[Greatest Hits] The Benefit Of Determination In Building A Business with Jennifer Kem

Welcome to this edition of the Million Dollar Mastermind podcast. This is where we pick the brains of high achievers from all walks of life and get their hard earned real world insights on winning. I'm your host, Larry Wydell.

I get the idea that you had more of a. Growing up, you probably did not know this, but you know, five years after she was into her recording contract with CBS Records, you know, and the big capital, you know, the big circular thing, they didn't know what to do with her, you know, they were trying to make her into this bland, you know, basically nightclub singer. And she was, her interview she had was, I don't know what kind of singer I am. I'm still trying to figure out what kind of singer I am. That's because the people with the record company didn't know what kind of singer was and she didn't have any real success. But she got out of that contract. They let her go. And Irving Azoff, I think, is who it was, out of New York got her and took her down to Muscle Shoals with that group of rascals down there and out came the, the Aretha that we know today, you know, but it takes a while to find. We, you know, until we get stuff out there, we don't really know what we are. And I think you probably discovered, either realize it or not, that you were more of a creative person than then you might, then an attorney really gets a chance to be. A lot of times you can come up with a creative approach or something like that, but it's within the confines of the railroad tracks of the law that you have to be creative, which requires a lot. But to be wildly creative, come up with stuff nobody's ever even thought of before, bring these kind of things into the world, that's a different type of creative. And I think you might have got a taste of that early on and enjoyed. Enjoy that. And also the, you know, your competitive juices, doing well and making a difference in climbing the ladder and, you know, throwing your, your energy behind projects and seeing them swell up and do great things, that probably got in your blood too.

Absolutely. You hit the nail on the head. I didn't consider myself creative. I considered myself academic. And when I got into and decided to go to business school for the reasons I mentioned, I fell in love. See, it was different. It was like I liked and I was curious and I was academic. I liked the rewards of it. But was I juiced up about it? No. But the moment that sidewinder came at me changing schools Having to go to school on the West Coast, I realized, oh my gosh, what I really love is creating things, getting them out there, teaching and mentoring others, even on my team, to be more brave around. Let's like, I'd rather fail fast than fail slow. I think that that's one of the concepts around success is successful. People prefer to fail fast. It doesn't feel good all the time, but we prefer it because then we learn something. It's like adapting you. That's how you become like in Darwin's law, right. It's kind of like you adapt because you're learning what's not working so that you can reprioritize. And for me, I love what you said about creative and being. I'm very solution oriented. I'm very results oriented. And so for me, even through disappointment, and I don't want anybody listening to get the idea that I'm like built like Teflon, that I don't feel anything when these things happen. I've felt deeply disappointment and all the things. But I also, I still had a vision for my life. And I think that when you have a North Star and you have a vision for your life, it really helps. What was it even when you got a degree from where.

Where was. Where did the degree.

Santa Clara. Santa Clara. Santa Clara.

So now you go out and you get in the. And they. And the business world. Where did you get. When did things start to click and you really started to learn lessons that about how the world worked, where you were rubber meet the road and where. And maybe it was rough and tumble and you, you might have taken some hits, hits on the chin, you know, like we all do when you get in. But work your way up to where you got some responsibility and all you're doing good. And then all of a sudden now you've got to call shots and the ball's in your court and when it doesn't go well, there's a burn associated with it. But then you learn a lot from that too. So when did this heat start picking up? Where you really started to form who you are today in the business world?

Yeah, I would say there's two big moments in my corporate career that I would point too. The first was early in my career when I was in my still mid 20s. And again, I had a vision for my life. And I remember that I was working for one of the biggest advertising agencies in the world. And the general manager of the San Francisco division was this woman, her name is Mary. And I thought to myself, and she had two young kids, a marriage with a guy that looked like she liked him, which I was like, that's not normal. And she was a really good leader. Like, she was very clear on what needed to get done and whatnot. And so my first big thing was asking her. I thought to myself, okay, she's around 33 years old. I'm 23 years old. And at the time, I thought, wow, she's only 33. You know, today's world is like, you say you're 33, you're too old. But back then, I was like, wow, she's only 33. I could have her job in 10 years. And so I asked her, I said, hey, after my performance review. And she told me, I want you to know that I see a lot of potential in you. You know, you're a go getter. You're a sponge. You're willing to take risk, and you got to learn how to navigate politics and red tape.

Okay, let's just stop right there. Let's just stop right there. For people on the way up, the people on the way up, you want to be on the way up, you got to be a sponge. You got to learn to get along with people. And what was the other thing?

It was be a go getter. Like, be willing to take risks. Yeah, yeah. Like, you will need to take risks.

Sponge. You soaked up things. And so all of these things, you know, we. There's a lot that's said, you know, when we're just yakking each other, that goes over people's head until they've been through this stuff, and then they start noticing it. And what I try and do is get people to notice these things that seem like casual type things. But it's how this is all about how you can differentiate yourself from other people. There's a fine line between mediocrity and greatness. You want to be on the side that at least. You know, you're never guaranteed greatness, but you at least like to do the things that put yourself on the side of the puzzle, the bubble where greatness could happen. And you don't want to be the one that's sabotaging your prospects, you know, just because of ignorance, you know? And so that's what this podcast is all about, is to alert people to some of these seemingly obvious, innocent, minor things that are the huge difference makers when you do them right, you know, so anyway.

Oh, yeah, well, I think that you're. You know, you're absolutely right, and thanks for pointing out those things, because even at the time especially. I didn't, I didn't see it. I just was being me. And I think that being yourself is the most brave thing you could do in the world. Right? So that's another thing. And I think that you're going to love this next part, I think, Larry, because what I asked her next. Oh, wait, before I say that, one more thing to point out is that go find, if you see somebody, a colleague, a boss, somebody who works at the office next door and you admire their work or with how their life looks, get brave and ask them, like, how did you do this? Right, Because I think that that was the big thing. That was the big thing. It was that I asked her. And I find that most young people, and frankly, even those of us who've not hit the success that we've wanted, it's because you're not asking the people. It was like going to Boston and saying, I want to be around other lawyers. Right. Well, if you're in a career, why wouldn't you get to know the people that you feel are ahead of you or are on a path that looks at least attractive to you in terms of the trajectory? And so I think that's another lesson if you're on the come up, you know, to be willing. And sometimes they're not gonna be willing to tell you anything, you know, and it's fine. But she was. And I think it's because frankly, I had never seen, I didn't have a model for a woman as assertive as she was. You know, the rest of the executive team were men and she was the lone female at the table and they all respected her and everyone. Respect. She was running. She was the big boss. Anyway, so I asked her, hey, if I want to have your life in 10 years, what is some advice you would give me? And I think that this advice she gave me still works today. And I think it'll work for you if you're listening. And it was so critical to my success. And that is, she said, take every project that no one wants.

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Okay. She said, take the projects that people will say, that's too crazy, that's too hard, that's too. She said, you're going to earn respect really quick even if you fail and you're going to learn how to lead people because you have no choice but to lead them.

Yeah.

And I said, okay. And at the time, I'm 23 years old, I didn't know what that meant. So I'm like, okay, so then at 33, I could be running an agency like you. And she said, you could be, you could be running it earlier than me because I'm just teaching you what I did and hopefully it'll serve you well. And the truth is, it really did serve me well, Larry, because that's. As I mentioned, there's two moments, right, that I said that made me in the corporate world very successful. That was the first. And I quickly ascended the corporate ladder of wherever I went because of that clear advice. So.

Well, and the thing is, you could have gone the rest of your life without the benefit of, of that advice if you had not asked the question. It's scary, isn't it? You know, I was, what got me, you know, about 10 years ago, the idea of writing books and putting some of this stuff out. I realized that I was sitting on a lot of powerful information that had been given to me from other people that had it not come along, there's no way I would be where I am today or where I was then. And so the, a lot of it's, it's scary how much information is around us inside people that we're next to or talking to. But unless you get in there and open the can with the right question, you're never going to benefit from that. You know, I used to have people come and visit me. You know, I was in management development and recruiting training, opening offices and I'd have somebody come and visit me from wherever. And we're, you know, we're going to the office and we're going out wherever to meetings, going out to my farm. I'm showing him that. So. And I said, you know what, what are you wondering about right now? And the guy said, oh, I'm just, you know, just take soaking it all in. I said, you want to know what I'm wondering? I'm wondering how in the world it can be that you have got this moment with Me in the car right next to you. Me and you time together, probably not happen again for another two, three years and you're not asking me anything. I find that amazing, you know.

Yeah, no, I do too, I think. Yeah, absolutely.

That would be. Peppered them with questions, you know, left and right, left and right, you know.

And so we're always worried that we're gonna be annoying or like it's not appropriate. And of course there's an appropriate way to ask questions, but I really wanna encourage anybody listening that I truly was coming from a place of curiosity. Like, I'm really curious, how did you create this? Like, I wanna understand it. And I think instead we judge ourselves. And that's a great way to open if you're worried about asking the right question. In my mind, I tell a lot of my mentees in my company that come and work, you know, I think the right way to ask a question is like open it with, I'm genuinely curious, how did you do this? You know, and just saying it that way changes the energy between even the two people, even if you're intimidated by the person that you want to ask the question of. So, you know, and again, I didn't know why I did that. I think that success does have a little bit to do with your personality, you know, I do believe that and. But I also think you can architect success whether or not you have a curious type of.

What was your second thing? Did we get to your second thing yet?

No, we didn't. We didn't. Well, okay, so I ascended the corporate ladder. And so it's interesting, my first thing is when I started the corporate world. And the next thing is when I left the corporate world. And so I was working as usual. I was brought in to bring in. I was always put in the cockpit when it was a failing project or it was a new idea that was going to change everything. And so.

And so you were working with companies like Oracle, Microsoft, things like that, is that right?

Correct.

So high tech, Big deal. High tech. High tech, serious. I mean, there's a lot of serious people, serious things going on. Lots of powerful levers and powerful people. And, and when things like, when bad projects came up there or projects nobody wanted, they would, they could be like really bad.

Yeah, they'd be like, call up Jen Kim. She's like, you know, she's willing to get in, you know, get in the plane and fly it, you know. And so I was brought into this, what is now at the time was an innovative product. Now it's like we all take it for granted. It's called streaming services. At the time it was called, you know, Internet protocol tv, iptv. Okay. And I was one. I was the one that they brought in to get IPTV implemented on the West Coast. I was with Verizon at the time. It was my last job and I was in the marketing department. It's interesting. I was the head of business to business. And okay, you understand corporate structure. There's usually someone who's in charge of business to business and someone who's in charge of business to consumer. If you have a, you know, if you have both sides. So I ran strategy and marketing for all of B2B. And this was a B2C product. Okay. This was a business to consumer product. And even though it was that, they were like, just come over here and I would say B2B. I'm a big fan if you're listening. If you work in a business to business department, I have a lot of respect for you because typically we work on products that aren't sexy, they're boring, like cloud services or, you know, VOIP, you know, things like that. Whereas B2C is sexy. They sell devices, they sell, you know, they have the ads on tv, right? They, they're the ones who do the flashy things. And so anyway, I was like, sure, because again, I was always coming from a place of Maria's advice early in my career, you know, and by this point, I was, I was 31 at the time and I knew it was a breakthrough project for me. I thought, okay, if this goes the way I want it to, I'm going to become cmo. Because that was my goal. I want to be CMO and then CEO. I had a very clear vision. Just like I thought when I was going to go to Harvard, I thought I had a clear vision. I thought, this is going to be the pinnacle project for me that I'm going to be known for. Recruiters are going to be like, really knocking on my door and I'm going to have really good opportunities. Anyway, so the project took off. It took two years. It was a hard project. Lots of people quit. And how big was your team? I lost. Well, ultimately my core team was over a hundred people, but the whole project was company wide, so we had to. I had to work with every level of the company. I had to work with the field, right? Which they're union employees, right? They're out there in the field. They're the ones laying the cable, the fiber, you know, all of that. I was working with The C level executives, because I was the one presenting. This was a big change because, you know, at the time. And this is going to sound so old, but I am old. You know, pots, plain old telephone service was what telephone companies had. And these like Verizon, AT&T MCI at the time, they were trying to establish themselves as technology companies, not telecommunications companies. And so this was a game changer for Verizon. And anyway, so I worked with every level. I had to work with the middle managers who had the teams, the stakeholders that we needed. So I was. It was a big, big project. And if you understand coming from the corporate world how much communication and negotiation and politics and all that stuff. Right. I had to. And so I got a. You want to talk about like an MBA and all that through that project, it was like, you know, and being. And I say this because I don't play victim to anything, but being a woman in that level of hierarchy, I mean, it's a whole different game for us. And so, and Maria also, again, as my early mentor, she told me to expect that. You know, she's like, you're working in a different asteroid field than other people and you need to be like thinking through that in order to be effective in your job and lead people. And so I always say people, people work for people. They don't work for companies. And in my mind, I needed to be that person that people would go the extra mile for, you know, in order to do that. So anyway, that was the project.

Let's repeat that. People work for people, not for companies.

Yes.

Yeah.

And even it's. Especially now, I mean, I would say that in this and going forward, that is even more important than anything.

I'm looking for that in your book, by the way.

Yeah.

That'S a good.

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