: Yeah so that’s a big question and I guess it’s an entry point question to what our journey was. I guess that I would start with, we were super excited to be artist-owned and operated show or organization. We were super lucky in that we built it little bits at a time, little bits at a time. Then once we got to the Astor Place Theater in New York City, which is a tiny little theater, 300 seats, we were able to do that almost completely on our own. We did have so-called producers for three years but then they were finished and so then we were completely in control of the organization. After that, we had no agents or managers. There was financial partners in some of the shows but really passive investors. That was once piece of it that was extraordinary to the journey.

We had all these people come in and say, we could produce you and you could spend all your time on the creative stuff on stage and we’ll take care of all of the business stuff. Really for us, they were all completely intertwined, they were integrated. We had a show that had no [fourth wall]. We were trying to create an emotional state and an emotional climax at the end, and that really wasn’t possible to obtain, to authentically get the entire audience to that place, unless the people backstage and the band and the people in the office all felt good about what was going on. Really took our time to build things slowly and methodically but to be able to be the decision-makers and run the organization. It was thrilling

At a certain point, two hours every night on stage was the quietest, most relaxing of our entire days, which would start at 10:00 in the morning and end at 01:00 in the morning for years and years and years. Producing, directing, writing, doing all the PR, building the organization and then performing. It was thrilling. We were trying to create a movement, so to speak, in that we were trying to inspire creativity in ourselves and our audiences. In order to authentically create that emotional apex, that emotional climax in the show every night, it had to be right for everyone backstage, for the band, for even the people in the offices. It was intuitive that early on we had to do the producing and the directing and the performance and keep control of it. You couldn’t create that good feeling and that emotional apex on stage every night if you didn’t have a positive good feeling backstage as well.

Tanya: Yeah that makes sense, that it really comes down to authenticity.

Matt Goldman: [17:24] for a slower growth – we always were conscious – we didn’t want to have the extreme fast big growth because that could lead to a big fast fall. We identified that we wanted to be creating a Blue Man character for decades and so we were okay with a positive growth curve that was more gradual and deliberate because it was a great lifestyle too.

Tanya: Yeah. You were doing it for the passion and the creative freedom and the self-expression and it was just such a great outlet and platform. That makes total sense. Was there a point in that growth curve that you thought, oh my God, we’re going to go out of business or times got really tough.

Matt Goldman: Well, yes. There’s an alternate version of just that. When we opened Boston and Chicago, we had financial partners; people who put up money and then you shared the profits. When we opened our third show in Chicago, at the Briar Street Theater, we decided to go it alone. We said let’s just completely self-finance this and have none – and our organization wasn’t quite mature yet and we didn’t have all of the financial controls in place. We didn’t have a formal, formal business offer or general manager, accountant. We did things more intuitively.

About a month before we opened, I started to feel like we were about to run out of money. I got the people in the office together and I said, listen, we don’t really have a sense of how much money we have. We don’t have a sense of how much we’ve spent and we don’t have a sense of what’s left to spend to get us to opening night. Let’s just take a quick pause and try to figure all that out. The answer was that we were going to completely run out of money a week before opening night. For all the entrepreneurs out there, you all know that missing payroll is the ultimate, ultimate kiss of death, and we certainly didn’t want to do that to all those people who were working 120 hours a week and giving their heart and soul.

We went to a bunch of banks, no one would lend us any money. We maxed out our credit cards. My partners and I got together and we said, okay, we’re going to miss it by a week, what should we do. Then we decided you know what? Our dress rehearsals are just as entertaining as previews, so let’s do something that’s probably almost never happened in theater. Let’s take out an ad in the paper and announce that Blue Man is going to open a week early, a week ahead of schedule and just charge for what is in the schedule, our own internal schedule, as dress rehearsals. We’ll just charge for the dress rehearsals and pray that we can generate enough income.

Then on top of that, it was crazier because we were so on the edge, we did it on a – we opened on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday ahead of our previews and in order to make it all work, we did double shows. We did two shows Friday, two shows Saturday, two shows Sunday because we needed six – the revenue from six shows. Guess what? It worked.

Tanya: Oh my God that’s amazing!

Matt Goldman: We got nearly full houses. We did six shows. We didn’t know how we were going to get through it. We got through it. We met payroll. Then that show was sold out for months and months and months and months after that.

Tanya: What an incredible story and comeback. By the way, for anybody that has been running a business, most people have to deal with that at some point. It’s just so amazing that you were able to get your team aligned and push ahead of schedule. Book the seats and sell the tickets and not only do one show per day but two shows per day, so that you can meet the financial responsibilities that you were already committed to. That’s brilliant. Awesome, awesome.

Matt Goldman: Well, it definitely falls into necessity as the mother of invention type of thinking.

Tanya: Oh yeah.

Matt Goldman: It also taught us a lot about messaging and spin and marketing. You could go out and say, we’re about to run out of cash so we’ll come to these shows and pay for it or we could say, we’re so far ahead of our curve that we’re ready to open a week early and get this show into Chicago because we can’t wait.

Tanya: The demand is too high; we are now fully sold out or whatever. Yeah, that’s amazing.

Matt Goldman: We didn’t even go that route. We just could have, strictly based on our own excitement to get the show in front of audiences in Chicago.

Tanya: That’s smart. That’s so cool. Do you remember a point in the business where there was an inflection point where it’s like struggle, struggle, struggle and then something is just working and clicking?

Matt Goldman: Yeah. That’s so interesting you ask because our New York show opened before Malcolm Gladwell had written Tipping Point. We experienced the tipping point moment before anyone was calling it tipping point, but it made it so interesting because then we could say in that controversy as well, is he brilliant or is he not so much. We were like, oh no, I’m tipping point, he’s nailed it and this is how. When we opened the New York show, no one knew about us. We had done some street performance. We had done some stuff in the not-for-profit spaces like PS122 and Dixon Place and a bunch of underground Speakeasys that don’t even exist today, so no one knew us and selling 300 tickets a night is no easy task.

We were basically half empty for the first six months of the run and then we had been on a really popular show in Brazil and we had been on a really popular show in Italy and in Germany. They were just looking for content so they come to New York and look at these crazy blue guys. Then we performed on the sixth episode of Jay Leno’s Tonight Show because he had just taken over from Johnny Carson. Then we had also done a performance on Kathy and Regis. We went from a solid 50% empty, or 50% full, for six months and then literally in one week, we went from half empty to sold out and then sold out for three, four months in advance. It changed, literally, in one week. All I can say is that I think it was a confluence of these people coming, largely, from Brazil, Italy, Germany, Israel and Japan and then the American audience, but it was a tipping point moment. There was nothing linear about it. We were just stuck on a flatline, 50% sold and then in one week, we were sold out and never looked back.

Tanya: What role did the people from Italy and Japan and Brazil play in that tipping point do you think?

Matt Goldman: Well because we had the unique and rare feature of the Blue Men come out into the audience every night at the end of the show to connect. It was always strange for us that you would pour your heart and soul out on stage for an hour and forty five minutes, two hours, and then just disappear into this little dressing room and everyone just leaves. You get no interaction, no feedback. That’s what’s typical in theater. We were just like, forget that. It was just run off stage, run around the back, [through the] hallways of the theater and get into the lobby before the first people exit and then we can interact with them. It was tricky because we really didn’t talk but we got to connect.

Through that experience, we were realizing that a huge percentage of our audience on any given night, 30, 40% of our audience was from those other countries. Really, this was all pre, I don’t want to say pre-internet because there was an internet, but it was certainly pre-social media and it was before the internet was replacing word of mouth. This is still – you’re in the early ‘90s at this point and straight through all the ‘90s, where you’re really hearing it from a friend. Oh my God, you’ve got to go see this show! Then the people who are more local, you’ve got to see the show, you can’t – I’ll go back with you. That was another phenomenon.

Later, we were to learn that on Broadway, basically you’re at about 1%, some shows have almost a 2% repeat customer. Anyone in the audience, about 1 to 2% has seen the show before. At Blue Men, our repeat customer was more in the 20% range.

Tanya: Wow.

Matt Goldman: Yeah, it was crazy.

Tanya: Wow that’s incredible. You know what? So business savvy of you guys to really understand who are your initial customers. By getting actually out near the door and connecting with them. Really cool.

Matt Goldman: Right, but you call that business savvy but you can put that label on it retroactively. The truth is it was selfish. We just didn’t want to do the show and then be alone. It was a show about connection and so we wanted to connect, so really it was just like, come on, let’s go meet the people we just had this experience with.

Tanya: Well, it was serendipitously a strategic business move. In 2010, you transitioned out of the business to co-found another business, a school, which we’re going to get into. Very interesting. What prompted that transition?

Matt Goldman: Well, again, there’s so many ways to answer that, and I know for the six people who started Blue School, they would all answer it in very different ways. For four of us, we had little tiny – we had babies, so we started to ask ourselves – well, I can only speak for myself. I started to ask myself, do I want my child to have the same educational experience that I did? That was an easy answer. The answer was no. It’s pretty well-documented, I talked about how school was really a very unpleasant, unsatisfying experience for me. Very difficult: emotionally difficult, academically difficult. Only to learn much later that I probably had several learning differences that weren’t even in the vernacular back when I was going to school.

I just wanted, for my own child, not to – you’re 6, you’re 9, you’re 12. This should be the most joyful, fun time of your life, 18, 22, you’re not having to –

Tanya: Be responsible.

Matt Goldman: Be responsible and all those kinds of things. You’re learning like a sponge and your brain is developing, so why, why should school be drudgery? It shouldn’t be. That was my feeling. We, sort of, all circled around to wanting to create either the fantasy school that we want for our own children or the fantasy school that we wish we had gone to ourselves. That would be one that would have a balance of academic mastery because we were all writers. We all were entrepreneurs. We were all – you can’t devalue the importance of literacy and math and knowing world history and all those things. Balancing academic mastery with creative thinking and what was at the time being referred to as social intelligence, we refer to it now as self and social intelligence.

Balancing academic mastery, creative thinking and self and social intelligence to really address the whole child, where you can flourish as a person. Look at the world through, especially as a young person, through questions, through an enquiry approach and work together to find the next question. One question leads to another question leads to another question and you never know where it’s going to go, if you’re approaching learning in that way. It just turns out that most great teachers, that’s exactly how they want to teach. Most of them have been trained that way but then they got into the real world and they get a curriculum and it’s all locked in and it’s really so often about acquiring – drilling and testing. The great thing for us is now that we have graduates, this balanced approach is proving that kids are actually testing much higher than their peer groups. They’re in great demand in high schools and other programs because they’ve learned in this way.

Tanya: Yeah, I also have three kids: two twins and one three-year old, twins are two. That same question that you were asking yourself, do I really want my child to have the same education that I did, I’m asking myself now. There’s something broken with our education system, really fundamentally from a financial standpoint. Certainly university. People spend all this time at uni and really get in tremendous debt and the cost of it has been increasing substantially over the years. Also to your point, it somehow caps creativity. Does it really promote problem-solving or curiosity? It’s more about, here’s what you need to learn, learn it, we’ll test it and then you move on to the next. Then most of that you don’t even retain. It’s like, okay – I don’t quite remember what I did in my school.

Is having your child really the motivation that pushed you to decide to transition out of Blue Man?

Matt Goldman: First of all, I agree with every single word that you just stated. I think that what happened, it was a bunch of roads leading to this path in that sure, having a child was a big motivator. The fact that Blue Man Group had established and was – it had proved to be an attractor for people who wanted to be creative, who wanted to be passionate about creativity and innovation. One of our questions early on was, all these things that had Blue Man Group be so attractive to so many people, are those things teachable? Fifteen years ago, there really weren’t answers yet to is creativity teachable, is innovation teachable.

Even back 15 years ago, there was a question of whether you can teach empathy and compassion. Because we were Blue Man Group and because we had got access in the pop culture world and we were able to approach the smartest people in education and psychology and developmental sciences and ask them these very questions. Basically, is creativity, is innovation, compassion, empathy, are these teachable things. The good news is that right about then, people were coalescing around the answer was yes, probably, but it would have to be done in just the right way and just – really apply science to it rather than 150 years of only – and I don’t mean this in any disparaging way, but instead of only the progressive education, which has sort of – but adding the latest breakthroughs in neuroscience, in developmental psychology and educational technology add it in.

People like Sir Ken Robinson and Dr. Daniel Siegel and all sorts of super great, smart people, when we approached them and asked them these questions, they were saying that we think that the answer is yes, that these things are teachable. We said, the invitation here is you’re a writer and a lecturer and a researcher, we could have your work show up in our classrooms, if you want to come on board in some capacity, as an Advisory Board member, a Board member, a friend of the school. In so many instances, we got people to just say, yes. They accepted our invitation right in the moment because what a rare opportunity for someone who writes books and lectures, to have their work be literally show up on the classroom walls, through the work of the kids.

Tanya: Is there a specific reason why your school focuses on children aged two through eighth or ninth grade?

Matt Goldman: Yeah. There’s several reasons for that. It’s almost like because we’re in New York City is almost the biggest one. I think if we were in Madison, Wisconsin, we might have gone through 12. Listen, just like Blue Man Group, we started Blue School with pure passion. We had no business plan. We had no funding. We just were like let’s start a creativity center. Let’s invite some people we know, and they can invite some people we know. It was literally that, and after a couple months of these 15 families being together, they were like oh, no, no, this is a school. We got to hire a teacher. Let’s get going.

As we learned more about the educational landscape and especially here in New York, what has happened is – and actually, having my own son having gone through the high school placement process just a couple years ago, what we’ve come to realize is that high schools in New York City of which the choices are astounding how many and the diversity – I’m talking about independent schools and public schools and alternative schools, but high schools in New York City have really become mini university pre-undergraduate programs. I mean, there are some high schools where the elective course book is 32 pages long. It’s insane, right? The work that we wanted to do with these young people and we try to grab them at 2 years old and get them through eighth grade is to have them thrive and be able to adapt to any situation that they’re put in, life-long, joyful learners. We only have two years of anecdotal evidence so far, but so far, these kids are just going to these high schools and adapting very, very, very well.

I think that if we were in another place maybe we would’ve carried it through 12th grade, but now, these high schools, I’m more arty. I’m more sports. I’m more music. I like less structure. I like more structure. I like bigger environments. I like smaller environments. There are just so many options that I think – then the other way to answer that is – and again, we didn’t – I didn’t realize this until we were in it, but when you have 8th graders as the oldest age group in your schools, essentially, you’re talking about 12, 13-year-olds being – 14-year-olds being the mentors or the people that all the younger kids look up to.

That’s an incredibly different person than an 18-year-old in a K-12 environment. At 18, you’re driving. You’re drinking. You’re doing drugs. You’re having sex. That’s just normal 18-year-old stuff, right? Thirteen, 14-year-olds, they’re still enjoying Dungeons & Dragons. Texting is a really big deal. You just got a phone a year or two ago at the most that your universe – so what we’ve learned and then learned from other educators is that K-8 program, a Pre-K through 8th programs, the children stay younger longer because they’re just not seeing the 18-year-olds as the peer leaders. In New York City, especially in the state, it’s a time of technology. Especially parents of 12, 13, 14-year-olds, they’re so appreciative to have their kids stay kids just a little bit longer.

Tanya: I can imagine, and especially in New York City, they’re exposed to so much that if we can shelter them just a tiny bit for a little bit longer I could completely see how parents would appreciate that. What are your thoughts on – a lot of companies like Google, Ernst & Young, Whole Foods, Apple, Starbucks, IBM, even Bank of America have came out and publically said that they no longer require a university degree to work in their companies. Certainly, in the tech space, a lot of people are really putting much more value on people’s ability to problem solve and their actual experience and their personal projects that they’ve done, self-motivated, self-directed, as opposed to a degree in whatever, computer science or whatever it might be. What are your thoughts on the future of the importance of getting a college education?

Matt: That’s a big question, future college education. I’ll answer it this way. I think that, at Blue School, we spend a tremendous amount of time and effort in collaboration, building collaborative skills, whether it’s a group of 2, 4, 8, 16 and all different configurations. You want to have as much skill as collaborating with 2 people as you want to in a group of 16, right? You’re going to be thrown into – so that’s one thing, being really good communicators, understanding yourself, understanding the others, asking the right questions. How can you create – competition is a good thing, but your team competing against their own capabilities versus competing against one of your own team members or against another team, these are the – there’s a whole set of skills that I think that these companies that you just described are finding valuable that, from my perspective, need to be developed way before college. That’s why I think there’s less emphasis on needing a college degree. We’re trying to get it in 2 to 14-year-olds and also an inner structure and building an ability to create your own passion.

I think that whether – I’ve never worried for my own child. If he wants to go to college or he wants to start his own thing after high school, or if he wants to go to another part of the world and contribute in that way, all that I ask is that he really gives himself fully to whatever it is that he’s focusing on. In that regard, I also don’t want to diminish the importance of college for some kids. I mean, my own college experience was phenomenal.

Tanya: Matt, you gave a smashing TED Talk which I so connected with about the school system that really mislabeled you, boxed you in, and you gave very concrete examples of what happened. Can you give us an idea of that experience and those pivotal moments that really inspired you to start Blue School?

Matt: Yeah, well, I mean, it was such a crazy experience for me in school because I didn’t ever feel – I’ve always felt like I was a smart-ish person, but I didn’t feel school smart or book smart. You’re a kid. I didn’t know how to navigate those two different realities. I was super lucky, and my parents and my – and they were both teachers and didn’t really put undue pressure on me or value the school smart over my precocious out in the world smart feeling. It really wasn’t until I was in my last year of graduate school that I – which was all these things. It was a real-world situation. I was doing a paid internship. I got to choose the subject of my thesis. I worked in a small collaborative group of peers and professors.

By the way, we were all trying to get the master’s program I was in accredited. It was a brand new program, and they were being accredited that year, so the stakes were even higher. It was only that last year of graduate school where it was like everything was clicking and feeling good, and I felt like I got school. I became a straight-A student after being a C student. Not that that’s the measure, but it was I didn’t need the grades because I knew it was all – everything was fine. It was a very double-edged sword kind of thing. At the one hand, I was like, oh, my God, now I get all the – I thought all those people were just faking it or lying that they liked school, but now I get it. On the other hand, I was like, oh, my God, the last 15 years, 20 years have been torture, basically.

Part of the motivation both at Blue Man Group and Blue School was to take the learning and the experiential of what was wonderful about that last year and try to get rid of as much as possible about all the previous. Now, true, then I was later to figure out that my learning differences and probably dyslexia and ADHD was all in the mix somehow, someway, but I have a very, very good friend who was responsible for literally more than 100 – an acquisition into Omnicom of 100 small companies. He said that he felt like the United States was systematically destroying entrepreneurship because the only quality that was consistent through all the entrepreneurs of the 100 companies that he was involved with was that he felt like every single founder was either ADHD or dyslexic. That the country has an obsession with eliminating ADHD and trying to fix dyslexia where those are the exact qualities that make those kind of founder, director, innovators, those people. They see the world in a different lens.

Tanya: Yes, absolutely. This idea that everybody learns in the same way is ludicrous.

Matt: Ludicrous.

Tanya: All these different things might be going on with people, processing information, reading information, I mean, it’s – that, fundamentally, it’s broken. One of the things – so if you haven’t see Matt’s TED Talk, I highly recommend you go see it. One of the things that just threw me so off is that you shared, on one of your English papers, your teachers – where you got something like a C or some type of C, they said – they put as a comment “as good as can be expected,” which is so demeaning. What a way to box a kid in. Are you kidding me, oh, so crazy?

Matt: Oh, my gosh, and what I didn’t talk about in that TED Talk is I actually never saw my father so angry. That was the single – not at me, at the professor, the teacher. He went in there, and I was disinvited from being in the room. The “conversation” could easily be heard through the walls.

Tanya: That’s a good dad.

Matt: That was a moment – but it was real. He was a writer, and he was a teacher.

Tanya: Yeah, if that happened to my child, I don’t know what I would do. I would be so upset. Oh, I’m so glad your dad stuck up for you and did something and made that professor aware, that teacher, that that was not okay.

Matt: Yeah, I was lucky to have a dad and parents like that, I have to say.

Tanya: Absolutely, so okay, Matt, what are you working on now, any fun new projects?

Matt: [54:19]?

Tanya: Mm-hmm.

Matt: I’ve got a couple projects bubbling which I can’t actually discuss just yet because it’s just too early. It could be back into a little bit of the performance arena. We are full blast in – Blue School is about to become more of a mature organization, and so while we sit on the board, we’re trying – it’s a funny thing. As a board member, as a founding board member, your whole raison d’être, your whole goal was to make yourself obsolete and to allow for the organization to be self-perpetuating and thrive without you. We’re hard at work at that, and there’s light at the end of the tunnel. I’m also so completely passionate about education as a whole. I’ve been bitten by the bug. There are other areas of education for both adults and children. I really believe in this concept of life-long joyful learning, and so there’s a couple projects that we’re collaborating on right now that will hopefully start to become more public over the next 12 to 24 months that addresses this ongoing what do we have to do as citizens of the planet to – all we want to do is leave the world in a little bit better condition than we left it. I can’t say that we are in that cycle right now in the aggregate.

Tanya: I know, sadly. I know.

Matt: Sadly, less because of the actions of your country home, birth country than mine. All we can do is persevere and work hard and activate and try. I really believe in the concept that micro-activism can lead to macro-change.

Tanya: Totally, yeah.

Matt: A lot of the projects that we’re working on right now are in that vein.

Tanya: Oh, well, I can’t wait to see what you’re up to next. I mean, literally, everything you do is with such a fundamental core principle that is really to advance or, like you say, leave this world in a better place, whether that be through art or whether that be through education, and I have a lot of respect for that. Matt, thank you so much for taking the time and being with us today. I love your story. I love your mind, your soul, and your purpose here on earth.

Matt: That’s so sweet. Thank you, Tanya, and likewise, I’m a huge fan of what you’re doing and to get it out in the world and tell people’s stories. I think that storytelling is one of the keys to it all, so congratulations on your journey.

Announcement: Unmessable is recorded in the heart of New York City, and a special thanks to all the team involved in producing the show. Visit tanyaprive.com/unmessable to find a transcript of this episode, and be sure to subscribe to our newsletter.

Did you ever react to someone or something and know it was not going to end well? Have you ever been triggered by a boss or colleague and behaved in a way that you knew was not going to be effective?

Sure, we all have. But did you ever stop to think why that happens?

Here’s the short answer: brain patterns. More specifically, the cause of these knee-jerk reactions or automatic responses are because of neural pathways in your brain that are triggered. Basically, your default brain wiring may, at times, get in the way of your effectiveness when someone or some situation triggers you.

So the question is, how do you disrupt this brain pattern?

Dr. Tara Swart — TED speaker, senior MIT lecturer, neuroscientist, and author — shares fascinating information about how she works with clients to expand their mental resilience and emotional intelligence, which ultimately leads to more effective leadership.

In her book: The Source: The Secrets of the Universe, the Science of the Brain, Dr. Tara Swart lays out, with great scientific rigor, the universal truths of what it is to be human.

Tune in to learn about how you can increase your leadership effectiveness, specifically:

Connect with Dr. Tara Swart:

Dr. Tara Swart’s biography:

Dr. Tara Swart is a neuroscientist, leadership coach, award-winning author and a medical doctor. She works with leaders all over the world to help them achieve mental resilience and peak brain performance, improving their ability to manage stress, regulate emotions and retain information.

Tara is the only top-tier leadership coach with both a PhD in neuroscience and former medical career as a psychiatrist. Educated at Oxford University and King’s College London, her role as Faculty at MIT and King’s College London, and as guest lecturer at Oxford SAID, ensures that she remains at the forefront of the latest developments in her sector.

Tara’s clients include FTSE100, Fortune 500 and Magic Circle firms, as well as UHNWI entrepreneurs. She specialises in sectors that face unusual levels of stress or change.

Tara is an award-winning, best-selling author, and her newest book, The Source, shows us how the ancient tools of manifestation and visualisation are fundamentally powerful and incredibly effective at freeing us of self-limiting behaviours and propelling us toward our truest, most authentic selves.

Swart reveals how and why these systems actually work by offering the latest breakthroughs in neuroscience and behavioural psychology, including lessons in neuroplasticity, magneticism, emotional and logical thinking, as well as hydration, self-care, and relaxation.

She is also lead author of the award-winning book, Neuroscience for Leadership: Harnessing the Brain Gain Advantage. The book examines new evidence that positive leadership can be learned and how by harnessing key competencies and creativity, leaders can make better decisions and improve performance.

* * *

Full Transcription:

Dr. Tara Swart: The way that you think really determines some of the things that happened in your life and a lot about physicality and mindfulness and just dealing with stress because that is such a big factor to everyone. I mean, the people that listen to your podcast at [01:46], 75% of that demographic of person is chronically stressed. The way that that affects our physical health, our mental reasoning, our ability to master our emotions to access our intuition is frightening.

Tanya: That’s Dr. Swart. TED speaker, senior MIT lecturer, neuroscientist, and author who leverages her medical background, psychiatry training, and neuroscience education to coach leading executives and entrepreneurs to perform at peak. In her book, The Source: The Secrets of the Universe, the Science of the Brain, as Deepak Chopra puts it, Dr. Swart marries the universal truths with scientific rigor for a persuasive important exploration of the law of attraction. Tara, you’ve had a very interesting career path to say the least. What initially drew you to psychiatry and neuroscience?

Dr. Tara Swart: I guess, they drew me to them. I mean, I’ve gone to medical school straight after high school on a path that was quite laid out for me. When it came to the second or third year and we could specialize a little bit, I just found the neuro paths of every subject like neurochemistry, neurophysiology, neuroanatomy the most interesting. Then I actually took three years out of medical school to do a PhD in neuroscience because I was sure that I wanted to be a neurologist when I – I was going to say when I grew up. When I finished the clinical training.

Then after doing that for three years, when I went back to the clinical training, I just found psychiatry more interesting in terms of day-to-day work because it was about how people’s moods changed. How your brain could play tricks on you and you could hear a voice that wasn’t really there. I just found that element of actually speaking with people more interesting than looking at brain tumors and brain abscesses. That’s the path I chose for my career. Looking back, I would say that the whole psychological cognitive science and clinical practice element was probably a lot to do with the search to understand myself.

Tanya: Has it helped you actually understand yourself?

Dr. Tara Swart: It’s taken a long time, but having – I worked as a doctor for seven years then I changed career and I started executive coaching. Then about three years into that, the neuroscience became a really hot topic in business and leadership. Then I went more towards the speaking. I’ve always said that it felt like those threads of why I did that PhD that I never really used and the fact that I was a stress specialist from a psychiatric ward and then I became an executive coach right at the time of the financial crisis, all of that started to make sense, but it was very much – it was very rational. It was very in my career. It only really made sense to me personally when I decided to make this big career change and I got divorced at the same time. I had a big change of identity all at the same time around my mid-30s and that’s when it really was like, wow, understanding how my brain works, understanding cognitive science, understanding emotions and how they affect all of your decision-making and everything.

That was when I started to think about writing a book because I thought everybody needs to know this because I’ve seen people on the psychiatric ward because they’re so overwhelmed by what’s going on in their life and in their body and in their mind. I could see how that could happen, but because I understood the processes of identity change that I was going through, it massively helped me. That’s when it really, everything made sense. Why I’ve been on the path I’ve been on. Why I changed. What I’d learned technically and in my own life lessons really came together. Suddenly, science and spirituality aren’t two opposite ends, two poles. They’re on a spectrum and the more I understood that, the more life made sense and the more I really wanted to send that message out to people. Which is why I wanted to speak with you today.

Tanya: Yes. Right before starting the recording, we were talking about what we both do which is just so similar, but you approach it from a little bit of a different angle, the science and the peak performance leadership angle. I have your book in front of me, The Source: The Secrets of the Universe, the Science of the Brain which I am so excited to read. You have no idea. Now can you tell me who is the book for and what are some of the important things that you distill in the book? I know obviously people have to actually go read it to get the full scope, but what are some of the things that you introduce?

Dr. Tara Swart: Yeah, absolutely to [06:48] the idea of it is easy and I think the right thing to do because I think it’s something that really makes people think which is, you might know that I previously co-wrote a book called, Neuroscience for Leadership, which was very much the book that everybody said I had to write. I felt I had to write. It’s very dense. It’s very academic and businessy. This book is for everyone, but it’s based on the understanding that leaders are people too. It’s about leadership in terms of leading your own life, leading your family, your team, your organization if you’re a leader of a large organization, your community, whether you’re in a position of power or not. It’s really for humans. It’s really for basically everybody with a brain.

Tanya: That’s a pretty wide market.

Dr. Tara Swart: It’s a wide market. It’s a wide market. I mean, it absolutely is relevant to leaders because the case studies I have are from my executive coaching, but it’s very much based on everything that you might want in life and the understanding that your brain is your biggest asset. The physical health and the optimal condition of your brain basically dictates everything that happens in your life. The more that you understand about how it works and some of the latest understandings around things like neuroplasticity which is how much the brain changes in adulthood, brain agility which is all these different ways of thinking that we have access to, but we don’t necessarily use. The more that you can get out of it.

Then I’ve really put that very rigorous and up-to-date scientific research behind some more alternative things which are interesting like how do vision boards work. What’s the law of attraction and can the way that you think really determine some of the things that happen in your life? A lot about physicality and mindfulness and just dealing with stress because that is such a big factor for everyone. I mean, the people that listen to your podcast at [08:51], 75% of that demographic of person is chronically stressed. The way that that affects our physical health, our mental reasoning, our ability to master our emotions to access our intuition is frightening.

Tanya: Oh, yes. Yes. Can you explain that because actually, I so connect with that? Probably a month ago, I went to my general practitioner and I said, “Why am I chronically tired? What’s going on with me? I usually have a lot of energy and really bubbly, but for some reason I’ve just been battling being chronically tired for some period of time.” Immediately, my doctor said, “You know what, you and 95% of the people that come to see me is stress related.” What happens in your body when you are under stress and what happens from your cognitive processing, problem solving, and emotional intelligence side of things? Because 75% of our target demographic is a huge percentage.

Dr. Tara Swart: I mean, the 75% stat that I just came up with is actually – because there are various stats, but the 75% one is 75% people in the modern world are deficient in magnesium. Before I forget, I want to say that if you’re feeling tired all the time, you should start taking magnesium supplements. I don’t want to make this too personal, Tanya, but do you ever get a twitchy eyelid?

Tanya: Yes, I do. I do.

Dr. Tara Swart: Okay. You’re deficient in magnesium definitely. I love the way you’re like, I do.

Tanya: I do. Actually, the other day I was leading a session with clients and it required a level of focus for me that was totally unlike any – when you’re on in front of a group, you’re on and this is executives from a large biotech company and my eyelid was twitching and I’m like, damn it. No.

Dr. Tara Swart: It makes you look like – you can’t control it. You feel very aware of it being that obvious but it’s not as obvious to other people as it is to you, but it just makes you feel like I’m not in control. I’m not all put together. I’m not presenting myself how I want to. Even that disastrous thinking is related to the fact that your stress levels are too high. When you are stressed, your levels of your stress hormone cortisol are chronically raised and to try to counteract this your body leaches itself with magnesium. Actually, in a stressed state, you cannot eat enough leafy greens and nuts and seeds to replenish that. You need to supplement. My book came out on October 15th so I was in New York and Boston around that time. I managed to fly home and spend some time with my family in between and I just flew back in early November.

The weekend when I had to pack, I really wanted to spend some time with my family. I had a friend that needed some help. I remember thinking, if I go and spend half an hour with her, I won’t be able to have my magnesium bath. It was a real trade-off for me because as soon as I travel, I start to get these little muscle twitches and I know that it’s because it’s very stressful to my body. Obviously, I packed enough magnesium tablets for two weeks. I travel very light so I won’t carry a big liquid with me. As soon as I arrived at my friend’s apartment in New York, she presented me with a bottle of magnesium cream. This is serious. We take this really serious is sleep and stress. I know that we’re going to talk about those two particularly. Basically, going back to something again that we were just saying before we started recording, you were saying that people find it easier to read and digest language from 10 years ago than from now.

Tanya: Yeah, from people at a 10-year-old level. It’s like between a 9 and 12-year-old level but 10 years old is where – from an SEO standpoint I’ve read really scores high on SEO.

Dr. Tara Swart: Okay, okay, so age 10, yeah. Because it’s simple, but if you think now about the amount of information that we’re bombarded with, the fact that we can be switched on 24/7 working across time zones, checking our phone in the middle of the night, just taking in so much written information and now it’s – I know people who read a book and listen to Audible at the same time, not the same book.

Tanya: Oh, my god. Seriously?

Dr. Tara Swart: Yeah, yeah.

Tanya: Does that even go in? I mean, does anything register?

Dr. Tara Swart: I mean, that’s multitasking. Multitasking is bad enough as it is, but that’s taking it to an extreme. The fact that we even think that we need to do that or that it’s cool to do that is just so worrying. Basically, we’re chronically stressed all the time, most of us. It’s raising our cortisol levels. It’s depleting our magnesium reserves. You either need to get to the root cause of that and switch off, make sure you’re sleeping eight hours a night, make sure that you’re meditating, exercising, eating really well, drinking enough water, having work-life balance. I mean, people will be listening to this thinking like this woman can’t have a job or a family. She must be crazy. Inevitably, you just do what you can and I get that and I do what I can as well, but I take some of those things much more seriously than I would have if I didn’t understand the neuroscience behind them.

I would say, the top two is sleep and stress. Sleep, I do make sure that I get eight hours of good quality sleep every night. My biggest enemy obviously is jet lag because I travel so much. I just say to myself, if I wake up in the night because I’m jet lagged, then I’ll just take the opportunity to turn on to my left or right side because that improves the efficiency of the cleansing system of the brain overnight. With everything else, I try to do all of those good things that I just talked about, but I always say to people, don’t stress about it because it’s the stress that will kill you. I don’t know if I answered your question.

Tanya: No, you did, you did. Actually, as you’re talking, it’s very interesting. Very similar answer, but different perspective. I was speaking with a sleep expert, also researcher and professor, Dr. Mathias Basner. He was saying that – obviously, he spent most of his life researching how sleep and noise impact your well-being. Sleep was absolutely critical, cannot go without it. What’s tricky is, let’s say you get used to sleeping five hours a night or six hours a night because your body’s adaptive and it’s in survival mode and it’s going to make you – if you sleep five to six hours a night for a long period of time, you’re going to actually feel good and rested, but it’s a trap. It’s a trap because your body just gets used to it, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s performing at peak.

The other thing that really scares me is you mentioned production of cortisol is referred to as the stress hormone, can really cause a lot of damage in your body. Dr. Basner was mentioning that noise and noise defined as unwanted noise – you could be at a heavy metal concert and really enjoy it. That wouldn’t tick the box as noise, but if you’re on the street and you hear sirens and police and whatever else, traffic noise, honking, that would be considered noise. Your bodies respond to that stress environment. It produces some level of cortisol and it doesn’t matter if you’ve been in this – I live in New York City. I’ve been in the city for 13 years. I’ve learned to tune it out. It doesn’t matter. Your body still produces that. Environment plays a huge part in sleep, so what you’re saying makes perfect sense.

Dr. Tara Swart: That’s confirmed some things to me, but also, scared me, I have to say. Matthew Walker at Berkeley, he wrote, Why We Sleep, said something that really hit me. I’ve noticed by reading back through my journal that it’s made me change my behavior, so I’d like to share that which is slightly contrary to something you said, but in keeping with what you said which is, if you don’t sleep enough, if you don’t do any exercise or drink enough water, you get used to feeling like that’s okay. You get used to not feeling good all the time. 1% to 2% of the population can get away with five hours of sleep per night, but 98% to 99% can’t. The only area where I slightly disagree with you is that if you’re regularly sleeping five to six hours, I don’t think you would feel great all the time, but maybe you just get used to it. I certainly thought, yes, you can power through. You can struggle through. You can feel like you’re bulletproof and resilient, but you’re not at your best.

If you wish to make that choice, I don’t. I decided to make some really big changes based on thinking, yeah, I’ve just got used to being up all hours, working across time zones, traveling too much and I’ve made myself think that that’s okay, but it’s not. The best way to know what your sleep number is, is if you naturally wake up at the weekend the same time that you have to wake up during the week, you’re probably getting enough sleep. If you have to lie in, if you need take naps or if like most of my clients, and tell me if you hear this too, they say, “I could sleep all weekend if you let me.” Then you’re obviously not getting enough sleep.

Tanya: That makes sense. Really listen to your body is what it comes down to gauge whether or not you’re getting sufficient sleep.

Dr. Tara Swart: It’s true, but then, some people have actually cut themselves off from their bodies so they’re not that good at listening to it because there’s actually a scent called interoception which is the sense of the physiological state of your body. For example, last night, I had sushi and at some point, I said, I need to not have any more because something’s made my lips tingle. When one of my team that worked for me asked me for a set of food intolerance tests as their holiday’s gift, I said, “Why don’t you just listen to your body and get a good idea of what suits you, what doesn’t, what makes you bloated, what makes your lips tingle?’ She said to me, “I’m not you. I’m not a doctor. I can’t tell that. I need to have the test.” That’s fine. Go and have tests if you need to, but we should all be able to listen to our bodies.

We expect our children to learn how to tell us when they need to go to the bathroom, when they’re tired, when they’re hungry, but then, it’s like, once we learn those basics, we just cut ourselves off from our bodies and we don’t listen. When I talk about people that don’t listen to their bodies, I’m talking about senior executives and financial services, men and women in their 40s to 60s who aren’t obese, who don’t have high blood pressure, who don’t smoke, do have stress-induced heart attacks. Not one of them says, oh it came as a total surprise. All of them say, well, I was getting chest pain, but I didn’t think I’d have a heart attack.

That’s extreme, but there are other little things like indigestion that we ignore or just sleep disturbance that we ignore. I think we need to realize that we’re not invincible. If we want to get the most out of our brain then we shouldn’t be draining our brain power because of something out of kilter with our body. Equally, we shouldn’t be risking our physical health because we’re so intent on meeting a project deadline or getting a bonus or whatever it is that you think is so important that we’ve pretty much blown these things out of proportion and not thought of our own health as important.

Tanya: Yeah, this idea of pulling all-nighters or putting in ridiculous amounts of work week hours or traveling and getting right back in the saddle doing a red-eye or something like that. It’s accepted. It’s part of the culture and it’s expected. Not only accepted, it’s expected.

Dr. Tara Swart: I agree.

Tanya: That’s an issue. Okay. I’d love to get a sense for your client group. What are some of the reoccurring primary concerns that you are helping your clients address and how do you help them address it?

Dr. Tara Swart: Okay. I love the way you’ve put that and I just want to give a bit of background which is of course I’ve come from the background of being a psychiatrist and I have my specialization in neuroscience. This is probably at least partly because of my background not just because of what’s out there, but what I was mostly working with, and now to be honest, these are the two things that I work with because it just makes sense to stick to your niche. Building emotional intelligence and building mental resilience to stress, those are the two areas that I specialize in, yeah.

Tanya: Mental resilience and what was the first one?

Dr. Tara Swart: Building emotional intelligence although I would say that that one was more of a problem 10 or 12 years ago where people were yelling at work or going red in the face, making people cry. There seems to be less of that, but perhaps again, it may be that my expertise has pulled me more towards the mental resilience or perhaps it’s become more of a problem in society, so there’s more demand for it. I speak about building emotional intelligence as exactly the same physiological pathway in the brain as learning a new language and same with mental resilience. Any new behavior that you wish to sustain and create as the default in your brain, you basically have to repeat it and learn it until it’s being fluent in a language.

Tanya: In other words, forge that neural connection.

Dr. Tara Swart: Literally, yeah.

Tanya: Lay down the path for that, yeah.

Dr. Tara Swart: Very literally. I think because psychology [23:09] business for so long, there was this perceived cut-off at the next. That was all to do with how you think and feel and it wasn’t vey physiological. The lovely thing about the sophisticated scanning techniques that we have now is that we can scan brains and bodies and we can see a lot more than we used to. We can see a lot more about what happens in a healthy functioning brain whereas before we were relying a lot on what happened if you did surgery on somebody who had a mental illness or a brain tumor and making extrapolations from what changed after you did interventions in those areas. Now, we can see more what happens if you experience a certain emotion. When you make a difficult decision. When you take risk. It’s just really informed our understanding of how a brain works. Just when it’s doing day-to-day tasks, but also how a brain works at its best.

Tanya: You were mentioning obviously emotional intelligence and mental resilience. How does that actually show up because – I mean, do your clients say I need more emotional intelligence and mental resilience, do they have that level of awareness or does it manifest itself through other situations, but ultimately, it’s about building mental resilience and emotional intelligence to deal with that effectively.

Dr. Tara Swart: There are extremes. The emotional intelligence tends to be more a very, very senior stakeholder saying, this person is great at what they do, but if they continue behaving the way that they have, we’re going to have to let them go. That’s really technically strong perhaps not emotionally intelligent. In that scenario it really helps to say I’m going to help you to build a pathway in your brain where you’re going to learn the things that you have to do to meet that requirement because if you just say things like, you need to be more understanding, you need to stop upsetting people, you need to take people on the journey with you, all these super successful, intelligent, well-educated people just say, I don’t know what that means. I don’t know what I’m meant to do. It’s got to be very bite-sized and very tangible and then it’s really doable. That’s been a great game-changer from understanding the physiology of how you build a pathway in the brain.

Tanya: That’s actually brilliant. I just want to dig in to that a little bit more. How do you give people access to building that pathway in the brain? Let’s take this candidate for example that was really just needed a little bit more emotional intelligence. What are the things that you – exercises and things that you go through to give them access to emotional intelligence?

Dr. Tara Swart: I’ll give you the framework first which can be applied to any behavior change, whether its emotional intelligence, mental resilience or something more tangible like learning a language. Basically, everything is about raising awareness from nonconscious to conscious. If you do something, let’s say we work together physically every day and you speak to me in a way that I find uninspiring and demotivating. If you don’t know that you’re doing that and the impact that it’s having on me, you’ve got no motivation to change that behavior. The first thing is that you have to know that there’s something that you’re doing that you need to do differently. Once you realize, okay, every time I do this, it’s not having a good effect on Tara. The first thing is to think about the new different thing that you want to do. In the brain, you can’t really unwire something that’s already there so you need to overwrite it with a new desired behavior.

You start with raised awareness and then you go to focused attention which is that you look for opportunities in your day-to-day life to try out this new behavior that you’re considering doing. I allow you at least a month between each step because you can’t just suddenly start doing something new. The brain needs to build up to a tipping point where the neurons are enough that that’s really a pathway. The first thing is the raised awareness. I always think that’s 50% of the battle. Focused attention is okay, when I met Tara for dinner, I could have said that differently. When I met Tara to play tennis at the weekend that’s an opportunity where I could have done something differently. Then the third stage is deliberate practice. That’s when you say, okay, what I’m going to do now is I’m going to make sure that I say please and thank you every time I see Tara. Then you would do that for a month. All the way up to much more complex things.

Then the final, not really a step but part of the key really is accountability. If you decided to do all these things and you’ve made a half-hearted attempt to do it, and then basically you got really busy and life got in the way. You’re probably just not really focused on that anymore, but if you knew that in a month’s time that our boss is going to say to you, you know Tanya, you’ve been working on your relationship with Tara and you said that you were going to say please and thank you to her 12 times in the last month. What have you done? Then you’d be much more likely to be keeping count and trying to make sure you do it. The analogy I used is, if you said, I want to learn Spanish in the next six months, if you downloaded an app and you used it every day at first and then you used it a few times a week and you used it for three or four months, you’d improve your Spanish a little but you probably wouldn’t be fluent in Spanish.

If you signed up for classes and you went every week and you did the homework and you had a test at the end of the six months and you planned a holiday to Mexico, so that you’d have to use Spanish, then you’ve become much better at Spanish than if you did it in a half-hearted way where there was no accountability. Having that test at the end or the thing that you’re going to have to do where you really need to draw on this new learning or a person that’s going to hold you accountable or using technology in a way to hold yourself accountable, whether it’s an app or a community where you share what you’ve achieved, that’s really the key because if that stage isn’t there then it’s just too easy to change the goalpost basically.

With emotional intelligence, the first piece of homework I give people is go home tonight and listen to your child for five minutes without looking at your phone and without interrupting them. That simple single piece of homework, everyone, male, female, very senior people have come back to me and said, “My child told me things that they have never told me before.” It’s so shocking that five minutes – and some people have to sit on their hands to not look at their phone in that time, has such an impact. I think that’s when people think okay, I’ve really been doing something wrong. Let’s try this. I can’t even tell you what I do after that because that has such a big effect that after that, it’s just okay, let’s do this. What else do I need to do? It’s simply then that you try it for 15 minutes with your partner. You try it for 15 minutes with a colleague that you get on with and then you try it for 10 minutes with a colleague that you don’t get on with and you build it up like that.

You just practice. You test yourself. You push yourself out of your comfort zone and eventually you get there. I’ve got stories that I’ve written about in a book of people who were – I’m going to use a strong word. People I’ve coached who were hated, who have had people say to them things like, oh well, those were in the days before you were nice. People who have become unrecognizable. I’ve had phone calls from people who – you’ve left the business. They said, “Oh, I heard that the CFO left.” I was like, “No, he’s still there.” They were like, “Well, the person that met him told me it was like someone totally different to how I described him.”

Tanya: Oh, that’s so funny.

Dr. Tara Swart: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tanya: I love your framework. First, raising awareness, at which the raising awareness part is the big haul and actually before we go into the other steps, how do people raise awareness? Do you suggest colleagues to act as a mirror if there’s something – if I’m unconscious that I’m behaving a certain a way and that’s making you feel bad, what’s the switch to suddenly move it from unconscious to conscious? Is it simply just looking for it or do you engage other people around you and say, guys this is what I’m committed to, your accountability? I want to really uplift the people around me and I need to know when in my interactions with you that has not been the case. What’s the method to the awareness part?

Dr. Tara Swart: There’s a couple of them. One I mentioned earlier which is happening less now is the one where people are like, this coaching is this person’s last chance. That’s a rule from above as it were. I think there are levels at which you can take 360 feedback or you can have a stakeholder in the business that says this is what Tanya needs to be working on. The level that I’m working at is very, very senior. It’s usually self-selected. I trust that my neuroscience framework, my intuition, their self-evolution is enough. I basically usually say to them at the beginning, tell me what you’ve come to coaching, but let me tell you that this will turn out to be about something that neither of us know about yet and at some point, that will become clear.

Then what I do is, I focus only on building trust and trying to understand the workings of their brain absolutely intimately until either they have an epiphany or I can raise an insight to them about either something that – you understand that with coaching and workshops that there’s a micro relationship going on between you which is a representation of how they behave in the outside world. I’ll give you a really, very tangible example which is that, I worked with a very senior guy, former military who – the coaching was because he was being intimidating towards women particularly but intimidating in general. It was quite funny because he gets this absolutely tiny female coach, me.

Tanya: Everything he’s avoiding, okay.

Dr. Tara Swart: Literally, everything in one little person. The first time he shakes hands with me, I spend the next hour and a half wondering if my hand is actually broken. It was that painful.

Tanya: Oh, my god. Wow.

Dr. Tara Swart: Yeah, yeah. I don’t say anything because it’s the first time and I’m trying to build trust and he’s probably more nervous than I am. Then the second time, we’re sitting opposite to each other. He’s got great body language. He’s giving eye contact. He’s warm and so I take the opportunity to say, “You know the first time I met you, when you shook my hand you actually hurt me.” He was mortified. I said it was fine. It was temporary but obviously, you don’t know that you’ve done that and nobody else is going to tell you. This is my job to help you to raise your awareness. He said, “Given all the feedback that I’ve had, I just try so hard to treat everybody the same.” I give everybody the same handshake and I said, I’m less than half the size of you. You can’t give me the same handshake. but I’m less than half the size of you, you can’t give me the same handshake. He said, “Okay. Yeah, of course I understand.” It’s just a small example of bigger things.

Then the third time, because we met up in London the first few times. At that time, he said, “Do you mind coming to my office? It’s outside London. I will come and pick you up from the train station.” He came in the car. He got out of the car. He walked around. He came and shook my hand and it was perfect.

Tanya: Yay.

Dr. Tara Swart: Yeah, I know. That’s obviously very tangible, but there are much more intangible things like that. For example, I was on a phone call with a client. I have a client in New York, so usually it’s more phone than in person although it’s both. At one point, we were on the phone, and I didn’t think I’d actually manage to say a word for over half an hour. Every time I tried to say something, he talked over me. He was basically saying that he was having difficulty persuading clients to do what he thought they should do.

Tanya: No kidding.

Dr. Tara Swart: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I realized at the end I said, “You know, I found a way to say that. Do you think if you listened more to try to understand that point of view and blah, blah, blah?” He was like, “Yeah, actually I do have an issue with listening.” I just took the opportunity and I said, “Well, actually, in the last 45 minutes you have spoken non-stop every time I tried to speak. You spoke over me.” I said, “I’m not saying this because I’m upset with you. I’m just trying to give you some feedback that again, probably nobody else will give you.” I think he was embarrassed but the next time, about a month later, I met up with him in New York. He said, “Yeah, I really thought about what you said and it’s not okay.”

Tanya: Yeah, that’s really amazing. What I’m getting from this is that awareness piece comes both from interactions with you, but also once you turn on that switch and you start looking for it, it opens the flood gates a little bit if you’re really committed to it. You might experience or see things that you didn’t see before and it’s all about your blind spots, but you don’t actually know that you don’t know. That’s really impacting your effectiveness. That’s amazing. Then we move on to look for opportunities to practice. What time period do you really need to invest in practicing a new desirable behavior for example until the neural path gets formed and it feels natural?

Dr. Tara Swart: Okay. You’ve asked that in a really persuasive way, but I’m going to have to give you the same answer that I give everybody else which is, how long is a piece of string. It depends what you’re trying to do. Basically, if you said to me, I want to get into a three times a week varied gym routine. If you put your mind to it, I think you could do that quite quickly and you could sustain it quite well. If we’re talking building my mental resilience, and I’ve got 18 international trips coming up in the next year or something, that’s going to take longer because it’s more complex. My answer to that question is, assuming that’s it’s at the upper end of the spectrum because we’re talking about more sophisticated things. It’s going to take about as long and take that much effort as it would for you to learn a new language. To actually change your brain, it’s going to be that difficult.

Tanya: How long does it take people to learn a new language on average? Do you have any idea?

Dr. Tara Swart: Think of the example I gave you. If you downloaded an app and tried to do it yourself, you’d get so far but you’d never get to as good as you could. If you went to classes or you had a teacher, and you had an exam, or you had a vacation at the end of it, you’d be better at it. That’s why the accountability piece at the end is so important because you can have the awareness, you can focus the attention, you can do some practice, but it has to be intense enough to change your brain. That is so painful that there has to be the accountability at the end to do it. I tried to do one new neuroplasticity thing a year. A few years ago, I decided to learn Danish, but I already could speak four languages, so it wasn’t like the hardest thing that I could have done, but Danish is a difficult language.

I had the three types of bilinguality, but I was brought up bilingual from the start, from the beginning of speaking in English and an Indian language. I learned French at school from the 9 until 16 and then I learned Afrikaans which is like Dutch, so another European language when I was about 25. I was well over 35 when I learned Dutch. I mean, Danish, sorry. I took lessons. They were 90-minute lessons once a week. At the 60-minute point, after the first one, I had to start taking cans of cola and bags of chocolate with me because I would get totally drained by the effort. I would be so hungry and so tired. I did this for quite a few weeks and months. Went to Denmark on vacation this summer, came back, had my first lesson, and at some point, she said, “All right, we’re done for this week. I’ll see you next week.” I said, “Was that 90 minutes?” She said, “Yes.” I was like, “But I didn’t get all hungry and tired like I normally do.”

Then I realized, I had surpassed that neuroplasticity plateau. My brain had changed and the Danish pathway was fluent. Actually, because I got what I wanted, which is the neuroplasticity and I found it not very rewarding. I actually gave up at that point. Now all I can say is I can speak Danish.

Tanya: That’s so funny. Wow. Yeah, to your point, it’s like, are you downloading an app or are you doing total immersion. That determines the length of your cord so to speak. I get that.

Dr. Tara Swart: Think about what you choose because let’s say you said to me, I’m going to learn tango, but you’ve never been a dancer. You don’t particularly have rhythm. I mean, you’d have to give up your day job to become really good at that. Actually, in terms of the different types of plasticity, there’s one where it’s so difficult you’d have give up your day job. There’s one where you’re good, but you have potential to be much better and then there’s one way you’re very good, but you can make it into a super power. It’s actually better to play at your strengths according to neuroscience than try to build up a massive development area just because in the adult that that would take is probably not worth it. It’s better to have diverse brains around you to complement your skills.

Tanya: Interesting, and then, you mentioned something a little bit earlier that I want to come back to and talk about. That is your default state for the brain. You gave a really, really brilliant TED Talk that I recommend everybody listen to. In there you mentioned distrust as a default state of the brain. Can you expand on that?

Dr. Tara Swart: It sounds terrible. When we lived in the cave and we became the most successful animal on the planet to survive and thrive as much as we have as a species. Some of the gearings of the brain are quite negative. For example, in the eight basic emotions that I write about in the book, five of the eight are survival emotions. The strongest gearing of the brain is about loss avoidance which is two to two and a half times as influential on the brain as gaining a reward. For example, if you dropped $50 out of your pocket this morning on the way to work, you would be annoyed with yourself and think about that for the rest of the day. If you found $100 you would be really pleased when you found it. You might keep it. You might give it to charity, but you’d have forgotten about that by the time we started speaking with each other this morning.

For our survival we’re geared that way and then matching up to both of those things is the fac that, if I met you, I didn’t know you. I don’t know if you have a lot in common with me. I don’t know what your political affiliation is. I don’t know what kind of education you’ve had. I don’t know what your views are on marriage or all these sorts of things that we judge people on all the time. We judge every new person we meet on up to 150 stereotypes straight away without even being conscious of it. I’m not going to risk my brain power, my resources, my life essentially on trusting you until I’ve got to know you a bit better. Until I’ve had enough signs that you’re in my tribe and speech marks.

When we trust, that actually – we use up more brain resources and so if there’s any risk, then we’re not going to give up those resources. We prefer to stop from I’m going to stay safe and not trust you until I know better. The reason for that is that when we lived in the cave, we lived in tribes where if you mistakenly let a stranger into your tribe. It could mean death to your tribe. It could mean sharing of food resources that you don’t have enough for, but could mean reproduction with the male from another tribe. Look at the animal kingdom, it still works like that. There are all these reasons that we didn’t want to trust anyone that isn’t in our tribe. Sadly, some of that wiring is still there although we can absolutely override it through conscious choice. However, if you look at what’s happening politically in both our countries at the moment. It’s very much a reversion to that lack of trust and not seeing the differences rather than the similarities. It’s hard to work than ever actually at the moment.

Tanya: Yeah, and so, this is a really amazing piece that you’re bringing into where it’s almost like because of survival and our ancient ways of living, our brain is wired like this by default, so how do you overwrite it? What are some of the techniques and practices that you recommend to really work through that because in the context of leadership, when you’re leading a team, or you’re on a team, one of the premises that we say is, in the absence of trust, performance declines, company culture declines. The what’s possible to produce bottom line diminished. It kills high performance teams but at the app, it cuts the head right off. How do you work around this default wiring?

Dr. Tara Swart: Basically, there’s a lot of answers to that question, which actually you’re much more of an expert at than I am. I’m just going to give you three quick tips from neuroscience which are a little bit different maybe. One is, eat regularly. Glucose and oxygen are only resources for our brain and in a study on Israeli judges who are granting parole to young black men, I think you’ve probably seen this because it was…

Tanya: I did.

Dr. Tara Swart: Yeah, yeah.

Tanya: I’m glad you’re bringing it up because that was on my schedule here to bring up. That’s so shocking. Okay, go ahead.

Dr. Tara Swart: The graph has three peaks. It starts off right at the top with people being granted parole and the line slowly drops down to zero and then it magically shoots back up to 100%, slowly drops down to zero and then it shoots back up to 100. There are three peaks and those peaks correspond to breakfast, lunch and dinner. When you eat, and you digest your food, you release a large amount of glucose. Although the brain only weighs four or five pounds, it’s a very energy hungry organ that uses up 25% to 30% of the breakdown products of what you eat. It can’t store that for later. The going down to zero parole is basically once you’ve used up all the glucose and there’s nothing left until you eat again. Eating regularly just gives you the physical resources to overturn any unconscious or conscious biases that you may have.

Which takes me on to my second point which is, do an unconscious bias test and find out what your biases are because we all think we’re not racist or sexist to ages, but we are. Because there’s up to 150 identified stereotypes there could be some really specific little ones that you’re not aware of that you have and it’s not because you’re a nasty person that’s chosen to be like that. It’s because of how you’ve grown up. It’s because of the influences that you’ve had around you. You talked about the environment earlier with sirens and noise. Biases are a noise as well that you’ve been exposed to for so long that their entrenched pathways in your brain that you’re not even aware of. I’m very passionate about saying, it’s much better to be aware of what they are than to say, but I’m not racist. I’m not this. Don’t you know?

Of course, none of us want to think we are. None of us really choose to go out there and be like that, but it’s maybe wired into our brains for so many reasons that we may not even remember. I think knowing what that is and doing a proper test to find out is helpful. Then finally, I would say the top answer is humor. When you laugh, even if you just laugh by yourself, you release this bonding hormone oxytocin. When you laugh with other people, you both release more than if you laugh alone. It trumps any bias that you have. Let’s say we met and we actually both knew what some of our unconscious biases were. For whatever reason, we experienced a bit of that between us. If we found some common ground, and then we found a joke and we laughed about it together. That would actually get removed in our brain as a barrier. It would literally get dissolved by that shared humor. That is so important.

There are a few other things that have very diverse teams, a diversity of all sorts and I actually talk about diversity of thinking rather than necessarily what you look like. I also say, on a more personal level, spend time with people 20 years old or 20 years younger. Just know what music they’re listening to, know what they care about, talk to a stranger, travel to a place you’ve never been to before. The more you expose yourself to different experiences including even different food, the less biased you are about the unknown.

Tanya: I love that actually. You know what? That supports something that I read a long time ago and now we’re going into couples, the dynamic of couples. That if you do something with your partner that is new to both of you like travel to a new place or take on a new sport or – the other day I did an art class painting with my husband. Both of us are not painters, but with a glass of wine and a teacher guiding us so that we don’t run amok and through this experience we had the best time painting and totally reconnected over something so silly. I can completely understand that discovering new things either on your own or with somebody else really makes a difference.

Dr. Tara Swart: The sillier the better according to a neuroscientist. You can write that in your article. Also, when you do new things like that, you actually – there’s a book by Ellen Langer from Harvard called, Counterclockwise. It says the more points of new things that you have in your life, the younger you feel because children experience new things all the time and so time feels like it passes slowly. Whereas as we get older, we tend to just repeat the same things year on year and so it feels that time speeds up. If you go and do an art class and obviously it connects you to your childhood self more, but also because it’s a new experience for you, it actually changes your perspective of time. Basically, you’re making yourself feel younger and your reconnecting with your husband so what’s not to like about that?

Tanya: Nothing. Everything, it’s all good. That’s amazing. Is there anything that you’ve seen that’s really cutting-edge right now that top performers, executives, anybody that’s performing at peak performance uses to really increase their efficiency and clarity of mind?

Dr. Tara Swart: A good quality probiotic taken for a month reduces negative thinking, reduces anxiety, has even allowed people with clinical depression to reduce their dose of antidepressants or come off their antidepressants totally. For people, more like your listeners who travel a lot, who face unprecedented levels of stress and change and uncertainty, by good quality I mean over 50 billion strains of bacteria. There are particular strains. I can’t remember all the names offhand, but I actually wrote a Forbes Leadership blog about it so that can be searched for quite easily. Naming specific strains in it for stress, for mental performance, for coping with travel. You can build up the diversity and quality of your gut microbiome. We know now that your gut neurons communicate with the brain. We’ve known that for a while.

There’s a third element of communication between the gut bacteria themselves, the gut neurons and the brain. It’s a triangle. The neurons obviously connect with the brain through actual neuronal pathways, but the gut bacteria’s signal both to the gut neurons and the brain through chemical [53:36] link with cytokine transmission. The better condition you keep your gut microbiome in the better the physiological health of your brain and the more it boosts your mental performance. It’s a very exciting new field that I’m keeping a real eye on at the moment, but suffice to say, me and my family take probiotics at least six times a year for four weeks at a time.

Tanya: Not continued. You do it six times a year for four weeks at a time.

Dr. Tara Swart: I do that to my family because I take them enough because I travel so much, but I take them whenever I travel. I think [54:28] it so that you’re getting different strains throughout the year. If you don’t travel every month then at least four to six times a year take it probably one month [54:28] have a good quality probiotic.

Tanya: Okay, that’s great. Is there anything that we haven’t talk about with regards to leadership and performance that you think we should?

Dr. Tara Swart: I like that question, but I literally don’t think there is because I think we’ve talked about it so much. It’s been such a great conversation.

Tanya: Yes, yes, definitely. Tara, thank you so much for being on. I can’t wait to dig in to your book, The Source: The Secrets of the Universe, the Science of the Brain which was recently published and is actually gaining a tremendous amount of traction. Just thank you for really standing for human performance and mental clarity and the unique angle that you bring that I don’t. that’s what makes the world go around really. I’m really grateful to you for hosting me.

Tanya: Thank you so much.

Dr. Tara Swart: Bye.

Tanya: Bye.