Building Wealth, Overcoming Failure & Rethinking Risk Taking w/ Sukhinder Singh Cassidy EP 1150

This is episode number 1150 with Sukinder Singh Cassidy. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now, let the class begin.

T.S.

Eliot said, only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. And Jim Roane said, it doesn't matter which side of the fence you get off on sometimes. What matters most is getting off. You cannot make progress without making decisions. My guest today is Sukinder Singh Cassidy, and for more than 25 years, she's been a leading Tech entrepreneur and CEO who's grown, scaled and advised for companies like DubHub, Google, Amazon, and more. And she's currently the founder and chairman of the board list, a talent Marketplace focused on putting diverse leaders into key executive positions and also serves on the board of directors at Urban Outfitters and upstart. And she just wrote a new book called choose possibility, take risks and Thrive even when you fail, where she shares the most valuable lessons she's learned over her years of experience in leadership roles at some of Silicon Valley's most well-known companies. And her Insight when it comes to business and life is something I I hope you find as much value in as I did. It was a real treat getting to speak with her and I'm already looking forward to connecting with her again soon. And in this episode, we discuss the life changing lessons she learned from her father, why most businesses fail and how to make sure your business isn't one of them, why we all need to change our mindset around failure and risk taking and what to do instead. The best ways to start building wealth today, what Sukinder considers the most rewarding experiences she's had over the course of her career and so much more. Again, I'm so excited about this. And if you're enjoying this, make sure to share this with someone that you think would be inspired as well. And a quick reminder to subscribe to the School of Greatness as well as giving us a rating and review. And I wanted to take a quick moment to share one of my favorite reviews from last week. And this is from Michael, who's from the Philippines, who says, I just wanted to take a moment and say thank you so much for creating an impactful podcast. I believe that we all have a voice that deserves to be heard. Thank you for putting this into the world. And this is from Andrea, who's from Croatia, and she says, Love listening to this podcast. Whenever I listen to an episode, it's like you're talking to me. And even though you don't see your listeners, you talk to them individually. So thank you for inspiring me to do great things. So big shout out to those fans of the week. And again, if you want to leave a review and have a chance to be shouted out on the podcast, make sure to go to Apple Podcasts right now and leave a review. Okay, in just a moment, the one and only Sue Kinder Singh Cassidy.

What would make this the most powerful interview you've ever done?

That's a really hard question. I'm thinking about the answer and very rarely do I say don't have an answer. I could say cander, we're gonna have cander. I could say engagement, we're gonna have engagement. I'm trying to think about like what message, maybe the most powerful thing would be like the whole reason I wrote the book is not for money, right? It's to land the idea that people have just a total misconception about how risk and reward work. So like maybe if you and I landed an interview that sort of like brings that home, that kind of singular message and people take it, maybe. I don't know, it's a really high bar. What would make it, like you've done 1100 plus interviews. What would make this a home run for you? Let's ask that question. It's probably the same challenge.

That we go deep on things that maybe we wouldn't necessarily go deep on, that we get vulnerable, that we reveal things, both of us, that that connected people's hearts. Okay. That would get out of our heads. Awesome.

And tap into the soul.

Okay.

If you wanna tap into the soul, you have to ask me about my father. Okay. Yeah, yeah.

If you wanna go straight to the source.

I'm watching stuff about your dad. Yeah, yeah. Because I think the book is a business book that has an undercurrent of how I was raised. But if you flipped it, I would.

Say like, Seat of the Soul is more my book.

I just had Gary or Gary Zukav by my desk. Yeah, he's great. So if you think about the messages in Seat of the Soul, I remember I went to an event that Sheryl Sandberg hosted with Oprah at her house back in the Valley when she used to do these events that were like 25 women and Oprah came. And Oprah was talking about Carrie Zuckov's book. And that was the first time I heard of it. You know, she was talking, and so I read Season of Solitude. And I just remember reading it, I was like, wow, like this book, this is like the way I was raised. So if you like, so if you wanna talk about soulful stuff, like that's.

The stuff I talk about with my coach and my, you know, that's what's gonna move my audience. The analytical heady stuff, they're gonna be, they don't come to me.

Then let's talk about the soulful stuff, like how you live your life. Because I am totally down for that conversation. So if you said like, what's the deepest we can get? The deepest we can get is like, why are we all here? What are the experiences you have that convince you that there's something more? And for me, just to be clear, now you're gonna get me, Terri, I fundamentally believe that the reason I'm on, the way I'm gonna express all my gifts or impact on the world is business 100%.

Yeah.

100%. And my father definitely saw that in me. He was like, that will be the way. And he was the most religious, spiritual person I knew, know, and also impactful and also the most entrepreneurial. So, like, I just look at it. I'm like, yeah, yeah, that's the standard. So if you read my book, you'd be like, I don't, like, I don't like to be like, oh, my, you know, my, my hero is Richard Branson. Or, like, of course. Like, of course I admire all these, you know, but I'm like, no. Here's my dad, like his life and his purpose and his vocation and his impact were all the exact same thing.

Wow.

Right, completely integrated. That's cool.

Aligned.

Aligned. Completely integrated and aligned. That's cool. Yeah. Which is not a conversation I have with most people. I have it with my coach, I have it with my priest, I have it with my mom. My mom read the book and she said, because I hadn't told her I wrote the book, I was like, you know what? I need to tell her. And then she's like, what are you so busy with? I was like, Mom, I'm writing a book. I wrote a book and I want to give it to her for Mother's Day, so I gave it to her. and she called me yesterday and she's like, I finished the book. I was like, great, what do you think? And then she started sobbing and she said, I read the acknowledgments. I'm like, well, I'm like, hopefully you feel acknowledged. And she said, I also read the last chapter in the book, which is all about your father. And she just was like bawling her eyes out. And she's like, you never talk about this stuff. But she's like, I read it and I think like, so you can get me Terry. I read, I think like, You must think about him all the time. I'm like, all the time. Wow. And she said, and she said, and then she was crying. She's like, you know, he was the love of my life. I told you he was a special person. And the whole world saw him as a special person. I was like, yeah, of course. I'm like, that last chapter is exactly what I believe. And I think about my dad all the time. And she said, and she said, like, she's just like, and she's like, like, it was beautiful. She's like, but I, it just made me remember how much I miss him. And that's all right.

Anyway, so, like, you want to get deep?

That'll be deep. When you think about your dad, what do you think about? I think about the integration as we talked about. I think about, and I write about it in the book, I think about the fact that most people move through this world, including all the people you and I know, and they really think that power is to be harnessed, right? Like, power is to be harnessed. And my dad, my dad, he just gave, I call the concept in the book, power flow. Most people dream of being powerful. I'm like, my father was the most powerful person I know. My buddy's because he has power, had power flow. He was like this abundant source of energy, right? So you bring it, like he could just give energy away to people. You know what I mean? He never said I ever. Like I say I all the time.

He just never said I.

What did he say? He would just be like, well, what do you want? Like, I just don't know how to describe it. He talked about like, he just helped people connect with their purpose and he made them feel really good. You know those people who are like, when you're with them, they make you, they're so present that they make you feel like their time with you was.

Like a gift to you.

So my father was that person, right? You could to have a conversation. And there was nobody who didn't leave a conversation with them just totally energized, like 100%. Nobody would feel bad about themselves. They were just like, people say to me like, oh my God, you have so much energy, make me feel anxious or nervous or like whatever. Like my dad just made everybody feel more full of themselves.

Right.

That was his gift. And so I call that power flow. I'm like, once you understand that energy that you have is to be given away because you know it's a pretty abundant. If you can generate it for yourself, You can just keep giving energy to other people.

Right? Right?

So that was his gift. Power flow. I call it power flow, not powerful. Interesting. Yeah, I'm like, so why you still like, why you all want a harness power? Like, people think you're powerful. I'm like, people would say my dad was the most powerful person they knew. He could give a about like holding power. Right. I don't even think he would think about it that way. I just be like, you know, just like keep flowing from him. And the more the flow from him, the more they would like, yeah, a mass to him.

Right.

But he didn't care about being powerful. I'm just saying that was his impact.

Right.

If you can make other people impactful, like, think about that gift.

What was the, or the three biggest lessons he taught you growing up?

Possibilities in small acts as well as big acts.

Possibilities in small acts.

As well as big acts. We tend to think of, like, risk taking and possibility is like, if you don't, can't do something big, don't do it at all. Right. But what if possibility is like, you know, and I, for sure, he was an entrepreneur, so I think that you would say possibilities in little acts. Like it might be in doing your taxes, it might be in, you know, trying to come up with a creative name for your medical practice, which he did. It might be like helping your daughter build like, you know, a working model of the human eye in the second grade, which he did with me. So I just felt like he was always striving for possibility in little and big things. So like possibility had all these dimensions, little and big, little big, little big. Yeah. As opposed to like waiting for one big act, right? That was one. big lesson. Yeah, one big lesson. Like number two, probably that we're all meant to express some sort of like, like you're here to give purpose and service to other people. Right. So he never said, like, what does that need to be? You know, he just, like, exemplified. I noticed how to. It's his way of being. It's his way of being. Like, when somebody said, he didn't say he just wasn't. Yeah, he just wasn't. Like, you know, there's, like, conversations about these things, right? It's just like you see this living embodiment of so I'd say that his second lesson was probably about just like you're here to be of service and to have impact, right? So I think that's probably second lesson. Maybe the third. Yeah, maybe the third is something much more simple. I mean, my parents just told me that you think it's all about you, you're totally mistaken. It's not like quite destiny, but you live in a universe that's far more powerful than you. you think you're in control of everything, you're in control of nothing. And it's weird, right? Because you can say, how can you live with somebody who says, well, the whole universe is moving around you. If you think it's all about you, you're wildly mistaken. So my dad had this way of understanding that we're small in a very big universe, yet still making you feel empowered. So that's an interesting lesson. You're insignificant, but you're significant. Yes, you're insignificant, but everything is possible. You understand? And so I understand both those things. I can both say like, hey, I feel completely empowered, yet I realize like, if I think this act is all about me, like that's a totally ridiculous statement. That's what I feel like. I mean, I love leaders like that, right? They're very confident and yet they're very humble.

Yes.

Like because I, and my father was that. Like he was like, like the most confident, like grounded in himself person I could ever imagine. He had complete humility because he's just like, yeah, I'm a spec on the back of a universe for a period of time. Yeah, while you're here, do something useful. So both can be true, right? You can both be insignificant, yet while you're here, you're meant to do something totally, totally significant.

Is there a conversation that you really repeat in your mind over and over that he either shared with you, whether it was an intentional conversation or something he said off the cuff that really resonates and sticks with you still?

No, it's interesting. I honestly can say it's not a single conversation because like I said, like, like, there were no lectures at our table. You know, it was like, it wasn't my dad's like, you must do this or whatever. Like, he would say it constantly. And I think. I think I'm very guilty of this. So he would literally say, like, why you ever be in sentences with it? Like, I like, you know what I mean? Like, he wouldn't say that he wasn't scolding me. He was just like, this. Just reminder that, like, I do it all the time. We do it. Like, I am so, you know what I mean? But. He just kind of had the absence of ego. So no, I honestly, there was no big talk conversation. There was just no like seminal moment where he sat me down and told me these things. It was just like, it's just like just watching him be. But like there's a story in the book that I tell that is very emblematic of my father. This is what I mean when I say small acts of possibility for other people, right? So my dad was a doctor. We love being a doctor.

And what type of doctor?

He was a general practitioner. But he also loved being an entrepreneur, like he loved both. And we had, and he grew up in Africa and immigrated to Canada late in his life. And so one of his dear friends passed away, but his son was like my age, like a teenager, and came to stay with us for like one summer. He lived in England and came to stay with us. So we get, you know, family friend son comes to stay with us. We become close to him, this kid Bobby. And Bobby went on and became a surgeon.

Your dad's son or your dad's friend's son?

My dad's friend's son. Just a friend of family, you know? So I got to know Bobby and my dad's funeral, you can probably tell my dad was pretty religious. So the church we follow, believe it or not, is in England. So multiple times a year we would go to England.

Really?

Yeah, and literally live in the church and do service twice a year. So when other people went to Disneyland, I mean literally Christmas vacation.

A week.

And summer we would go to England. England, live at this church because my dad was like not atheist but agnostic but then he had this like spiritual awakening in his early 40s. So he didn't follow a specific religion.

But he followed Sikh.

He was curious about all religions and believed generally in God. But I mean this is why I'm like getting way deep here so maybe you want to- no, this is great. This is fascinating.

So he was interested in all religions.

Interested in all religions but Sikh, like you know, on Sikh, you know, turbans, what have you. But I think sometime in his early 40s, before I was born, met a man who became his physician, who was the head of a Sikh church. And he literally thought he met the embodiment of God. So overnight, my mom says he came home and he was a changed man. He stopped drinking, he stopped gambling, he got baptized in the Sikh religion, and he began following this person. Before he wasn't Sikh though. He was Sikh, but he wasn't Orthodox. It was an all-in. Yeah, he was an all-in. He was turbaned, he was cultural. He was Sikh. But you know, loosely Sikh. You know, he didn't want to get baptized. It's like becoming the equivalent of like, you're Jewish and then you're Orthodox. Right. So he was generally interested in religion and curious about the world and all those things, but then he literally met a man who changed his life. And so he became his physician. He started following him. My mom was like overnight, he just became uninterested in all sorts of material.

Things and became much more spiritual.

Wow.

What do you think that was that.

He saw or witnessed or that he said to him that just woke him up? He really said he felt like he, I mean, it was a, it was a saintly person. He literally said, like, I feel like I met, like, you know, met a saint.

Wow.

And so that saint, like, founded a, like, founded a specific ski seek church. You know, there's seek, seeks all over the world. And in England, he moved from Africa to England, and he has a church that has thousands of people. So my dad subscribed to that church. So we all did. We still do.

Right.

And so anyway, my point overall is that you said, you said sort of. So we all subscribed to this church. Bobby's dad was a, you know, at this church. So my dad literally passed away in an airport in England because he had a heart attack when our, it's okay, it's okay, it was 20 years ago.

It was 20 years ago.

Yeah, he was, like I said, he would go to the church two times a year, right? So even after we grew up, my dad was on the way to the church. No, he was at the church. The church was, had rented a plane at Heathrow Airport and not rented a plane. They were all on the same plane flying to Kenya and Africa to do service. To do service. Like literally our church does service in India and Africa. So they were all flying to Africa together and my dad and my mom were going. And I was in my 20s and my dad was in the airport and he had a heart attack. Oh my God. Because he was just like trying to get to the gate too fast.

And he threw.

And he threw and passed away like in the airport. Anyway, but the benefit of that whole thing is my dad was in England at the church that he loved when he passed. So we flew there for the funeral.

Oh wow.

So at his funeral, Bodi, who I saw after many years, was the singer. No, Bobby, the son of a friend. The saint is like, the saint had long past, and you know, successor saints run the church. Bobby, the son of my dad's good friend, who became a surgeon, who had come to visit us, right? So I knew Bobby, you know, we're in our teens, he comes, hangs out, you know, I go on and have my grown-up life, Bobby is his grown-up life, but my dad sees Bobby all the time because he visits England twice a year and Bobby's at the same church. So he knows Bobby's story. Bobby goes on to medical school, becomes a surgeon, what have you. Anyway, I see Bobby at my dad's funeral. He's like, Did I ever tell you the story about your dad? I was like, what story, Bobby? You know, he didn't. He's like, you, know, well, you remember I visited you in Canada and then I was thinking about what to do with my career. And I was thinking about, you know, becoming a doctor and becoming a surgeon. And so I sought out your dad one year when he was like visiting the church in England. I was like, what do you think? And he said, you, know what your dad did for me? I was like, no, what did he do? He took both my hands, he turned them up and down, and he looked at me, he's like, and he just like said to me with this like big, deep smile. He's like, Bobby, these are the hands of a surgeon. Wow. You know, and like, just like me, like a little lack, like nothing to it. Bobby's like, I always remember it, 'cause he looked me in the eye and he gave me this big smile. He's like, Bobby, and he turned my hands over. He's like, these are the hands of a surgeon. He's like, and then I went to medical school and I became a surgeon. He's like, I always remember that point with your dad. Wow, that was my dad. So, like, you know, it's no like, it's no like sit down, big lecture, like just lots of conversations and like gems like this everywhere. So like, clearly like something for Bobby triggered, right? He's like, oh, like he just, he just told me I should go become a surgeon or like he gave me a blessing or something.

Wow, that's beautiful.

Dude, what are we doing? Like, we're supposed to talk about the book.

This is the book.

It is, it is. But it is the undertone of the book. Like this book is like, this is.

What'S made you happy.

Yeah, but this book is the business manifestation.

Yeah, I'm fascinated by your story and obviously the story of your father has made a massive impact on who you've become as a human being. And it seems like without his presence and his being, you wouldn't be the the successful person you are. You want to be the caring, you know, mother, partner, executive, all these things that's driven you here.

No, and look, you I appreciate you're getting to the heart of it, but the reality is, as we discussed, The reality is just that, you know, I think if we can come to a place in our lives where what we do and who we are integrated, that's sort of like, right, that's the highest. That's authentic power. That's authentic power. It's what we talked about. And so whenever people ask me about these lessons, they're so intertwined.

Yes.

Yeah. I mean, I know that most people, I see a lot of people who think about like what I do is different from who I am. And I have a very hard time separating the two, obviously. As you can tell.

Explain that more. Like your job is not who you are?

Yes, your job is not who you are. So if you think about you spend, and by the way, I'm not saying have a job that leaves you with no perspective on what's important in your life. But I'm saying that who you are at work and how you express your gift is as important. Think about spending 10, 12 hours a day at something. Finding a passion at work that expresses who you are and as I keep coming back to your unique gift and strength for impact, yeah, I think that's very purposeful. It's incredible. And I think a lot of people think like, oh, there's my day job and how I make money and then there's, you know, what I care about. And I'm like, well, my example in my lifetime, not just my dad, by the way, we give him a lot of credit, but my mom, she was a doctor as well. She was an entrepreneur. She didn't love entrepreneurship the way my dad did, but she loved serving people. I'm like, why can't they be integrated? Why shouldn't they be integrated? Right. Right, so yeah, so obviously I'm somebody who takes work too personally, while I think other people maybe have more distance.

From it, but I think it's all a reflection of how they grew up.

Well, this is my job and then.

I come home and I live my authentic life.

Yes, exactly.

But what if you could live your authentic life all the time? All the time. And by the way, we all look, look. There's gonna be things you don't enjoy doing about your work or your job.

Just like everyone, but if you could be yourself and use most of your gifts in that role, it would be great. It's powerful. Yeah, and of course, and you know, we live in an era where most people want to go to work and feel even more so than ever that who they are is welcome and that they are included and what their values are fit. And I want the same thing. But this is not to suggest, by the way, I live some perfectly integrated life.

Right, right, right, right, right.

I'm like, this is making, you know, this has a risk of people thinking, I'm really good at this. What I would say is this is my, to your point, this is my intention and this is my worldview. So, as I said, I'm pretty convinced that the way I'm meant to express my gifts is through business and that that's totally okay and more than okay. Yes.

How do you express your gifts in business?

Well, I think you do it a few.

How do you personally do it?

How do I personally do it?

Like when you're leading a company. Yeah, how do you express in your gifts?

Well, two things. I try and bring three things to any situation in business. Number one, I wake up most days feeling pretty grateful for the amazingly talented people I get to work with.

Yes, your team.

And so I guess whatever whenever I'm at work as CEO, I think of like both leverage and my gift is making other people able to be even more successful and think of themselves and accelerate their journey.

Yes.

Right, so I think I have that gift because I don't think I wake up every day thinking I'm the, you know, the best person in the room. I think I wake up every day going like, wow, these are really talented people. And so what I know I can do for people is give them energy and excitement and passion and help, you know, help them maybe drive faster than they thought they could go. So I think that's one of my unique gifts. That's great. Number two, again, not that I think I'm so smart, but I love consuming information. I like thinking fast and acting fast. And so I like to think that maybe a conversation with me is one where people learn faster and where I learn faster. That's a very, so it's not just my gift, right? It's what I enjoy. So I love interactions where you and I, we have this interaction, we both leave, and it's like a super rewarding interaction, right? I consume a lot of information. I can give you insight, you can give me insight, and off we both go. And so I think I'm pretty good at consuming information and helping people give insight and gain insight by just asking lots of questions. So I think I process information. That's a gift, I think. But it's a gift to be used, right, to help accelerate outcomes for people and for businesses.

Right.

Those are probably the two big ones, just processing power and, you know, passion, energy, ability to get people excited and make them realize that they're capable of more.

What are the three most interesting questions you think we should be asking other human beings? Whether it be in business or life in general, what do you think are three most fascinating questions?

Yeah, I think these are, well, I think the questions to ask yourself, first and foremost, I think everybody should ask themselves, what are my unique gifts? like I, as we talked about, like I think that these, you know, this is a question I would ask you, but it's a question I think you should ask yourself, right? Like what are my unique gifts? Because I think that when we can articulate what those are, it's not like we're full of ourselves in a bad way. We understand how maybe we can have the most impact. And we seek out environments where that impact can be kind of known, seen, practiced.

Yes.

And realized. So I think that is the number one question people should ask themselves is, you know, you know, what are my most authentic gifts? Number two. And of course, I. And about others, I feel like I. I also, I. I believe people should deeply know what they're not great at. Like, and not just like, what? Like, what are my unique vulnerabilities? Not in, like, the, like, the. The areas I have. Like, I will all. That will always be my work to improve. This is one of the point. I sound like I'm sitting on some pedestal. I'm not. I can tell you, my kids, I drive them crazy. All of these same things that are gifts, as you know, have an edge to them that are pretty brutal. My kids would be like, Mom.

What are your unique vulnerabilities?

Well, they all are the downsides of my edges. I would wish that, like my father, I could make people feel. I know I can make people feel energized, but that same energy makes people feel pretty nervous. It has a dark side where it's like people can feel like, well, am I not enough? What do I do to keep up with Sukinder? That's not really the point, right? I'm not here to make you feel less of yourself. I'm here, so I speed people up. Do you know what I mean? I start talking, people are going faster and faster, so I'm pretty impatient. So if you have high energy and it's always trying to be deployed, you're pretty impatient, right? You may not wait for someone to finish their sentence. You make somebody else feel nervous. That will always be my work.

Right?

And that is the downside of being like a highly energized person, like controlling that energy and that passion.

Right?

So it's always at its most productive edge. That is it by a mile. That is like, that will be my work. And I have lots of other vulnerabilities, but, and lots of like, when we, you and I both agree vulnerability is a good word. So I hate using that word.

Yes.

I have lots of other areas for development.

Areas for growth.

Areas for growth. Like tons. Like tons.

Right?

But, But I would say what I'm aware of in myself is that one vein sprouts so many, you know?

Sure.

It's like the root of a lot of evils, right? So that's probably my biggest by far.

Okay. And then the third question we should ask ourselves.

And the third question I would say that people should ask themselves, I think it's maybe not a question you ask once, it's a question you ask several, it's a question you ask many, many times, which is what's possible now?

In just any area of life.

In any area, if you stopped and said, what's possible now that I'm not doing? Because I think that people, as remember we started this conversation, I said people think the possibilities in big acts. And I think possibilities in small acts. If I see it, it's like, what's possible today? Maybe that's the question. What's possible today? If I wanted, you know, if I wanted to find more joy in a certain area, if I want to find more joy at work, what's possible today?

If I want it.

And by the way, again, make no mistake, it's not like I'm perfect at this practice, right? I'm sure there's lots of things I should do when I'm like, oh, you know, what's possible at home that I'm not doing today? But I do think that, you know, there's a lot of power in small acts. And starting now, right, and to your point, getting in that imperfect motion, right? Versus waiting for the day where every possibility will be perfect. That day never comes. Never, it never comes. So I think like if you ask yourself what's possible today, you probably unlocked something today, right? I'm not saying, and I'm not saying any of us are going to be able to unlock it all in our, like, I live no perfect day where I unlock all the possibilities in my life. But, yeah, I do know, you know, I do know the power that comes.

From unlocking even one possibility.

Right. Right.

That sounds like. That's a lesson your dad, you said from your dad as well, small and big possibilities.

Yeah.

When do you feel the most loved? When do I feel the most loved?

When you're doing or receiving what? It's a, yeah. We all feel, I guess, loved differently. Well, first and foremost, for me, I feel the most loved when I feel accepted for who I am.

Gosh, I was having this conversation this morning with someone.

You were?

Literally an hour ago, I was like, I'm so grateful and appreciative to be around people that fully accept me for who I am. Don't judge me, don't try to change me.

Yeah.

But accept my authentic power.

Yes, that's totally right. And I would say, I feel like I feel completely loved when people accept me for who I am, including my imperfections.

Yes.

And maybe also I feel loved when people see who I am.

Right?

So like, we'll leave this conversation and I'll reflect on it and it's like, oh, that person saw a lot more of me.

Mm-.

Right?

Yes.

So I think when people see us fully, we feel loved, right?

So true. And why does it seem like in general, there are a lot of us who surround ourselves with people who don't accept us fully. Why does that happen? Well, first of all- and we stay in like friendships or relationships where someone doesn't fully accept the other person.

Yeah, it's a good question. Well, first of all, remember that on the other side of that equation is somebody else who's also looking for acceptance. So it's never like a one-way, right? So while we're all going through our own journeys looking for to be seen and loved, so is the other person. So I think part of the reason, like it's sort of like ships in the night, right? Everybody is looking to be seen. So maybe what that means is when we stay in relationships, yes, we're hoping to be seen, but the other person is hoping the same thing. And maybe neither of us are engaging in like an authentic enough conversation with the other or, you know, like we're so used to looking for it ourselves and you're right, it's a surprise that we don't stop to give it to the other person and maybe it's a two-way relationship. I don't know, it's a good question. Oh yeah, I mean you could give the, I'm sure you have many more capable people on this podcast on this question than me. I'm not a psychologist. I am not, you know, all I can come to is, you know, when we love ourselves obviously, two things happen. Number one, maybe we have our own renewable source of energy. That's enough. So while we want to be seen by other people when we love ourselves, right, we come to any relationship able to do two things more. Number one, yes. See other people. You know what I mean? You're not so starved yourself that all you want to do from that relationship is take, you know, but you can see other people ask them the questions about how they want to be seen. But, yeah, we all still want to be seen as well. So I, I don't I think I'm just rambling. I don't think I have the answer to your question.

I like this. Was there a moment when you fully fell in love with yourself?

I don't think I'm fully in love with myself even now.

Really?

Man, I mean, I think that I'm.

Very, like, fully love and accepted yourself, not from like an ego standpoint.

Yeah, yeah, no, I understand. No, I mean, look, I still have all the same work everybody else does. I still wake up with imposter syndrome. I still wake up. Really? Of course, I still wake up ashamed of some of the things I have, you know, not ashamed, not shame in the sense, like, ashamed of the things I haven't achieved or, you know, the impact I still haven't had. Like, look, the book is an attempted impact, right? So clearly I'm still striving to do something. So, but I would say, so I don't consider myself all the way there by any stretch. What do you feel an imposter about? I feel like an imposter in a good way, like lots of people do every time. Look, I think if you're Somebody who wakes up and says, My job is to have impact.

Right?

It's never finished.

No, it's never finished. And if you have the humility to understand that you are like, you know, like as we talked about, like you're a spec in this universe, right? Yeah, most days I just wanna wake up and make the most of the time I have. I realize it's finite.

Yeah.

And that I think I'm here for some purpose. That's what I was trained to believe. My own family spiritually, like we're all here for some purpose to give. then mostly I'm just like constantly worried that I'm not fulfilling that promise. So yeah, so it's not like a bad kind of like, right? It's not like I wake up and say, I don't accept myself. It's more like, it's like, wow, if I'm not pushing myself to do more and to have more impact, then I'm not really taking full advantage of why I'm here. So that's the kind of, and so by that definition, you're always putting yourself in situations where it may not be enough, but you realize the only way like you're gonna have the impact you want is if you put yourself at risk. If you put yourself at risk, you feel like an imposter. You're like, oh, because you're practicing some act you've never done yet, right? So anyway, it's like, I'm good with it. Like, I'm good with it. So to your point, I don't beat myself up. You're not beating yourself up. I don't beat myself up. I've mostly accepted that I have a worldview that says it's okay to be imperfect. It's okay that I never feel fully, you know, capable. I'm pretty comfortable with being personally uncomfortable. and I feel like that's okay. I feel like that's a way to pursue impact. So if I'm uncomfortable, but I get the chances and more impact, isn't that worth it?

Absolutely. What are your thoughts on the culture of like, I consider you a high achiever, high performer. You're in high executive positions running big companies. And you mentioned something about like, am I creating more, am I doing enough or creating more impact? what about the people that say, you know, I want to do less. I want to have like less stress, less worry. How can I create more without the pressure and the stress or anxiety that might seem to come with it? How can I create it and also have inner peace? Is that possible as someone in your position as a high level CEO and executive and running billion dollar companies? Is it possible to have inner peace while also creating massive impact?

Sure. So, as an example, I identified for you, first of all, here's why I think this is why I think it is possible. You talked about this idea of self-love and acceptance and understanding what drives you and who you are and why you're here. I may not be peaceful every day, but I am at peace. Does that make sense? Of course. So, I think it's different for different people. I just want to be clear, I'm good with being a CEO. I'm good that that's my path of impact. I am good that there is a higher universe, that I may or may not achieve everything I want. I am totally good with it. So I consider myself at peace because I know that anything may come my way and it will be okay.

Right.

Look, I could fail miserably and I'll be okay because I have a very good sense of my sense in the universe that I am loved by God. Literally that I am loved, that I am you know, I'm a full human being that I am. Yeah. Anyway, so. So I think that if you say, how do you find peace? Look, peace means different things for different people. For me, peace means that I like, I am in a role and every day waking up and have a way to express my gifts. That, for me, is peaceful. You know when I don't feel peaceful? I feel. I don't feel at peace when I don't know what it is. So, like, does that make sense? So, like, my Zone may be a zone of anxiety, because every day I think I'm pushing myself.

Right.

To express my gifts. But I'm at peace with that. So I don't know like, oh, it depends what you mean by peace. There are people for whom five being present in the moment, expressing who they fully authentically are is completely different. And so I think peace means different things to different people. For me, I'm at peace when I'm like going 100 miles an hour.

Right, right, right. Because that to me-- Chaos is ensuing.

And not even chaos, but like I'm in pursuit of impact act in purpose, right?

Fully. And that can be messy.

And that can be messy. But like, like maybe part of my gift is I can deal with mess. If you're a CEO, you deal with mess all the time. You deal with grit, you deal with big possibility and small possibility. You deal with problems, you deal with people being upset.

Like, so maybe that's part of my gift, right? That I can handle all those things.

You can hold the space for thousands of employees, problems and ups and downs and challenges and. That's right. And maybe that's part of what I meant to do, right, in the world to help people in By the way, there are many different ways to express your gifts as we come back to. So is it possible to be a CEO and be at peace? Yes, it depends on what you're pursuing. And I think to be at peace with yourself, you just need to know what makes you happy, what makes you fulfilled. What gives you fulfillment?

And for me, the pursuit of impact gives me fulfillment. How does someone discover what the unique.

Gift is if they don't know what it is? I would say to people, if you don't know what it is, ask. Ask someone else.

Ask the people who know you the best. Ask what?

What's my gift? You know, what's interesting, so I'll give you an example. People are like, so when I give business talks, I start any conversation with like, do you know your superpowers? And you know, whether it's MBAs or new grads or CEOs, a third of the room puts up their hand, which I find annoying. Not annoying and not annoying in a bad way, but I'm annoying for the older people, not the younger people. I'm like, okay, if you're telling me that you've gone this far in your career, and you're being falsely modest, that's not that helpful. Because if you're a leader and you don't know what your gifts are or your areas of vulnerability, how do you ever, you need to know, right? So that's false modesty. And if you're younger, I say, if you don't know, ask the people around you, like, you know, what do you think I'm uniquely gifted at? And I think sometimes the answers will surprise you, but you'll find the threads of who you are. So I don't think that we're really good when we're younger at getting feedback on who we are and what makes us shine. What we get feedback on is, are we good in school or are smart or what have you, but like what your unique gifts are. I think your friends and family and even your colleagues will use two or three words to describe you. So you may not say, what's my unique gift? You just like, you know, like, what do you think I'm great at? You know, or what do you think, where do you think I shine? And I think you'll hear words that come up again and again and again from all the people in your life. They know you professionally and personally.

That's interesting.

And I just don't think people move through the world with that, you know, with that understanding.

Yeah. Do you think we should be pursuing fulfillment then in our gifts and over happiness?

I guess I believe that fulfillment can lead to happiness. And they think that an impact can lead to happiness. And I know there are other people who are like, Hey, just be happy in what you're doing every day and the tasks of what you do, and that leads to fulfillment. And I think it's bi-directional. If you want to pursue happiness and happiness gives you fulfillment, great. If you want to pursue fulfillment, if fulfillment gives you happiness, great. They're two sides of the same coin. So, yeah, I don't know that... I think that there's something ethereal about when you say to people like, happiness, like be happy today. I'm like, okay, you can be happy today, but you still need to have bifocals on, right? Like, happy today, maybe some people, their best life is they'd maximize happiness every day. and for other people, their best life is they might minimize happiness on a given day, but maximize happiness over a cycle. Both are possible. It's not an either or. But if somebody says to me, pursue happiness every day, I'd be like, well, actually, by virtue of being a CEO, every day is not happy. You deal with a lot of messy problems that are very stressful. But over the course of your career, you find fulfillment and you look back and you're like, I wouldn't have it any other way. So is that happiness too? So, but I see both. My husband is a very different person for me. We're kind of very complimentary. And I think my husband, in a good way, pursues happiness every day. That's a great way to be. There are days I wake up and I wish I could pursue happiness every day. Right? So, that's what I'm saying. The two sides of the same coin. So, is his life better than mine or worse than mine? No, they're just different. He maximizes his happiness, I think, every day or every week. And I maximize mine over maybe Two years? I only like five years or like, you know, a month? It doesn't matter. Like, we're both in pursuit of the same thing.

Yeah.

What about you? Do you pursue happiness every day or do you pursue, do you have this arc and you're willing to take a lot of unhappiness every day to be?

I pursue growth and impact every day.

Yes, you pursue fulfillment leading to happiness. Yeah.

Not happiness leading to fulfillment. But I'm also, I pursue delayed gratification as well.

Yeah.

I pursue pain.

Yeah.

So that I can stay healthy.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? It's like I do things that are uncomfortable consistently so that I live a happier, healthier life long term.

Yes.

As opposed to short term like happiness or relief or.

Oh, yes. And by the way, like I would say, my husband is like that. He's a former athlete, so a professional athlete. So to your point on the physical front and so on, he will pursue good health every day. And actually, I make poorer choices. You know, but we're You're probably both trying to optimize for delayed gratification in different ways.

That's great. Okay, I want to shift the conversation. There's a stat that I saw. Around 65% of businesses failed during the first 10 years. And you worked with a lot of multi-billion dollar companies, as well as some failed companies.

Yes, yes, yes.

Why do you think most businesses fail, and what can we do to build stronger businesses?

I think a lot of businesses fail for two or three different reasons, but I'm going to outline the couple that are most important.

Okay.

And it comes back to what I believe about people too. First and foremost, in anything we execute as entrepreneurs, you know, let's take the example of being an entrepreneur because it's totally related to running a startup. We tend to believe that it's all about us. Remember that worldview I just talked about? We think it's all about us.

Right, right.

But most times when you look at businesses, There's like macro and micro. Businesses, I would say if you want to understand why you're failing or succeeding, you can say it all comes down to my execution. What could I be doing better? And that's true. You should go take the feedback on what you can be doing and optimizing. We're going to talk about that in a moment. But first, I'm like, lift your head up. What's going on around you that's impacting your success or failure? So when you look at businesses that thrive, I'm always like, okay, look at the tailwinds that they're riding, or look at the tailwinds that they might be riding or the headwinds they're facing. So I think the first reason that businesses might succeed or fail is they are overly attuned to their execution and maybe not as attuned to the macro tailwinds and headwinds. In the book, I give the story of my sister who ran an optometry practice. And for many years, it was going really well.

Yes.

By the way, much more than 10. Probably ran that practice for 12-15 years, always growing, right? And she had employees, had self-fulfilled at work, all of those things, her own boss, all those things. And then it started going to decline.

Why?

So, and it started in steady climb, and every year she was eating into more of her savings. And I said, well, Nikki, it's like, okay, so let's step back. So let's step back and understand why your business is in decline. By the way, she knows she's very smart. She's like, well, I'm in a mall. This mall has less foot traffic. There are now three optometrists in this mall. So more competition. The mall itself is less foot traffic because more people are shopping online. Oh, and wait, there's also a lot of companies that are starting to sell you glasses online. So an optometrist makes their money, not just by doing eye exams, but the most lucrative part of the practice is, guess what? Selling products. Selling products. Okay. So now you look at those macro trends. So Nikki's business is starting to decline, and I'm like, Nikki, let's look at your choices. She's like, well, this is all I know. This is what I know. I am doing this for 20 years. And it's fine. And you know, I know it. It's right. So let's look at this. Right? So a business that's doing well then turns into decline. So you could say, Nikki, run faster. Keep your hours up later. Marketing spend. Spend more, right? Get better inventory. Okay, let's stop a moment. Your location is in decline. You have more competition. Like, this trend is not going anywhere, right? And by the way, the mall charges you fixed rent and wants to increase the rent. Okay. At the macro level, is this scenario going to work? You can try and execute your way out of this mousetrap. Is it going to work? And so then we charted a course and we laid out five new options. And ultimately, my sister ended up taking one after five or six years and sold her practice and moved to a new location and worked for a growing franchise of optometry practices that bought her practice and that's closer to her home and are able to compete because they have the dollars and capital to go figure out how they're gonna drive people to their own location.

It's not all on her making it happen.

It's not on her, right? And so that's a perfect example of when I say macro versus micro, you have to lift your head up and assess the tailwinds and headwinds of your macro situation. Yes. So the first flaw is many people think it's all about them. It's not all about them. Okay, that's piece one. Now let's come to the part that is all about you, which is we sort of wanna make one decision and stick with it. And I think this is sort of a big part of the thesis for why I wrote the book. We think it's one decision to success. We think it's one choice. to success. And I'm like, okay, well, whether you want to or not, the conditions around you keep changing. You may want them to stay static, but they're not. And so what if I told you that for you to keep succeeding, you need to keep choosing? It's like actively keep choosing. You have to make decisions. Choosing new decisions, choosing new decisions, taking new risks. Yes. Getting in tighter feedback loops, adjusting, adjusting, adjusting. Right? Always. Always. So obviously, Tech is very good at this. Right. But we're not this good at this in Small businesses are in our own careers. You say, you know how you want to just do something and set it? Life doesn't work that way. Set it and forget it. It doesn't work that way. So businesses don't work that way. So you want to set it and forget it. But as my old CTO at StubHub would say, product market fit is elusive. You think that you do something and then you have it, but then something adjusts and then you need to adjust and then you need to keep adjusting. So this is the way our lives unfold. This is the way businesses unfold. So if you said to me, like, you know, why do you, and I think Paul Graham at YC talks about this, like sometimes to make it you have to survive. And surviving is about pivoting, pivoting, pivoting, pivoting, pivoting. Constantly. And so I think if you want to set it and forget it, I don't know if many businesses now that work that way, because every single business is being disrupted. And by the way, if they're not.

Being disrupted by technology, even small businesses.

Being disrupted by the pandemic, or politics.

Or this, or whatever. Local politics, everything.

Competitor down the street. the street, right?

So you have to keep adjusting.

Some new innovation that comes out or some new technology. So whether it's micro or macro, remember we said life lives in possibility. So you have to keep pursuing the next possibility because at the minute you're like at stasis, whether you're a small business or whether you're a gigantic startup, you know, with plenty of money, you have to keep adjusting. So first of all, I think people are not nearly heads down enough when.

It comes to adjustments.

Adjusting. They're not willing to adjust. They're not willing to adjust. Yeah, not willing to adjust. Like, you know, it's like, as I said, they want to set it and forget it. And I think number two, so you have to keep pivoting to keep products to fit. And then number two, so I'm like, you have to be heads down, but heads down to pivoting. And then you have to be heads up to like the environment around you and the stuff that's not all about you. And then find your responses. So I know that sounds like a very simplistic thing for like, why do some businesses, you know, take 10 years to, you know, just like, look, the board list is five years old. It's my own startup, right? It just raised season five. The board list is always adjusting. Like, I can't tell you what it'll.

Be in five years. It's not the same thing now as.

It was when it started. It wasn't. And by the way, if we want to be there in five years, like we're gonna have to keep adjusting as we go. And like, there's gonna be new entrants and new competition and new legislation. And like, and so sometimes I understand.

That that's like tiring, but that's the.

Way the world works. That's the way business will thrive. It'll only way it'll thrive. The only way it'll thrive is if you're willing to keep adjusting. Now, the good news is like, if it's a small business, that doesn't mean you have to go, you know, So, your adjustments might be micro adjustments, right? But it's like this- you- don't have.

To change your whole product line and everything.

Yeah, exactly. Right. And maybe you're going to make a thousand adjustments and one day you'll end up in an entirely new business. Or maybe you'll make a thousand adjustments and your business will be just a better version of what it is today. I don't know the answer. But if you say to me, why do startups fail? And I know that's a long question, a long answer to your question, I'm sort of like, first of all, it's not all about you. Heads up. And then the part that is about you is about adjusting and pivoting. So like heads down, keep pivoting.

How do you learn to keep pivoting when part of business success and growth and scale is automating systems, having process in place, having procedures that are constantly then, okay, we've got to constantly shift these processes and shift the- well actually, I think- the software and change these things.

Yeah, I should have used a better word than pivoting. Let's call it iterating. So, you know, businesses are iterative cycles of focus. So that's sort of my point. So like let's say you're in your company and competition is like, you know, is increasing. You know, as I said, there's like 10 painting companies down the road that have just emerged and you run a exterior paint company. I'm like, okay, this is when I shouldn't say pivoting. What I mean is like constantly iterating on the part that needs it, right? So, you have to sequentially say like, okay, hold the rest of this part. And you now need to go figure out like what my marketing strategy is. Okay, when that's done, like, you know, there will be yet another thing to iterate on. So I think it's pivoting is probably has a higher connotation, like as if you're not focused. What I'm suggesting is like you have to serially iterate and focus on different, and it's like it's going like full way around a circle and then maybe coming all the way back. Like, so that's what I mean more.

Yeah. It's like iterating.

This is good stuff. I mean, I feel like a lot of people had to learn that lesson the hard way during the pandemic. Because if you didn't pivot or iterate, then you're failing.

Yeah, yeah, that's true.

Like it forced you to fail if you weren't willing to evolve.

Right.

Well, don't you think so again, just sort of like this is the whole reason this is a good time to have a conversation about risk taking and how to evolve and grow yourself, right? I felt like in the pandemic, people really learned a lot more about their risk-taking ability when times were tough.

They either held back or they went all in on something.

You got it, right? But either way, don't you believe in the pandemic, people learned a lot more about their agility and resilience and ability to pivot fast than they learned when times were good.

Absolutely.

Right, so when we're trying to avoid harm, active harm, we often are actually more risk-taking than we are in our daily safe lives. And you're like, what's that all about? this is a good time to ask that question. Yeah. Which is why I think that the pandemic should have given us all confidence that we're much more capable of response than we think you are. Agile response.

Right.

And so your opportunity is, okay, if you know that about yourself, what holds you back when times are good? And it's often things like ego, right? Like personal fear of personal failure. Right. And that's why I'm like, okay, believe in, like, what's possible today and try it. And if it's not, you iterate your way out of it. Like, I sort of am believer that you if this book's bad, I'm gonna iterate my way out of it. If people are like, oh my God, she's a crier, this podcast gets a two rating, I'm gonna iterate my way out of it. So I just believe that people learned a lot more about their capacity to respond. And so it gives us all a lot more choice than we think we have.

Do you feel like you took bigger risks during the pandemic or did you... Oh, for sure.

I mean, look, I took big risks and small risks. At work, as you know, I was running StubHub and we had just sold the company.

A month before you sold it, right?

Yeah, we sold it on February 13th and on March 13th, our business. Crazy. You know, our business collapsed like everybody in live events. And so, and it's really interesting because I was running StubHub. I'd been bought in to run StubHub by eBay, which was the parent company of StubHub. And I would say eBay was attracted to me as StubHub CEO because I had just come from being an entrepreneur. I'd been at Google early in my career and scaled. And then I'd been an entrepreneur for seven years. And so I think eBay wanted that entrepreneurial energy back at StubHub because StubHub had been, at that point, was owned by almost 10 years by eBay. And its growth was slowing and costs were maybe higher than they should be. Margin was declining. And so I think I was bought in to bring that entrepreneurial energy and help StubHub pivot and find new services and all sorts of things. So I felt like I spent, and we had I love the team we had at StubHub. They're just a great group of humans. But I still felt like we spent, I spent 1.5, 1.9 months out of my two years of tenure trying to train people to be more agile. I'm like, okay guys, you have to make multiple moves and we can come there next if you want. I have a thesis on what it takes for businesses to really succeed and the research would say it doesn't take one move, it takes multiple moves for you to be an outperformer. So we'll talk about that. So I'm trying to train you to be agile. It's like, look, over here we need to cut costs. Over here we need to get international going. Over here we need to try new services. Over here we need to reinvest in the core. You're trying to create a portfolio strategy. But teaching people to be more agile, right? And so here we are and for nine months we're changing the culture and getting people to take more risks and work and all those things.

And people, we're making progress.

Leadership development and all those things. And then what happens? The pandemic happens and the entire company goes into crisis mode. Really? And within a month we restructured the business. We changed policies overnight. We took risks to make sure we survive. And we took them rapidly. And 100% of our employee base was on board, hands on deck, just figuring it out in real time. And it was like one of my proudest moments, those most stressful moments as a CEO, because people all learned about their agility. So we made more decisions and pivoted. Think about running a company for EBITDA and gross margin points of growth and revenue growth for 99% of your tenure, and then all of a sudden you move to a cash flow business.

Literally, do we have enough cash?

To pay this month's salaries. Yeah, yeah, literally. And by the way, we're no longer owned by eBay. We're owned by another private startup whose cash constrained themselves. Like, do we have enough money? Oh my God, customers are asking for hundreds of millions of dollars in refunds. Like, where is the money? I mean, like literally, you go to managing on cash. Like, you go to manage daily, weekly, monthly cash for a company that hasn't been used to that for like, the entirety of its last 10 to 15 years, right? So 10 years at least under eBay. So anyway, long-winded way of saying, I think that we learn more in crisis. I learned more, certainly as a CEO, was the most intense period I've ever been through.

What did you learn about yourself?

What did I learn about myself? Honestly, in the pandemic, I don't think that I learned that much about myself. I don't mean that in a bad way. On the business side, remember, I've been a startup CEO and I've been through crises. I have been through crises. So what I learned about myself is, thank God, I have lived a life of cyclicality and entrepreneurship that maybe makes me well positioned for this moment. It's not like in the time I was like, I'm well positioned. It's more like I felt stable and secure.

That's so interesting.

And capable. I felt capable.

I felt the same thing during the pandemic.

Yeah, I felt nervous, don't get me wrong. On edge.

Yeah.

Scared a little bit, yeah.

But capable, yeah. Scared, but capable. Responsible, but capable. Like, do you know what I mean? So, so I was, I felt, I felt assured of myself in the moment, but I felt obviously a lot of anxiety for our team. So what I learned about myself in the pandemic that I felt grateful that I'd had the set of experiences before. It's very interesting. In that moment of responsibility, I was like, I can do it. What I feel like, what I felt like I learned most is what I already knew about our people, which is you are capable. Okay, so what I learned in the pandemic is I felt like saying, like, I know you're capable. Look what you just did. Wow. So.

Right.

So that was the gift of the pandemic, helping other people understand that they are capable, too. And being a leader in that moment, which is like, look what we. Look what we just did.

We.

We were able to do this. You. You know, you would never have guessed that you would see the situation, neither did I. you are capable. Okay. By the way, it's not that we handle it perfectly. It's not we didn't have pissed off customers, whatever, but we needed to deliver, you know, and make sure the company survived. And we did. And that was 2, 000 people. That wasn't me. Right. That was 2, 000 people coming together, cutting their own jobs. Like, think about this for a moment. People who are like, understand that they're gonna have to make sacrifices to give up their own security. I mean, it was painful, but people understood they were so I think that's what I learned. And then on the personal side, what did I learn through COVID? I learned the importance of all the things my husband was telling me. He's like, why are you commuting for God's sake? You go up hours a day. And I'm like, I have to. Seven, I have to. I have to be present for my employees. I have to commute. Like the only jobs are in San Francisco. You know, my husband. Where are we living?

I live in Silicon Valley.

So I mean, keep in mind. Like an hour commute.

An hour each way.

I mean, so for 20 years, right? I've said to my family, you know, I have to do this like that, right? And my husband's like, Really? Do you have to? Do you? And so I would just say, what else did I learn? I was pretty schooled on all the things we think we have to do, you know, that your family tells you, Do you have to do this? So for all of us who are CEOs who make our families sacrifice a ton for our careers and our ambitions, like I felt like I learned that, in fact, the commune has cost me a lot.

Really?

In terms of my, you know, just in terms of like, My productivity, my time, my energy. Being home for dinner, you know, all of those things. And then I felt like many people, the COVID learning for me was like, man, look at all that we, you know, we miss of like our families and each other. And again, like this is not like some saintly view. I'm sure I'm going to be capable of many sins as like hybrid works comes back. But, you know, just the joy of like seeing your kids every day, you know, having them all home for a moment, like all of those things. Like, yeah, I saw all those moments too. And I was like, wow, what have I missed? so, and of course, as I go back to being a CEO again, I'm inevitably going to screw it up. But I said to my, I said to my family, I was like, can we just keep like one or two COVID rituals as everybody goes back to their thing? You know what I mean? The kids go back to practices. And so I, like everybody else, I just want to make for it. Like maybe I can hang on to one or two of these things. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna like screw it up on a bunch of other things because I just love work too much and I sacrifice a lot of my personal life to it and my, and but hopefully we keep a few things. Yeah. A few COVID practices.

I want to talk about wealth creation and wealth building. Sure. What do you think are the three most important steps to building wealth?

For an individual?

Ownership.

Like, literally, equity ownership. Like, you look at the most wealthy people in the world, and if you want to be wealthy, you need to be an owner. They have equity in something.

They have equity in something.

You have equity in your small business. You, you know, you're like my sister, you. you have equity in your practice and you sell your patient files, you know, to a bigger partnership or you're like me and you have equity in a big company or small company. Whether you started it or not, you know, equity ownership is the key to wealth creation. That's why people own their homes. Yeah. Biggest source of wealth for people.

Home ownership.

Right.

You have to be an owner. Okay. So, yeah, for sure. That's. That's a. That's a big one. Number two, you know this. Everybody knows it. But we need to do it.

Saving.

Saving, just like saving early and compounding returns.

Yeah.

I think is the second.

A lot of people don't do that. I started doing that years ago.

Most people don't do it.

Even when I didn't have that much money, I was like, ah, even 500 bucks a year, a thousand, but you know, when I was making something, I remember I started at like 27, maybe starting to like my IRA and then just other investments. And I was like, but I don't have that much to invest to save in.

Yeah.

I wasn't making that much. But now 11 years later, I'm like, oh, look what I've accumulated.

Well, more importantly, saving allows you to do what? Become an owner. Right. You can buy something with it. You got it. These are inherently related, right? So if you say, like, if you don't save, guess what? The day that equity ownership comes up to buy a piece of a home.

Or these days, a condo, or a.

House, or a land, or a business, or whatever. Or stock market, you know, equity, collectibles, art, whatever you want to. Yeah. if you don't have savings, how do you become an owner? It's impossible. So these two things are inherently related, right? So even if it's fractional ownership, which we all have opportunities for now. So I think in order to become an owner, you need to accumulate savings.

Okay.

So I think that's the, I think that is, those are my two. I don't have a third. Those are it. Those are the two.

What about the mindset around wealth and creating more financial abundance?

Yeah.

How do we shift the narrative from thinking, you know, money's bad or I don't understand money or I'm not educated on it so that I'm not going to receive it. How do we, how do we change the mindset of the conversation we have around money? Sure. I feel like a lot of people don't talk about it enough.

Yeah, I know people. I mean, and I don't know. There's no shame in wealth creation.

Right.

I mean, but I think there are two things. First of all, financial literacy is so key. You know this. I mean, if you don't have financial literacy, it's hard. Yeah, it's hard. Right. So. so I was lucky that my, you know, I give my dad so much credit. My dad, like, owned equities. Like, he literally owned stocks. He would call his broker and buy them every day. So I saw stock ownership as a thing, right? And then I ended up becoming a financial analyst. So of course I got financially literate. But my point is, if you're not literate, getting literate about is how you understand savings and ownership, what have you.

So I think that literacy is sort of one way and not to be afraid of these conversations.

What are two books you would recommend to someone?

On becoming more financially literate. So to be honest, I've never read.

A book in my life because I did it all on the job. Yeah, yeah. So I think I'm a poor person to answer that. Just them. If you said, like, have you read a book on financial literacy? No. You had mentors. I had mentors in, like, my first job was as a financial analyst. So, like, I went to undergraduate business school, you know? So I did my dad's taxes. Like, understand. I did it for him. But you were 12 when you did that, right? I started teaching us to do his ledgers, like, to literally write, like, numbers in a ledger when we were seven or eight. Like, doing his taxes was a family affair. That's crazy. No joke. So. So I, when I say I was grown financially illiterate, that's actually true. So I don't think I'm a good person to recommend a book, but you could probably have a client of yours who would give people the best recommendations. So I think literacy is one. Number two, I think if we are a female in a, in a relationship, we tend to think that there's some shame in asking the other, you know, like your husband or, you know, whatever. Whoever is the wealth store, like you have to share a point, you have to ask. Ask what questions? Well, you have to ask, like, where are our bank accounts? What do we have? Like, if you just, it's not just a question of being literate. It's a question of being, like, informed and not just trusting your financial decisions to other people. Right. So, like, some people, like, if they're not literate, they won't ask. I'd say the converse is true. you can be literate and ask at the same time. So if somebody is managing your money, you better freaking know where it is. And part of getting literate is being comfortable with asking questions. And if you don't, so I think there's literacy and there's information and they're very highly correlated. So I know people who, their husbands or, you know, manage all their money. I know people who give money to their broker and they don't know what their broker is investing in. I'm like, okay, so one is literally, one is like, sheer information. So I see a lot of people are like, this is an uncomfortable topic. So I'm just gonna also outsource, not just literacy, I'm just gonna outsource information. Like somebody else has information on my financial well-being. That's a little crazy to me, but I see a lot of people who just don't want to have the conversation. More often women than men. This is why platforms like El Vast and others that are driving women to manage their own wealth, I think, is so disproportionately important. So I think that's very key.

How can women change the mindset around earning, saving, investing, and becoming more ownership of their money mind?

Well, first of all, I think many women are. But I just think that platforms that do it, I think anything that gives you education without it being intimidating is very critical. So I think that women are doing it more and more, but I think platforms that can accelerate your knowledge or your management of your own money is key. The third thing you can do, as we talked about, Take a little risk. Like if you're too afraid to manage all your money, take 10% of it and say, I'm going to manage this directly. And then the third thing I say to people is, if you want to start creating wealth, invest in what you know. Okay, so people think that... Don't invest.

In crypto if you don't understand it.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's not just like literate about like how financial systems work. It's like literally invest in what you know. So I've become an e-commerce investor over the last 10 years and a pretty good one. But that's because I was an e-commerce CEO. And so I understand the business. And so I was practicing every day. I thought like, God, I know enough about these numbers to know where our numbers look good or bad. But that gives me pattern recognition in becoming an angel investor. So as opposed to like, yes, I had diversification of wealth across different sectors or diversification of angel investments across different sectors. of e-commerce. But literally, I doubled down on e-commerce because I understood that business. When I was an analyst, I was at Merrill Lynch and early in my career, and I worked on the financial services industry, the savings and loan industry, which is the most, you know, I learned about savings and loans, balance sheet and income statements. And the first stocks I ever bought were in the savings loan industry because I was like, I understand what good looks like. So I think if you want to create wealth, you, you know, you need to understand what Let's say you're going to buy real estate. Okay, well, you need to understand the neighborhood. You need to understand the comps. You can't just fall in love with a house and say, like, you know, is this a good... It looks good. I'm just going to buy it. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, this like one and done, somebody shows you something, you know? So I think there's generally literate asking about your own money and understanding, like where it is, who's managing it, like what's there if you're shy about it. Like, I think that's... And then I think number three, very specifically literate when you want to invest in something.

If someone feels like a failure, like they have these failure conversations with themselves, they feel like they have a lot of negative thoughts, how can we overcome these negative thoughts and help us get out of a rut if we kind of feel like we're always stuck in that failure mindset?

Yeah, look, I think that when people are looking at failure, One of the reasons I think failure is so daunting for people is because they think that a choice is binary. So I think there are two things that you need to do if you want to get out of failure mindset. First of all, you have to get out of this idea that you have one shot at glory. Okay? So we fear failure because we think whatever decision we make is what Jeff Bezos calls a one-way door. I go through this door, there's no coming back.

It's going to define me forever.

It's good to find me right? When Jeff Bezos in the shareholder letter to Amazon shareholders said, very clearly said, most of the decisions we make at Amazon are two-way doors. You go through, it doesn't work out, you come back.

Right?

So I think that most people have the perception that failure is the result of a binary choice. You make one choice, it fails or succeeds. Now, if you believe like I believe that actually between you and a reward is probably not one decision, 30, 40, 100. This is the first. Should you really overweight the importance of the first decision? I would say you should overweight your ability to keep choosing. If you can keep choosing, you will find a path. It may not be. You may not end up where you started, but, you know, where you wanted when you started. But there will be a path. But that, like, you have to dismiss this myth that failure is a bi-modal binary one-way door. It isn't. It's just the first choice in a series of choices you will inevitably have to make. So first of all, stop thinking about failure as like a one choice circumstance. It's just not. Then number two, and I will say this, supposing the decision you're contemplating is in fact bigger, and it is a one-way door. I make it up. You mortgage your house. You're starting a company, like, you know, you can't take back the mortgage, you quit your day job, you have go to zero salary, and you mortgage your house. Okay, we could agree that's a big big risk in that mode. I always say to people, like, okay, well, if it's a big risk, then as opposed to planning for all the upside that's going to happen, they said, plan for the failure mode. Plan for the failure mode in order to get yourself to act. And people are like, what do you mean? I'm like, okay, if something's really, you know, a big and scary risk, I want you to tell me the five choices you'd make after the choice.

Tell me, like, what are they?

Like, what are the two? What are the five? If it fails, if it fails, play through the failure. Tell me the five choices, and then I bet that you will find two, three, four recovery paths. But actively think about that now. Park all of your imagining of the upside. Okay, that's great to get what I call your FOMO going. You'll get really excited. Fear of missing out is like, you know, you want to act, you visualize the positive. But when you're trying to overcome failure, I'm like, visualize a failure, work it through, understand all your contingencies, and then you're probably far more likely to get into action. Because what you've done is reduce your fear of failure. Yes. Because you can actually, you're actively imagining.

The choices after the choice, when it fails. It's interesting you say that, because I was interviewing UFC fighter George St. Pierre.

Yeah.

And it was one of the greatest of all time. And he was talking, I think it was him or another UFC fighter that I heard, I can't remember which one it was, but talking about how they trained to be in the most uncomfortable situations. Like, I'm on my back, my arm is behind my back, I've got a hand here, and a guy's just punching me in the face. How do I get out of this? Yes, that's exactly right. How do I get out of it? How do I stay calm? How do I not like pass out? How do I, you know, if I'm in the worst position possible, like every bad position I train for and I train to get out of it. So that when it does happen, I'm like, this sucks and it's uncomfortable, but I know I can get out of it. And if I can just get back on my feet and stand up again.

Then I can take the next step. Right, exactly. And then, and I think for people who are like, I fail, let's say you pick a new job and you less left your old job and you cut your ties and it fails. I'm like, okay, what that, what then?

So play through.

You lose your relationship, you lose your kid, everything you lose.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Then you're like, okay, well then what would you do?

Yeah.

Because I think that on small failures, it's enough to know that if you act once, you still have 10 more choices. Yes. On something that is like truly a one-way door. There are a few, very few decisions that truly you can't come back from. And those things, you're like, okay, then what are my contingencies? What do I do? So I believe that, like, this risk-taking equation guides all of us, which is fear of missing out is worse than fear of failure, which everyone is, you know, fear of missing out is greater than fear of failure. You'll take action. If fear of failure is greater than fear of missing out, you won't. But most people only want to work one side of that equation, which is.

Think about the positives. And I'm like, no, you gotta think about both. Yeah, it's really, it's yeah. One of my coaches, Chris Lee, years ago, probably like seven years ago, I had been training for years already to overcome the fear of public speaking. Oh, really? And I'd been speaking for, I don't know, at this point, 10 years professionally and I'd made good money on stages and spoken in front of 20,000 people. And I remember saying to him, I was like, Gosh, I don't know why, but I still feel like kind of scared and nervous. Like the day before I go on. And I don't know why. And I remember calling him like hours before and I go, I don't know why I'm still nervous and a little afraid. And he said, because one of the things is you're afraid of how you're gonna look. You're afraid of like being embarrassed or not like saying the right thing or messing up. You're still afraid of that. as opposed to being of service to the audience and knowing you're gonna mess, it's not gonna be perfect. And he put me through an exercise like a what if or what happens next exercise. Just go, okay, what if you forget your words? What if you forget that story? Then what? Then what?

Then what?

And you just go, then what?

I call it the choice after the choice.

Then what? Well, then I'll be embarrassed. Well, then what? Well, then what's the worst gonna happen? I don't know. Then I just walk off stage and I forget the whole thing. And then what? And then what? Well, everyone laughs at me. Okay, and then what? And then I don't want to come out for a week because I'm so embarrassed. And then what? It's like eventually you're like, okay, I'm down here and I'll pick myself back.

Up and I'll be okay and I'll start again. Yeah, I think that that's sort of the point. Like the then what, then what, then what, then what? We sort of have trained ourselves to think that it has to be, you know, that it, like I said, it's bimodal. I'm like, it's not bimodal. It's like, what will happen is you'll discover the five choice the choice. So think those through now.

Yes.

Because in there is comfort.

That's so good. So good.

What is the thing that you're most proud of? Most people don't know about you.

What I'm most proud of career-wise, and then I think what I'm most proud of people know. What I'm most proud of career-wise is I have had a career of working with exceptionally talented people where I feel like I got to be part of accelerating their journey. That is what I'm most proud of. Like I'll look back on my life and say, regardless of the companies or what I like I just look, I'll say to people, do you know how amazing it is to work with tribes of great people who are by and large great human beings as well? And then be like, oh yeah, I will look at my journey and be like, I got to intersect with these amazing people and maybe for a few of them or hopefully some meaningful number of them, I was an accelerant. So that's what I'm most proud of, kind of business-wise. What am I most proud of that people wouldn't know about me? Maybe that I think I wake up every day both fully empowered and also pretty clear that I'm like pretty far from the center of the universe. Like I'm proud of the fact that I think that most people would think that I wake up thinking I sort of must rule the roost. And most days I'm like, no, I wake up pretty empowered, but I'm really grounded and clear that, you know, life is a blessing. I'm here for a reason. I'm living my impact. The world is a much, much bigger place than just me, yet I feel very stable within it. Like I don't feel like many things, nothing's gonna shake me. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, because I have a sense for why I'm here and what I'm meant to do without thinking that it's all about me. So I'm proud of that. That's cool. I'm proud of that. Yeah.

That's great.

I'm good with it.

That's great. The book is about risks and you say most things won't shake you. But when people take big risks, sometimes it shakes them a lot. What's the biggest myths around risk-taking that we tell ourselves?

Yeah, and by the way, of course, if you read the book, you'll know that many risks I took shook me, which is the whole reason for writing the book. Because I'm like, don't let it shake you. This is what happened to me. So I can't say I've never been shaken by risk. But I think I keep coming back to that singular point. Like, I know it sounds so simple, But it is the point of the entire freaking book. The book is about how, but the point of the book is about let go of this myth of the single choice. Stop believing that outcomes are binary, that risk and reward is a singular linear game. Like, hey, I take a big risk, I get a big reward. Or I have an epic fail. It's just not like that.

Yeah, it's either I win big or I lose it all.

Exactly. That is this bimodal issue. I think that is the biggest misconception myth around risk taking. And it's the whole reason I wrote the book. I'm like, you have to keep choosing. Stop over weighting the first choice. You know, if you are willing to keep choosing, there are, you know, a thousand, a thousand choices between you and success. And I cannot promise you that the success you'll get at the end is the one you originally thought. It may or may not be. But I can tell you that if you keep aiming for impact in every single choice, cumulatively, you will have an outsized career. and you will have an outsized life cumulatively. But if you want to measure yourself on every single choice, I can tell you the, you know, the people I know who succeed greatly are pretty freaking imperfect. They are master risk takers as measured by small and big acts of possibility, right? As opposed to this one big active possibility for which they're famous. Like, no, they roll by becoming a master at the process of risk taking and constantly choosing. They're just, right, they're very skilled at continuing to choose.

Yeah.

I'm curious, do you believe that it's harder to go from zero to 10 million, like in startup, like here's my idea, I'm launching the business, zero revenue coming into 10 million in business, or taking over a company from 100 million and taking it to a billion? Which one is harder and why?

Interestingly, I think zero to 10 is easier. It's hard, right? It's hard. It's hard, my friend, because as we talked about, you're trying to find a a central product market fit, you know, and so I think it's just really hard. And, you know, when you have a, when you have momentum, everybody wants to work with you, right? So things unlock fast. Like, creating momentum is really frigging hard. It takes so much energy. A venture capitalist who was on my board once described, like, and, and I think he said it, he said it the best. I'm not gonna do it justice. He said, when you're in a startup, you have like your hand on this like gigantic wheel and you're trying to turn it once. One big wheel to get momentum, right?

Oh my gosh.

One revolution of the wheel takes so much energy, right? And these like, and then when you have like a bigger company and you have product market fit, it's like one revolution. First of all, you can get through one revolution very quickly and just like it creates so like, and you have many, many more turns, each of which are producing more energy. Does that make sense? Yeah. So it's like trying to get that first revolution to create any momentum. Because if you can't even get the thing, the wheel to turn once, there's no momentum or energy, like net energy output. But once you have energy in a system, then turning the wheel is easier. And every time you turn the wheel, more energy spits out, right?

So, yeah, I think Jim Collins, in Good to Great, I think calls that like the flywheel.

It's like, just like, keep the flywheel going.

You know, that's one of my favorite books.

Is it one of your favorite books? I love that book. It's a classic.

It's very like heady for me, but.

Yeah, like, oh really, it's very heady for you. Well, I'll tell you the part of it, just coming back to our previous conversation. It's a great book though, but yeah, it's a great business book. I understand that it's a little very analytical for you, but come back to, there's a point he makes in that book, another point which we did, which I should have bought up, but I didn't. We were chatting about the choice after the choice, and the then what, and the then what, and the then what. You probably remember from the book, his story about Jim Stockdale, and the Vietnam War veteran who talked about like, who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam and ended up being, do you remember this story in the book?

Go ahead.

He basically, like Jim Stockdale, I think it's Stockdale, was decorated Vietnam veteran prisoner of war who helped send Morse codes out and get his whole, you know, cohort rescued when the war, you know, before the war ended. But he made the point that the people who were pure optimists were the first to get really depressed in camp because they thought they were being rescued tomorrow. Someone's coming.

Someone's coming.

Someone's coming every day. And then when they didn't come, they didn't know how to handle that failure. So they got very depressed. And then there were other people who were like, nobody's ever coming. And they were also depressed. But he said the people who did best in the POW camp were really like realistic optimists. They understood that it was unlikely that somebody was coming next day, but they had faith. that somebody was coming, right? And so your job was to survive every day until somebody came. Oh my gosh, so I love that mentality. I'm like, yes, you can be paranoid every day about what it takes to run your business and iterate and pivot and what have you while having faith that if you like go through this process and keep doing it, you will survive and you will thrive, right? So that's what I mean about being bimodal. You can be paranoid every day and be like, I have to iterate and I have to pivot while still being fundamentally an optimist over the long term. But it's that ability to pivot that actually makes you the optimist, right? It's not like you have to go into it being like, everything's going to be perfect. Everything's going to be perfect or everything's going to be terrible. I'm like, no, no, you need to.

Be a long-term optimist and a short-term realist.

What's a question you wish more people asked you that they don't ask? I think most people ask me, Sukinder, what would you do? Let's say we're in a, like, Sukinder, what would you do? And most people should ask me, you know, what do you think I should do given who I am? Right, everybody comes to a leader and they want the answer. And I think I would love more people to say to me, okay, it's not about what I would do, it's about here's who I am, here's my goal set, here's my vision, what do you, you know, give them that.

Based on that, here's what, it's the best solution.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I think, you know, like it's not about me giving somebody an answer, right? It's about like, I want to know who are you and what do you think the answer is? What's your thesis to which I can respond and try and give you some insight that fits with who you are and what you want and what you believe, where you have conviction. So mostly I think that people should ask me that question stuff. Like, what would you do? Well, it's not about what I would do, it's about what would you do.

When I call you, I'll make sure.

To ask that question. You'd be like, Suzy, here's what I'm thinking.

Yeah, yeah.

That's who I am. That's my unique gifts. Yeah, yeah. Here's my thesis. What do you think I should do given that information? I'd be like, oh, okay. Well, this is what I would reflect to you. Right. And don't get me wrong, you know, the problem is if you ask me, like, what should I do? Like, I'm gonna give you a straight.

Up answer, then you're gonna think that that's what you should do. And like, that's not always is the right answer, right?

Maybe it is, but it's... Maybe it.

Is, maybe it isn't. But like, you know, it's the wrong question. And then if you're taking action based.

On someone else would choose to do, it might ruin the whole thing or might go in my direction. I think we like go through the world asking people who know us, like, what would you do? And it might be like, well, here's my reflections. That's interesting. What do you know about me? What do you think I should do given my own awareness? And like, what do you think? What am I missing about, you know, in this equation about who I am in this situation? and those people probably have a better reflection for you based on who you are and your unique gifts and capabilities and capacity. But you have to show some self-awareness first.

You got to be self-aware. Excited about your book, Choose Possibility. Take risks and thrive, even when you fail. And I think a lot of people, it's hard for people to have this mindset of failing, but I've always been told that failure is just feedback as an athlete. It's just like, I failed every day in practice and games. It's like you never made 100% of your shots. You never caught the ball 100% of the time. and it's like, okay, that's information. How do I use that to become better?

Yeah.

And not get down on myself, but to improve myself. And so failure has always been a part of my life because it teaches me something.

Right.

So take risks and Thrive even when you fail. But I think that a lot of people are just afraid to take the risk because they don't want to fail. They don't want to have that. Even a micro failure.

It's like, well, yeah. And I don't think they think if. I mean, look, I think you're. I think there's a couple things are going on. First of all, if you're an athlete, or you're, let's say, in a startup or what have you, you're used to this idea that iterating, every iteration is feedback, right? In a feedback loop. You're also used to probabilities. You know that in baseball, a 300 batting average is actually amazing.

Yes.

Right?

Whereas in the NBA it might be, I don't know, maybe the top shooters are 76% or whatever. I mean, it depends, like, what the, you know, from the field or what have you position, right? Or you might know that if you're a trader or a hedge fund manager, but you know that it's a game of probability. So why do we tell ourselves it's like one shot? Like, why do we think a winning season is like one shot and then we put all of the weight on that choice? I think that is actually the key for all of us. It's that risk taking is a muscle. It can be developed. The book is more about the how than the what, but it's both. It's like, yes, this is the principle, but I think when people say like, have a growth mindset, I think people need tactics. They need a structure. They need tools. So hopefully the book gives you some of that. But yeah, it's always amazing to me. I'm like, we don't think in probabilities of our own life, right? We think that every single choice is.

The one that makes or breaks us.

Right.

That's not true. That's not true. It should be freeing for people.

There are many shots on goal. Absolutely. Many shots on goal. Yeah, you've got a lot of different like equations in here and different examples.

So yeah, it's really cool.

I know, maybe it's a little too heady for you. Nah, it's all right. I'm always impressed with people who can do like frameworks and equations. and formulas and make it map it out because I never know how to explain it and position it that way. I'm always just like, well, this is how I do it. I don't know how to do it. But when someone could do this, I really appreciate it. Even like the self-awareness sandwich, it's the framework. It's okay. I would just try to explain it in my mind. Well, this is how I feel, but you put it into a diagram. It's like, okay, that makes more sense. So I'm always appreciative of this. People should get the book. It's called Choose Possibility, Take Risks and Thrive, even when you fail. So Kendra, I want to acknowledge you for a moment. I've got a couple final questions for you. Sure. But I want to acknowledge you, Kendra, for your vulnerability and your unique gifts. It's really been a pleasure to connect with you and to hear your stories and hear your connection to your gifts, the lessons from your father, the lessons from your experience as an executive at a high level, being a female executive and founder, the mindset around wealth, which I think a lot of people are afraid of. So I acknowledge you for opening up, for sharing, for being real. And I think we were able to create something inspiring today. So I really acknowledge you for your gift, and hopefully we can stay connected and I can help in any way possible. This is a question I ask everyone towards the end called the three truths. So I'd like you to imagine a hypothetical scenario. It's your last day on Earth many years away. Live as long as you want, but.

Eventually you gotta go to the other side.

You gotta go. We talked about this. We're all gonna go. Yeah. And for whatever reason, you've accomplished all your greatest dreams. Everything you want to accomplish has happened personally, professionally, everything. But you've got to take your work with you. The book, this message, all your conversations got to go somewhere else. Whether with you or not here on this earth. So no one has access to your information anymore. But you have a piece of paper and a pen and you get to write down the three biggest lessons you've learned from your life that you would leave behind. and this is all we would have to remember you by. I call it the three truths. What would you say are yours?

Number one, possibility lives and acts big and small. So, and I always say to people, you don't know if you don't try, right? So that is like just embodied, I think, that like just remember possibilities and acts big and small. So like get started now, you'll never know if you don't try. I think that's one. I think number two, I would say we're all here to maximize our gifts and have impact. So discover yours. And I'd say number three, and maybe this is unique to me given how I was raised, is like put it in perspective. It'll all be okay. We're all here as part of something much bigger. You're loved, you're seen, regardless of what happens, you will be okay.

Yeah, that's cool.

Yeah.

That's a good truce. I'm curious, not to get too emotional here, but what do you think your father would say if he saw you now of everything you've created in the last couple of decades?

First of all, I think he would say, remember that all that you've been given is like a gift. Just remember that, remember where it comes from. Of course he would acknowledge it. and acknowledge my, you know, things I've achieved. But mostly I think he would acknowledge the universe and he would be like, you know, like, I think he would just say, you know, feel grateful, feel grateful and understand where it all comes from.

Yeah.

So of course he would make me feel great, but he would also remind me, which I'm very clear on. Like, I feel just grateful for my, you know, for everything I've been given.

Right. Yeah.

Gratitude is key for sure. Final question before I ask, I want to make sure everyone gets the book. Choose possibility, where can they go? Sukinder Singh on Twitter. You're not on Instagram. I try to look for you.

No, I hide on Instagram. You know why? It's just another, you can find me on LinkedIn. I'm most present on LinkedIn and Twitter. I do have an Instagram account. I never post. I just follow because it's just another place to be responsible, right? And like in a world where like, that's where I'm like, oh my gosh, it's like one more thing to like take care of and my life is so full right now. I know.

So Twitter and LinkedIn. Okay. Choosepossibility.com, we can get information there.

Is there a personal website for you as well? Or is that... You know, my personal website is a book website. I don't have a website. But the best place, most active place to find me is LinkedIn. LinkedIn. Yeah, that's where you can just find me at AtsyeKinderSOn. You can find me at, you can actually on LinkedIn might be Atsye Cassie. I guarantee if you put my name in the LinkedIn, you're going to find it right away. And you can follow me there. You can certainly follow me on Twitter. Most importantly, you can buy the book wherever you want to buy books. I mean, wherever you buy them, there's.

An audiobook, Amazon, all the usual places. Inspiring stories, inspiring frameworks, lessons.

I love it all. Final question is, what's your definition of greatness? It's what we talked about earlier. I think it's people who not only create impact in their own lives, but they create impact and possibility for others. Powerful, my friends. There you go. If you want to be great, like, you know, stop just generating possibility for yourself. Or stop thinking of it as like, I have more possibility, you have less. If you have possibility, your opportunity is.

To generate it for other people.

Right?

So that's, that's greatness. So, Kenner, thank you so much.

Appreciate you very much. Appreciate it. Amazing. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed it, make sure to share this with a friend. some of that you think would be inspired by this as well. Or you can post this over on social media. Just copy and paste the link lewishouse.com/1150 or whatever link you're listening to on your podcast platform of choice. Just share that over on your stories or on social media and make sure.

To tag me as well over there.

I'm @lewishouse. And again, make sure to click the Subscribe button right now over on Apple Podcast or Spotify and leave us a review as well of the part you enjoyed the most about this episode. And I want to leave you with this quote from James Cameron, who said, there are many talented people who haven't fulfilled their dreams because they over thought it or they were too cautious or were unwilling to make the leap of faith. I want to make sure that you are willing to overcome that insecurity, that doubt, that fear that holds you back from going after pursuing the thing that you were called to do, whatever that thing is inside of you, right? right now, go do that thing. I don't care if you take baby steps or big leaps going after it, but just moving in the direction, it's going to make you feel more alive, make you feel more confident, make you feel more aligned to your greater purpose.

Right now in your life.

I hope you enjoyed this episode, and I want to remind you of no one's told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.