Speaker 1: How much is a million dollar investment worth? If that
Speaker 1: feels like a trick question, maybe you haven't come across
Speaker 1: bad money the way doctor Katrina Wallace has. When she
Speaker 1: was the CEO of Flamingo Ai, Katrina received a million
Speaker 1: dollar investment offer, but there was a catch. The investors
Speaker 1: would only hand over the cash if kat promised to
Speaker 1: stop wearing a nose ring in public. My name is
Speaker 1: doctor Amanthea Immer. I'm an organizational psychologist and the founder
Speaker 1: of behavioral science consultancy Inventium, and this is how I
Speaker 1: work a show about how to help you do your
Speaker 1: best work. On today's My Favorite Tip episode, we go
Speaker 1: back to an interview from the past and I pick
Speaker 1: out my favorite tip from the interview. In today's show,
Speaker 1: I speak with kat Wallace where we talk about what
Speaker 1: Kat now refers to as her million dollar nosering.
Speaker 2: So I was with my female chair and board directors
Speaker 2: of Flamingo Ai AI company. We just listed on the
Speaker 2: ASX as the second ever only woman chairwoman CEO to
Speaker 2: list on the ASX, So being a woman was a
Speaker 2: bit of a novelty. We were in Melbourne and we
Speaker 2: were presenting to a whole room of all male investors
Speaker 2: and we did a pitch. We did a good pitch,
Speaker 2: and then we were in the airport lounge on the
Speaker 2: way flying back to Sydney when one of the investors
Speaker 2: rang one of our board directors and said, we would
Speaker 2: love to invest a million dollars into the business. And
Speaker 2: we overheard that. We were very excited about it. And
Speaker 2: then I could see the blood draining out of my
Speaker 2: director's face as he was listening to the rest of
Speaker 2: the call. And the rest of the call was the
Speaker 2: investor who represented the team of investors giving the conditions
Speaker 2: by which they would provide the million dollars. So I
Speaker 2: heard that there were some good conditions, so I said
Speaker 2: to the director standing behind him, Oh, look, if it's
Speaker 2: revenue targets or reducing the cost of customer acquisition or
Speaker 2: reducing the burn, just let us know what those targets
Speaker 2: are associated with the million dollar investment. Anyway, you see
Speaker 2: more blood training out of the director's face and he
Speaker 2: got off the phone and he said to me, right, well,
Speaker 2: they do have a condition. And I said, okay, well,
Speaker 2: you know, revenue profit, what is it? And they said, no,
Speaker 2: the condition is we will invest the one million dollars
Speaker 2: into the business if the female CEO takes her nose
Speaker 2: ring out and watch. Then we went, what the like,
Speaker 2: what it's a joke, right, and he said, no joke,
Speaker 2: they're deadly serious. There's a million dollars on the table
Speaker 2: if you take your nose ring out.
Speaker 1: Wow, what did you do?
Speaker 2: Ha ha? I sort of half laughed and cried and
Speaker 2: then just looked at my chair and said, there's no
Speaker 2: way we'll take that money, and there's no way there's
Speaker 2: nose rings coming out. And so I told my director,
Speaker 2: who was really not too happy, to decline the offer.
Speaker 2: And then the very next day I went to Gleave
Speaker 2: Markets and bought a much bigger nose ring and put
Speaker 2: it in.
Speaker 1: Wow. Was there a point where you considered taking your
Speaker 1: nose ring out?
Speaker 2: No, but there was plenty of people that did say
Speaker 2: to me, look, it's a million dollars. You do more
Speaker 2: than you do less for a million dollars and take
Speaker 2: a nose ring out. But for me, what I had
Speaker 2: already learned, having been around the investment fueled for a
Speaker 2: little while, was it's about the type of investor you
Speaker 2: get into the business. It's not so much the money
Speaker 2: that you get is the type of investor. And if
Speaker 2: we were starting off with investors who were most concerned
Speaker 2: about my physical appearance, then that was going to go
Speaker 2: downhill after that. So I was wise enough to know
Speaker 2: this would not be good money into the business.
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed this excerpt from my chat with Kat,
Speaker 1: you might want to go back and listen to the
Speaker 1: whole interview, which you can find a link to in
Speaker 1: the show notes. If you're looking for more tips to
Speaker 1: improve the way that you work, I write a short
Speaker 1: fortnightly newsletter that contains three cool things that I've discovered
Speaker 1: that helped me work better, ranging from software and gadgets
Speaker 1: that I'm loving through to interesting research findings. You can
Speaker 1: sign up for that at Howiwork dot com. That's how
Speaker 1: I Work dot co. Thank you for sharing part of
Speaker 1: your day with me by listening to How I Work.
Speaker 1: If you're keen for more tips on how to work better,
Speaker 1: connect with me via LinkedIn or Instagram. I'm very easy
Speaker 1: to find. Just search for Amantha Imba. How I Work
Speaker 1: was recorded on the traditional land of the Warrangery people,
Speaker 1: part of the Cool and Nation. I am so grateful
Speaker 1: for being able to to work and live on this
Speaker 1: beautiful land and I want to pay my respects to elders, past,
Speaker 1: present and emerging. How I work is produced by inventing
Speaker 1: with production support from Dead Set Studios. And thank you
Speaker 1: to Martin Nimba who did the audio mix and makes
Speaker 1: everything sound better than it would have otherwise