Latest / Get Real with Jim Weiss / Tina Sharkey Is An Investor, Brand Builder and Rainbow Girl

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Tina Sharkey Is An Investor, Brand Builder and Rainbow Girl · Get Real with Jim Weiss

0:00
Speaker 1: If AI is the tsunami, how do we make it
0:04
Speaker 1: a humanity or an empathy accelerator and not a hindrance.
0:08
Speaker 2: I think you're right on that, and I think it's
0:10
Speaker 2: a theme that I've been playing in social and in
0:13
Speaker 2: my thought leadership agonized or organize what are we going
0:17
Speaker 2: to build? And that's what I've done over the years.
0:21
Speaker 2: I remember very distinctly when social media was getting going.
0:24
Speaker 2: It was the beginning of the Vice Center in Syracuse.
0:27
Speaker 2: We had a lecture. We talked about the proliferation of it,
0:31
Speaker 2: what it could mean, and I said, look, social media,
0:34
Speaker 2: had it been available during the Holocaust, would we have
0:38
Speaker 2: been more aware and more empathetic to what had happened?
0:41
Speaker 2: And could we have intervened sooner and saved more lives?
0:45
Speaker 2: So I brought up that example, and I think people
0:48
Speaker 2: could feel it and understand it, and I'm sure there's
0:51
Speaker 2: a million other examples I could use, and I think
0:54
Speaker 2: Tina said it today. You know, we don't know what's
0:56
Speaker 2: coming next. I love the unexpected did happening, And that's
1:02
Speaker 2: the curiosity point she was talking about. This is the
1:05
Speaker 2: kind of podcast that if you really want to begin
1:08
Speaker 2: to think like an innovator, an entrepreneur, an entrepreneur, you know,
1:12
Speaker 2: and what's possible. I think this is a good one
1:14
Speaker 2: to listen to. And adversity can be turned into opportunity.
1:19
Speaker 1: It's about finding the magic. It's about finding that effervescent.
1:24
Speaker 2: Something empower.
1:27
Speaker 1: Hi, Tina, I'm happy to be here.
1:29
Speaker 2: Well, it's good of a miracle that you're here with us.
1:31
Speaker 2: You know, when we started talking about the podcast, nothing
1:35
Speaker 2: you've gone through had happened yet, so I feel like
1:37
Speaker 2: we got to start by diving into your roller coaster summer.
1:41
Speaker 1: My roller coaster summer was a life changing inflection point
1:44
Speaker 1: for me. So where would you like me to start.
1:47
Speaker 2: Well, you were diagnosed with a brain tumor.
1:49
Speaker 1: That's the big reveal.
1:50
Speaker 2: Let me go back, No, but I you know, it's
1:53
Speaker 2: one of the things we want to talk about here,
1:55
Speaker 2: is survival thrival. It's an appropriate time to have the conversation,
1:59
Speaker 2: although probably air till after but you know, I'm coming
2:02
Speaker 2: up on the one year anniversary of my wife's death,
2:05
Speaker 2: so everybody's going through something. But I always feel like
2:10
Speaker 2: what this podcast can do is help people kind of
2:13
Speaker 2: cope with that, find ways to cope. How do you
2:17
Speaker 2: get through these tough things. And when I heard the story,
2:20
Speaker 2: which was of course a huge shock to me because
2:22
Speaker 2: I didn't even know it happened. And when I saw
2:25
Speaker 2: you, you seemed pretty like you hadn't gone through that, and
2:29
Speaker 2: then you just laid it on me, So lay it
2:31
Speaker 2: on us.
2:31
Speaker 1: Okay, well, so let's go backwards to go forward, because
2:34
Speaker 1: I think what you're doing, first of all in terms
2:36
Speaker 1: of educating people on how do we live our best lives,
2:40
Speaker 1: educating people on being in the driver's seat of their
2:43
Speaker 1: own health care and owning that, and educating people on
2:48
Speaker 1: how do we sort of have that journey mindset and
2:51
Speaker 1: what does it mean to lift, what does it mean
2:52
Speaker 1: to continue, what does it mean to be here? And
2:55
Speaker 1: how do we do that in a way with grace
2:57
Speaker 1: and beauty and connection. Thank you for even doing this work.
3:01
Speaker 1: It's really remarkable and you're remarkable. So okay, let's set
3:05
Speaker 1: the stage. It's May best at USC and my students.
3:11
Speaker 1: We're graduating on Friday, May I think seventeenth, yep. And
3:16
Speaker 1: so I administered my finals on Monday. I flew back
3:19
Speaker 1: to Mill Valley around Wednesday. I started to have a headache.
3:24
Speaker 1: Things to know about me, I'm not a catastrophizer, and
3:27
Speaker 1: I'm not a hypochondriac, but I take good care of
3:30
Speaker 1: my health. But those are important data points. So I
3:33
Speaker 1: like have a headache, I think, oh, this is annoying.
3:36
Speaker 1: But I fly back and forth all the time, so
3:38
Speaker 1: it's not that maybe I have COVID. The only reason
3:40
Speaker 1: I cared about having COVID was because I didn't want
3:43
Speaker 1: to go to graduation and you know, spread the virus.
3:47
Speaker 1: So I'm taking COVID tests every day. I feel like, well,
3:49
Speaker 1: maybe this is a new COVID strand that gives you
3:51
Speaker 1: a headache right here, I don't know. Fail the COVID test,
3:55
Speaker 1: Fail the COVID test. Okay, fine, Now it's Wednesday, of
3:58
Speaker 1: a headache, Thursday of a headache. Friday, I get up
4:00
Speaker 1: at five am. I get on a six am flight
4:03
Speaker 1: to go walk in graduation as a professor. Jimmy Iaven,
4:07
Speaker 1: doctor Dre they're all there. My academy, Lorraine Powell Jobs
4:10
Speaker 1: is giving me a keynote. And the thing I'm most
4:13
Speaker 1: excited about is to have lunch with my student's parents.
4:16
Speaker 1: Because I'm very close to many of my students. They're
4:19
Speaker 1: my entrepreneurs, they're my legacy. And I can't see straight.
4:24
Speaker 1: I mean, I land see perfectly, but I'm just not myself.
4:28
Speaker 1: At the airport at six am, I happen to be
4:30
Speaker 1: a member of One Medical and I'm like, you know,
4:32
Speaker 1: I got a really bad seat on Southwest, which was
4:36
Speaker 1: a sign that something was wrong. I didn't check in
4:39
Speaker 1: early enough, so I decide to see if I can
4:42
Speaker 1: get a video conference while standing online. I get on
4:45
Speaker 1: the video conference. The woman says to me, sounds like
4:48
Speaker 1: you're dehydrated or maybe you have a virus. When you land.
4:51
Speaker 1: Why don't you grab a gatorade or a coconut water
4:54
Speaker 1: and go to your thing and you see how you
4:56
Speaker 1: feel it. If you don't feel great, you should probably
4:58
Speaker 1: come in and see us. Go to the graduate. Feel
5:00
Speaker 1: like crap, get through it, fly back home. Still feel terrible.
5:05
Speaker 1: Wake up on Saturday. Still have this headache.
5:07
Speaker 2: Jesus.
5:08
Speaker 1: I make an appointment with One Medical to go see
5:12
Speaker 1: somebody in person. I go to see the guy in
5:15
Speaker 1: person and I said, look, I have a virus, but
5:17
Speaker 1: I just want to check. And he does the checking.
5:20
Speaker 1: He's like, using fine, all is good. You probably have
5:24
Speaker 1: a virus and you'll be fine, but maybe you should
5:27
Speaker 1: get a scan. If you're not feeling better, I want
5:30
Speaker 1: to see you on Monday on video just to like
5:32
Speaker 1: check you out. Now Monday, wake up, feel really crappy.
5:36
Speaker 1: Call the doctor and he says, you know, I don't
5:38
Speaker 1: think advalentile and I was working for you, why don't
5:40
Speaker 1: I give you vicodin. I was like, oh, dude, that's
5:43
Speaker 1: like heavy stuff. I take the vicodin. My head within
5:47
Speaker 1: twenty minutes feels like it's exploding. I say to my partners,
5:50
Speaker 1: I need to go to the emergency room to have
5:52
Speaker 1: my stomach pumped because I'm having an allergic reaction to vicodin.
5:56
Speaker 1: Long story short, I get to the emergency room, I
5:58
Speaker 1: start throwing up, and I say to them, you know what,
6:01
Speaker 1: I already pumped my stomach. But while I'm here, do
6:05
Speaker 1: you have a scan available? I figure, you know, I'll
6:08
Speaker 1: be out of here in fifteen minutes. They're like, yeah, sure,
6:10
Speaker 1: we can have a scan. I get a scan. The
6:12
Speaker 1: groctor comes in and he says, I gotta tell you something.
6:16
Speaker 1: That was quite a scan. You have an inoperable brain tumor.
6:19
Speaker 1: And I started hysterical laughing because I was like, that
6:24
Speaker 1: is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard of what?
6:28
Speaker 1: And so I said, you know these bracelets you put
6:30
Speaker 1: on me, why don't you check and match the film
6:32
Speaker 1: because I have a virus. In fact, I'm feeling a
6:35
Speaker 1: little sweaty. The virus is coming out. We're good. He's like,
6:39
Speaker 1: would you like to see the scan? It has your
6:41
Speaker 1: name on it. So I'm like, hmm, this is fascinating.
6:46
Speaker 1: So the first thing I think of is I have
6:48
Speaker 1: a very dear friend, David Crane, and I knew that
6:51
Speaker 1: he was very connected to the brain surgery squad at UCSF,
6:56
Speaker 1: And I said, I'm out of here, let's figure this out.
7:00
Speaker 1: The surgeon comes in. He's not the guy who told
7:02
Speaker 1: me I had an inoperable brain tumor. Doctor Aurora comes in.
7:05
Speaker 1: He's like, I'm a UCSF brain surgeon. I happened to
7:08
Speaker 1: be on call. I'm getting you to UCSF. I'm like, okay, great.
7:12
Speaker 1: We get in the ambulance and next thing I know,
7:14
Speaker 1: I'm in UCSF. They give me an MRI and doctor
7:18
Speaker 1: Aurora comes out. It's the middle of the night at
7:20
Speaker 1: this point. Phone calls have been made, sisters are getting
7:22
Speaker 1: on planes, sons are being notified, friends are starting to
7:25
Speaker 1: show up, at the emergency room with food because of
7:28
Speaker 1: course I made some request. I felt fine other than
7:30
Speaker 1: the headache. I'd go to the MRI and they say,
7:34
Speaker 1: it's not the brain tumor we thought it was, but
7:36
Speaker 1: you basically have a large avocado in the back of
7:38
Speaker 1: your head is called a mengianoma, and we're not doing
7:42
Speaker 1: surgery tomorrow morning, and we're gonna slow everything down. We
7:45
Speaker 1: have a protocol here, we are the universal headquarters for
7:48
Speaker 1: a mengi Andoma's so put that in the back of
7:51
Speaker 1: your pocket. If I called you and you said, Tina,
7:53
Speaker 1: here's a private plane, here's an open ticket, I'm sending
7:56
Speaker 1: you wherever you need to go, you would have sent
7:59
Speaker 1: me to UCSF, to men Genoma, not Dubai, not Geneva,
8:02
Speaker 1: not New York, not Stanford. There I am not afraid.
8:05
Speaker 1: I'm just feeling the love and it's gonna be fine.
8:09
Speaker 1: Next thing I know, girlfriends are showing up at the
8:11
Speaker 1: hospital wearing birthday trs because they know I love a
8:14
Speaker 1: good birthday, Tiara, and we start a protocol. Two weeks later,
8:19
Speaker 1: they've shrunken it to the place where they want to operate.
8:22
Speaker 2: Interesting, and you mentioned fear, and I just want to
8:25
Speaker 2: make sure you work this into the discussion. You talk
8:28
Speaker 2: about fear being a wasted emotion, which it sounds like
8:31
Speaker 2: you're talking through here, but I think it's worth talking
8:35
Speaker 2: about why fear is the possible wasted emotion.
8:38
Speaker 1: So there's a book called Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers,
8:43
Speaker 1: And basically the thesis of that book is, if you're
8:47
Speaker 1: like in the savannah and there's a bunch of lines
8:50
Speaker 1: that are about to eat you, like, you should run
8:52
Speaker 1: as fast as you can, Like fear is really good.
8:55
Speaker 1: It tells you in danger, lurks, don't put your hand
8:57
Speaker 1: on fire. Hopefully you instill fear with your children when
9:00
Speaker 1: crossing intersections, like that's the time to be shrill and
9:03
Speaker 1: to have fear, because we need to teach that. But
9:06
Speaker 1: fear equals survival in those situations where it's get hit
9:10
Speaker 1: by a car, burn your hand, get eaten by a lie,
9:12
Speaker 1: and fear's good. In all other cases, it's just anxiety producing.
9:18
Speaker 1: And so I in that ambulance, from the time I
9:21
Speaker 1: didn't know it was inoperable to the time I got
9:23
Speaker 1: to UCSF, I decided that the reframe was what I
9:27
Speaker 1: needed to do, and that I have so much love,
9:30
Speaker 1: and I am so gifted with such extraordinary community and
9:34
Speaker 1: extraordinary privilege in my career, in my brain, in my community,
9:38
Speaker 1: and my faith, in my soul. That fear equals love.
9:43
Speaker 1: So anytime I felt fear, I decided to replace it
9:46
Speaker 1: with love. And that is probably who I've always been.
9:50
Speaker 1: But ironically, I'm not a fearless person. Like I'm not
9:54
Speaker 1: bungee jumping with you, I'm not whitewater rafting with you.
9:57
Speaker 1: I will cheer you on, but that's not my jam.
10:00
Speaker 1: Having said that, here I was and the thing I
10:04
Speaker 1: was most fearful from at that moment was all the
10:06
Speaker 1: IVS because I have really skinny arms and not grate veins.
10:10
Speaker 1: So I was like, oh my god, they have to
10:11
Speaker 1: stick all this stuff in me.
10:15
Speaker 2: I remember that.
10:16
Speaker 1: So I was like, Okay, that is going to be
10:18
Speaker 1: the protocol for the next two weeks. I have to
10:22
Speaker 1: fall in love with ivs. It's got to be like
10:25
Speaker 1: the thing that is the best thing in my life.
10:27
Speaker 1: And so I just decided that this was going to
10:31
Speaker 1: be my mindset, and it was going to be my
10:33
Speaker 1: mindset for the rest of my life. I also decided
10:36
Speaker 1: that I was going to trust the scientists these were
10:41
Speaker 1: the best people in the world. As a CEO and
10:43
Speaker 1: a leader, I always like to surround myself with people
10:45
Speaker 1: smarter than me, and these guys were the best. And
10:48
Speaker 1: that I had my own pathway, and that pathway was light,
10:51
Speaker 1: and I was going to pull light into the area
10:55
Speaker 1: where they told me I had the tumor, and I
10:58
Speaker 1: was just going to meditate on flushing my head with
11:02
Speaker 1: refracted light because I believe in rainbows, but not rainbows
11:07
Speaker 1: like as stickers or graphics, although those are fun too.
11:10
Speaker 1: I believe, and I've always believed that the colors we
11:13
Speaker 1: see tell our brains very important things. And there's a
11:17
Speaker 1: lot of science to back this up, and there's white
11:19
Speaker 1: papers that are being written now that our neural circuits
11:23
Speaker 1: deep in the brain respond to different colors.
11:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're going to talk about that more so. Yeah,
11:28
Speaker 2: I know this is true, and it's obviously why I
11:32
Speaker 2: like going to music with all of that. You know,
11:34
Speaker 2: you called the stage of your life the becoming? Is
11:37
Speaker 2: that what some of this is? What does all that mean?
11:41
Speaker 2: Where'd that come from?
11:43
Speaker 1: When I was a little girl, we all had fears, right,
11:45
Speaker 1: you saw a monster in your room because it was
11:47
Speaker 1: a shadow coming out of your window, and you didn't know,
11:49
Speaker 1: and you weren't sure if you should get out of
11:50
Speaker 1: bed and find your parents or just live through it.
11:53
Speaker 1: Monsters Inc. Was based on that, and actually Monsters Inc.
11:56
Speaker 1: To double click on that. If you remember how that
11:58
Speaker 1: movie ended, it starts with scaring the kids to capture
12:02
Speaker 1: the screams to create the energy, and it ended with
12:06
Speaker 1: making the kids laugh, and that turned out to have
12:09
Speaker 1: better energy than the fear. And so rainbows. When I
12:14
Speaker 1: was a little girl, do you remember the red balloon
12:17
Speaker 1: that French movie with the little boy. I loved that image,
12:21
Speaker 1: and so I changed that image to rainbow balloons, not
12:24
Speaker 1: red balloons. And whenever I felt fearful in my bedroom
12:27
Speaker 1: or anywhere, I would just be lifted up by those
12:30
Speaker 1: balloons and taken away. That was like my happy place.
12:33
Speaker 1: And then when my children were born, I have two sons,
12:37
Speaker 1: and I'm a girly girl with sisters and girl cousins
12:40
Speaker 1: and strong women. So I didn't know from raising little boys,
12:44
Speaker 1: never had little boys around me. I decided to tell
12:47
Speaker 1: them stories, and I invented this superhero named Rainbow Girl
12:52
Speaker 1: because I'd always known that rainbows were my superpower. And
12:55
Speaker 1: she shoots rainbows from her wrists, and we would like,
12:58
Speaker 1: find the bad guys, wrap them up and throw them
13:01
Speaker 1: into outer space, and when we pulled them back, they
13:03
Speaker 1: were good guys. I always knew that rainbows wore my superpower,
13:08
Speaker 1: not in the sense of this graphics, but in the
13:10
Speaker 1: sense of what is the role and relationship of color
13:16
Speaker 1: and light and possibilities that you can see things that
13:19
Speaker 1: may or may not actually be there, because we know
13:22
Speaker 1: when sun goes through refracted light, it creates this rainbow
13:26
Speaker 1: experience that may or may not be there. But I
13:29
Speaker 1: chose to believe that it is, and I chose to
13:31
Speaker 1: believe that that was consciousness. And I really at the hospital, well,
13:35
Speaker 1: I just decided that I was going to tap into
13:39
Speaker 1: the energy that was all around me. Happiness is not
13:42
Speaker 1: something I really believe in, because happiness is that pot
13:45
Speaker 1: of gold at the end of the rainbow. But you
13:47
Speaker 1: can't be happy all the time. Life is hard, and
13:50
Speaker 1: life has moments of joy, and when they present themselves,
13:54
Speaker 1: they're delicious and we have to savor them because there's
13:59
Speaker 1: another challenge around the corner, and then there's joy, and
14:03
Speaker 1: then there's challenge, and then there's opportunity, and then there's no.
14:06
Speaker 2: I bonded with you on this concept that you know,
14:09
Speaker 2: people have actually wondered how they see me on the
14:13
Speaker 2: internet going everywhere, doing everything but having that joy. And
14:19
Speaker 2: I think we run toward the light. So take us
14:22
Speaker 2: back just a second and tell us how it resolved,
14:24
Speaker 2: Like how you got through that.
14:26
Speaker 1: Yes, So we had a vascular surgery first, and this
14:30
Speaker 1: one it makes me want to be a doctor because
14:32
Speaker 1: they went through my groin to get to my brain,
14:34
Speaker 1: which I just thought was like, that's a noun stop flight.
14:37
Speaker 2: Really, Yeah, MyD devices have come a long way, babyzy.
14:42
Speaker 1: Anyway, and so they were all cheering like they had
14:44
Speaker 1: just won the you know, their division championship and we're
14:47
Speaker 1: going to the super Bowl because they got the feeder
14:50
Speaker 1: and they didn't know they would get it because they
14:52
Speaker 1: couldn't really see it on the scan, but they got
14:54
Speaker 1: in there, they got it, they cauterized it, and it
14:56
Speaker 1: was gone. I was convinced that I helped create those
15:00
Speaker 1: conditions because I had been pulling light through my head
15:04
Speaker 1: and it never even dawned on me that I might
15:06
Speaker 1: have cancer. I just thought somehow this avocado landed in
15:10
Speaker 1: my head and we were gonna make it toast, like
15:13
Speaker 1: I'm going to make these rainbows. If this thing is
15:16
Speaker 1: not a happy place, it's coming out, and if it's
15:20
Speaker 1: not a happy one, meaning it's malignant, I'm going to
15:24
Speaker 1: turn it into something not. The next day they did
15:27
Speaker 1: a nine or ten hour surgery and they opened me
15:30
Speaker 1: up and doctor Aurora, who I love so much, was
15:35
Speaker 1: the last person just to talk to me. And as
15:38
Speaker 1: I was rolling into the surgery down the hall with
15:42
Speaker 1: my sisters and Steven and sons, I was telling them
15:44
Speaker 1: research I wanted them to conduct, and they were like,
15:47
Speaker 1: can we talk about this tomorrow? Oh like, look, I
15:50
Speaker 1: really think there's something with this rainbow light. Can we
15:52
Speaker 1: set up a lab? They were like, we can talk
15:55
Speaker 1: labs tomorrow. Okay, fine. So then his last comment to
15:59
Speaker 1: me before you put on the mask for the anesthesia,
16:02
Speaker 1: was there anything else you want to say? And I said, well,
16:05
Speaker 1: there's a few things bad. You asked Number one, I
16:09
Speaker 1: love you. I love you for choosing this profession, I
16:12
Speaker 1: love you for coming into my life, and I love
16:15
Speaker 1: you for your mastery because you're an extraordinary human. And
16:21
Speaker 1: number two, this is going to be like the easiest
16:24
Speaker 1: surgery you've ever done. Just in case you were worried.
16:27
Speaker 1: And number three, don't touch the weave? Is that Tina?
16:33
Speaker 1: Number one, I love you too so much. Number two
16:38
Speaker 1: we got this. Number three no promises, no promises on
16:44
Speaker 1: the And then UCSF has a special pathology protocol of
16:49
Speaker 1: USF and that came back and it's no cancer, no radiology,
16:56
Speaker 1: no chemotherapy. It's one hundred percent gone. And I will
17:00
Speaker 1: be part of a protocol. Testing, you know, is scanning
17:04
Speaker 1: I think every six months and then every year thereafter
17:07
Speaker 1: the first scan that I had. It's clean as a whistle.
17:10
Speaker 2: Do these come back?
17:11
Speaker 1: It might. And one thing because people who care about
17:14
Speaker 1: the medical data in your podcast not to be the
17:17
Speaker 1: canary in the coal mine here because there hasn't been
17:19
Speaker 1: clinicals on it yet, but hopefully there will be soon,
17:22
Speaker 1: is women are exponentially more likely to get men ginomas
17:26
Speaker 1: and HRT is something they love to feed off of,
17:31
Speaker 1: and so I'm off of HRT. There's been a boom
17:34
Speaker 1: in HRT, and there's many positive things about.
17:37
Speaker 2: HRT well, right, And I've had lots of people on
17:39
Speaker 2: the podcast talking about it.
17:41
Speaker 1: And they've debunked a lot of the data that came
17:44
Speaker 1: out in the eighties so women are running to get it.
17:47
Speaker 1: I was one of those people. Estrogen is an amazing hormone,
17:50
Speaker 1: and taking it with progesterone can have really amazing effects
17:54
Speaker 1: on your brain acuity, your sexual functioning, your bone strength.
17:59
Speaker 1: I mean, it's she's just got a lot of good
18:01
Speaker 1: things in there, but it is a feeder, and so
18:05
Speaker 1: that is just a fact.
18:06
Speaker 2: Is there a book in the future around this especially?
18:10
Speaker 2: I was even thinking, as there are children's book in
18:13
Speaker 2: the works when I hear the stories about Rainbow Girl,
18:16
Speaker 2: have you thought about that?
18:17
Speaker 1: So the book or the idea that I'm working on
18:21
Speaker 1: is really about this idea that sparks with soul. I
18:25
Speaker 1: believe that, you know, we have five senses that we
18:27
Speaker 1: know about, but there's a sixth sense, and I believe
18:31
Speaker 1: that sixth senses our soul, and for us as humans,
18:35
Speaker 1: really thought about taking care of our soul as our
18:38
Speaker 1: sixth sense, because I believe our souls live inside of
18:42
Speaker 1: our bodies, but I believe they live outside of our
18:44
Speaker 1: bodies as well. And for your wife, like her soul
18:48
Speaker 1: is vibrant and here right now because she's transitioned, but
18:53
Speaker 1: she's here, and so her consciousness, all of our consciousness
18:57
Speaker 1: is connected, and our soul is connected. And so this
19:01
Speaker 1: concept of our soul being our sixth sense. What does
19:05
Speaker 1: enlightened leadership mean? How do you replace fear with love?
19:10
Speaker 1: And how do we think about that in business, in
19:13
Speaker 1: interpersonal relationships, in leadership, in community. So I don't know
19:19
Speaker 1: in terms of Rainbow Girl, Sure, I love Rainbow Girl.
19:23
Speaker 2: Did the experience with the brain tumor spark all of
19:28
Speaker 2: the spark or was that something already in the works.
19:32
Speaker 1: That was something already in the works, Because that's who
19:36
Speaker 1: I am, and that's how I lead. I lead with intention.
19:39
Speaker 1: I think that what we do is not who we are,
19:42
Speaker 1: and I think we need to see each other in
19:44
Speaker 1: that way. And I also think we need to understand
19:47
Speaker 1: the golden rule that our moms taught us treat others
19:50
Speaker 1: as you want to be treated, is actually not the
19:52
Speaker 1: golden rule. The golden rule is to treat others as
19:55
Speaker 1: they want to be treated. Because what works for you,
19:58
Speaker 1: Jim or me Tina doesn't necessarily work for John, Mary
20:03
Speaker 1: or Joe. We're in what I would call right now
20:05
Speaker 1: the relationship economy because we're having direct relationships. You're starting
20:10
Speaker 1: a podcast ten twenty years ago when you started your
20:14
Speaker 1: journey in your career, you were not doing a podcast
20:16
Speaker 1: and there wasn't YouTube, and now you can have direct relationships,
20:20
Speaker 1: so the roles have changed. You know, it's important to
20:23
Speaker 1: you that your companies are seen to be thriving and
20:26
Speaker 1: good cultures. And you want to retain people and attract people,
20:29
Speaker 1: and you want to create a great culture because that's
20:31
Speaker 1: what your company is made up of, the talent that
20:33
Speaker 1: works with you. And so in the relationship economy, we
20:37
Speaker 1: have to think about what is the language of relationships
20:40
Speaker 1: and how does that apply to business? And so empathy
20:44
Speaker 1: is really, I think the only thing that scales.
20:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're way on the same Pagan. That's how I
20:51
Speaker 2: built my company. We're coming up on the twenty fifth anniversary,
20:54
Speaker 2: so I hear you. But look, I love a great
20:56
Speaker 2: origin story. You mentioned moms, and my mom was a
21:00
Speaker 2: CEO and a teacher, and you know I learned a
21:03
Speaker 2: ton from her. Your mom was president of Periellis at
21:06
Speaker 2: a time when fewan and led companies. Where'd she go
21:09
Speaker 2: to college?
21:10
Speaker 1: Well, she started Syracuse, another connector, but then she left
21:14
Speaker 1: to get her mrs. With my dad and raised her
21:17
Speaker 1: three daughters. I'm the youngest of three. I have two
21:20
Speaker 1: extraordinary older sisters. We are hashtag Sharky's sisters and they
21:24
Speaker 1: are my everything. And then she went to work.
21:27
Speaker 2: It's like the Schuylar sisters from Hamilton exactly.
21:31
Speaker 1: She went to work when I was in middle school.
21:34
Speaker 1: Although she'd always done amazing creative projects, fundraising, selling jewelry,
21:38
Speaker 1: finding amazing designers and soho when SOHO was really about artists.
21:42
Speaker 1: And then she quickly left working with my dad and
21:46
Speaker 1: got a corporate carol leadership role and worked her way
21:49
Speaker 1: up from Tahare to Pariellis dan Klein and she was
21:53
Speaker 1: a president for a public company called Manhattan Industries that
21:57
Speaker 1: Larry Leeds ran. My parents at that point were divorce,
22:00
Speaker 1: My sisters were out of the house. My mom and
22:02
Speaker 1: I were like roommates in Manhattan. I was going to
22:04
Speaker 1: Staves in high school and she was working up on
22:07
Speaker 1: Seventh Avenue in forty first or thirty ninth, and she said,
22:11
Speaker 1: if my homework was done, I could sit in any
22:13
Speaker 1: meeting that the leader said I could, and only speak
22:16
Speaker 1: when spoken to. And so I grew up around strong women.
22:20
Speaker 1: I didn't know that women in leadership roles were not
22:23
Speaker 1: a thing because you know what you see, And what
22:26
Speaker 1: I saw was a strong mom, strong women on her team.
22:30
Speaker 1: She didn't only have women there, but there were a
22:31
Speaker 1: lot of leaders that were there. Her head creative directors,
22:34
Speaker 1: are head of merchandise, are head of sales. They were
22:36
Speaker 1: all women. My first job out of college, I got
22:39
Speaker 1: a job, you know, as a showroom salesperson, because I
22:42
Speaker 1: knew I had to start somewhere. But I wasn't happy.
22:45
Speaker 1: You know. I went to University of Pennsylvania, and I
22:48
Speaker 1: was used to deep intellectual engagement. I had just done
22:50
Speaker 1: an entrepreneurial management class at Wharton where I was writing
22:54
Speaker 1: business plans and doing all kinds of things. And so
22:56
Speaker 1: my mom said she would make some informational interviews for
22:59
Speaker 1: me to meet people and just see what leadership roles
23:02
Speaker 1: look like. So I had a fifteen minute appointment with
23:06
Speaker 1: at the time, mister Tomyo Taki. He was a Japanese
23:09
Speaker 1: showgun and Eon Dane Klein and Perry Ellis and Donna
23:12
Speaker 1: Karen and many other things. Behind him was a stack
23:15
Speaker 1: of what looked like Hollywood scripts, meaning like you could
23:17
Speaker 1: see the spines, and I was just staring at them, thinking, Oh,
23:21
Speaker 1: I wonder if he's like a film producer or something.
23:24
Speaker 1: And one of them looked like the business plan I
23:28
Speaker 1: had just co authored with some Philadelphia entrepreneurs that we
23:32
Speaker 1: were assigned to in our class. And I said, he,
23:34
Speaker 1: may I ask a question before we start? May I
23:37
Speaker 1: see that plan? And I pointed to this spine. I said,
23:41
Speaker 1: is that a Philadelphia vending company? And he said yes,
23:45
Speaker 1: how do you know that? And I said, well, I
23:47
Speaker 1: co authored the plan, and if I were you, I
23:49
Speaker 1: would really take a deep dive because there are patent issues.
23:53
Speaker 2: Wow.
23:53
Speaker 1: So the next day he introduced me to his business partner.
23:56
Speaker 1: They were like angel investors, and they also had invested
24:01
Speaker 1: in HDTV because mister Taki was friends with the Marita
24:06
Speaker 1: family in Japan and the Marita family owned Sony and
24:09
Speaker 1: they were inventing HDTV equipment and they wanted to bring
24:14
Speaker 1: it into the States. After meeting the partner, I left fashion,
24:18
Speaker 1: went into technology and never turned back. Two years later,
24:21
Speaker 1: I was lobbying Congress on the HDTV task Force. I
24:25
Speaker 1: was the youngest woman and probably one of the only
24:27
Speaker 1: women working with the NAB.
24:29
Speaker 2: It's wild how stuff happens. Could you even think then
24:34
Speaker 2: how your career would evolve the way it did.
24:38
Speaker 1: I mean, I was on the avy squad in third grade. Right, Okay,
24:42
Speaker 1: here's what I tell my students, and here's what I
24:45
Speaker 1: tell people I mentor, and what I would want to
24:47
Speaker 1: tell your audience is that Number one, you only make
24:51
Speaker 1: the shots you take. Number two, if you are a
24:54
Speaker 1: Harry Potter fan, of which I am, there's a room
24:56
Speaker 1: of requirement doors and there's nothing wrong with them. Worst cases,
25:02
Speaker 1: there's nothing behind them. But if you're gracious and you're humble,
25:06
Speaker 1: it's okay to make the advance. It's okay to ask
25:09
Speaker 1: the question. Maybe if my mom hadn't told me that early.
25:13
Speaker 1: She used to always say, tell them who you are,
25:15
Speaker 1: And I was like, who am I? And she said,
25:17
Speaker 1: you're Tina Sharky. So I've used that confidence, that humility,
25:22
Speaker 1: that graciousness that I was taught to make the advance,
25:26
Speaker 1: and I'd say that that has been the biggest driver
25:29
Speaker 1: in my career.
25:30
Speaker 2: So you're a trend spotter. I mean, in the nineties
25:33
Speaker 2: you bought social media dot com before social media was
25:36
Speaker 2: social media. How does someone build an instinct for what's next?
25:42
Speaker 1: I think that number one, be curious. Number two ask questions.
25:51
Speaker 1: I remember, like shopping with my mom, not necessarily for us,
25:55
Speaker 1: although we love to shop. Retail therapy is a thing.
25:58
Speaker 1: She would always like, you know, touch the fabric. My
26:01
Speaker 1: dad did this too, and then ask They would always
26:03
Speaker 1: ask the salespeople, and I still do this to this day,
26:06
Speaker 1: what are your best sellers, what's trending? What type of
26:09
Speaker 1: customers come in here? And you would think there was
26:12
Speaker 1: like a reason that I was asking those questions. I
26:14
Speaker 1: did it as a kid. I just wanted to know.
26:17
Speaker 1: It's not about me. It's about what consumers think, what
26:21
Speaker 1: enterprise thinks. Where is the love and so having a
26:25
Speaker 1: pulse on that has always been a curiosity. I'm also,
26:30
Speaker 1: I think a great storyteller, and so in business I
26:34
Speaker 1: think that CEOs and maybe you'll agree with me, you're
26:37
Speaker 1: the chief storytelling officer. As a result, I've always had
26:41
Speaker 1: to create ways to communicate to all different kinds of stakeholders.
26:46
Speaker 1: And so when I coined social media, I wasn't like
26:49
Speaker 1: in a lab thinking about it. I had co founded
26:52
Speaker 1: eye Village, which was ended up being the largest community
26:55
Speaker 1: for women online. We were trying to explain to advertisers
26:58
Speaker 1: and you'll relate to this of service media that we
27:01
Speaker 1: have transactional media. We have news media, we have entertainment media.
27:05
Speaker 1: But there's this new form of media that we also
27:08
Speaker 1: have and it will probably be our most powerful one,
27:10
Speaker 1: and that's social media. Meaning we have chat rooms, we
27:14
Speaker 1: have message boards, we have engagement where the people want
27:18
Speaker 1: to talk to each other. And so advertisers were very
27:22
Speaker 1: uncomfortable being around conversations they couldn't control. You know that
27:26
Speaker 1: you represent.
27:27
Speaker 2: I remember that especially in healthcare.
27:29
Speaker 1: Actually in healthcare, and we were doing you know, lots
27:33
Speaker 1: of healthcare stuff, helping people understand the power of story,
27:37
Speaker 1: the power of possibility, the power of innovation. I'm a
27:40
Speaker 1: professor now at USC at the Ivan and Young Academy,
27:43
Speaker 1: and really when I'm teaching my students besides disruptive innovation
27:48
Speaker 1: and entrepreneurship and modern brand and community playbooks, is the
27:52
Speaker 1: power of story. People remember story more than they remember data.
27:56
Speaker 1: So how do you tell stories?
28:00
Speaker 2: More about the USC program, you teach courses and work
28:03
Speaker 2: on the gen AI built on the idea of empathy scales.
28:07
Speaker 2: So I wanted to get into that because one of
28:10
Speaker 2: the things you're talking about in storytelling, and I did
28:14
Speaker 2: it as I built a company. I call it contextualization.
28:18
Speaker 2: And getting people aligned. I mean I did this as
28:21
Speaker 2: a student council president. How do you get people to
28:23
Speaker 2: do things that they don't think they can do or
28:28
Speaker 2: wouldn't otherwise do, but create a mission, a collective mission,
28:33
Speaker 2: and you know the empathy scales plays a role in that.
28:36
Speaker 2: So I'd love to hear a little bit about how
28:38
Speaker 2: you fit that in. As we got to talk about AI, right,
28:41
Speaker 2: where is it? Where's it going? We're just at the
28:44
Speaker 2: beginning of it. You were at the beginning of social
28:47
Speaker 2: I was at the beginning of social We see where
28:49
Speaker 2: that's gone and how fast. So I think it's worth
28:52
Speaker 2: talking to the audience about that. Where does technology play
28:56
Speaker 2: a role? Where does the human part have to come in?
29:00
Speaker 1: Yeah? So I love all of that, and that's a
29:02
Speaker 1: whole We could talk for weeks.
29:04
Speaker 2: We might there's always a part two.
29:06
Speaker 1: Okay. So, now that we're in the age of AI
29:09
Speaker 1: and we talk about humanity, you could have a dystopian
29:12
Speaker 1: view of it. You could say that the machines are
29:14
Speaker 1: going to run the world and that we're totally screwed.
29:18
Speaker 1: But I choose to believe in love. I choose to
29:21
Speaker 1: believe in what makes us divinely human. Is that moat
29:25
Speaker 1: around the machines. The more we understand what is our
29:31
Speaker 1: divine humanity and our empathy, then we scaled that and
29:37
Speaker 1: we use the machines to help us disrupt and accelerate
29:41
Speaker 1: the possible. I think that the disruptions and innovations we're
29:44
Speaker 1: going to see in.
29:45
Speaker 2: Healthcare, well, they're already here, already.
29:47
Speaker 1: Here, and we're just we're not even in the first inning.
29:50
Speaker 1: So if social media was a title wave, this is
29:53
Speaker 1: a tsunami. Right.
29:55
Speaker 2: Can you teach empathy?
29:56
Speaker 1: I think that many people are born with it, and
29:59
Speaker 1: those have the high as DQ and they really have
30:02
Speaker 1: the emotional intelligence to read other people. But what I
30:05
Speaker 1: told my kids from the time they could remember and
30:08
Speaker 1: in the hospital when I was trying to get them
30:10
Speaker 1: to understand my ethical will, because the will will is
30:14
Speaker 1: just paper and lawyers, but my ethical will is remembering
30:19
Speaker 1: that always assume best intentions, treat others as they want
30:24
Speaker 1: to be treated, meet people where they are, be curious,
30:28
Speaker 1: ask questions, solve problems, and know that service is a
30:33
Speaker 1: divinely selfish act. And so keep doing it because as
30:37
Speaker 1: good as it is to do it for the ones
30:39
Speaker 1: you're serving, it's even better for you. Life is hard,
30:44
Speaker 1: but if you want to develop yourself, then you have
30:49
Speaker 1: to work at it, and you have to set that
30:51
Speaker 1: intention and make time for it. We spend so much
30:54
Speaker 1: time doing strap planning and analysis and work and goals
30:59
Speaker 1: and everything else side of ourselves, but doing your own
31:02
Speaker 1: work is really important and there's no time like the
31:06
Speaker 1: present for that. And I think that a lot of
31:08
Speaker 1: people are seeking out new modalities to do it, whether
31:12
Speaker 1: that's plant based medicine, whether that's off sites where you're
31:15
Speaker 1: going intensive. But every day I write in this which
31:20
Speaker 1: is the five minute Journal. It takes me three minutes
31:22
Speaker 1: in the morning and two minutes right before bed, and
31:24
Speaker 1: it's a small act of just being anchored in my
31:27
Speaker 1: gratitude of saying what I'm looking forward to in talking
31:31
Speaker 1: about what I learned and what were the highlights of
31:33
Speaker 1: my day. And it takes five minutes. But I think
31:36
Speaker 1: it is a sense of grounding yourself, not just being
31:39
Speaker 1: caught up in what you do, but remembering who you are.
31:42
Speaker 2: Well, we started on the concept of fear. Do you
31:46
Speaker 2: feel more fearless than you ever did before?
31:49
Speaker 1: I think that it's not about being fearless, it's about
31:52
Speaker 1: accepting life on life's terms and noticing what shows up
31:57
Speaker 1: and being open to embracing that. And if what you
32:00
Speaker 1: want to show up isn't there yet, ask for it,
32:03
Speaker 1: Ask the universe, set the intention, put it out there
32:06
Speaker 1: in the world. And so am I afraid? No? But
32:11
Speaker 1: do I know what it looks like around the corner?
32:15
Speaker 2: No?
32:16
Speaker 1: But I'm falling forward.
32:17
Speaker 2: We're going to drop the mic on that. Well, definitely,
32:20
Speaker 2: I see a part two in our future here. But
32:22
Speaker 2: you know, what's the best vacation you've ever taken?
32:25
Speaker 1: That's a hard one to answer, So I'll just share,
32:28
Speaker 1: like what popped into my mind. A couple of years
32:30
Speaker 1: ago with Sid I went to Alaska on a retreat,
32:34
Speaker 1: but because I was in Alaska, I added to that
32:37
Speaker 1: trip and I took a seaplane to this place called
32:40
Speaker 1: Capmi Falls and I watched It's this tiny island and
32:44
Speaker 1: that has a thousand bears on it, and it was
32:46
Speaker 1: in the summer, and there's waterfalls and the salmon are
32:49
Speaker 1: like literally jumping, I kid you not out of the fall.
32:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've seen video that.
32:54
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I was there. The energy and the
32:57
Speaker 1: power of seeing how nature really works was really majestic
33:01
Speaker 1: and so cool.
33:02
Speaker 2: Amazing, so what album would be or is the soundtrack
33:06
Speaker 2: of your life?
33:07
Speaker 1: Love that question? Definitely, I will sting and I like
33:11
Speaker 1: we go way back, and so he definitely the chronicler
33:15
Speaker 1: of my life. But I've recently discovered a new musician
33:19
Speaker 1: who I think is one of the greatest musicians of
33:22
Speaker 1: our time. Do you know Jacob Collier?
33:25
Speaker 2: I don't know.
33:26
Speaker 1: My gosh, We're going to go offline on this and
33:28
Speaker 1: I'm going to expose you to someone who will blow
33:31
Speaker 1: your mind good.
33:33
Speaker 2: I can't wait. Finally, just before we go, what's something
33:36
Speaker 2: you're trying to get real? Obviously that's the podcast get
33:40
Speaker 2: real honest about.
33:41
Speaker 1: I'd say I'm trying to get really honest about what
33:46
Speaker 1: this next chapter in my life looks like. And I'm
33:50
Speaker 1: just at the beginning of figuring that out. And it's
33:54
Speaker 1: you know, there's no application, there's no recruiter, there's no
33:58
Speaker 1: board members, there's no venture capitalists, there's no reporting. It's
34:02
Speaker 1: all me and my sons are now adulting in Chicago
34:07
Speaker 1: and New York. I have an incredible life partner, and
34:11
Speaker 1: I'm not sure where my commercial chapters are going to be.
34:16
Speaker 1: And I'm trying to sort that out and it's a
34:19
Speaker 1: first for that because there's no echosystem to support that
34:23
Speaker 1: other than me and so who knows.
34:28
Speaker 2: Awesome, really great, thanks for doing this. So glad you
34:32
Speaker 2: shared that. Well, it's really a thrival story, it's not
34:36
Speaker 2: a survival story. I'm just so glad we were getting
34:39
Speaker 2: to know each other and you're a part of this world. Hey, everyone,
34:44
Speaker 2: thanks for joining me on the Get Real podcast. You know,
34:47
Speaker 2: I hope you feel a little healthier hanging out with me.
34:50
Speaker 2: You know, it's going to be a lot of fun.
34:53
Speaker 2: Passing this along to others. Please subscribe below, Please share.
34:57
Speaker 2: I'm excited not just to talk about healthcare, but a
35:01
Speaker 2: lot of other fun topics. It's about making healthy talk
35:05
Speaker 2: about healthcare. It's not a lecture. This is supposed to
35:08
Speaker 2: be fun. And look forward to spending more time with
35:11
Speaker 2: you in the future.