Speaker 1: Welcome to the Psychology Podcast, where we give you insights
Speaker 1: into the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity. I'm doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, and in each episode I have a conversation
Speaker 1: with a guest who will stimulate your mind and give
Speaker 1: you a greater understanding of yourself, others, and the world
Speaker 1: to live in. Hopefully we'll also provide a glimpse into
Speaker 1: human possibility. Thanks for listening and enjoy the podcast. One
Speaker 1: last thing before we dive into today's episode. If you'd
Speaker 1: prefer an ad free experience and would also like early
Speaker 1: access to new episodes, I just wanted to let you
Speaker 1: know that you can join us at patreon dot com
Speaker 1: slash psych Podcast. Okay, let's go today. It's really great
Speaker 1: to have Shelley Arshambeau on the podcast. Arshambau is one
Speaker 1: of Hi Tech's first female African American CEOs and has
Speaker 1: a track record of accomplishments building brands, high performance teams
Speaker 1: and organizations. Arsen both curly serves on the boards of Verizon, Nordstrom,
Speaker 1: Roper Technologies, and OKTAH. She's also a strategic advisor to
Speaker 1: forbes Ignite and the president of Arizona State University. And
Speaker 1: serves on the board of two national nonprofits, Catalyst and Braven.
Speaker 1: She's the author of the book Unapologetically Ambitious, Take Risks,
Speaker 1: break barriers, and create success on your own terms. Shelley,
Speaker 1: so excited chat with you today. Well, thank you. I've
Speaker 1: been looking forward to with Scott. I've been looking forward
Speaker 1: to it too. It's very exciting. You're a very interesting
Speaker 1: human being. You said, as an African American woman in
Speaker 1: my fifties, I don't exactly fit the prototype for a
Speaker 1: tech industry business leader. That's really super interesting. Why is that?
Speaker 1: Because if you look around, you don't find many people
Speaker 1: that look like me and from my background actually leading
Speaker 1: tech companies. That's why I said that. So why is that?
Speaker 1: The question is where the why is? Why is that
Speaker 1: the case? Or why did I make this statement? You
Speaker 1: said you don't exactly fit the prototype, and so tell me,
Speaker 1: like what the prototype is? And that must have been
Speaker 1: quite take a lot of chutzbas My grandma would say,
Speaker 1: to really believe in yourself and have that unapologetic ambition, right, Yes,
Speaker 1: a lot of belief in myself and frankly a lot
Speaker 1: of cheerleaders around me to help me do that, because
Speaker 1: it trust me, it's not easy when you say, what
Speaker 1: does that profile look like? You know, typically, especially Silicon
Speaker 1: Valley startups, so many of the CEOs come tech background.
Speaker 1: I've been in technology, but I'm a sales marketing, go
Speaker 1: to market person. You don't see many people of color
Speaker 1: that are actually leading those firms. And with regards to women,
Speaker 1: you know, find a lot of women either. The good
Speaker 1: news is there's a lot more now there was when
Speaker 1: I first came on board. I remember when Kleiner Perkins
Speaker 1: hired me to run their portfolio company, and I went
Speaker 1: to the first CEO event, you know, annually they bring
Speaker 1: the CEOs together content really, training, development, et cetera. And
Speaker 1: I looked around and it's like, okay, and I'm seeing
Speaker 1: a good mix of people. Until they separated the CEOs
Speaker 1: from the spouses, and the spouses went off to do
Speaker 1: some things, and we went off to do some things,
Speaker 1: and I went, oh MG, not only am I the
Speaker 1: only black person here, but there's only one other woman
Speaker 1: that's running a company. Wow. Yes, that's really quite striking. Yes,
Speaker 1: it was. So hence the statement as a shy, gangly
Speaker 1: black girl in all white elementary school, so being kind
Speaker 1: of the minority is not new. Is kind of like,
Speaker 1: you know, your whole life and you felt like an outsider,
Speaker 1: Oh for sure. For sure I felt like an outsider.
Speaker 1: And you know, it almost it almost seemed like people
Speaker 1: wanted to make sure I felt that way, you know,
Speaker 1: because not only was it that kind of environment, but
Speaker 1: the period of history this was the sixties, and in
Speaker 1: the sixties you had a lot going on with regards
Speaker 1: to civil rights, actually a lot going on in general,
Speaker 1: Vietnam War, women's rights, somebody was mad about something in
Speaker 1: the sixties. So as many people that wanted civil rights,
Speaker 1: you had just as many that didn't. And people made
Speaker 1: it known very clearly, you know, verbally, physically, the whole bit,
Speaker 1: that they didn't really want me around. So I knew
Speaker 1: if I just did what everybody else did, I probably
Speaker 1: wasn't going to get much in life. Would you say
Speaker 1: there was like a core aspect of your personality growing
Speaker 1: up that was a certain tenacity and know not everyone
Speaker 1: has that, Like where did that come from? You know?
Speaker 1: I think it started with competitiveness. I was one of
Speaker 1: four children. My parents had four kids in less than
Speaker 1: five years, so as a result, we grew up very
Speaker 1: close but also very competitive, so that competitive nature, you know,
Speaker 1: wanting to win, wanting to get the attention, wanting to
Speaker 1: you know that all that happens with there a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of you clamoring all at the same time. So
Speaker 1: that helped. I think the other thing that helped is
Speaker 1: my parents. You know, my parents really tried to give
Speaker 1: us some tools to be able to manage all this,
Speaker 1: and at the time it didn't feel like tools, but
Speaker 1: as I grew older, it was you know, you come
Speaker 1: home as a kid, something happens, somebody's not treating you right,
Speaker 1: or you should have gotten an opportunity and you didn't
Speaker 1: whatever it should come home and you complain it's not fair, right,
Speaker 1: this happened, that it's not fair. And instead of you know,
Speaker 1: my parents saying, oh, you're right, it's not fair. That's
Speaker 1: a shame, blah blah blah blah. No, no, it was
Speaker 1: you're right, it's not fair. Life isn't fair. It's like
Speaker 1: what life's supposed to be fair. I mean it's a kid, right,
Speaker 1: everybody gets even everybody goes to be fair. Now, my
Speaker 1: parents were like, no, no, it's not fair. Don't even
Speaker 1: look for it. It's not fair. So what are you
Speaker 1: going to do about it? You know? Was the was
Speaker 1: really the message. It's not fair, so you've got to
Speaker 1: decide what you're going to do about it. So I
Speaker 1: think that lesson combined with the oh, combined with them
Speaker 1: telling us that it doesn't you know, you can't affect
Speaker 1: or impact what people say to you or people do
Speaker 1: to you, but you can control how you respond to
Speaker 1: what people do to you. So all those things were
Speaker 1: helpful tools if you will. I as I move forward,
Speaker 1: because I realized it's bottom line is up to me,
Speaker 1: and you know, the best way to win back to
Speaker 1: being competitive was don't let people control my emotions. If
Speaker 1: they control my emotions, then they want If they make
Speaker 1: me feel bad about myself, if they you know, make
Speaker 1: me insecure or less confident or what have you, then
Speaker 1: they've won. So don't let them win. You can't control
Speaker 1: what they say or do, but you can control how
Speaker 1: you respond. You have such a great your head on
Speaker 1: your shoulders as they say, you know, I feel like
Speaker 1: maybe you were raised right, you know, maybe that's a
Speaker 1: big part of it is a family, the importance of
Speaker 1: of parents that can communicate those sort of messages to
Speaker 1: a child. But you know, a lot of ways. Your
Speaker 1: mother was like a psychologist, all those things that are
Speaker 1: like straight out of like the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Technique
Speaker 1: workbook on how to Cope with life, and you're on
Speaker 1: the psychology podcast you're teaching our audience. If you were
Speaker 1: to ask my mother during those times and this she
Speaker 1: told me later. She would tell people that she considered
Speaker 1: herself a professional parent. That was her profession, and so
Speaker 1: she read a lot. She did live. She she really tried.
Speaker 1: So you know, you said in your book, like people
Speaker 1: can't keep asking you how did I get here? How
Speaker 1: did I get here? You said, Look, ambition got me here, Okay,
Speaker 1: Like ambition supported by the conscious choices I made every
Speaker 1: step of the way. There's sort of like this tension.
Speaker 1: They kind of treat like a false dichotomy, like you
Speaker 1: either on the right and you believe an agency, or
Speaker 1: you're on the left and you believe in it's all
Speaker 1: environmental fault, you know, for everything, And I don't know,
Speaker 1: there's something about your whole being that is so refreshing
Speaker 1: in this climate that is so poorized and has created
Speaker 1: what I definitely think is a false dichotomy. You know
Speaker 1: that like you're what you can't simultaneously try to fix
Speaker 1: structural equalities while believing you of agency too. Like to me,
Speaker 1: I'm always trying to think of ways of transcending these
Speaker 1: false dichotomies, and I feel like we're we're in a
Speaker 1: very similar wavelength in that regard. Would you would you agree?
Speaker 1: I fully agree it's and not or right? Yeah, it
Speaker 1: seems like it. It totally is, totally is and I'm
Speaker 1: trying to work our way up here. So you created
Speaker 1: a life plan in college that would ultimately serve you
Speaker 1: for three decades, right, for the next three decades? Wow?
Speaker 1: Well what a you know, what an enterprising young woman
Speaker 1: to tell us a little bit about about this. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: you know, Scott. Back to I knew I couldn't do
Speaker 1: just what everybody else did, and I therefore I had
Speaker 1: to figure out how to improve my odds because I
Speaker 1: knew the odds weren't in my favor. And what it
Speaker 1: had proven to work for me is if I set
Speaker 1: my sights on something and then really focus on all, right, now,
Speaker 1: how do I make it happen? What do I need
Speaker 1: to do, and then actually went and did it. Odds
Speaker 1: were I actually achieved it, And so I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: you know this is how it should work. So literally,
Speaker 1: the question I would ask myself is what is it
Speaker 1: I want? And I decided young I wanted to run
Speaker 1: a company. I wanted to be a CEO, and so
Speaker 1: I said, all right, what has to be true? Right?
Speaker 1: What has to be true for me to be a CEO?
Speaker 1: And the answering a question what has to be true
Speaker 1: is basically doing the research and the homework. I call
Speaker 1: it right, So understand how did people get there? What
Speaker 1: were their paths, what were their roles? What I mean,
Speaker 1: all those things. Learn as much as I could, but
Speaker 1: what has to be true? And then the next question
Speaker 1: is how do I make it true? And it's how
Speaker 1: do I make it true? That is my plan that
Speaker 1: turns into the steps of what I need to do
Speaker 1: to go make all these elements right that I figured
Speaker 1: out or that I learned true, and then what I
Speaker 1: do that I think most people don't. You know, a
Speaker 1: lot of people will set goals and people will put
Speaker 1: plans in place, but very few people make decisions every
Speaker 1: day consistent with their plans. And that is what I did.
Speaker 1: So I was always assuming that the plan was going
Speaker 1: to happen. Now It didn't mean it always did, but
Speaker 1: I assume the plan was going to happen, and therefore
Speaker 1: I made decisions assuming it was going to happen, and
Speaker 1: that allowed me to improve my luck, allowed me to
Speaker 1: improve the ads that when I actually got to that point,
Speaker 1: I was. I was ready, right, So in college they
Speaker 1: were at the time, I thought simple things because I said,
Speaker 1: all right, what are my goals? Well, I want to
Speaker 1: run a company. Yes, I would also like to get
Speaker 1: married at some point. I also want kids, right, So
Speaker 1: those are things I want, all right? So what has
Speaker 1: to be true? Because all you have to do is
Speaker 1: look around and the few women that did make leadership
Speaker 1: roles and I couldn't find black women at the time,
Speaker 1: but few women that did they either didn't have husbands right,
Speaker 1: or their husbands weren't working or the like I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: so has to be true. Well, I need to find
Speaker 1: a husband that is supportive of what I actually want
Speaker 1: to do. And I wanted to get married sooner versus
Speaker 1: later because I wanted to kids young if I could.
Speaker 1: So those were all things I wanted to do. So
Speaker 1: I just assumed that was going to happen, and I
Speaker 1: started acting like it when I was nineteen plus started
Speaker 1: saving for my wedding that I didn't know I was
Speaker 1: to have. So let's talk about some early you know,
Speaker 1: well some of those early lessons in your life. And
Speaker 1: I thought some of them were, well a lot of
Speaker 1: them are really cool, but we can't. We don't have
Speaker 1: time to go through all them. But how about find
Speaker 1: your cheerleaders. There you go. There's so much in this
Speaker 1: world God that that just tears us down, whether it's
Speaker 1: overt or very subtle, but we're constantly being judged. We're
Speaker 1: not we're not good enough, right, we're not tall enough,
Speaker 1: we're not young enough, we're not technical enough, we're not
Speaker 1: whatever it is right. There are all these things that
Speaker 1: were just not quite and so it's really hard to
Speaker 1: maintain your confidence right and to truly believe in yourself.
Speaker 1: And therefore, for me, that was absolutely the case because
Speaker 1: I had so much imposter syndrome. So I needed people
Speaker 1: around me that were frankly going to build me up
Speaker 1: because otherwise I don't know that I would be able
Speaker 1: to fight through. And so my cheerleaders, you know, my
Speaker 1: first cheerleader, we're obviously my parents, but my husband became
Speaker 1: my biggest cheerleader, you know, when things would go poorly
Speaker 1: or something would happen. He was the first one to
Speaker 1: A cheerleader, by the way, can be a you're great,
Speaker 1: you're wonderful. It can also be a kick you in
Speaker 1: the pants, not get out there right kind of person.
Speaker 1: But you need both. And I think it's really important
Speaker 1: to have cheerleaders around because it is just so easy
Speaker 1: to fall into the trap of self doubt and lack
Speaker 1: of confidence and all of those things because of how
Speaker 1: judgmental things are. So Yes, I believe everybody needs a cheerleader,
Speaker 1: and I mean cheerleader rah Rah Ghost Scott ghost Shelley,
Speaker 1: I mean somebody who's really there for you and it
Speaker 1: can make a huge difference. And the good news is, yes,
Speaker 1: it was my husband, but it's also I have friends,
Speaker 1: I have, I still have cheerleaders, and I think everybody
Speaker 1: needs them. I know I could never do it all
Speaker 1: by myself, and I'm sure there are a lot of
Speaker 1: us that can't. You know, very few people have thick
Speaker 1: enough skin and strong enough inner belief and confidence that
Speaker 1: can withstand anything that happens in life because life is hard.
Speaker 1: Life is hard. So I'm all about Hey, it's hard.
Speaker 1: I want as much help as I can get, and
Speaker 1: a cheerleader is key, So okay, it can change your
Speaker 1: whole life around I. I was in special at as
Speaker 1: a kid, and it just took one teacher to just
Speaker 1: take me aside and she said, you know, what are
Speaker 1: you what are you doing here? And I was like, well,
Speaker 1: no one had asked me that question, so I never
Speaker 1: dawned in me to ask it myself. Yeah, it's just
Speaker 1: it's it's we really underestimate the value of even just
Speaker 1: one right, exactly exactly. You just played that role for
Speaker 1: me too growing up. He said, like, don't let them win.
Speaker 1: Who's them? Them is people who are outside of your
Speaker 1: inner circle. It's anyone who is trying to frankly, tear
Speaker 1: you down or not support you or whatever. So it's
Speaker 1: the them. It's the ones who want to tear away
Speaker 1: at your confidence, the ones who are going to exhibit microaggressions, right,
Speaker 1: the ones who are going to it's the people out
Speaker 1: there that are actually just the opposite of building you up.
Speaker 1: But they're the ones that are out there that are
Speaker 1: actually tearing you down, whether it's conscious or unconscious. And
Speaker 1: you can't let them win, you know, And they win
Speaker 1: if they control your emotions. Yeah, and it happens all
Speaker 1: the time. I mean when I pick, and I get
Speaker 1: on a board and I can pick, it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: which one, and people I'll get comments like, oh, congratulations,
Speaker 1: that's great, it's wonderful that they're improving their diversity. Okay,
Speaker 1: Now you can take that one or two ways. You
Speaker 1: can take that that they mean that, Okay, you got
Speaker 1: put on the board because you're a diverse caid, right,
Speaker 1: so you know, only diverse candidates are getting roles right now,
Speaker 1: and all that kind of stuff which people think and say.
Speaker 1: So that way, you could view it as they're saying
Speaker 1: something that's actually trying to undermine me, right, or you
Speaker 1: can take it as huh, I reframe it. When I
Speaker 1: hear things like that, I just reframe it. It's like, hmm,
Speaker 1: do you really feel so insecure about yourself that you
Speaker 1: have to make me feel badly about something that I've done? Oh?
Speaker 1: You poor person. So I just reframe it in my
Speaker 1: head so that I don't let them make me feel
Speaker 1: less confident or make me doubt. Wait did I earn it?
Speaker 1: Did I do this? I mean, it's crazy. Doors have
Speaker 1: been opened for people for all kinds of reasons forever.
Speaker 1: You might get a door open because your father plays
Speaker 1: golf with somebody at work. Right. You might get a
Speaker 1: door open because your mother went to that university and
Speaker 1: therefore your legacy. You might get a door open, But
Speaker 1: nobody ever says, oh, right, oh, it must be nice
Speaker 1: that your father did that. Don't say that, because those
Speaker 1: things are just connections, right. Those things happen quote all
Speaker 1: the time. Doors open all the time. So we shouldn't
Speaker 1: let people make us feel less than for whatever reason
Speaker 1: a door opened for us. It's what you do on
Speaker 1: the other side of the threshold accounts Well, I completely agree,
Speaker 1: And it sounds like you had to really open the
Speaker 1: doors yourself there in the beginning in the tech industry.
Speaker 1: I mean, you were the ones who are even you
Speaker 1: were creating doors to be opened to no one else
Speaker 1: is that none opened those doors before? You know? How
Speaker 1: do you have that foresight? How do you have that vision?
Speaker 1: One of my favorite psychologists, you, Paul tarns Now, calls
Speaker 1: it falling in love with the future image of yourself.
Speaker 1: You know, you fell in love with that future image
Speaker 1: of yourself. And I'm just wondering, well, how you know
Speaker 1: it's interesting. Part of it is competitive. I would tell
Speaker 1: people what I want to do, and I would do that,
Speaker 1: so that that also held me accutuble to do it,
Speaker 1: because the last thing I wanted to do was to
Speaker 1: show up and when they say, oh, did you do
Speaker 1: such and such, and I'd say, oh, no, I didn't, right,
Speaker 1: I'm not doing that. I If I I'm going to
Speaker 1: do something, that I'm going to do it. So I
Speaker 1: actually used, frankly, other people, you know, peer pressure, that
Speaker 1: competitive peace to actually help continue to push me forward.
Speaker 1: And that's one of the reasons why I would share
Speaker 1: my goals and share what I'm trying to do, because
Speaker 1: then I had a lot of people that were going
Speaker 1: to hold me accountable to make sure I actually did it.
Speaker 1: Who are some of the biggest influences in your life
Speaker 1: early in your you know, who really believed in you,
Speaker 1: in the in the tech industry early on. Oh gosh,
Speaker 1: So I'll focus on Silicon Valley and in Silicon Valley,
Speaker 1: you know Ben Horowitz, it was an early one. Andy
Speaker 1: rack Left came out to the first fourth Point North
Speaker 1: Point was high Speed DSL company. I was running marketing
Speaker 1: at sales and they went through I was there for
Speaker 1: only a short period of time because the whole market
Speaker 1: ended up imploding and they got bought by AT and T.
Speaker 1: But Andy Rackleff was on the board with Benchmark and
Speaker 1: he said, Shelley, I want you at loud Cloud. That
Speaker 1: was another company who was invested in and introduced me
Speaker 1: over there, and I ultimately did get hired to be
Speaker 1: chief marketing officer and then ultimately also EVP of sales.
Speaker 1: So Andy believed in me. And then Bill Campbell was
Speaker 1: another one, and he was he was huge, And I mean,
Speaker 1: I've just been really fortunate, you know, I could, I
Speaker 1: could kind of go on from there. I ended up
Speaker 1: with a lot of people that ended up believing me,
Speaker 1: believing in me, and being supporters this whole area you
Speaker 1: strategize for your success. I mean it's a lot of
Speaker 1: thought whole week, and my head's dizzy. I'm like, wow,
Speaker 1: you devised your plan. You yeah, prepared for the opportunity
Speaker 1: to appear. You learn the ropes. How did you foster
Speaker 1: that self determination? That's a that's a big theme of
Speaker 1: that whole section of your book, is that, as you know,
Speaker 1: there's a self determination theory in my field of positive psychology. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: It's interesting because it wasn't until I was writing the
Speaker 1: book that I actually did the research to understand it.
Speaker 1: That's what it was self determination, right, And so what
Speaker 1: I learned was there basically three things that are key
Speaker 1: for developing it. So one is autonomy, right, It's just
Speaker 1: feeling that you actually have ownership over yourself, over your actions, right,
Speaker 1: all of that, and that was definitely fostered at home. Right,
Speaker 1: that was that whole life isn't fair, so what are
Speaker 1: you going to do about it? Right? Piece? And the
Speaker 1: second piece that comes to that is competence, which means
Speaker 1: being able to actually achieve something. It's mastery, right, showing
Speaker 1: that you have skills. I was a good student and
Speaker 1: I knew that if I studied something or worked on it,
Speaker 1: I could I could learn anything. So I had that.
Speaker 1: The piece that took me longer to actually create was
Speaker 1: the relatedness piece, and that's the one that was belonging yep,
Speaker 1: feeling part of a group, and I never did. I
Speaker 1: always felt like this outsider. And it really wasn't until
Speaker 1: I got to college that I was able to begin
Speaker 1: to develop that and then continued right once I felt it,
Speaker 1: I'm like, ah, this is what this is this I want,
Speaker 1: And then I was more conscious about really trying to
Speaker 1: find my people, if you will. So yeah, all three
Speaker 1: are really needed to be able to do that and
Speaker 1: do it consistently because I made a lot of decisions
Speaker 1: that people didn't think I should make. So it wasn't
Speaker 1: it wasn't always easy. Okay, So well, how did you
Speaker 1: build your reputation? Then? I mean, again the workhos but
Speaker 1: keeps coming up when I think of you, how did
Speaker 1: you with all people saying that you're like, you know,
Speaker 1: but I want to I have this vision in my
Speaker 1: head and I want to build that reputation. What are
Speaker 1: some concrete things? You know, aspiring people in the industry
Speaker 1: maybe have to overcome hurdles. Listening to this podcast, you
Speaker 1: know they want to build this reputation. Do you do
Speaker 1: you have sort of advice from them for your own
Speaker 1: personal experience? Sure, I mean everybody builds a reputation differently.
Speaker 1: I will tell you what's helped me build my reputation
Speaker 1: is I am someone that tries to help and support others,
Speaker 1: and honestly, and it wasn't even one of those situations
Speaker 1: where I shrewdly said, oh if I do this I'll
Speaker 1: develop a good reputation. Right, It was much more of
Speaker 1: I try to treat people like I wanted to be treated,
Speaker 1: because I knew what it was like not to be
Speaker 1: and therefore I've always tried to be helpful, to be supportive.
Speaker 1: I try to make commitments and keep them so if
Speaker 1: I say I'm going to do something, I do it.
Speaker 1: So I think that the combination of those two things,
Speaker 1: I become somebody that people can count on. Well, you
Speaker 1: get to that stage where you have the crystal clear
Speaker 1: clarity you're trying to build a reputation, You're kind of
Speaker 1: the naysayers are kind of like, you know what, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to listen to you anymore. What is this
Speaker 1: idea of no second thoughts? Wow? How does one get
Speaker 1: to that point? You know, at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: nobody knows you better than you know you. Unfortunately, Joey,
Speaker 1: I know too much about my life. Sorry, you caught
Speaker 1: me in a cheeky mood today. It's all It's all good,
Speaker 1: you know. So as a result, listen to what people
Speaker 1: have to say for sure, and analyze it and think
Speaker 1: through it. But at the end of the day, you
Speaker 1: have to trust your decisions. Because nobody knows you as
Speaker 1: well as you know you. And that's that's really what
Speaker 1: it comes down to. So this whole notion of you know,
Speaker 1: no second thoughts and make it, make the decision, move forward,
Speaker 1: and if it turns out to be the wrong decision,
Speaker 1: then fine, you'll pivot or you'll make a change. But
Speaker 1: don't waste energy just thinking, oh my gosh, I really
Speaker 1: be doing this? Should I not be doing this? Yououl?
Speaker 1: I mean, just it's much more important just to move
Speaker 1: forward and shift than to get stuck. You move forward
Speaker 1: with your values. You know, you talk about how living
Speaker 1: your values and just unapologetically ambitious. There's still a humility there,
Speaker 1: and the sense humility means knowing your strengths. You just say,
Speaker 1: embrace your limits. But that's an interesting phrasing, right, like
Speaker 1: embrace your limits? Wait what does that mean? So can
Speaker 1: you tell people like what that juxtaposition means? Yeah? Absolutely,
Speaker 1: So what I mean by embrace your limits is there
Speaker 1: gonna be some things. I mean, when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: I actually thought I wanted to a kid little not
Speaker 1: in high school, but I thought I wanted to be
Speaker 1: a pilot, right, But then it turns out pilots at
Speaker 1: the time had to have really good eyesight, and I
Speaker 1: had terrible eyes sight. So you know what, that's not happening, right,
Speaker 1: So I get to spend a ton of time ruminating
Speaker 1: and being upset and the whole bit. But bottom line,
Speaker 1: it's not happening. So they embrace the limits. Okay, that's
Speaker 1: the limit. Move on, find something else in terms of
Speaker 1: that you can that you can do, or that you
Speaker 1: can go after. The other is, don't continually beat yourself
Speaker 1: up for your limits, right. I mean, so they who
Speaker 1: embrace your limits are I used to tell my kids
Speaker 1: all the time, everybody's a package. Everybody's a package. I'm
Speaker 1: a package, Daddy's a package. Everybody's a package, which means
Speaker 1: there're gonna be wonderful things about us, and they're gonna
Speaker 1: be things that you wish didn't come with the package.
Speaker 1: But you know what, you don't get to pick what's
Speaker 1: inside the package. You just get the overall package. So
Speaker 1: its embrace your limits thing is really your your package.
Speaker 1: So if that's your limit, Hey, that's that's your limit.
Speaker 1: That's my say, focus on your strength. You're a positive
Speaker 1: psychologist over there. Yeah, I mean that's a I mean,
Speaker 1: this is so much. What you're saying is is so
Speaker 1: in line with the latest research in my field. So
Speaker 1: that's so cool. I'm I don't know if you knew.
Speaker 1: I'm a humanistic, positive psychologist, So good stuff. Tell people
Speaker 1: what you want? Is this the importance of asserting yourself
Speaker 1: and kind of not being a shamed unapologetically asserting your needs,
Speaker 1: you know, telling people what you want? It's not quite
Speaker 1: And actually, let me before I answer that, let me
Speaker 1: talk about the title for a minute. Can I talk
Speaker 1: about the title? I would hope you would wonderful? So
Speaker 1: the unapologetically ambitious, let me let me define these words
Speaker 1: as I see them right first, because when I say
Speaker 1: unapologetically ambitious, I'm not telling people to go out there
Speaker 1: and get in everybody's face, right, not apologetically ambitious. I'm
Speaker 1: going to be CEO, get behind me right awful, full
Speaker 1: steam ahead. That's not necessarily what I mean. What I
Speaker 1: mean is it is absolutely fine to be ambitious. And
Speaker 1: by the way, ambitious it doesn't mean you have to
Speaker 1: want to be CEO, doesn't mean you have to want
Speaker 1: to be a pilot or whatever. I mean. Ambitious just
Speaker 1: means there are things that you want to accomplish. They
Speaker 1: can be things at home, they be things at church,
Speaker 1: they be things in the community, they can be things
Speaker 1: at work. It doesn't matter. But you have things that
Speaker 1: you actually want to accomplish and do, and if you do,
Speaker 1: then you're ambitious because you're driving to have an impact
Speaker 1: and make something happen. The unapologetically piece is you don't
Speaker 1: have to apologize for it. It is okay. It is
Speaker 1: absolutely okay to be ambitious. It's okay to want to
Speaker 1: strive and to do things. But too many people are
Speaker 1: told they're ambitious and it's not meant as a compliment.
Speaker 1: And that's ridiculous. Right when you told people you wanted
Speaker 1: to be a CEO and people like, nah, I don't
Speaker 1: think you should do that. That's crazy. I'm all about
Speaker 1: if someone has an ambitional let's help them get there.
Speaker 1: It seems so absurd. It is it is you would
Speaker 1: You would never raise your child. You never say, oh,
Speaker 1: go work hard, get good grades, you know, put in
Speaker 1: the extra effort. But oh, oh, don't be too ambitious.
Speaker 1: We never do that, but we do that to people
Speaker 1: all the time. So anyway, so that's so they unapologetically ambitious,
Speaker 1: you know, that's what it is. Yes, be ambitious. You
Speaker 1: don't have to apologize for it, just go after it.
Speaker 1: This whole notion of tell people what you want is
Speaker 1: really meant to unleash the fact that there are a
Speaker 1: lot of people in this world that actually are very
Speaker 1: happy to help others. But you can't get help for
Speaker 1: what you want to do if people don't know what
Speaker 1: you want to do. So tell people what you want
Speaker 1: and give them a chance to actually help you to contribute.
Speaker 1: You know, so many people wish and hope, right, Oh,
Speaker 1: I hope I get that opportunity, or I hope they
Speaker 1: pick me, or I hope this. Well, people can't read
Speaker 1: your mind, and then when they don't, you get upset.
Speaker 1: But they didn't know you wanted it, and maybe the
Speaker 1: other person they knew that they wanted it, So you
Speaker 1: have to put it out there. You know, we can't
Speaker 1: always predict where life is going to go, right, and
Speaker 1: you try to make the right choice at the right
Speaker 1: time when you try to live your life with regrats right,
Speaker 1: But you know, how does staying connected relate to this
Speaker 1: resiliency aspect? You know, stay staying connected and connected with people,
Speaker 1: I think it's been really important to me, So I
Speaker 1: even refer you know, my network, my close network, I
Speaker 1: refer to as my village. They are what keeps me
Speaker 1: propped up, you know, they are what helps me be
Speaker 1: able to do the things that I do, and I
Speaker 1: count on them. So this whole connectedness piece is a
Speaker 1: critical part of my personal success. You know, you're much
Speaker 1: less likely to be able to form new supportive connections
Speaker 1: in the industry. No, that's true, but I actually see
Speaker 1: I see it a little differently too, though, Scott. And
Speaker 1: that let me tell you how I define a network.
Speaker 1: I define a network as comprising people who will do it,
Speaker 1: will do you a favor when it is not convenient,
Speaker 1: all right, A lot of people who it's easy, you know,
Speaker 1: sure I can help. I can do that, right those
Speaker 1: skin off my back, no time, no effort whatever, when
Speaker 1: it's time, when it's effort, the people who are willing
Speaker 1: to do that. That's a real network. That is my village,
Speaker 1: and that is more than just reputation. Those are real
Speaker 1: relationships where both parties feel they are getting value right
Speaker 1: from that relationship, and those take you know, time, effort,
Speaker 1: focus on all of it absolutely in terms of develop
Speaker 1: So you know, to me, a network has never been
Speaker 1: how many people I have in my contact list. It
Speaker 1: has been all about, you know, the people that I
Speaker 1: feel out there that actually care about me. This idea
Speaker 1: of you deserve it, well, you know, there's an there's
Speaker 1: a kind of like a theme just as of reading
Speaker 1: your whole book, and I'm like, you do a really
Speaker 1: good job not going into the territory of narcissism, but
Speaker 1: yet still maintain the importance of being confident and having ambition.
Speaker 1: It's a very unique space this book that you wrote,
Speaker 1: because you you often see these kinds of books. Sometimes
Speaker 1: they veer too much into like one direction another. Sometimes
Speaker 1: they'll veer very much in the narcissistic direction of like
Speaker 1: you're the greatest, you know, like it's not you deserve it,
Speaker 1: but you're entitled to it. And there's a there's a
Speaker 1: subtle difference there. And I think you told that line
Speaker 1: very well. So can you a little bit? Can you
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about that chapter you deserve it? Yes,
Speaker 1: you know, at the end of the day, your your
Speaker 1: hard work, your focus, right, all that all that you do.
Speaker 1: When good things happen, when a promotion, opportunity comes by
Speaker 1: comes your way, right, or a door opens for you
Speaker 1: or you're inviting into the room whatever it is you
Speaker 1: deserve for that to happen. Don't be apologizing or excusing
Speaker 1: yourself or making yourself small. Right when those things happen,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't be invited in in the first place if
Speaker 1: they didn't think that you belong there. So remember that.
Speaker 1: And if you forget and you're feeling like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I don't think I should either take this opportunity, or
Speaker 1: maybe I shouldn't join this group, or I shouldn't da
Speaker 1: da da dah, go find your cheerleaders. So when you
Speaker 1: need your cheerleaders who are reminding you, yes you do,
Speaker 1: yes you can, you know, I mean, don't don't let
Speaker 1: those things stop you from doing things. And so the
Speaker 1: whole you deserve it piece is it's counter to it's
Speaker 1: counter to a lot of other messages that come to people,
Speaker 1: especially people who have been disenfranchised in one way or
Speaker 1: the other, which is just you know, you should be
Speaker 1: you should be happy that you're that you're here, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. You should you should feel like
Speaker 1: you are you're lucky or fortunate, like it's like somebody
Speaker 1: has given you a gift and it's not right. You're
Speaker 1: absout right, and I'm glad that I'm glad that you
Speaker 1: framed it in that sort of way. Is like, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, how some of this stuff ken
Speaker 1: veer into this territory where you're not grounded in reality anymore,
Speaker 1: you know, and you just think that you're all about
Speaker 1: like working for it, you know, you're about in owning
Speaker 1: it and having that that autonomy. So I can I
Speaker 1: really get on board with with your vision of humanity?
Speaker 1: So improving your odds? You say, find the current? What's
Speaker 1: the current? What is this you're talking about? Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: the current of power, you know, it's the path to power.
Speaker 1: When when I joined IBM, my original goal was I
Speaker 1: wanted to be CEO, and I picked tech and so
Speaker 1: I picked IBM, which was like the Apple or Google
Speaker 1: of its day, and said, great, I'll go be CEO IBM.
Speaker 1: So I did the research and every single CEO started
Speaker 1: out in sales, and I said, all right, then that
Speaker 1: must be the path. So I started as a salesperson.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't that I was in love with selling.
Speaker 1: A matter of fact, my friends thought I was crazy. Right.
Speaker 1: Another other thing, Shelley, you're gonna what you're coming out
Speaker 1: of Wharton and you're going to sell computers. Nobody does that, right,
Speaker 1: They're all going off to be investment bankers, PNG product managers,
Speaker 1: international analysts, I mean all kinds of things. And I
Speaker 1: picked sales because that was the current, and I followed
Speaker 1: the currents like, okay, so what's the role, what's the job?
Speaker 1: I worked my way all the way to Japan International
Speaker 1: Assignment because every single direct report to the CEO that
Speaker 1: ran ALIGNE business at International Experience. I mean, if you
Speaker 1: if you find the path to power, you know, which
Speaker 1: is basically what is the career path that others took
Speaker 1: in front of you, and learn from that, then I
Speaker 1: just always felt that if that's the path that others took,
Speaker 1: then that's a well worn path. So that if I
Speaker 1: like be on a current, if I work hard, I
Speaker 1: also get the propelsion of my own work, but then
Speaker 1: also the propelsion of the current itself because I'm in
Speaker 1: the right place. So that's what I mean by buying
Speaker 1: the current. The path to power, Yeah A good A
Speaker 1: good kind of power, not the kind of power that
Speaker 1: you have control over others, but where you make an
Speaker 1: impact on the world in a positive way. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's very clear. It's very clear that's the kind of
Speaker 1: power that because we see in these days some other
Speaker 1: kinds of power. Okay, so a lot of this is
Speaker 1: just to wrap this all all up in This was
Speaker 1: my last of question. You know a lot of this
Speaker 1: thread running through your book is really about planning, right,
Speaker 1: It's like a life planning, one on one kind of
Speaker 1: kind of book, and really showed me the value of yeah,
Speaker 1: especially with some certain demeans of my life, you know,
Speaker 1: really sitting down and thinking it through and doing whatever
Speaker 1: you can to improve the odds, because that's that's all
Speaker 1: we can do, you know. And I love your your
Speaker 1: your whole spirit of this of acknowledging certain things are
Speaker 1: the way they are, you know, but there are certain
Speaker 1: things I can do to uh, to improve the odds
Speaker 1: and nevertheless, even even with all these societal impediments in
Speaker 1: my way. So thanks so much for coming on the
Speaker 1: show today, Shelley and inspiring so many people. Well, thank
Speaker 1: you very much Scott for having me. I've enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to this episode of the Psychology Podcast.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to react in some way to something
Speaker 1: you heard, I encourage you to join in the discussion
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