S1: I want to share with you how to go from
S1: intern to the president of a company in less than
S1: five years. My name is Natalie Dawson, and I am,
S1: in fact, the president of a company that did over
S1: $125 million in revenue last year, has over 220 employees
S1: in the parent company and hundreds of employees across our subsidiaries.
S1: And over my career, I have figured out how to
S1: invest in myself and develop myself in order to be
S1: ready for opportunities as they come and not just be
S1: ready for them know how to spot and create them.
S1: So I want to share with you what I would
S1: do if I could do it all over again, so
S1: that you can be successful in a shorter amount of
S1: time than I've been able to be successful. So let's
S1: dive in. The first thing that you want to do
S1: is take full accountability. You cannot blame anybody else for
S1: what you don't know, what you don't have, how you
S1: respond to things, the situation that you're in, anything that
S1: goes wrong. Take full accountability, even if it's mostly somebody
S1: else's fault. What could you have done differently? How could
S1: you have foreseen the opportunity differently? How could you have
S1: looked at the problem differently? People talk about accountability as
S1: if like, oh, I'm just going to take accountability. Taking
S1: full accountability is entirely different than just assuming accountability. A
S1: good example of this is I had a team member
S1: very recently who said, oh, I wasn't able to hit
S1: my end of year metrics because I was given a
S1: bad set of clients. It wasn't the ideal list. I
S1: had to make do with what I was responsible for.
S1: And so that's why I didn't hit my targets. Okay,
S1: hold the phone. If this person was taking full accountability,
S1: shouldn't they controlled what clients got to them? Couldn't they
S1: have figured out, oh, man. Well, I don't have any
S1: sales skills. And because I don't have any sales skills,
S1: I let somebody else pick the clients that were going
S1: to be inside my group. And therefore I got sucky clients.
S1: So I actually, by taking full accountability, recognize moving forward,
S1: I'm going to pick the clients moving forward. I'm going
S1: to find those relationships, bring them in, have them understand
S1: it from my perspective so that I can get the
S1: right lot of clients see that person. That's the difference
S1: in that person's approach. One is taking full accountability for
S1: the outcome, and the other is saying, oh, well, I
S1: got handed this and I couldn't do anything with it
S1: because this is what I was handed. You don't allow
S1: somebody else's decisions, somebody else's outcomes, to impact yours. If
S1: you're taking true accountability for a situation, as you're figuring
S1: out how to take accountability, what you will find is
S1: there are a lot of things that you don't know.
S1: If you are really honest with yourself, you might not
S1: know how to sell. You might not know how to market.
S1: You might not know how to interview people, how to
S1: read financials. There's just a whole variety of things moving
S1: from intern to president that you are not going to know.
S1: And instead of having the urge to shy away, the
S1: urge to think, oh, somebody else knows better or worse yet,
S1: the thought that I'm not smart enough to figure this out.
S1: As soon as any of that happens, you just have
S1: to nip that in the bud. You can figure it out.
S1: The things that you don't know only holds you back
S1: to the extent that you don't know them. So why
S1: not take the approach of I'm going to learn these things,
S1: I'm going to figure these things out. I'm going to
S1: take it as my responsibility to identify what I don't
S1: know and figure out those things. Now, once you take
S1: on this new mindset of I don't know what I
S1: don't know, but I'm going to figure it out as
S1: I go. My little tip on this is prioritize the
S1: things that make money that is so important. Prioritize the
S1: things that make money. You becoming the best at organizing
S1: something is going to pay you less than you figuring
S1: out how to sell something, or how to get attention,
S1: and how to promote and create awareness around a product
S1: or service. So you have to think strategically as you
S1: move along in steps of your career, like what is
S1: the most valuable use of my time? Project management. Although
S1: you can make a great living in project management, you
S1: are not going to make the same as somebody in
S1: head of sales or head of marketing or head of
S1: product as you are as a project manager. And so
S1: if you're really keen on making money, follow the money,
S1: solve problems and gain skills. Identify what you don't know.
S1: That's in relation to money. Not just organizing or structuring
S1: or creating processes for. Things, those things you can make
S1: good money in. But if you're really looking for how
S1: do I make the greatest jump in my income? How
S1: do I make the greatest jump in my responsibility? At
S1: some point, those things tap out because your ability to
S1: find money, make money, attract money into an organization are
S1: the skill sets that pay most and are with the
S1: responsibilities of the highest level of an organization are responsible for.
S1: So why not just choose to learn those skills instead
S1: of prioritizing the others as you realize that you don't
S1: know everything? I know it's hard to admit you don't
S1: know everything. I love to think I know everything, especially
S1: in my early 20s. I just thought I had all
S1: of these courses under my belt and I was gonna
S1: leave college. I didn't finish college. I'm one semester, sure,
S1: but I was going to be one semester short of
S1: college and join my corporate career. And I just had
S1: everything figured out. And I had studied a handful of
S1: books but had no real experience. And it was a
S1: huge wake up call around all the things that I
S1: didn't know. I'll never forget being in the office with
S1: somebody that I respected so much. I watched this woman
S1: as the CTO of our company, just like kick ass
S1: in meetings, and she was so efficient and effective, and
S1: she was just like, she figured it all out. She
S1: was my idol. She was my mentor, and she was
S1: teaching me about project management, like the basics of project management.
S1: As I ran into her in the hallway and she
S1: spent 15 minutes talking me through how to look at
S1: statuses and how to proactively measure and judge if a
S1: project is going to be off track, or if it's
S1: going to hit its timeline and milestones and all of
S1: this stuff. As she was saying, things like milestones, KPIs, tracking, reporting, like,
S1: I had a basic definition of these things, but I
S1: didn't have a full understanding of how I was going
S1: to roll out a project and actually utilize all of
S1: those components. So what I did was I took courses
S1: and I read books, and you're going to have to
S1: do this too as soon as you figure out what
S1: you don't know, the first thing that you do, instead
S1: of being a victim of, I don't know how to
S1: do this, look it up on YouTube. Watch some videos
S1: about how to figure these things out. You have to
S1: take the mindset that you can learn anything. And as
S1: you identify these things by books, by courses, don't spend
S1: money on stupid stuff. I made this mistake. I spent
S1: my money the very first time that I had like
S1: a real paycheck. I thought I was like living large.
S1: I was 20 years old. I had just gotten my
S1: first big paycheck. And what did I do? I went
S1: to the Louis Vuitton store and I bought a duffle
S1: bag for travel. Ridiculous. Now, luckily, I had enough income
S1: at the time to not have to sacrifice buying the
S1: bag with courses and self-development, but I should have been
S1: spending so much more money on courses and self-development and
S1: no money, and no time and no energy on a
S1: dumb bag. I would never recommend somebody to do that today,
S1: go all in on the courses and oftentimes they don't
S1: have to be that expensive. You can research things on YouTube.
S1: You can buy really basic books. One of my favorite
S1: series of books is the For Dummies books. I've at
S1: least read 20 for dummies books. Accounting for dummies. Finance
S1: for dummies. Marketing for dummies. Taxes for dummies. Because I
S1: want to learn these things and you have to recognize
S1: that you need to learn things. That's what you're doing
S1: right now. You're watching YouTube videos. So you've already you're
S1: already way ahead of where I was. But you have
S1: to learn these things and add these skill sets in
S1: order for you to be more valuable. One hack that
S1: I used to impress people early on, and still serves
S1: me today, is as soon as I was done with
S1: a meeting, I would take notes on that meeting and
S1: I would send a recap as quickly as possible. I
S1: didn't care what the meeting was. It could be an
S1: onboarding training. It could be an orientation, it could be
S1: an actual meeting that required notes. And I wasn't the
S1: person responsible, but I still did that anyway, because prompt
S1: follow up impresses people. Most people do not follow up.
S1: Most people receive things and sit in meetings and our participants,
S1: but they don't actually show up and follow up afterwards.
S1: And so you don't know what they took away from
S1: the meeting. You don't know what their thoughts were. I
S1: was amazing at always taking notes, taking those opportunities to learn,
S1: but more importantly, setting the expectation with everybody around me
S1: that I'm on it. Because I was the first to
S1: follow up. I had a two hour follow up rule.
S1: As soon as the meeting was over. Within two hours
S1: I was responding with, this is everything that happened. These
S1: are the questions. This is what I took away. These
S1: are the next steps. Am I on track with this?
S1: And that really impressed people because it gave transparency into
S1: what I was thinking, what I took away, and if
S1: I was wrong, I was willing to be wrong so
S1: that somebody could correct me and give me actual feedback.
S1: My notes, strategy and that follow up strategy really served
S1: me when it came to my mentors, because even that
S1: conversation I was mentioning earlier with the CTO, as soon
S1: as she spent that 15 minutes with me telling me
S1: about project management, I followed up with her instantly saying, hey,
S1: this is what I took away. Hey, this is what
S1: I learned is this is this the right direction that
S1: I'm going down? Because when you have mentors and you
S1: look at people in an organization, you look at people
S1: around you that you want to spend time with, the
S1: only way that they know that their time is being
S1: spent well with you is through your implementation. So how
S1: can you take massive action? But first you have to
S1: recap it right? Like first recap and then take massive
S1: action to be able to demonstrate to them that the
S1: time that they spent with you actually produced something. That's
S1: what every mentor wants out of somebody that they're mentoring,
S1: to not just have it go in one ear and
S1: out the other, it actually becomes fruitful. And so not
S1: only what I take those notes as soon as that
S1: meeting was happening or as soon as that feedback was given.
S1: But I'd remind myself every month, hey, I should give
S1: progress on these initiatives, and that would hold me accountable
S1: to actually ensuring that I was following up on the
S1: things that they were telling me to do, not just
S1: taking it for, oh, I'm getting mentored and not doing
S1: anything with what they actually told me to do. Speaking
S1: of mentors, my husband is my greatest mentor. I've had
S1: the unique opportunity to work with my husband for over
S1: a decade, and he wrote this book. It's called nine
S1: Figure Mindset How to Go from zero to Over $100
S1: million in Net Worth. And this book is filled with
S1: his life lessons and experiences of what he had to
S1: do to go from having nothing in his bank account
S1: to having over $100 million net worth. This would be
S1: an excellent example of a book that you should read
S1: on your path. And if you're really following my advice,
S1: maybe even write a summary email and you shoot it
S1: to info at Carton ventures.com. Because I have a feeling
S1: that if you do a really great job summarizing it,
S1: it will get to my husband and he'll probably give
S1: you some feedback because you did your part, and actually
S1: reading and taking notes on something that was important to him. Oh.