#26: The Boldness of Equality in Corporate America with Marissa Orr

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So, a lot to catch you up on. In the last week, I gave my.

First TED Talk, which is crazy, and I freaked out. I've been speaking so much the past few months, I didn't anticipate getting nervous because I don't get nervous when I speak. But I will tell you, I completely lost it. And for probably a month, I've been working really intently and intensely on the talk. But it came down to that day, and I just. I freaked out. Totally unexpected. Not cool. Not happy about it. But I mean, it just.

The day started off great, and then they.

I was a first speaker, so they said, hey, Heather, why don't you jump up on the red dot and go through, like, the first five minutes of your talk and we'll do a mic check?

And I said, yeah, great.

You know, I was so excited because that would be helpful, you know, that you're getting up there before you're really getting up there. So I was in my sweats, and I just jumped up there, and the first couple of minutes were great, and I was killing it, and then I completely went blank and couldn't remember what I was supposed to say. That's never happened in my life that I was speechless, but I was. And I just froze standing there, and they were like, oh, whatever. You just, you know, Heather just forgot what she was gonna say. Whatever. And. And there was this woman that works with speakers that was there, and she's.

Like, oh, you know, I have a.

Friend that did the same thing. He was a kicker in the NFL, and it was the most important game of his life, and he just blew it. And I was so taken aback by that comment that I had to get out of there. I just said, you know what? Here's what I need. I need to leave, and I need to be around people that I know love me, that lift me up, that know what I need, and that is to, you know, leave. Let me just vent, support me, and encourage me. And so the makeup artist and hairdresser that I have are awesome. And I just went to the hotel room and they pumped me up while they were getting me ready, and I just kept going over my notes and going over my notes again and again, and I just kept focusing on the one word, you know, that transition word that I couldn't. I wasn't able to grasp when I was on the stage. But I just kept focusing on that and in hopes that, wow, I hope when I get back up there, that doesn't happen. You know, it was super, super stressful. Holy cow. But I got through it. And right before I was gonna get on stage for real, someone said, hey, here's some lavender. And I love lavender. So lavender for the win totally calmed me down. And I will tell you, everyone was freaking out backstage. It's really crazy because it all boils down to, I got 10 minutes on that dot, and it is gonna be out there forever, right? So if you're nervous, it's just out there. If you're gonna forget a line, if you're gonna forget what you were talking about, there's no do over, you know? And I guess that pressure of just the TED Circle, that moment really hit me hard. So I just, you know, they called me out there and I just thought, okay, throw your arms up in the air, kid, and, like, make this thing happen. Just go. And it was one of those moments I said to myself, heather, you feel fear. Fear is a green light. It means go. You're stepping into something big. Let's do it. And I was just petrified. So I'm so interested to know what you think when you see it. I got really good feedback. They always say that you either own the talk or the talk owns you. I really own the talk, and I feel very proud of what I did, especially knowing how scared I was. I just wonder if people will be able to hear that in my voice or not. I'm sure I will, but I guess we'll see. So. Oh, now it's all about promoting the talk. I'm in New York right now. I just did the Nikki Glaser podcast this morning on Sirius xm. She's the most amazing person. She's so encouraging, so sweet, and I just. She's 35, and she reminds me of myself 10 years ago, and it was just. It's crazy. She's, you know, struggling with all the dating and, oh, gosh, dating the wrong guys and, oh, my gosh, way too close to home for me. But she's the best, and I was so grateful for that opportunity today. Tomorrow I'm going on Gary V's show this afternoon. I'm interviewing someone for the podcast. And, you know, so I'm just. I'm really focusing on promoting the TED Talk, even though it's not out yet, which is crazy. So the way that it works is you do your talk, and then somewhere between a week, two week, three weeks, you know, Ted puts it out there. So I guess when they're ready, you know, goes into a queue until they're ready. And, you know, it's not even yours. It's so weird. You have to sign your. Your rights away to it. So kind of crazy. A lot of pressure. I'm relieved it's over. The problem is I thought I was so funny, and I put a joke in my TED Talk that, oh, I'll reveal that in my next TED Talk. And I think I'm a little joker. And that. That was so cute. Well, now, like, seven people came up to me the minute I got off stage.

When's your next TED Talk?

And all I thought is, I don't even want to do another TED Talk because it's got so stressful for me. In the end, I was freaking out. Why would I to myself again? And so now I sort of feel like I have no choice. I have to do another TED Talk because I put that in there. But we'll see. Okay, so for now, what's kind of interesting is my TED Talk is it's a Me Too movement. Misstep or mistake is the title. And basically what that's about is listen. Yeah, men have been called out by me too. And that's good that they're shining a light on male harassers. However, now it's time to look at the next layer of the MeToo movement, and that's the women harassers that are out there. Not all women support other women. And in fact, Nikki shared this today. Her biggest villain she's ever had in her career. Her life has been another woman. Same with me. So sometimes I think women expect men to harass potentially, or they're not shocked by it, where when a woman does it to you, it hurts. It cuts a lot deeper. So anyways, that's what my talk's about. And I. So today, today on the show, you're gonna meet my guest who has been bullied by another woman. And it's kind of surprising who this woman is. So I'm really interested to see what you think about it. I'm really so flipping excited for you guys to see my talk. I'm excited to see it. When the heck. Why can't I see it? I wish. My gosh, I want to see it so bad, so I can't. I'll be sitting there with you on the couch waiting for YouTube to launch this thing, wondering, you know, sitting here just waiting, waiting, watching the clock tick. So, okay, I can't wait for the talk to come out. I appreciate all of your support. I got so many nice messages, everyone, and it really means the world to me. And I tried to focus on that, on gratitude, on the support I was getting instead of focusing on my nerves. And in the end, I think that really paid off. And that's what helped, you know, be the catalyst to get me out there in that little red dot when I didn't know if my feet were going to move. But again, fear is a green light, means go. So just step into it and all good things will happen. Of course, you have to do your work, though, too. I mean, I definitely prepared for this. So put the time in, put the work in. Then when you feel afraid, jump on in and let's go. So I can't wait to hear what you think about my guests. The timing is perfect. Couldn't be better. And here we go.

Hi, and welcome back. Today, I'm really excited for you to meet someone I just met. However, I did read her book. Marissa Orr is, you know, during her 15 years at today's top tech giants, Facebook and Google, I think you've probably heard of them. Marissa became disenchanted with a steady stream of advice coming from the mostly female leadership programs, ignoring the real concerns faced by most working women and offering prescriptions for success that hinged on acting more like a man. She wrote Lean out to tell another side of the story of women at work. And what's important for everyone to know is this is not an interview just for women, because it's really. The book is so good and so interesting, Marissa, about the complexity at work. You're not bashing boys in this book at all, which I want people to know right out of the gates. I don't want anyone to tune out because if anything, you're coming at women in this book. What do you think about that?

Well, I think the part that resonates with both men and women is that so much of it is a real cultural critique of corporate America, which anybody can relate to that's been in that world. And because I go into detail about all the problems with it and the dysfunction, I think it speaks equally to men and women. And I don't. I took on people's arguments. A lot of them happen to be women. And I tried to focus on sort of unraveling the argument instead of attacking the person. But, yes, it's not a bashing Man Hating kind of book at. I love men and I love women. And it's really just about that environment and why it causes things like the gender gap and other kind of dysfunction, like why people are so unhappy in that world. So I think it really does have stuff in there that appeals to anyone that's worked in a corporate world. And I've also gotten letters from people about being able to relate to it, even though they're not in that world, because there's some universal human things that happen in the corporate world that happen everywhere. So it's relatable on a couple levels.

All right, let's take it back. And can you give all of us a little background into you where you're from? My. My town now.

I am from North Miami Beach, Florida, actually in la, but moved to Miami when I was a baby. So I grew up there, went to school there, college there, and then I moved to New York.

Wait, the same school Sheryl Sandberg went to? You noted that in the book.

I went to all the same grade schools, elementary, middle, high school. We grew up in a, you know, a few blocks away from each other. But she's 10 years older than me, so I didn't know her growing up. And then she went to college.

She loves that you put that out.

By the way, I'm sure.

Well, people get confused.

They're like, oh, so did you, like, have play dates with her? And I'm like, no, it wasn't the same.

And your kids will not be having play dates after this book, but go ahead.

Perhaps not. But then she went off to Harvard two times.

Which you did not do.

Which I did not do. And by the way, she got two different degrees. She didn't have to repeat it. I went to University of Florida, and I actually went to grad school there, moved to New York and started working at Google early on.

How do you get a job at Google? That's so interesting. Yeah, tell me.

Hot Jobs. Remember that?

No.

Yahoo. Hot Jobs is like a job board in the late 90s, early 2000. And I literally just applied through Hot Jobs. It was really before Google became Google. So I always joke that I got in. I was lucky to get in before they raised their standards. But yeah, it was, you know, still a very rigorous interview process. It was like eight or ten interviews, but, man, they had this wall free cereal. When I was in their offices, I was like, this is my dream job.

Hashtag goals.

Yeah, exactly. And I spent 13 years there and then worked at Facebook for about a year and a half.

And that was a tough transition for you.

Tough is an understatement. So really, that's the whole prologue of the book and a story I actually post online, too. So while I was at Google in the last few years there, I started realized like, that I was in want of something. Something just wasn't. I had a great career there. I was doing well, but I was missing a little bit of meaning or something. And I've always been really passionate about helping women and women's issues. So I decided I was really kind of disenchanted with the approach that they were taking to female leadership at the. Not only at the company, but nationally. It was all kind of this similar perspective. So I decided to write my own perspective on it, my own point of view. And it started in a conference room with a few friends, but then it grew. And before I left Google, I presented it to maybe over a thousand people at different companies. I did it as a lecture at a couple colleges in New York. And then. When.

Can I stop you right there? Yeah, yeah. When you were working for Google, they would allow you to go out and present your thesis to other companies. And that was okay.

Google was fantastic about that.

They.

I applaud that.

Yeah, they were really amazing about that. And I think that's why it was such a shock when I went to Facebook and I. I was expecting that to be a similar culture, and that was not allowed at all unless you went through this big approval process.

The grass is not always greener.

It's not always greener. And in fact, and I tell this story in the book, too, I had this Medium blog at the time, you.

Had four people, four views on it, and they came after you. And I so resonate with that because at my old crappy career in corporate America, the GC came at me the same way, saying, shut down your personal brand, shut down your website, and it makes absolutely no sense.

So paranoid. And for what reason? I didn't understand because, like you said, I had three posts that were read by four people, and two of which are their parents, were two of them. I was scared to show it to anybody. It was just sort of me coming out as a writer for the first time. You know, that's scary. So when I got an email from the corporate communications person, like, uf, please take down your blog post. I was dumbfounded. Like, how did they find this?

And why do they care?

Why do they care? Didn't say Facebook. There was no way to know. I was an employee there. I didn't talk about Facebook. It was just sort of my views about how like business planning affects creativity. I mean, could it be more boring? So it was really surprising and they made me take it down. I said, well, what if I just put my initials if I change the name? So I had to change the name. And of course I don't work there anymore. I changed it back and wrote a book about it. So didn't really. Their plans didn't work out so well.

Do you regret leaving Google now in hindsight, or are you glad that this whole thing unraveled the way it did?

I'm so happy I left, but for different reasons. So I was super happy and comfortable and secure and safe at Google. I had.

That is death.

Yeah, it's death. But I didn't know it at the time.

Sure.

I was the same way.

Yeah. And so I had great friends there that are still. They're like family to me. I had secured enough of a reputation over the years that I had a large degree of autonomy and some flexibility. Not that much as I do now. But I was safe and happy and comfortable. And I think about it sometimes. It scares me. What if I never went to Facebook? I would have never really pursued this dream that was. And this book that was always inside of me that I knew deep down had to be written, but probably didn't admit it to myself. Probably would have just. I don't know. The thought scares me. So sometimes I think about what else am I safe and happy and comfortable with that I don't see?

That's good perspective, right, because you're starting to open your eyes to it. But for me, I'm really interested to know because as I mentioned when I met you, your book is really in your face. And I feel I'm an in your face kind of person. And my book confidence creator I thought was in their face. My old employers. I was petrified of getting sued. Marissa. I used to not sleep at night. I don't sleep at night still, but for different reasons. My 12 year old's torturing me right now. But back then I couldn't sleep because I was so afraid. I was certain that GC was gonna shut me down and I was gonna lose everything and all for nothing. And why am I, am I crazy? How do I think I'm gonna get away with this? And then I read your book and I thought if I felt like that, you must have been living under a rock, hiding from everyone.

Yeah. It's so funny you say that. A couple things. First of all, I was afraid someone was gonna Kill me, actually.

I bet.

Yeah. Especially the story I opened the book with about what happened to me at Facebook, where I was bullied by a powerful woman that worked at the company. You know, she had sort of lured me over there, and then it was just a terrible experience.

She was a true villain. When she shut the door and turned into a different person after you were there, it was horrible.

That was just the be. I didn't go into detail about some of the more evil things because I felt it would make me look crazy. And I didn't want to give it that much power because that's not really what the book's about. It's just the story of the journey, of how I came to write it. I was afraid she was going to hire a hitman to kill me. And at the time, I had just read, coincidentally, like, not planned, but I just read Martha Beck's book, Sociopath Next Door.

I don't know it.

It's a great book, but not if you've just outed a sociopath. Because I would start to, like, freak out every night about my doors being locked and all this kind of stuff. And I told my parents, if I die under suspicious circumstances, these are the people that need to be investigated.

But you weren't kidding. You really were that afraid.

I probably wouldn't have been that afraid had I not really just read that book, but I was very afraid.

How did you move through that fear to push forward?

You know, I work on the control of my mind all the time, and I use it as practice. Like, just keep letting go of that fear, because what's the alternative? Worrying about it is not gonna keep her from killing. And, you know, I don't. You know what else it is? I didn't want to give her power over me. That. That is a big motivating force in my life, is not letting that kind of. Those people who want to have a negative kind of power over my life is not. I'm a little bit, you know, rebellious in that way of, like, I want to.

I want to share something that I saw. I can't think of the actress's name, but there was a major actress yesterday that came out. She had someone taunting her privately, saying, I have naked pictures. And she decided, I'm not letting this person have power over me. I'm gonna come out with the picture publicly, and then footnote, you cannot have. No one will control me. And it sounds like what you're saying, exactly right.

So she had so much power over me at Facebook for some period of time that continuing my fear of that just gives her power. And the whole point of telling that story was not to let it have power over me. I can't tell you how many women have reached out to me though about that story in particular to tell me they have very, very similar story.

And it's not just women.

It's not just women. And that's the thing, it's both. And with the whole, you know, what I write about in terms of like girl on girl crime in the corporate world and the whole me Too movement, for me, I see it as not about gender. It's about power.

You're absolutely right.

And women in power abuse power. You know, know people abuse power, but men and women do it in different.

Ways and it hurts more, frankly. I believe when it's a woman because you don't expect it.

Yeah.

And it's covert and secretive and the power in it, is that the target?

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Free is not sure what the hell's happening to them, like, or why, right? Because it's so. And I write an article about this on my blog. But you know, it's these constant slights and they're underhanded and they're emotional and they isolate you and it's, you know, if you tell your manager, oh, she won't talk to me or she's leaving me out of meetings. It sounds like you're immature and petty, right?

It does.

But that's the power of that kind of girl on girl aggression is that it's so covert that it makes the victim look crazy and feel very isolated.

So I dealt with the same thing I had. I called, you know, this is my evil villain number one and this is the woman that fired me from corporate America. And I go to this all the time.

When you are a threat, you will.

Always be a target. And that's typically when you see that woman on woman bullying in the workplace. She would come in, I was the only other female in the conference room, as I'm sure you same thing at Facebook. It's predominantly men on the executive team. And she would hug and or you know, give a hi good morning to everyone and walk right by me not saying anything. And I'll never forget this. I decided one day she's taking my power. I'm shrinking, trying to make her feel better about herself, and it's not fixing the freaking problem. So I'm gonna go pull her and try a different approach. I put on my red dress, I glam myself to the nines, and I stood in front of the mirror before I left for work that morning, and I said, no one will let me be, you know, be the small version of me. I will be me. And when she played her little game, I said, excuse me. Good morning. You missed me? I'm over here now. Mind you, it's the same woman that fires me shortly thereafter. But I was sick of it, Was slowly chipping away at my confidence and eroding me, and I was done with it. And the irony is, and I'm so happy I'm sharing this with you right now, is that for the first time in corporate America, I really started becoming the most confident version of myself. So, of course I was gonna get fired, because you write when you actually are confident, you don't fit in corporate America any longer.

You know, And I get this question. Are you afraid? This was my truth. This is the raw truth, like, unfiltered from my brain. And so it doesn't. That part doesn't scare me. Being sued, all that stuff. It could totally happen. I'm a little naive too, sometimes probably, but I know it can happen. But at the end of the day, I told the truth. Here's the thing.

Anyone can sue you for anything.

Yeah.

And I'll never forget this, and I want this to really connect with you. James Altucher. I was on his podcast last year when my book was dropping.

I love him.

He's brilliant. And he said to me, is there anything I can answer for you, Heather? When we were done, and I said, yeah, am I gonna get sued? How do I not get sued? I'm really scared. And he's like, leave the cameras on. You know, I to want. Want to record this. But his point was, he wanted people to know. No, you're not. If you told the truth, did you maliciously attack them trying to take down their company? If they can prove that, then they would have a case. No, that wasn't the case. And for you, same thing. Because you weren't singling out, just Facebook. You know, you talk about a spectrum of different organizations, people, et cetera.

So as long as you're not falsifying.

Information, you're telling your story, and you're not trying to take a company down financially, they're not going to have a case. So then you're just going to get more press and pr. Wouldn't you love right now actually to have Facebook come at you because it would put such a light on your book and people would be dying to pick it up?

I thought a lot about this, actually, when I was fired because they offered me a very small severance. It was almost like on purpose, very, you know, small for the industry.

So I thought about, oh, to sign a non disclosure.

Well, once you get like, they send you the severance package and they agree to pay you whatever, you have to sign whatever's there. And in that, that contract or whatever it says, you won't talk about, you know, Facebook or whatever right now. When I was fired, I was already 95% done with the book proposal. And when I was fired.

How'd you even know how to write a book proposal?

Do you know the first thing I did? I googled how to write a book. I had no idea.

I did the same thing.

You did? Yeah, I mean, how else? I didn't know where to start. And I had this burning fire inside of me that, you know, I was like, I need to start now because this is such phoniness of what I'm. And nothing bothers me more than people who have an agenda and care about that more than they care about helping people, but sort of, you know, pretend that that's their interest.

And there's a lot of people like that.

There's a lot of people like that. And when it's something I care about, like women and I feel like they're getting it wrong, it sort of lit this fire under me. So I'll never forget, I started with how to write a book. And then I had read, I did all this research, and I read that if you want to do a narrative nonfiction, like the kind that I wanted to write, you didn't have to write the whole book in order to get a book deal. That really appealed to the lazy part of me where I was like, oh, I don't have to write the whole book first. But then, of course, a book proposal is no easy undertaking.

No, it's harder than writing the book.

It took four months writing it. I bought a book, how to Write a Book Proposal. And I literally followed all the steps. And people when they saw the proposal were like, who did you hire to do this? Or, you know, I was like, no, I just followed the directions. Like, I. I had my best friend from growing up, she's a graphic designer. I had her create like one little graphic. That was it. The Rest. I. I did. And, God, I went off on a tangent. I don't even remember the. Oh. So they asked me to sign this thing, but I had not. I was 95% done. I spoke to a few attorneys, and the general consensus was that I could maybe get a year or two of salary right out of it, but. Which was obviously super appealing because you're.

A single mother with three kids.

Exactly. And I don't get money from anyone else. Like, I. You know, that's scary. Yeah, it's really scary. But if I did that, I wouldn't have been able to write the book. And I thought, there is no way. And the part of me that was scary, I said to them, well, here's the thing. I didn't sign the severance agreement. I never said this. I probably should be more prudent about what I share, but I didn't sign the severance agreement. They paid me anyway. And I called the attorney.

Why would they do that?

It's bookkeeping. Like, usually people. People don't ever not sign the agreement. So I don't even think there's something in place to check. I don't know. That was my guess.

I can tell you right now, they haven't made an amendment.

Yeah. So I asked the attorney. I'm like, well, what if, you know, I write this book and then they check and see they paid me, but I didn't sign the agreement. He's like, I don't think you'll have to worry about it at that point. If your book gets out there, to the point that Facebook's checking your status, it means your book' doing pretty well. And I was like, yeah, good point. Okay, let's move on. And so I didn't. And it was a nothing severance. I mean, so even if they sued me and I had to give it.

Back, that was fine.

It was fine. So, yeah. So I'm not afraid generally of that stuff because I told the truth, and I feel like I can sleep at night. But one other thing that you said that I find so interesting. You said the book's very in your face, and, you know, you felt yours was, and you're kind of an in your face. I'm the opposite, actually. I'm quite introverted and reserved.

So this is shocking that you wrote this book.

Yeah, I guess people are. But at the same time, there's a lot of ironies, or. What's the word? I can't even think of it right now. When my friends read it, they tell me, that's so Funny, because they hear me in their head saying it. Like, it's so true to my voice.

Although you did not narrate the audible version.

I know. I really.

Why didn't you do that?

I fought for it because they have all these rules about what kind of voices people want to listen to. And when I sent the sample, because it really is so mild voice in this book, I felt so strongly that it should be actually my voice. All the audio engineers wrote back after hearing the sample, like, all these complex terms. I don't. She has too much. This. Basically, her voice isn't too annoying for people to listen to. And they. Basically, the guy that I work with at Harper is amazing, and he fought for me to be able to narrate it, but they have these rules, and they said, well, if it does really well, we'll reconsider. So hopefully everyone will go out and buy it, and then I can narrow the audio.

I did.

I have both the. The paperback as well as the audible and the audio version. I really like that voice, and I think it's a great voice.

They let me help pick it.

Yeah.

But I agree with you.

I'd rather have you telling that story. So knowing that, you know, I'm on the outside looking in, I was never with these tech giants, and so that's. Obviously, everyone listening right now is very impressed that you were with these companies. And now to see that you are no longer a part of these massive brands, you're on your own. And as we were talking, you're reinventing yourself and learning, how do I promote my book? How do I elevate myself so that I'm able to sell more books? How do I land speaking engagements? You're going through this whole rookie phase, just like I'm going through it as a rookie podcaster. How are you finding your way?

It's been really fun and difficult. And I heard you say this on a podcast the other day, that you've learned more in the past year and a half than you did in the entirety of your career in the corporate world. And I have to say, you know, that's absolutely true for me. And if I Googled how to write a book, you can imagine, I Google everything. Like, I don't know how to do, and I just figure it out. So the learning curve is big and fun. Also, it's very scary. You know, I feel like I'm figuring it out day by day. I mean, I'm literally sort of creating the parachute on my way down. Like, I've jumped off the plane. And then, you know, things come up and I figure out what do I, you know, what do I need to do to fix this?

That's the Steve Harvey story he always tells, is that you have to be willing to jump and that's when your wings will come out. But not until you actually take that.

Free fall for a little while.

And on your way down, you don't know if those wings are coming out. You're just hoping like heck that they do.

Totally. And also, I didn't finish writing the book until February and it's only June because we pushed sort of the production schedule and the release schedule out. So writing a book, man, that was really, really a hard thing. I had to rewire my entire personality to write a book because I am somebody that's typically not anymore. I've really sort of changed, but my whole life I've been sort of a procrastinator. I lacked a lot of discipline. I'm very creative. So I have this like messy brain. And I am very sort of like impulsive and I need instant gratification. These are the exact opposite behaviors and traits that you need to write a book. Like literally the opposite. Because this is the most long term, disciplined kind of undertaking. Delayed gratification took me a year and a half. And you feel like, I don't know if you felt this way, but sometimes I felt like I was writing into a void, like screaming into a void because you're writing every day and nobody's reading or listening. You have no feedback. I didn't know if I was writing like the great American novel or like a piece of trash. So it took a lot.

Everybody feels that way.

Yeah, it's hard. It took a lot of faith and a lot of like mental management and learning new behaviors. So in that respect that's been amazing. I feel like it's enriched my life in so many other areas.

What do your kids think about all of this?

They're so excited. So I have a 10 year old and 8 year old twins and sometimes. So they are used to me being all dressed up, right. Leaving the house, going into the city, coming home, wearing nice clothes. And for the past year and a half I've been literally wearing pajamas. Two years now almost.

Okay.

I don't know that's necessarily good.

Yeah, well, for me it is because Lord knows I love my pajamas. So, like they think I do nothing all day in a way, right. They're at school and they're like, you know, I come to pick them up if I'm wearing jeans, they're like, oh my God, where did you go today? You know, because I'm just normally, you know, wearing whatever. So it was very abstract for them at first, right? Oh, I'm writing a book. Well, they don't see anything. But now that everything's happening, I just took them to Barnes and Noble in our town, took pictures of them with it. They, the twins asked if they could bring the book in for show and tell.

That's great.

They're really excited and they're proud. Yeah.

And your book is in airports as well. As we just mentioned. I saw it yesterday when I was in the airport. That's gotta be a surreal feeling.

It is so surreal. So yesterday, flying out here on the plane, I got someone sent me a picture of the bookstore in the Minneapolis airport and it was in the front rack next to Michelle Obama's book. This, like, blew my mind. This might have been a pinnacle for me, like the champagne moment of this whole process. It felt like I won an Oscar for books just being next to her on the show.

The number one best selling book in.

The US and it was funny because I had like, no one. This was such a holy. I don't know if I'm allowed to curse, but holy crap, we'll bleep you out. Anyway, a holy crap moment that. And I turned to the guy on the plane that was sitting next to me. I never talked to people on planes. Like I said, I'm also shy and introverted, reserved. I just turned to him and I said, I just have to tell you, my book is next to Michelle Obama. It's like, I go, I'm sorry, I never do this, but I just have to tell you, you're the only person I could talk to right now. I was like, my book. And I showed him the picture and he ended up buying the book on Amazon. I was like, look at me, a hustler. I sold a copy of my book on the planes, the guy next to me.

So that's a great high moment. What I'm really interested in hearing is what is the low moment when you look back over this whole process, your whole life? What is that moment where you really were at the bottom and struggling the.

Most with your confidence?

Well, that is probably. That moment is probably not so much on this part of the journey. I don't know if that was what you were specific.

No, no.

For your whole life.

Facebook comes pretty close. So at Google, like I said, I had a great reputation. I was a well respected, conscientious person. I always did well I was well liked by people. And at Facebook, it was like I had leprosy and I was contagious. And it was like. Actually, that's, like, not a nice thing to say. I don't know what the word is. I just felt like I was contagious. People didn't want to come near me because this story had been spun about who I was, and I was painted to be this person that I didn't. I wasn't at all. And it was like I didn't know myself anymore. I didn't recognize myself. I used to have to go back to. And again, I don't go into all these crazy stories that happen in Facebook in the book, but they were really bad people.

Treating you poorly is mostly.

It was who I call Kimberly in the book and sort of like her cohort. It was actually like the movie Mean Girls where you had this, like, alpha female and then these, like, groveling, like, women around her.

Oh, I'm very familiar.

Yeah.

I literally had the same situation.

Yeah. So it's like that. And I used to go back and have lunch at Google with my friends just to be in a place where I remembered who I was. Like, people smiled at me, like, hey, Marissa.

And you felt better about it.

And I was like, oh, right, right. I am somebody normal. Right.

So what you're saying is the people and environment you put yourself in and surround yourself with makes all the difference for you and your confidence.

So let me go a little further into that story, and then I can think about sort of what. How confidence sort of manifested in that scenario. And I have another one that's probably even a better example. But at Facebook, you know, I. I was pushed to the bottom, the breaking point where my identity was completely unraveled, and I had to ask myself those questions, like, who am I and what do I want? And it was really a moment that was the turning point of my life, because when I asked myself those questions, I knew the answer was, well, I'll never be happy in corporate America or I'll never realize my potential. I have big dreams, and I can't fulfill them. And in this environment. And I still didn't have the guts to quit. Like I told. Like we said, I'm a single mom of three. It felt so irresponsible. Right? Like, what kind of person leaves a lucrative career making all this money at the top companies in the world?

Are you crazy?

Right?

We didn't even.

We did not talk about the book. And my. I have a wonderful, supportive family, and I dedicate the books, my parents. But we didn't talk about the book for a year year. Like it was not. Like we all pretended it didn't exist and I wasn't working on it because it scared my parents. They're like, what the hell is wrong with Marissa? Like, what has gotten into her? You know, never written anything. It's so hard to get book, you know, get a book out there. So we, it was like we didn't talk about it. So being fired was like the ultimate gift. Because sometimes I question, would I have had the confidence to quit? I would think about it every weekend. I'd put spreadsheets together with budget, when can I quit? I just didn't have the nerve. So I think the confidence really came through once I was fired and I pushed through and I kept working on the book and I decided, I'm not going back to Google, I'm not going to get another job in this world. But I actually have another. As we're talking about, I'm sort of thinking out loud as we're talking, but also I don't talk about my divorce and I have a great relationship with my ex husband now, but we didn't at the time. And the one really interesting story happened that I think about a lot. I had started seeing this therapist that worked at Google. Actually. He's like the on site therapist.

Amazing.

Yeah. And I was doing a lot of soul searching about my relationship and how things had gotten to that point and what, you know, he would ask me, what is it about you that you know, allows certain things or does certain things. And so I had said something to him. We were talking about like codependent personalities and I, I was like reading a book on it and I said to him, you know, so much of this resonates with me, like all the things I can tick off on the list. Yep, I do that. Yep, I do that. But one thing I can't reconcile and it's that this book and everything on the topic says what really underpins that kind of personality is low self esteem. And I said to the therapist, I said, and I was working at Google at the time. This was before any of the Facebook stuff happened. But I said to him that one, I don't know, I don't feel like I have low self esteem. I quite like myself, I think, you know, I've always had friends and you know, I'm doing well at work and I, you know, I think like I'm doing all right. And he said to me something that I'll never forget. And changed the way I think about all of this, he said. Well, you know, we've talked a lot.

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And your need to be, you know, approved of and validated by other people. You know, you have. I had this like strong need for everyone to like me and like be happy with what I was doing. And he said, you're also smart. He goes, have you ever thought maybe over the years like he said, you're so good with people and you're smart, you figured out how to get people to like you and you're so good at it now that you mistake that as confidence. And he said, what happens? Imagine it as a house of cards and all these cards are made up of the validation and the adoration of everyone in your life and you slowly take away each card.

This is exactly what happened to you. The Facebook, like what he, he was predicting what was about to happen.

You know what, I just got the chills. You're kind of right.

I was freaking out.

I never really put those together and they happen years apart. And he said, what happens if you take away all the cards? What's left? He said, because if it's just the cards then that's not self esteem, that's pseudo. That's not real. And it kind of blew my mind. I'm like, shit, I think you're right. What is underneath?

He was right.

And I was like, it sent me. I'm a big Research nerd. And I'm obsessed with psychology and human behavior, which you can probably tell from reading the book. But so I became obsessed, like, what is self esteem? What is confidence? And I was like, there's a big.

Part in the book about this confidence. It's so interesting. Yes.

And actually that I start, I learned all of that on this journey from that one conversation about what is confidence.

So for you, from what I'm seeing, what I've read and what I'm hearing, it really took you being broken down to your lowest to finally learn to create confidence.

Thank you for summarizing what I just took forever to say in the most long winded way. I think you captured it exactly. Which is for me, I've always risen to my best in the worst of circumstances. It's almost like I need, like when things are bad, that's when I rise. Like, that's I'm so good when bad stuff happens. I figure out a way to rise above when everything is comfortable and safe and happy. I'm probably at my worst. So I think my confidence has come from these periods. And I've been through some stuff. I don't talk about it in the book and, you know, whatever, but some really, really hard things. That's where I feel like I have built my confidence.

Will that be your second book?

Perhaps. Perhaps. Maybe. I don't know. But yeah. I think when things around me, when the story of who I think I am and what I'm supposed to be saying starts to unravel, that's always when I've gotten my confidence. Like I don't know how to explain it otherwise. Yeah, it kind of sucks that it's gotta take these horrible things for me to kind of get it together and have confidence. But it's really in those times, when I think about it, those are like landmark events in my life after which I'm never the same.

So people don't know. Anyone can be in the airport and see your book and look, oh, Google, Facebook.

And we all put that person on.

A proverbial pedestal and think they have it all together for you right now. Navigating the speaking business, becoming an author, first time author. I mean, how are you feeling?

Super excited and grateful and super scared. I put my whole life savings on the line for all of this.

That's so hard. I am so right there with you.

Yeah. And it's pretty much out, so please buy a book because my kids need food.

Really?

Why should people buy your book?

So I wrote this book because this conversation about Women at work and the gender gap has been really dominated by a handful of very elite and powerful women. And naturally they're going to see the issues through a similar perspective, but it's been limited because so many working women don't hear their voices, their challenges and concerns reflected in that conversation. So I really wrote that the book to represent those voices and to tell a totally different side of this story about.

Which you did.

Which I did. But also because there's so much BS in the corporate world, because of its nature, is like this big power structure. People can't be honest. It like crushes truth and it punishes truth. Well, they're all zero sum games for power. They're zero sum competitions for power. And no matter whether you're or Google or you know, Walmart or whatever corporate organization, they're all structured as these zero sum competitions. And it's behaviors like putting your needs ahead of other people's, that is a behavior that wins in that environment. Putting other people's needs first is always going to be a disadvantage in the corporate world because you get crushed. It's the nature of the game. And that's another reason I wrote this book is because I didn't know what game I was playing in that world. I was kind of like Polly, like naive Pollyanna going about it like, oh, everybody really is working hard to like make a difference in the business and make an impact and we're all team players. And then over time I started realizing, wait, that is not what this is at all. And I was kind of naive and I write it in the book and it's true. It's like I really didn't care what game it was. I, I just would love for people to be honest about what it is.

And that's a novel idea.

Yeah. And one thing that really sort of like the essence of Lean in and books of that nature, one of the things that really irked me was we kept it sort of posits the idea that women don't want to be leaders. And I hate that language because that's not what it is. It's women to the same don't aspire to be corporate executives to the same degree as men. So the stat quoted in that book is 18% of women aspire to be a corporate executive versus 36% of men. And saying that that means women don't.

Want to be leaders.

That's not true because corporate executive is not synonymous with leader. Leader is somebody who paints a vision for the future that's better. And like I Use the example of Martin Luther King. Right? He was a leader. Nobody's gonna argue he wasn't one of the best leaders of the 20th century. People didn't work for him. They didn't, you know, they didn't follow him because the power structure required it or their livelihood was at stake, which.

Is, in fact, it was the opposite.

It was the opposite. He led with influence. So it bothers me that we paint that story as. Women don't have leadership ambition. No, they don't have corporate executive ambition to the same degree as men.

But sometimes they do. I certainly did. I wanted to be the CEO. I did not mince words about it.

And. And there's more power to you. The whole message of the book is be true to you. And so we've over indexed our time and attention. So if only 18% of women aspire. Right. I'm not saying that 18% don't have challenges or problems and that they shouldn't go for what they want. My daughter's going to be a CEO of a huge, huge conglomerate organization. That is her nature. Like more power to her. I joke with her, I'm gonna one day get a tattoo. Wwsd. What would Shelby do? Because I get inspired. She is a boss, but I love that about her. I was not like that as a child and I sort of took issue with this idea that these more nurturing, feminine, you know, not feminine, but the gender stereotype of a woman, a theater. We're giving women the opposite message now that those behaviors are wrong.

Right.

That we need to defy those boundaries and act outside of that. But that's still a prescription for women on how to behave.

That's your whole premise, is that we don't need to be told who to be. Whether someone's telling you to be like a man or to be like a woman or to be this. But to just be you, like your daughter, like, just own your truth.

Just own it. And the corporate world is not a place where people can be themselves and lean into, no pun intended, their natural strengths and abilities. Because the rules of that game don't change. Whether you're a Google or a GE or whatever. There's a certain law of like human dynamics and power dynamics. Once you get to a certain amount of people that even no matter how progressive of a company you are, you can't. Those sort of laws of human behavior. And you know, I went off on a total tangent here, but I think, you know, to your point, it's like lots of women want to be CEOs I totally support that, but lots of women don't. And there's no voice to represent them. Because we've been told that the reason they don't want to be a corporate executive is because they're oppressed by culture and stereotypes. Well, now they have one, and now they have one. And I, a lot of so many women have reached out to me to say thank you because I think another big reason I wrote this book was to here's the feedback I get. And this is the reason I wrote it. People reach out to me to say, you put into words all these thoughts and feelings I've had in the corporate world, but I didn't know how, A, how to express them, and B, that other women felt the same. And you made me feel heard and understood. And that that is my number one goal, is making women feel heard and understood. Because I feel like we've been very dismissive of what lots of women want and need. And instead of blaming the gender gap on stereotype, you know, dismissing sort of women's needs as a product of culture, my whole point in the book is we should listen to them and embrace their needs. And if men and women want and need different things at work, that is okay. We should. We should embrace that, listen to women and figure out what is it about the corporate structure that needs to change to better meet their needs instead of focusing on the ways women need to change to better meet the needs of the corporate structure. It's just common sense. So I think making a lot of women like me that felt so invisible and dismissed in that world feel heard and understood is my ultimate goal.

Well, congratulations. You did a great job.

Thank you.

You guys need to pick up Lean out by Marissa Orr. You can get it everywhere, not just the air. Where can they find the book?

It's on Amazon. It's in Barnes and Noble, some airports. And you can go to my site, marissaoar.com also for the links.

And how about following you on social media?

So on Twitter, I am Marissabeth Orr. Beth. Beth, my middle name. And on you have to forgive me. So I'm like just to your point about building the parachute on the way down. And this is all so new to me. Instagram also Marissabeth Orr. Twitter, Marissabeth Orr. And on Medium, I have a bunch of articles including the prologue. So if you want to read the story about what happened to me at Facebook, you can see that at medium, which is medium.com Arissa Orr. So if you just search for Marissa Orr Medium, it should show Up.

All right, I'm going to check it out, too. Thank you, Marissa. I appreciate it.

Thanks so much for having me. This is fun.

All right, hang with me.

We'll be right back.

So I just realized that I forgot to tell you. I can't believe this has all been the same week. It feels like the longest week of my life. But a few days ago, I'm back in New York right now. And I was in New York on Thursday of this past week to join my good friend Scott for his book party launch for Standing O Encore, which is an amazing book. You got to check it out on Amazon. And it's all about gratitude. It's all for charity. I wrote right the forward. Jesse Itzler wrote the COVID quote. I call it In Good Company, but definitely check it out. Standing O Encore. This is not an ad, by the way. And so I came to New York for his event, and it was the craziest night. It was so funny. So he kicked off the event. He was speaking, and then he handed the microphone over to me, and I was speaking. And while I was speaking, someone passed out. She's okay. The woman is okay. But I didn't really know what was going on, because when you're speaking, you know, you're not really in tune with everything. I just heard a lot of commotion because what happened is the woman fell into someone else, and then that person fell into someone and that person and felt it was like a domino effect. So there was a lot of broken glass, and it was just insane. And then a puppy got caught in a door, and the puppy was crying, and, oh, gosh, there was a lot of chaos ensuing. And when that all happened, I made a joke. I said, oh, my gosh, this is perfect. Because everyone says at a TED Talk, anything and everything can go wrong. And to be prepared for it. So I want to thank everyone who's falling on the ground and getting the dog for setting this up for me so that I won't get rattled. And I made a joke. Whatever. Everyone was laughing. It went really well. But what's so crazy is I wasn't nervous at my friend's book launch party versus when I was at ted. And I was literally freaking out. I can't tell you how scared I was. And right when it was time for me to go on, the clicker broke and the slides weren't gonna work, and everyone started freaking out. Out. And I just turned around and I said, listen to me right now. To everybody that was backstage. I said, done is better than perfect. And we are going out there and we'll just make.

Make it work.

Just make do with what you have. And I really have lived my life like that since I left corporate America and since I got fired. You know, I. I didn't know if my book was going to be good. I didn't know it was going to Trump. Trump for number one in business biography on Amazon. Yeah, it did, but I didn't know any of that stuff. And I didn't know that I'd end up being a professional speaker. I didn't know I'd give a TED Talk. I didn't know I'd own the TED Talk.

Yeah, I'm so excited.

I can't. I didn't know any of this stuff, you know, and it's just about taking the chance and going for it has really been the answer for me. And it's funny because I was speaking to a woman at the book launch party and she was telling me how she wanted to launch her own podcast. And I said, well, why?

What are you waiting for?

Like, I'm so cute, curious. Why haven't you done it? And there was no real reason. Anyway, so I had that conversation with her and I got a note from her today. She went ahead and bought a computer, and she's up and running and launching her podcast this week. So I'm super proud of her. But sometimes we just get in our own head and decide, oh, this will never work, or there's too many podcasts or there's, you know, I'd never be a good TED Talk speaker. Well, I got great advice that night at the book launch party, and I was talking about how some people who are amazing speakers, like, the best in the world, when they do a TED Talk, it doesn't go viral or doesn't do that well. And someone told me that's because they don't really show up as their self. If you. It's hard because ted's strict with you can't leave the circle. And it's about the idea and it's not like a normal talk. And you have a time limit and there's a timer running that you have to hit that mark. I chose not to look at the timer, just FYI. So I'm super interested to see how long long my talk actually was because I was too stressed out. I couldn't add one more layer of problems in my mind, so I just ignored it. I don't know if that's the right.

Move for everybody, but it worked for me.

So, you know, you look at all these restrictions, and it's just. I don't know, it can be tough. It definitely got in my head. But, you know, it's about taking the risk and going for it. You know, as Sarah Blakely put this note in my bag, she gave me a bunch of stuff, Spanx products, when I interviewed her, and there was a note from her, and it just said, the only risk that you'll ever take is not taking one. And it's so true. You just have to go for it. If I had failed, you know what, I still would have been proud of myself for getting up there, and I would have not forgiven myself if I had backed out. You know, that was kind of what I was thinking. So, anyhow, so I had. I also have an accountability partner program on my website that's free. You can check it out. Heathermonahan.com and I refer people to it when they're not pushing themselves, you know, because then you get an email from me each day, really kind of, you know, trying to annoy you to make sure that you follow through on your dreams and go after your goals. And so I had. I had suggested to a woman that she should sign up for because she wasn't pushing herself. And it was so cute. She sent me a note back and said, thank you so much. I did it. However, I don't want to embarrass you, but the bounce back right after I signed up has a typo in it, and I hope I'm not offending you.

Oh, my gosh.

I was so appreciative. And, you know, I said to her, listen, done is better than perfect in my book, and I'm not an editor. And I so appreciate that you took the time to tell me that's. That's not embarrassing or you don't have to feel bad. I'm grateful, you know, so when we extend a hand to someone else and offer help to them, it's 99.999% of the time going to be welcomed and appreciated. 100% of the time will be from me. So I appreciate when people. People help me with things that I haven't been able to fix yet for myself. So I think it's great to lend a hand to somebody else and, you know, help people improve when you can and cheer them on when you can. And I have to tell you, oh, my gosh, I had people that flew in for my TED Talk, and it just meant the world to me to see those people.

They are cheering me on.

And one of my friends that came in said that she felt like, you know what? I need to listen to my inner voice. I really have this sense that I should go to this place, TED Talk. And she jumped on a plane and came, and I was so happy to see her, so happy to have her support. You know, you just never know. People assumed I would just be so confident and it would be easy, and it wasn't. So having people that love me, that were cheering me on, meant the world. So if there's someone in your life that you think, oh, that person's got it, you know what? Why don't you give them a hand? Why don't you cheer them on, and why don't you let them know that you're supporting them? Because it really makes such, such a difference. And you never know what's going on in someone else's life. That is for sure. So, so excited for everyone to see this. I want to, by the way. I'm dying to see my own talk. It's so annoying that we have to wait for Ted to upload this thing, but it's. I pray it's gonna do well. I pray that you're gonna love it. And I can't wait to see it. And on to the next one. So until next week, who knows what's gonna happen this week? I mean, I don't know how we top this past week, but there's always.

A chance we can.

So let's just keep going. Thanks so much for being here with me. Thanks for hanging with me on the podcast. It means the world to me. I appreciate your support so, so, so much. And I hope that this is a kickoff for a great week for you, too. Thank.