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Speaker 1: How much is a million dollar investment worth? If that

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Speaker 1: feels like a trick question, maybe you haven't come across

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Speaker 1: bad money the way doctor Katrina Wallace has. When she

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Speaker 1: was the CEO of Flamingo Ai, Katrina received a million

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Speaker 1: dollar investment offer, but there was a catch. The investors

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Speaker 1: would only hand over the cash if kat promised to

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Speaker 1: stop wearing a nose ring in public. My name is

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Speaker 1: doctor Amanthea Immer. I'm an organizational psychologist and the founder

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Speaker 1: of behavioral science consultancy Inventium, and this is how I

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Speaker 1: work a show about how to help you do your

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Speaker 1: best work. On today's My Favorite Tip episode, we go

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Speaker 1: back to an interview from the past and I pick

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Speaker 1: out my favorite tip from the interview. In today's show,

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Speaker 1: I speak with kat Wallace where we talk about what

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Speaker 1: Kat now refers to as her million dollar nosering.

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Speaker 2: So I was with my female chair and board directors

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Speaker 2: of Flamingo Ai AI company. We just listed on the

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Speaker 2: ASX as the second ever only woman chairwoman CEO to

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Speaker 2: list on the ASX, So being a woman was a

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Speaker 2: bit of a novelty. We were in Melbourne and we

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Speaker 2: were presenting to a whole room of all male investors

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Speaker 2: and we did a pitch. We did a good pitch,

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Speaker 2: and then we were in the airport lounge on the

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Speaker 2: way flying back to Sydney when one of the investors

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Speaker 2: rang one of our board directors and said, we would

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Speaker 2: love to invest a million dollars into the business. And

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Speaker 2: we overheard that. We were very excited about it. And

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Speaker 2: then I could see the blood draining out of my

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Speaker 2: director's face as he was listening to the rest of

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Speaker 2: the call. And the rest of the call was the

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Speaker 2: investor who represented the team of investors giving the conditions

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Speaker 2: by which they would provide the million dollars. So I

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Speaker 2: heard that there were some good conditions, so I said

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Speaker 2: to the director standing behind him, Oh, look, if it's

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Speaker 2: revenue targets or reducing the cost of customer acquisition or

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Speaker 2: reducing the burn, just let us know what those targets

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Speaker 2: are associated with the million dollar investment. Anyway, you see

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Speaker 2: more blood training out of the director's face and he

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Speaker 2: got off the phone and he said to me, right, well,

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Speaker 2: they do have a condition. And I said, okay, well,

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Speaker 2: you know, revenue profit, what is it? And they said, no,

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Speaker 2: the condition is we will invest the one million dollars

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Speaker 2: into the business if the female CEO takes her nose

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Speaker 2: ring out and watch. Then we went, what the like,

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Speaker 2: what it's a joke, right, and he said, no joke,

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Speaker 2: they're deadly serious. There's a million dollars on the table

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Speaker 2: if you take your nose ring out.

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Speaker 1: Wow, what did you do?

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Speaker 2: Ha ha? I sort of half laughed and cried and

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Speaker 2: then just looked at my chair and said, there's no

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Speaker 2: way we'll take that money, and there's no way there's

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Speaker 2: nose rings coming out. And so I told my director,

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Speaker 2: who was really not too happy, to decline the offer.

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Speaker 2: And then the very next day I went to Gleave

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Speaker 2: Markets and bought a much bigger nose ring and put

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Speaker 2: it in.

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Speaker 1: Wow. Was there a point where you considered taking your

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Speaker 1: nose ring out?

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Speaker 2: No, but there was plenty of people that did say

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Speaker 2: to me, look, it's a million dollars. You do more

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Speaker 2: than you do less for a million dollars and take

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Speaker 2: a nose ring out. But for me, what I had

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Speaker 2: already learned, having been around the investment fueled for a

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Speaker 2: little while, was it's about the type of investor you

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Speaker 2: get into the business. It's not so much the money

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Speaker 2: that you get is the type of investor. And if

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Speaker 2: we were starting off with investors who were most concerned

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Speaker 2: about my physical appearance, then that was going to go

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Speaker 2: downhill after that. So I was wise enough to know

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Speaker 2: this would not be good money into the business.

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Speaker 1: If you enjoyed this excerpt from my chat with Kat,

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Speaker 1: you might want to go back and listen to the

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Speaker 1: whole interview, which you can find a link to in

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Speaker 1: the show notes. If you're looking for more tips to

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Speaker 1: improve the way that you work, I write a short

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Speaker 1: fortnightly newsletter that contains three cool things that I've discovered

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Speaker 1: that helped me work better, ranging from software and gadgets

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Speaker 1: that I'm loving through to interesting research findings. You can

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Speaker 1: sign up for that at Howiwork dot com. That's how

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Speaker 1: I Work dot co. Thank you for sharing part of

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Speaker 1: your day with me by listening to How I Work.

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Speaker 1: If you're keen for more tips on how to work better,

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Speaker 1: connect with me via LinkedIn or Instagram. I'm very easy

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Speaker 1: to find. Just search for Amantha Imba. How I Work

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Speaker 1: was recorded on the traditional land of the Warrangery people,

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Speaker 1: part of the Cool and Nation. I am so grateful

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Speaker 1: for being able to to work and live on this

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Speaker 1: beautiful land and I want to pay my respects to elders, past,

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Speaker 1: present and emerging. How I work is produced by inventing

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Speaker 1: with production support from Dead Set Studios. And thank you

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Speaker 1: to Martin Nimba who did the audio mix and makes

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Speaker 1: everything sound better than it would have otherwise