I was conducting an interview today with a woman about 35 years old. She spent the majority of her time answering my questions with stories about how she is “sick of going job to job” and “living paycheck to paycheck”. She told me that she had a family to provide for and wants to be able to do so much more for them. When I got to the point in the interview where I asked her where she saw her career going five years from now, she paused. After about ten seconds, she looked back up at me and responded with “you know, I’ve never thought about having a career before. I’ve only ever had jobs. But I guess that would be nice, to have a career. I guess I’ll have to think about it”.
I was hit with the instant realization of how PRIVILEGED I am to have grown up in a setting where I was ALWAYS encouraged to think and dream and plan for what I wanted. Even now, I often forget that having the time and mental capacity to set goals and then having the energy and the drive to actually achieve them is a LUXURY. And it is one that I am eternally grateful for.
That being said, I think there’s a lot of us out there that don’t take advantage of our options. If you’re not where you want to be right now- in your career, or your relationship, or your financial situation- take an hour or two (or four) this week and really get in touch with what you want your life to look like. What type of clothes you want to wear everyday, what type of work you want to do, what kind of impact you want to have. Don’t let yourself go another decade working jobs for other people only to realize that you have no idea where you want to go next. Life is too short. You are capable of too much. Don’t settle.
Tag: #Success #HardWork #Passion #Opportunity #Entrepreneurship
I Learned a Lesson about Leadership Yesterday.
I learned a lesson about leadership yesterday.
We had three guys visit us from one of our main clients, Vivint. One was the regional manager and our primary contact, Phil, and the other two were introduced to us as a Sr. VP and a Senior Regional- so we knew they were a pretty big deal.
They had planned to come up for the day from Utah and check out our operations, so I asked if they could run a short meeting for the team. They showed up with donuts for everyone and I was surprised by how relatable the guys were. The meetings they ran for the team didn’t sound like it was coming from esteemed executives that are decades away from working account executive or sales positions. They sounded like advice and stories from leaders who are in-touch with every aspect of the business that they run- who genuinely value every individual who works with the Client they represent.
After meetings, we sat down with the Vivint team and talked shop for a good two hours. They emphasized over and over again that they were so impressed with what we were doing- that they want us to help them implement similar practices and they want to help us grow our own business in the process.
It didn’t feel like a business conversation. We talked and brainstormed and got excited and then talked and gameplanned some more. As the one introduced to me as the VP, Bowdy, got up to leave because his Uber has arrived, we all shook hands and hugged and agreed to meet again soon.
Once he was out of the room, someone (I don’t even remember who) asked me if I knew what Bowdy’s net worth is. I knew he was really successful and high up in Vivint, so I estimated (shooting high) 5 million. They laughed a lot and Phil responded cooly- “No- $50. And You would never guess it, huh?”
$50 MILLION? I am surrounded by successful people often and very rarely attribute their level of success directly to their net worth. But $50 million? That’s a different level. That’s double the network of Colin Caepernick and Emma Stone. It’s more that Joel Osteen and Judge Judy. It’s equal to Hugh Hefner’s net worth when he died.
$50 million and this person just took the day to fly and visit OUR office. This person just played a silly game called Pyramid game with out team. This person just sat and listened and asked questions and gave praise and made suggestions and got excited with us as if there is no difference in our levels success at all.
When I first started in this industry, I was always told that it should be my mission to “wow” the client. I never imagined that we’d end up working with a client that was equally impressed on “wowing” us.
Imagine if we all treated each other like that- like we were grateful for the value each person added and genuinely interested in helping them add more. I talk a lot about how my definition of success is “to become the very best version of myself and then to help as many other people as possible become the best versions of themselves”. Yesterday, I met a team that embodies that. THAT is leadership.
Failure. It’s hard to talk about.
Failure. It’s hard to talk about. Especially when we’re in our twenties and most of us haven’t achieved much yet that we are “proud” of, our failures can hang over our heads or hide in the corners of our minds, convincing us that everyone else can see them too. In business, failure is part of the game. I have failed over and over again, in both my personal and professional life, and that’s exactly what gives me the confidence and grit that I have today.
Here are some of my biggest “failures” to date:
1. I gave up on my first business (Sorry I Party).
2. I never graduated college. I had one semester left. ONE. A 3.8 GPA. And my boyfriend at the time was diagnosed with cancer. So I dropped all my classes with the intention of resuming in the spring… except that didn’t happen. My career was already advancing at that point and I felt that refocusing on school would be a step back. So I didn’t do it, and I don’t regret it. But it’s definitely something I get self-conscious about. It’s definitely something I believe that I will be judged for. And I’m learning not the care- because, at the end of the day, I learned what I needed to and I didn’t let society pressure me into doing what’s expected.
3. I chose work over family for three years because I believed someone when they told me that I had to. Que confession #2. Once my career started developing, I was told constantly that the next years of my life were about “sacrifice”. Which meant birthdays. Christmas. Phone calls home. All of it. I haven’t spent Christmas- or any real holiday- with my family since I was 21- over THREE years ago- how insane is that? Going into 2018, I committed to changing that. To rebuild those relationships and make family a priority again. And I have- just as much as I have committed to NEVER putting that kind of pressure on anyone that I work with.
4. I spent four days in the psych ward of a hospital. It was the worst four days of my life at the time but four of the best days for me in the long run. It is still hard for me to talk about, but for anyone out there who struggles with depression or anxiety or overworking yourself, I’ve been there and I’m here if you need to talk.
So there you have it! Some of the things that I’m so tempted to be ashamed of, but am slowly starting to accept as part of my story. And anyways, at the end of the day, it isn’t our failures that define us, but what we do in spite of them, right?
If Opportunity Looks Like Work, What Does Success Look Like?
Ashton Kutcher is well-known at this point for many things, but one of my favorites is his speech at the Teen’s Choice Awards where he gave an excellent speech on the foundation that “opportunity looks a lot like work”. He seemingly singled out millennials who want a quick route to success and cynics who attribute his fame to “getting lucky”. It was an excellent speech, and an excellent quote, but it’s easy for people to believe that Ashton Kutcher may have some kind of secret insight- look at his resume or IMBD page. However, despite how hard I am positive that Ashton Kutcher worked to establish his career, long hours and sleepless nights and weeks with skipped meals (and showers) are not what tends to come to mind when the “That 70’s Show” star walks on stage. Why? Because we didn’t see the work part. We weren’t there for the tedious jobs or the counting dollars to see if he’ll make it through the week. We were there to witness the success. And what does success look like? Put me in a room with 1 billionaire from old money, 1 millionaire who hates his job on Wall Street, and an entrepreneur who just launched his first start up and hasn’t seen a profit yet but can’t stop talking about his last meeting, and l’ll point to the entrepreneur every time. Why? Because success cannot be measured by materialistic means. It cannot be measured by social status or awards or achievements. Success is the way you feel about what it is that you’ve done and what it is that you are doing. Opportunity may look a lot like hard work, but success, to me, looks like passion. The kind that keeps you up, the kind that burns inside with a contagious intensity- the kind that drives you to be willing to do whatever amount of work it takes to reach your goal because it doesn’t FEEL like work. When effort is combined with passion, it doesn’t make you tired- the late nights and long meetings and failure after failure, challenge after challenge actually give you energy. You’re fulfilling intimate parts of your core self. It may not always be “fun”, but it’s almost always exciting and it’s a guarantee that you’re learning something every single day. So yes, I agree with Ashton that opportunity looks a lot like work. But once someone has earned that opportunity they’ve worked for, the passion that they extend to their endeavors is what creates the image (and often extent) of their success.
We Came To Catalyze 